Carl Browne

A former close political associate of controversial San Francisco politician Denis Kearney, Browne is best remembered as a top leader of the Coxey's Army protest movement of 1894.

[2] He was soon recognized for his commitment to the organization and served a stint as personal secretary to party leader Denis Kearney, a nativist politician who led a popular movement for the exclusion of Chinese people from the United States.

It consisted of a buckskin coat with fringes, and buttons made of Mexican silver half-dollars, high boots, a sombrero, a fur cloak when weather permitted, and around his neck, instead of a collar, a string of amber beads, the gift of his dying wife.... Closer inspection revealed the reason why his men called him 'Old Greasy.

[4] Browne obliged, both speaking on its behalf and drawing a series of cartoons illustrating the dysfunctional nature of the current economic system and depicting the benefits to be obtained by society through passage of the Coxey plan.

[4] Coxey was pleased with Browne's commitment to the cause of labor reform and persuaded him to stay with him at his home in Massillon, Ohio, through the winter of 1893–94,[6] a grim time when the United States was buffeted by the severe economic contraction known to history as the Panic of 1893.

[12] The pair jumped a stone wall in an attempt to reach their goal, along with Christopher Columbus Jones, leader of the marchers from Philadelphia, but police on foot chased the three down and detained them, first holding down Browne and beating him, tearing his clothes and ripping off the amber bead necklace from his neck.

[14] A jury trial followed, during which the District Attorney denigrated Browne as "a fakir, a charlatan, and a mounteback who dresses up in ridiculous garments and exhibits himself to the curious multitudes at 10 cents a head.