Oregon Republican League: History 104 Biographies

Oregon Republican League: History 104 Biographies

Every Wednesday, the Oregon Republican League will post the biographies of important figures, in the League's/State of Oregon's history. Feel free to comment or share stories of your family's Republican affiliation.

BOURNE, Jonathan, Jr., (1855 - 1940)
Senate Years of Service: 1907-1913
Party: Republican

BOURNE, Jonathan, Jr., a Senator from Oregon; born in New Bedford, Bristol County, Mass., February 23, 1855; attended private schools and Harvard University; settled in Portland 1878; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1881 and practiced in Portland 1881-1886; interests in mining, farming, cotton mills, and commercial enterprises; member, Oregon house of representatives 1887-1899; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1907, to March 3, 1913; unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1912; chairman, Committee on Fisheries (Sixtieth and Sixty-first Congresses), Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads (Sixty-second Congress); president of the National Republican Progressive League; resumed his former pursuits in Oregon and Massachusetts; engaged in newspaper work in Washington, D.C., until his death there on September 1, 1940; interment in Cedar Hill Cemetery.

Bibliography

American National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Pike, Albert Jr. “Jonathan Bourne Jr., Progressive.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Oregon, 1957; Schlup, Leonard. “Republican Insurgent: Jonathan Bourne and the Politics of Progressivism, 1908-1912.” Oregon Historical Quarterly 87 (Fall 1986): 229-44.