Beale, a member of congress of Hudson, New York, and in Albany in 1880, at the age of twenty-two years he was admitted to the bar. He practiced for a time at Frankfort, Kansas, and also served as mayor of the town from 1884 to 1885. In January, 1886, he removed to Ness City, Kansas, and soon afterward was appointed attorney for the Denver, Memphis & Atlantic Railroad, extending from Chetopa, Kansas, to Pueblo, Colorado. For two years he served as county attorney of Ness county, Kansas, but, although he had made an admirable start in his profession and had acquired a good reputation as a practicing attorney throughout a wide region in the Sunflower state, he could not resist a call that came from the northwest, and in June, 1891, he took up his residence in Oregon City, where he has since made his home.
It required a very short time for Mr. Brownell to become recognized among his brethren at the bar as a good lawyer and one who was destined to attain prominence in his profession. His business increased rapidly and his clients are among the leaders in all lines of business in western Oregon. He has all his life been a supporter of the principles of the republican party, and in 1892 was a nominee of the party for state senator. Under the law of the state, however, he was obliged to decline the honor at that time, as he had been a resident of Oregon for less than a year. He was made chairman of the delegation from the county convention to the state convention and was chairman of the republican central committee of Clackamas county during the campaign of 1892. In 1894 he was nominated by acclamation as state senator, an office which he occupied for three terms of four years each, extending over a period of twelve years. In the special session of 1898 he was chosen by his party caucus to present the name of Hon. Joseph Simon to the joint assembly as the candidate for United States senator. In 1900 he received the unanimous indorsement of the republicans of Clackamas county for member of congress. During the session of the state legislature in 1901, when the hope of electing a senator was almost abandoned, Mr. Brownell presented the name of John H. Mitchell, who was elected to the office. He also succeeded in the session of 1903-4 in securing the election of Hon. C. W. Fulton to the United States senatorship, full credit for this act being given him by Senator Fulton in a speech which he made immediately after the deciding ballot had been cast.
As a hard-working member of the state senate, Mr. Brownell was instrumental in framing much legislation which has been of great value to the state. He introduced a resolution for an amendment to the state constitution, providing for the initiative and referendum. This measure was brought forward in the session of 1901, and through Mr. Brownell's efforts, seconded by the votes of many members of both houses, the resolution was adopted and later was submitted to the vote of the people, and it was confirmed by popular suffrage, thus providing a means for the passage of the primary law, giving the people of Oregon the power to nominate their state officers without the aid of state or county conventions and also to elect United States senators by popular vote. Mr. Brownell was also author of the law providing that supervisors may be elected instead of being appointed; of a bill exempting to every laboring man who is the head of a family thirty days' wages from attachment and execution for debt and other measures of state-wide importance. At each session he introduced a bill authorizing the calling of a constitutional convention to revise the organic law of the state and secured the passage of the bill through the senate in 1901, but in the house it was defeated by two votes. He was the author of a bill to elect precinct assessors instead of county assessors, and succeeded in securing the passage of this act in the senate, but it was defeated in the house by a very small majority. He introduced a resolution calling for the appointment of a committee to investigate the school funds of the state, and was made chairman of the committee which later reported a shortage of thirty thousand in the school funds and stopped abuses which threatened to dissipate
