Edmund Gerald "Pat" Brown was born April 21, 1905, at San Francisco, California and graduated from San Francisco Law School with an L. L. B. degree in 1927. In January 1944 he took office as the District Attorney for the city and county of San Francisco. In January 1959, he took office as Governor for the State of California. Governor Brown suggested that the State of California repeal the Death Penalty. When that didn't pass the legislature, he recommended that they suspend it for three and one half years as an experiment in humanitarianism. It was turned down also. Brown vowed to not give up the fight to abolish the death penalty. Brown commuted some sentences which infuriated law enforcement officials and they continued to bicker over this as long as he was in office. As Governor of California, he was on the Board of Regents of the University of California. The University of California had as a part of its Chemistry and Physics Department, the testing and inventions of Livermore and Los Alamos Laboratories. These Laboratories were assigned to them by the Atomic Energy Commission. This necessitated an Atomic Energy Commission Investigation of Governor Brown's background. On his background questionnaire, he listed his membership in the National Lawyers Guild in 1946. During the time he was the District Attorney of San Francisco, he subscribed to the "People's World" for six months. The People's World was the newspaper of the Communist Party. He opposed the deportation of Harry Bridges in 1945. Brown stated that Bridges was a labor leader on the Waterfront, and if he were deported, the workers would strike and slow down the work and hinder the war efforts.
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