Paul Martin Pearson

Dr. Paul Martin Pearson (October 22, 1871 – March 26, 1938) was an author, college professor, and a very embattled first civilian Governor of the United States Virgin Islands.

Pearson was born in Litchfield, Illinois and attended Baker University in Baldwin City, Kansas for his Master of Arts degree. He subsequently obtained his doctorate at Northwestern University and did some teaching there, before moving to Swarthmore, Pennsylvania and becoming a professor of Public Speaking at Swarthmore College. He also wrote several books on public speaking. He was also a major advocate of the Chautauqua movement in the US and founded the Swarthmore Chautauqua Associations.

During World War I, he was responsible for the YMCA education programs in United States Army cantonments.

He was the father of Drew Pearson, the well-known newspaper columnist and radio host.

In 1931, Pearson was appointed by President Herbert Hoover to be the first civilian Governor of the United States Virgin Islands. His new government, inaugurated March 18, 1931, was given $763,000 ($8.5 million in inflation-adjusted 2005 dollars) to try and shore up the Islands' finances which were badly hurt by Prohibition. (The primary export had been rum.) They were also given the task of replacing all military-government officials with new civilian ones, a task which they were required to complete within the first six months. As a show of support, President Hoover visited the Virgin Islands (and Puerto Rico) as a show of support for the new civilian administration.

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