Louis Brownlow
Louis Brownlow (August 29, 1879 – September 27, 1963) was an American author, political scientist, and consultant in the area of public administration. As chairman of the Committee on Administrative Management (better known as the Brownlow Committee) in 1937, he co-authored a report which led to passage of the Reorganization Act of 1939 and the creation of the Executive Office of the President. While chairing the Committee on Administrative Management, Brownlow called several of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's advisors men with "a passion for anonymity"—which later became a popular phrase. Early life and career Louis Brownlow was born in Buffalo, Missouri, in August 1879. His parents were Robert Sims and Ruth Amis Brownlow. His father had been a soldier in the Confederate States Army, serving in the Tennessee, Missouri, and Arkansas area, and had been wounded in the hip by a minié ball. His parents, each of whom had taught school at some time, moved from Giles County, Tennessee, to Missouri some time between 1877 and 1879 after Robert Brownlow was appointed postmaster for the town of Buffalo. Louis was frequently ill as a child, and educated at home. He was unable to attend college due to his family's poverty, but read books extensively. In 1900, Brownlow was hired by the Nashville Banner, and over the next several years wrote for the Louisville Courier-Journal, Louisville Times, and several other newspapers in Tennessee as well. He also worked for the Haskin Syndicate as a political writer and later as a correspondent in Europe, the Middle East, and the Far East from 1906 to 1915. He ghost-wrote Haskin's 1911 book The American Government, which was an influential treatise on Progressive ideas about public administration. He married the former Elizabeth Sims (daughter of Congressman Thetus W. Sims) in December 1909. The couple had no children. Brownlow was a member of the Democratic Party and a Methodist, and belonged to the Cosmos Club and National Press Club. Political and academic career Brownlow came to Washington, D.C., as a reporter for two Tennessee newspapers, and made the acquaintance of President Theodore Roosevelt. He caught the attention of President Woodrow Wilson in 1914 after being one of the few newspaper reporters to correctly predict that the German Empire would go to war with Serbia over the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (which caused the start of World War I). Expressing a desire to put into practice many of the administrative practices he had reported on from Europe, Brownlow sought and won from President Wilson appointment in 1915 as a commissioner of the District of Columbia, serving until 1920. From 1917 to 1920, he was president of the commissioners, and a vocal proponent of home rule. During this period, the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia unionized, and Brownlow supported its unionization (although not its affiliation with the American Federation of Labor). He helped guide the city through the 1918 flu pandemic, closing schools and businesses and banning all public gatherings. He also served on