"Solicitor General" Philip Perlman Hand Signed TLS Dated 1951 For Sale

Up for sale "Solicitor General" Philip Perlman Hand Signed TLS Dated 1951.

 ES-4647

Philip B. Perlman (March 5,

1890, Baltimore – July 31, 1960) was a Baltimore native, the

son of Benjamin and Rose Nathan Perlman. Graduating from Baltimore City College secondary

school in 1908, Perlman worked as a reporter for the Baltimore American while

studying political economy at Johns Hopkins University.

He studied law at the University

of Maryland School of Law, being admitted to the bar one year prior

to receiving a law degree in 1912. He began working for The Evening Sun in 1910, first as a court reporter,

and then as City Editor from 1913–1917. It was probably at this time that he

got to know H. L. Mencken. Leaving

newspaper work in 1917, Perlman began many years of public service,

interspersed with private law practice. Initially he worked under then Attorney General of

Maryland, Albert C. Ritchie, as an assistant in the State Law

Department, then became Assistant Maryland Attorney General in 1918. With Ritchie's

election to the Maryland governorship in 1919, he appointed Perlman Secretary of State.

Legislation drafted by Perlman included the bill providing for women's voting.

In the 1920s, Perlman was City Solicitor of Baltimore and established a private

law practice; in the 1930s he served on a commission to revise city zoning laws

and on the first Maryland Water Resources Commission; in the 1940s he advised

Governor William Preston Lane, Jr. on

issues such as the Chesapeake Bay Bridge construction

and highway improvement. In Perlman's private law practice, he was noted

for civil rights cases. Moving

to the level of national politics, Perlman became the first Jewish U.S. Solicitor General,

serving from 1947–1952 under President Harry S. Truman, where he chaired Truman's Commission on

Immigration and Naturalization, and was noted for helping to write the 1948 and

1960 platforms for the Democratic National Convention. At the time of his

death, Perlman maintained a law practice with the firm Perlman, Lyons and

Emmerglick in Washington, D.C., was president of the board of trustees of the Walters Art Gallery in

Baltimore, and a member of the Maryland Historical

Society. He was also a member of the National Press Club and

the Associated Jewish Charities. A bachelor, he had a home on Park Heights Avenue in

Baltimore, and a suite at the Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C.