Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,869
By This is the grave of Joseph Burton.
Born on a farm outside of Mitchell, Indiana in 1852 (there is discrepancy between the tombstone and what is online, which happens with surprising frequency), Burton grew up reasonably well off. He was the choice of his congressman to go to the Naval Academy, but he couldn’t pass the physical. So he went to Franklin College and then DePauw, teaching for awhile, and getting involved in local Republican politics. He started reading for the bar in 1874. In this era, that was a short process and he was admitted to it the next year. He became a presidential elector for Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876 and gave a lot of speeches around Indiana for him. Hayes was such an inspiring figure that it must have been exciting to hear those speeches……
In 1878, Burton decided to move to Kansas, the Rutherford B. Hayes of destinations. He and a friend had decided to start a law practice in the town of Abilene. They were successful and Kansas was also a very Republican state in this era, so it was a place where a young man could make a name for himself in politics. Burton was then elected to the state legislature in 1882 and served a few terms, though not always consecutively. Kansas named him as a representative to their official delegation to the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. But what he really wanted was to be a senator. Of course this was all inside baseball before the 17th Amendment with tons of corruption involved. This is why a lot of Republicans would like to repeal the 17th Amendment today, take it back to the good ol’days of open payoffs. Burton was good at the corruption too. Well, Burton didn’t quite get there in 1895. But in the 1900-01 cycle, Kansas sent him to Washington.
As a junior senator from a meaningless state, Burton didn’t have much sway in Washington. He was named chair of the Committee on Forest Reservations and Game Protection. Not unimportant really, but I don’t think he really cared that much about it. What he really did care about was getting paid. Now, this is the Gilded Age. Do you know how openly and nakedly corrupt you had to be to win the title as the first senator to be convicted of a crime? But Burton is your man!
The story is this–there was a scam company, get rick quick scheme kind of thing, called Rialto Grain and Securities. It was about to be under indictment for fraud, which would have denied it the use of the mail. Rialto paid Burton $2500 to prevent that indictment. This is almost incredibly stupid. First, he got busted for $2500? I am sure the rest of the Senate was laughing at him for this, especially given what some of those guys had been paid by the railroads over the years. Second, he didn’t even really have the power to intervene in a useful fashion here. Total idiots all the way around.
Well, Burton was tried and convicted, forced to pay the money back, and given a six month prison sentence. He appealed to the Supreme Court. It overthrew the verdict on procedural grounds, saying that it should have been tried in DC, where the bribe was given. There, Justice Willis Van Devanter presided over the retrial, which led to the same verdict and the exact same sentence. Burton then resigned, served his sentence, and went back home to Kansas.
Burton had his law practice and he also bought some newspapers. He was still a rich guy and ended up dying in Los Angeles in 1923, at the age of 70 (or 71 if he was indeed born a year earlier than is usually reported). Later in life, he seems to have moved to the left and was a defender of the Nonpartisan League at the end of World War I, and was once attacked during a speech. As his enemies worked up the mob against him, they all reminded everyone that Burton was a corrupt embarrassment. That part was true enough.
Joseph Burton is buried in Abilene Cemetery, Abilene, Kansas.
If you would like this series to visit other senators elected in the 1900 elections, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Robert Gamble is in Yankton, South Dakota and F.M. Simmons is in New Bern, North Carolina. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.