Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/359

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Political History of Oregon.
343

candidate for the United States senate in the legislature of 1866, he was defeated in caucus by one vote, and on September 28, 1872, he succeeded Senator Corbett and served in the senate of the United States, his first term expiring March 3, 1879. He was re-elected to the senate in 1885 and in 1891, his third term expiring March 3, 1897. For eighteen years a member of the senate of the United States; he was a colleague of Senators Kelly, Grover, Dolph, and McBride, serving upon the leading committees of the senate; a candidate for re-election at the session of the legislative assembly for 1897, and received the votes of a majority of all the republicans, but not sufficient to elect, and the legislative assembly adjourned without having effected a legal organization, and consequently failed to elect his successor. Differences of opinion in his party upon the leading issues of the last presidential campaign were undoubtedly instrumental in securing his defeat. It is the truth of history to say that Senator Mitchell in public life has been a most important figure, and has filled the great office to which he has been three times elected with signal ability. Since his retirement from the senate he has continued to practice his profession at Portland, Oregon.[1]

La Fayette Grover was the fourth governor of the State of Oregon, elected in June, 1870, and re-elected in 1874. He held the office of governor from September 14, 1870, to February 7, 1877, when he resigned that office to accept the office of United States Senator, to which he had been elected in 1876. He was born at Bethel, Maine, November 29, 1823; he came to California in 1850, and the next year to Oregon, and became clerk of the first judicial district in Southern Oregon, and later prose-


  1. Senator Mitchell was re-elected United States Senator February 24, 1901, receiving forty-six votes, Henry W. Corbett twenty-nine votes, and A. S. Bennett fifteen votes.