Background
Brown was born in San Francisco, the son of Edmund and Ida Schuckman Brown. He was one of four children. His father was Irish Catholic with a penchant for gambling and drinking; his morther was a German Protestant who disliked Catholicism. They separated when Brown was a teenager. He acquired the nickname "Pat" during his school years. When he was 12 years old, he sold Liberty Bonds on street corners. He would end his spiel with, "Give me liberty, or give me death."
The nickname was a reference to his Patrick Henry-like oratory. He graduated from Lowell High School where he was a high school debate champion as a member of the Lowell Forensic Society. After high school, Brown skipped college and instead worked in his father's cigar store and ran an illegal gambling room, while studying law at a local night school. He graduated from San Francisco Law School in 1927. He took some University of California extension courses, but acquired his broad knowledge through reading widely.
Pat Brown started a law practice in San Francisco. He was an active Republican, before turning Democrat in the early 1930's. He ran as a Republican for the State Assembly in 1928, but lost. He waited until 1939 to run again, this time as a Democrat, for District Attorney for San Francisco against Matthew Brady. Again, he lost. He ran again for the same position in 1943, and finally won. He served here for seven years, and made his name attacking bookies and abortion rights advocates, before running for, and winning, election as Attorney General of California. He served in that role for eight years. While he was the Attorney General, he was the only member of the Democratic Party to win statewide election. In 1949, he raided Sally Stanford's elegant San Francisco bordello[1].
In 1958, he was the Democratic nominee for Governor of California. He defeated U.S. Senator William F. Knowland by a margin of nearly 20 percentage points. He was reelected in 1962, defeating former Vice President Richard Nixon. He lost the 1966 election to Republican Ronald Reagan.
Brown's two terms as governor are generally regarded as successful. His time in office was marked by an enormous water-resources development program (which later evolved into the California Aqueduct, which also bears his name "The Governor Edmund G. Brown California Aqueduct" ), the enactment of the California Master Plan for Higher Education, fair employment practices, state economic development commission, and a consumers' council. He sponsored some forty major proposals. Only five failed to pass the legislature: state-wide minimum wage, regulation of unions, campaign finance, and an oil tax. He more than doubled the amount of state highways.
Brown met his wife, Bernice Layne, when he was young. They were childhood sweethearts. They married in 1930. She was the daughter of a San Francisco police captain. They had four children: a son, Edmund, Jr. ("Jerry"), and three daughters: Kathleen Brown, Barbara Brown Casey, and Cynthia Brown Kelly. In 1974, Jerry Brown was elected the 34th Governor of California. He was reelected in 1978, was defeated in a bid for the U.S. Senate in 1982, and was elected California Attorney General in 2006. Kathleen Brown was elected California State Treasurer in 1990 and was defeated in a bid for Governor of California in 1994.
Pat Brown died aged 90 in Beverly Hills and is interred at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma.
My son asked me what I hoped to accomplish as Governor. I told him: essentially to make life more comfortable for people, as far as government can. I think that embraces everything from developing the water resources vital to California's growth, to getting a man to work and back fifteen minutes earlier if it can be done through a state highway program.
- — Edmund G. "Pat" Brown, Sr.
