Carl Browne (1849–1914) was an American cattle rancher, cartoonist, journalist, and politician. A former close political associate of controversial San Francisco politician

Denis Kearney Denis Kearney (1847–1907) was a California labor leader from Ireland who was active in the late 19th century and was known for his anti-Chinese activism. Called "a demagogue of extraordinary power," he frequently gave long and caustic speeche ...

, Browne is best remembered as a top leader of the

Coxey's Army Coxey's Army was a protest march by unemployed workers from the United States, led by Ohio businessman Jacob Coxey. They marched on Washington, D.C. in 1894, the second year of a four-year economic depression that was the worst in United State ...

protest movement of 1894.

Biography

Early years

Carl Browne was born July 4, 1849 in

Newton, Iowa Newton is the county seat of, and most populous city in, Jasper County, Iowa, United States. Located east of Des Moines, Newton is in Central Iowa. As of the 2020 Census, the city population was 15,760. It is the home of Iowa Speedway, Maytag Da ...

. His father was a soldier who had seen action in both the

Mexican–American War The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the (''United States intervention in Mexico''), was an armed conflict between the United States and Second Federal Republic of Mexico, Mexico f ...

and the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by state ...

, in which he fought as a member of the

Union army During the American Civil War, the Union Army, also known as the Federal Army and the Northern Army, referring to the United States Army, was the land force that fought to preserve the Union of the collective states. It proved essential to th ...

.W.T. Stead, ''Chicago To-Day, or, The Labour War in America''. London: Review of Reviews, 1894; pg. 44.

San Francisco political activity

Browne worked a variety of jobs during his younger years, including time as a printer, a painter, a cattle rancher, a

cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comic book illustrators in that they produce both the literary an ...

, and a journalist. Browne moved to San Francisco and became active in politics as an active member there of the

Workingmen's Party The Workingmen's Party of the United States (WPUS), established in 1876, was one of the first Marxist-influenced political parties in the United States. It is remembered as the forerunner of the Socialist Labor Party of America. Organizational ...

.Donald L. McMurry, ''Coxey's Army: A Study in Industrial Unrest, 1893–1898.'' Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1929; pg. 30. He was soon recognized for his commitment to the organization and served a stint as personal secretary to party leader

, a nativist politician who led a popular movement for the exclusion of Chinese people from the United States. While in San Francisco, Browne launched a radical weekly newspaper which he edited and for which he drew

political cartoon A political cartoon, a form of editorial cartoon, is a cartoon graphic with caricatures of public figures, expressing the artist's opinion. An artist who writes and draws such images is known as an editorial cartoonist. They typically combine ...

s, ''The Open Letter.'' In a 1929 monograph, historian Donald L. McMurry described the colorful Browne in the following manner:

Browne's picturesque appearance made him a conspicuous figure wherever he went. Tall, heavy, and bearded, his unkempt hair streaked with gray, he added to the effect by wearing an exaggerated Western costume. It consisted of a buckskin coat with fringes, and buttons made of Mexican silver half-dollars, high boots, a sombrero, a fur cloak when weather permitted, and around his neck, instead of a collar, a string of amber beads, the gift of his dying wife.... Closer inspection revealed the reason why his men called him 'Old Greasy. It was suggested that he would have been a more pleasant companion if he had bathed oftener.

The Coxey campaign

At a Chicago convention of advocates of

free silver Free silver was a major economic policy issue in the United States in the late 19th-century. Its advocates were in favor of an expansionary monetary policy featuring the unlimited coinage of silver into money on-demand, as opposed to strict adhe ...

held in August 1893, Browne made the acquaintance of Ohio politician

Jacob Coxey Jacob Sechler Coxey Sr. (April 16, 1854 – May 18, 1951), sometimes known as General Coxey, of Massillon, Ohio, was an American politician who ran for elective office several times in Ohio. Twice, in 1894 and 1914, he led " Coxey's Army", a gro ...

, who saw in the charismatic labor agitator Browne a potential popularizer of his proposed governmental reforms.McMurry, ''Coxey's Army,'' pg. 32. Browne had become well known in Chicago as an agitational public speaker, addressing a series of public meetings at

Lake Front Park Union Base-Ball Grounds was a baseball park located in Chicago. The park was "very visibly downtown", its small block bounded on the west by Michigan Avenue, on the north by Randolph Street, and on the east by railroad tracks and the lake shor ...

on the problem of unemployment and its possible solution – one means of which, he is said to have suggested, would be a march of unemployed workers on the nation's capital. Impressed with the charismatic Browne's effectiveness and intellectual proximity to his own ideas, Coxey convinced Browne to join his campaign for the Good Roads Bill – a plan for putting the unemployed to work improving the transportation infrastructure of the United States. Browne obliged, both speaking on its behalf and drawing a series of cartoons illustrating the dysfunctional nature of the current economic system and depicting the benefits to be obtained by society through passage of the Coxey plan. Coxey was pleased with Browne's commitment to the cause of labor reform and persuaded him to stay with him at his home in Massillon, Ohio through the winter of 1893–94, a grim time when the United States was buffeted by the severe economic contraction known to history as the

Panic of 1893 The Panic of 1893 was an economic depression in the United States that began in 1893 and ended in 1897. It deeply affected every sector of the economy, and produced political upheaval that led to the political realignment of 1896 and the pre ...

