 Browne moved to San Francisco and became active in politics as an active member there of the Workingmen's Party.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 lead a popular movement for the exclusion of Chinese people from the United States.While in San Francisco, Browne launched a radical weekly newspaper which he edited and for which he drew political cartoons, "The Open Letter."