Sylvester Pennoyer was an American politician ans lawyer. He was an Oregon Governor.
Background
Sylvester Pennoyer was born on July 6, 1831 in Groton, Tompkins County, New York, United States. He was the son of Justus P. and Elizabeth (Howland) Pennoyer, both natives of New York. His father was a well-to-do farmer, a community leader, and at one time member of the state legislature.
Education
Sylvester Pennoyer went to Homer Academy and at intervals taught several short terms in rural schools. He graduated from the Harvard Law School in 1854. The next year he went by way of Nicaragua to San Francisco and then to Puget Sound, where for a brief period he attempted the practice of law, but he soon removed to Portland, Oregon.
Career
After six years of teaching, Sylvester Pennoyer entered the lumber business in 1862, which, together with shrewd investments in Portland real estate, in a few years made him a wealthy man. In 1868 he purchased the Oregon Herald, a Democratic newspaper that he continued to edit until 1871. His political career began in 1885, when he suffered a severe defeat as a candidate for mayor of Portland. In that same year he gained a state-wide reputation as a leader in a movement against Chinese laborers, which brought him the Democratic nomination for governor in 1886. He was elected and was reelected for a second term in 1890.
In 1896 Sylvester Pennoyer was elected for a two-year term as mayor of Portland. During his long career he did and said many things that made him seem "peculiar, eccentric, and demagogic" to his more conservative contemporaries. During the Civil War he had openly sympathized with the Confederacy and afterward advocated the payment of government bonds with federal notes and the issuance of "fiat money. " While he was governor he made many recommendations for what seemed to him the necessary liberalization of government. However, throughout his two terms he was confronted by legislative assemblies controlled by his Republican opponents, and in consequence few of his recommendations received legislative approval.
Sylvester Pennoyer was also severely criticized for too liberal use of his pardoning power. He recommended compulsory arbitration for labor disputes. In 1888 in a threatened conflict between railroad workers and their employers over arrears of wages he intervened to effect a settlement satisfactory to both sides. This experience led him to advocate "a most stringent law" to compel all contractors to make weekly payment to their employees.
In Pennoyer's messages to the legislature he asserted that the practice of courts in nullifying legislative enactments was a usurpation of power. He asked for strong legislation against monopoly; he protested against the growing practice of delegating the governor's authority to commissions; and he advocated abolishing the numerous commissions and boards, such as the fish and railroad commissions and the immigration board. He vigorously urged appropriations for the common schools, while at the same time opposing further state support for the state university and agricultural college since that was a tax on all the people for the benefit of the few.
Sylvester Pennoyer advocated the removal of debt exemptions in tax assessments that had been approved by the legislature in 1891, the taxing of all incomes in excess of $1, 000 on a graduated scale, a poll tax of two dollars on every male over twenty-one, a tax upon the gross receipts of express, telegraph, and insurance companies, and anticipated the establishment of a state tax commission in asking for state control of the county tax assessors. He repeatedly vetoed a Portland water bill, finally passed over his veto in 1891, because it provided for the sale of tax-exempt bonds. This action gained him such popularity as to be accounted, by the opposition press, the principal cause of his reelection as governor in 1890.
By 1892 Sylvester Pennoyer had passed over to the Populist party. He wrote an article for the North American Review (October 1892) on "The Paramount Questions of the Campaign. " By this time he had become bitterly hostile to President Cleveland. In his Thanksgiving message of 1893 he recommended to the people that they pray that the President and Congress be guided to restore silver to the position of full legal-tender money, and at Christmas 1893 he addressed a long letter to President Cleveland on this same theme. In 1894 he proclaimed a Thanksgiving day a week later than the one set by Cleveland.
Sylvester Pennoyer died on May 31, 1902.
Achievements
Connections
In 1856 Sylvester Pennoyer married Mrs. Mary A. Allen.