. Together Coxey and Browne discussed a means of better publicizing the Good Roads Bill, with the pair determining to, in Coxey's words, "send a petition to Washington with boots on" through a cross-country march of the unemployed.McMurry, ''Coxey's Army,'' pg. 33. Browne and Coxey held a series of public meetings in Massillon and other towns in the area, drawing attention to Coxey's proposed Good Roads Bill and drawing attention to the planned march, which was to depart from Massillon for Washington, DC on

Easter Sunday Easter,Traditional names for the feast in English are "Easter Day", as in the '' Book of Common Prayer''; "Easter Sunday", used by James Ussher''The Whole Works of the Most Rev. James Ussher, Volume 4'') and Samuel Pepys''The Diary of Samuel ...

, 1894.McMurry, ''Coxey's Army,'' pg. 36. Browne gained notoriety for his Theosophic religious views, which posited the reincarnation of souls from a common pool of the deceased – with Browne contending that both he and Coxey possessed unusually large components of the soul of

Jesus Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

.McMurry, ''Coxey's Army,'' pg. 37. Browne immodestly referred to Coxey in public as the "

Cerebrum The cerebrum, telencephalon or endbrain is the largest part of the brain containing the cerebral cortex (of the two cerebral hemispheres), as well as several subcortical structures, including the hippocampus, basal ganglia, and olfactory bulb. ...

of Christ" and himself as the "

Cerebellum The cerebellum (Latin for "little brain") is a major feature of the hindbrain of all vertebrates. Although usually smaller than the cerebrum, in some animals such as the mormyrid fishes it may be as large as or even larger. In humans, the cere ...

of Christ," monikers deemed sacrilegious by many devout Christians of the day. Coxey was converted to Browne's unorthodox theological ideas and the pair came to regard their march as an "Army of Peace," giving the name "Commonweal of Christ" to their movement.McMurry, ''Coxey's Army,'' pg. 38. This quasi-religious interpretation of the 1894 march movement was broadly ridiculed, generating some publicity for the cause but generally doing "a great deal more harm than good," in the estimation of at least one historian.McMurry, ''Coxey's Army,'' pg. 39.

Arrival and arrest

The "Commonweal of Christ" arrived in Washington, DC on May Day, 1894, with about 400 marchers in the ranks.Alexander, ''Coxey's Army,'' pg. 103. Coxey and Brown made their way to the steps of the

United States Capitol The United States Capitol, often called The Capitol or the Capitol Building, is the Seat of government, seat of the Legislature, legislative branch of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, which is form ...

to address the accompanying crowd, but were blocked by mounted police.Alexander, ''Coxey's Army,'' pg. 98. The pair jumped a stone wall in an attempt to reach their goal, along with Christopher Columbus Jones, leader of the marchers from Philadelphia, but police on foot chased the three down and detained them, first holding down Browne and beating him, tearing his clothes and ripping off the amber bead necklace from his neck.Alexander, ''Coxey's Army,'' pg. 99. Coxey was released, but Browne and Jones were placed under arrest, with bond posted by two wealthy sympathizers of the marchers. On May 2, Coxey, Browne, and Jones were charged in police court with carrying an illegal banner on capitol grounds, with Coxey and Browne additionally charged with trampling the grass.Alexander, ''Coxey's Army,'' pg. 101. A jury trial followed, during which the District Attorney denigrated Browne as "a fakir, a charlatan, and a mounteback who dresses up in ridiculous garments and exhibits himself to the curious multitudes at 10 cents a head."Alexander, ''Coxey's Army,'' pg. 102. The three defendants were convicted on the morning of May 8 and freed on bond. Sentence was pronounced on May 21, with Coxey and Browne each fined $5 for walking on the grass, and Coxey, Browne, and Jones sentenced to 20 days in jail for carrying banners on capitol grounds.Alexander, ''Coxey's Army,'' pg. 105.

Later years, death, and legacy

Browne married Jacob Coxey's daughter, Mamie, in 1895.Benjamin F. Alexander, ''Coxey's Army: Popular Protest in the Gilded Age.'' Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015; pg. 119. According to contemporary press reports, the bride's father did not approve of the union and the marriage was brief, but the pair did live for a time in California, where they were parents to a son. During the decade of the 1910s, Browne tried his hand as an inventor, working on a heavier-than-air flying machine. In January 1914, Browne collapsed and died. He was 64 years old at the time of his death. A committed member of the

Socialist Party of America The Socialist Party of America (SPA) was a socialist political party in the United States formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party of Ameri ...

, Browne's Washington, DC, funeral was arranged and financed by his party comrades. No members of the Coxey family are believed to have attended. In 1944, San Francisco socialist

William McDevitt William is a masculine given name of Norman French origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conq ...

published a posthumous pamphlet by Browne, entitled ''When Coxey Marcht

arched An arch is a vertical curved structure that Span (architecture), spans an elevated space and may or may not support the weight above it, or in case of a horizontal arch like an arch dam, the hydrostatic pressure against it. Arches may be sy ...

on Washington.''

Footnotes

Works

* ''When Coxey's Army Marcht on Washington.'' With William McDevitt. San Francisco: William McDevitt, 1944.