22 Facts About Owen Brewster

1.

Ralph Owen Brewster was an American politician from Maine.

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2.

Owen Brewster was a close confidant of Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin and an antagonist of Howard Hughes.

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3.

Owen Brewster was defeated by Frederick G Payne, whose campaign was heavily funded by Hughes, in the 1952 Republican primary.

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4.

Ralph Owen Brewster was born in Dexter, Maine, the son of William Edmund Brewster, a banker, grocery store owner and member of the Maine House of Representatives, and Carrie S Bridges.

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5.

From 1909 to 1910, Owen Brewster was the principal of Castine High School, and then attended Harvard Law School, graduating in 1913.

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6.

From 1914 to 1925, Owen Brewster was a lawyer for the Chapman and Owen Brewster law firm in Portland.

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7.

Owen Brewster served as secretary of the Chamber of Commerce-affiliated "Committee of 100" which, in 1923, instituted a significant overhaul of Portland city government.

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8.

Owen Brewster continued to be a State House member from 1921 to 1922, when he was elected to the Maine Senate.

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9.

When Owen Brewster ran for Governor of Maine in 1924, his Democratic opponent William Robinson Pattangall made Klan support for Owen Brewster the centerpiece of his campaign.

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10.

Pattangall lost, but Owen Brewster was accused of Klan sympathies from within his own party, most notably by former Maine governor Percival Baxter.

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11.

Owen Brewster played a role in defeating the signature New Deal project in his own district of Maine, a multibillion-dollar tidal power development planned for Passamaquoddy Bay.

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12.

In 1935 he publicly accused a New Deal attorney, Thomas Corcoran, of threatening to kill the project unless Owen Brewster favored the administration on a related vote reining in private utilities.

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13.

Support Owen Brewster had received early-on from the Ku Klux Klan had cost him considerable support from within his own Republican party.

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14.

Owen Brewster came to national attention due to his opposition to the commercial interests of Howard Hughes, America's wealthiest person at the time.

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15.

In 1947 Owen Brewster was chairman of the special Senate committee investigating defense procurement during World War II.

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16.

Owen Brewster claimed concern that Hughes had received $40 million from the War Department without actually delivering the aircraft he had contracted to provide, but Hughes countered that Brewster was motivated by his connections to Pan-American Airways, the rival to Hughes's Trans World Airlines.

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17.

Owen Brewster denied Hughes' allegations and made several counter-claims, but by the time the hearing ended Owen Brewster's reputation had suffered greatly.

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18.

Owen Brewster resigned his seat in December 1952 and was succeeded by Payne, who would only last one term, being defeated by Edmund Muskie in 1958.

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19.

Owen Brewster was a member of First Church of Christ, Scientist, Portland, Maine for many years, and later helped establish a Christian Science Society in Dexter, Maine.

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20.

Owen Brewster was a member of the American Bar Association, Grange, the American Legion, the Freemasons, the Elks, the Odd Fellows, and Delta Kappa Epsilon.

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21.

Owen Brewster died unexpectedly of cancer on Christmas Day, 1961 in Brookline, Massachusetts.

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22.

Owen Brewster was buried at Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Dexter, Maine where his home, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was converted to the Brewster Inn, a bed and breakfast.

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