Page:Autobiographies and portraits of the President, cabinet, Supreme court, and Fifty-fifth Congress (IA autobiographiesp02neal).pdf/227



Joseph Simon, of Portland, was born in Germany in 1851, and came to this country with his parents when but one year old, going to Oregon in 1857; has continuously resided in the city of Portland; obtained his education in the public schools of Portland; in 1872 was admitted to the bar and is now, and for many years past has been, a member of the law firm of Dolph, Mallory & Simon; was elected to the city council of Portland in 1877, and served as a member of that body three years; was elected secretary of the Republican State central committee in 1878 and managed the State campaign of that year; was chosen chairman of the Republican State central committee of Oregon in 1880, 1884, and 1886, and had charge of the State and national campaigns of those years in Oregon; was chosen a delegate to the Republican national convention which met at Minneapolis in 1892, and was there selected as the member of the national committee for Oregon; was elected to the State senate from Multnomah County in 1880, 1884, 1888, 1894, and 1898; if he were to serve out the term to which he was last elected he would have served twenty years as a member of that body; was chosen president of the senate at the sessions of 1889, 1891, 1895, and 1897, and at the special session of 1898, and, the State having no lieutenant-governor, he presided over the senate and over the joint conventions of both houses; was elected to the United States Senate as a Republican October 6, 1898, to fill a vacancy that had existed since March 4, 1897. His term of service will expire March 3, 1903.