Maguire entered public life through the
Knights of Father Mathew, in which he was active as early as 1874 and as late as 1880. He served as a member of the
California State Assembly from 1875 to 1877, one of 20 members from the five
San Francisco districts. At just 22 years old, he was the youngest member of the Legislature. He studied law and was admitted to the Bar by the
Supreme Court of California in January 1878, commencing practice in San Francisco. One of his
students and
clerks was assemblyman
Jeremiah J. McCarthy. Following the adoption of a
fusion agreement between the Democratic and
Workingmen's Parties, Maguire sought their nomination for judge of the
San Francisco County Superior Court in 1880 and
city attorney of San Francisco in 1881, but did not gain either. He ran for judge again in 1882 and was elected, serving from 1883 to 1889. Around this time, he became disillusioned with the Democratic Party, which he believed was under the control of
political bosses and
landlords. In 1887, he left the party for
Henry George's United Labor Party, in which he was active until its dissolution in 1888. He rejoined the Democratic Party soon after.
U.S. Congress '', September 6, 1896 Maguire was elected as a
Democrat to the
U.S. House of Representatives from
California's 4th congressional district in
1892, serving in the
53rd,
54th, and
55th Congresses from March 4, 1893, to March 3, 1899. He was the
ranking member of the
House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization during his first term and the
House Committee on Elections during his third. He authored the
Maguire Act, which abolished the practice of imprisoning sailors who deserted from coastwise vessels. Maguire supported
Chinese exclusion, arguing that their "semibarbarism" threatened the "
Caucasian civilization" of the United States. He also blamed
"coolie labor" for low wages and high unemployment, stating: In line with this and the Democratic Party's
anti-imperialism plank, he opposed the
annexation of Hawaii. Ironically, he was also involved with the California
Afro-American League. On January 31, 1894, Maguire proposed an amendment to the
Wilson–Gorman Tariff Act that would have established a national
single tax. Intended as a substitute for the bill's proposed
income tax, it would have levied a direct tax of $31,311,125 on
land values nationwide. Only five others voted in favor:
Michael D. Harter and
Tom L. Johnson of Ohio,
Charles Tracey and
J. De Witt Warner of New York, and
Jerry Simpson of Kansas. After this was rejected, Maguire voted in favor of the original version of the bill and the final version sent back by the Senate several months later.
1898 California gubernatorial campaign Henry T. Gage, outside the
Merchants Exchange Building in
San Francisco, October 8, 1898 In
1898, Maguire ran for
Governor of California on a
Democratic-
Populist-
Silver Republican Fusion ticket. He ran on a
platform of anti-
monopolism, support for the
war with Spain, and opposition to the
War Revenue Act of 1898. He lost to
Republican Henry T. Gage with 45% of the vote, having been opposed by every major newspaper save for
William Randolph Hearst's San Francisco Examiner. During the campaign, Maguire was denounced by
Irish Catholic priest
Peter Yorke for a book he wrote ten years prior,
Ireland and The Pope, Adrian IV to Leo XIII, in which he argued that the subjugation of
Ireland by the
British Empire had been orchestrated by certain
medieval Popes. Yorke's attacks were so severe that
Patrick William Riordan, the
Archbishop of San Francisco, had to distance himself, stating to the press: "Father Yorke is alone responsible for his utterances." ==Later career and death==