Portland, Oregon: Its History and Builders/Volume 3/George C. Brownell
HON. GEORGE CLAYTON BROWNELL.
Few men in the state of Oregon have attained a more honorable record than Hon. George C. Brownell, a prominent attorney of Oregon City, and a man whose services in behalf of the state may be said to have marked an era in the annals of Oregon. The efifect of legislation which he introduced in the general assembly of the state will be felt for many years to come, and an examination of his public acts indicates that many of the measures he favored are those that are being fought for by friends of progress in other states of the Union.
Mr. Brownell was born at Willsboro, New York, August 10, 1858. He is a son of Ambrose and Annie (Smith) Brownell, the family being of English ancestry and among the early colonists of New England. Ambrose Brownell was a native of Essex county. New York, but removed to Columbia county of the same state, where he continued until his death. He was a soldier in the Civil war, fighting for the Union as a member of Company F, One Hundred and Eighteenth New York Infantry. The regiment took part in many engagements in Virginia and at one time he was severely wounded. His wife was a native of Addison county, Vermont.
After the usual course of study in the public schools and academy, George C. Brownell entered upon the study of law in the office of Hon. Charles L. Beale, a member of congress of Hudson, New York, and in Albany in 1880, at the age of twenty-two years he was admitted to the bar. He practiced for a time at Frankfort, Kansas, and also served as mayor of the town from 1884 to 1885. In January, 1886, he removed to Ness City, Kansas, and soon afterward was appointed attorney for the Denver, Memphis & Atlantic Railroad, extending from Chetopa, Kansas, to Pueblo, Colorado. For two years he served as county attorney of Ness county, Kansas, but, although he had made an admirable start in his profession and had acquired a good reputation as a practicing attorney throughout a wide region in the Sunflower state, he could not resist a call that came from the northwest, and in June, 1891, he took up his residence in Oregon City, where he has since made his home.
It required a very short time for Mr. Brownell to become recognized among his brethren at the bar as a good lawyer and one who was destined to attain prominence in his profession. His business increased rapidly and his clients are among the leaders in all lines of business in western Oregon. He has all his life been a supporter of the principles of the republican party, and in 1892 was a nominee of the party for state senator. Under the law of the state, however, he was obliged to decline the honor at that time, as he had been a resident of Oregon for less than a year. He was made chairman of the delegation from the county convention to the state convention and was chairman of the republican central committee of Clackamas county during the campaign of 1892. In 1894 he was nominated by acclamation as state senator, an office which he occupied for three terms of four years each, extending over a period of twelve years. In the special session of 1898 he was chosen by his party caucus to present the name of Hon. Joseph Simon to the joint assembly as the candidate for United States senator. In 1900 he received the unanimous indorsement of the republicans of Clackamas county for member of congress. During the session of the state legislature in 1901, when the hope of electing a senator was almost abandoned, Mr. Brownell presented the name of John H. Mitchell, who was elected to the office. He also succeeded in the session of 1903-4 in securing the election of Hon. C. W. Fulton to the United States senatorship, full credit for this act being given him by Senator Fulton in a speech which he made immediately after the deciding ballot had been cast.
