Page:Pen Pictures of Representative Men of Oregon.djvu/43

Rh Far from it. They are the result rather of an unswerving ambition, an unsullied integrity, and an enterprising, active mind that will overcome all obstacles and knows no such word as fail. His position is always at the front and he is accorded the leadership in any movement in which he carries an interest. He is a man of remarkably strong constitution, clear and penetrating eyes, a prominent, well-shaped head, whiskers and hair of heavy growth and as black as jet. He is, in fact, the most intelligent-looking man in the Senate, and the fact is his looks do not belie him. He is cool, deliberate and collected in all his movements, with an iron will and naturally determined and stubborn when once he thinks he is in the right. He has a keen eye for the interests of his constituents, and, although not given to airing his eloquence, he generally manages to get the light word at the right moment in the right place. He was born in Wurtemburg, Germany, March 25, 1839. His youth was spent in the old country in attendance at the common schools of that day. He immigrated to this country in 1854 and at once secured a clerkship in a store in NeW Haven, Connecticut, where he remained a few months and then went to New York City to try his f(^-tunes. He accepted a clerkship on Fulton street and remained there a short time, then going to Rochester, N. H., where he remained until 18.58. Then joining his brother, Hon. Edward Hirsch, our present State Treasurer, together they came to Oregon, reaching Portland about the middle of April of that year. Together they opened a small retail establishment at Dallas, in Polk county, w:here they remained three years, and here it was that the subject of our sketch laid the foundation of his fortune. They then moved to Silverton, where " Sol." remained about three years, and, with a view of giving himself a broader sphere in which to exercise his acknowledged mercantile sagacity, he went to Portland and became interested in the wholesale dry goods house of L. Fleischner & Co., then located on the west side of Front street between Stark and Oak. Their business increased rapidly. Their quarters becoming cramped, the firm of Fleischner, Mayer <fe Co., as it stood in 1875, secured more extensive accommodations in their present location, and to-day occupy the proud position of the leading wholesale dry goods establishment on the coast, outside of San Francisco, their annual sales, in fact, exceeding by far many more pretentious establishments in California's metropolis. Mr. Hirsch's first appearance in the political arena was in 1864, while residing at Silverton. He took it into his head one day that his brother, Mayer Hirsch, then a leading merchant of Salem, would make a good delegate to attend the National Convention, to be held at B;,ltimt)re, Md. Acting on the impulse, he put in an appearance at the State Convention, which met at Albany, and — well, it is needless perhaps to add that Mr. Hirsch received his nomination, and, together with Josiah Failing, Fred Charman, Rev. T. H. Pearne, Hiram Smith and J. W. Souther, assiH+ed in the second nomination of the lamented Abraham Lincoln. Senatt)r Hirsch was a delegate to the Republican State Convention of 1872, that nominated Hon. Jos. G. Wilson for Congress, and he was that year elected a member of the House from Multnomah county, and as an acknowledgment of his well-known financial ability, was appointed a member of the Committee on Ways and Means. In 1874, the Republican party of Multnomah county