As a hard-working member of the state senate, Mr. Brownell was instrumental in framing much legislation which has been of great value to the state. He introduced a resolution for an amendment to the state constitution, providing for the initiative and referendum. This measure was brought forward in the session of 1901, and through Mr. Brownell's efforts, seconded by the votes of many members of both houses, the resolution was adopted and later was submitted to the vote of the people, and it was confirmed by popular suffrage, thus providing a means for the passage of the primary law, giving the people of Oregon the power to nominate their state officers without the aid of state or county conventions and also to elect United States senators by popular vote. Mr. Brownell was also author of the law providing that supervisors may be elected instead of being appointed; of a bill exempting to every laboring man who is the head of a family thirty days' wages from attachment and execution for debt and other measures of state-wide importance. At each session he introduced a bill authorizing the calling of a constitutional convention to revise the organic law of the state and secured the passage of the bill through the senate in 1901, but in the house it was defeated by two votes. He was the author of a bill to elect precinct assessors instead of county assessors, and succeeded in securing the passage of this act in the senate, but it was defeated in the house by a very small majority. He introduced a resolution calling for the appointment of a committee to investigate the school funds of the state, and was made chairman of the committee which later reported a shortage of thirty thousand in the school funds and stopped abuses which threatened to dissipate the money that should be used for educational purposes. Mr. Brownell was president of the senate in 1902, 1903 and 1904, and continued as a member until 1906, since which time he has devoted his attention mainly to the practice of law. While acting as presiding officer of the senate, by a unanimous vote of both houses of the legislature, he was selected to deliver the address of welcome to President Roosevelt on the occasion of the president's visit to Oregon May 22, 1903. This was a distinguished honor. The address is an eloquent and beautiful tribute not only to the chief executive of the nation, but to the spirit of the people, whose representatives voiced their sentiments through the presiding officer of the highest legislative body in the state. The address is as follows:
"In behalf of the legislative assembly of the state of Oregon, we welcome you to this state. I know that I express the welcome of each member of both houses of our legislative assembly, irrespective of political creed. We welcome you as president and chief executive of the greatest people and greatest country in the civilized world. We welcome you also because we believe you stand for the highest ideals of American citizenship.
"We welcome you because we believe that in your personality you represent more strongly than any other public character in America the energy, the pushing and progressive spirit of all Americans.
"We welcome you because we believe that you represent and stand for the high and legitimate claims of labor and capital to unite without repression from either in the upbuilding and development of the material resources of this republic.
"We welcome you because we feel that we can see in you that same spirit that has been illustrated so many times by our fathers in this, that wherever we go as a people, wherever we stand, we stand for the right and a higher civilization; and 'wherever our flag is put, there it shall stay put. "We welcome you because we believe that you stand for the idea that a nation or a people can never stand still, that they must go forward and upward or else the race will retrograde.
"We welcome you because we believe that whatever problems we as a people have to meet, whether they be in the coal fields of Pennsylvania or on the Pacific sea or in the Orient, that you will meet them as the chief magistrate of this country in a spirit of high liberal statesmanship, all the time governed with the idea that what is right for us to have, that we shall have.
"And again, I assume the responsibility here of welcoming you in behalf of the Second Oregon Regiment of Volunteers who served eight thousand miles across the sea in the Philippine Islands to uphold the same flag that was so upheld by you and those under you on that July day on San Juan Hill."
On the 28th of September, 1876, at Rockland, Massachusetts. Mr. Brownell was united in marriage to Miss Alma C. Lan. Two sons have been born to them, Howard and Ambrose. Mrs. Brownell is a member of the Presbyterian church, and Mr. Brownell is connected with a number of fraternal organizations, among them the Knights of Pythias, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Improved Order of Red Men, the Knights of the Maccabees, the Woodmen of the World and the Ancient Order of United Workmen. As is to be clearly seen by even a cursory glance at the salient points in the career of Mr. Brownell, he is a man of determined character. He is also the happy possessor of great resources within himself, which he can marshal when occasion offers. He is a live factor in the community and whatever his hands find to do he does with all his might. As a lawyer he has proven to be a safe counsellor, an able pleader and in the courtroom an opponent who gains the respect even of his bitterest adversary. He is a clear and forcible speaker, and has a mind well stored not only with lore gathered from law books, but with facts gleaned from the great fields of literature which have been his recreation and delight. He is diligent in his profession, active in pursuit of truth, and always lends a willing ear to calls upon his time or service, even when there is no expectation of pecuniary reward. He has earned the place he occupies as a citizen whose record is a complete refutation of the claim that all men have their price and that no man can engage in public life for a series of years and retire with an unsullied reputation.