Joseph Ralph Burton (November 16, 1852February 27, 1923) was a lawyer and

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from the state of

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. He was the first Senator to be convicted of a crime. He served in the Kansas House of Representatives several times in the 1880s, and was elected to the United States Senate in 1901, but was convicted of accepting bribes in 1905. He appealed twice to the Supreme Court, but the judgement was eventually upheld and he resigned. He lived out his life as a lawyer and newspaperman.

Early life

Burton was born and reared on his father's farm near Mitchell,

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. His father, Allen C. Burton, was descended from

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ancestors, who came to America to escape the reign of Cromwell in the 1650s, and settled near Richmond,

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. His great-grandfather, John P. Burton, moved to

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during the Revolutionary War, and in 1820 went to Indiana, where he founded the Indiana line of Burtons. His mother, Elizabeth Holmes, was of Scottish-German descent. He attended the district school and the academy at Mitchell, and at the age of sixteen received an appointment as cadet at the

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at Annapolis, but failed to pass the physical examination. He taught school for a time, spent three years in Franklin College (Indiana), and one year at

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at Greencastle.

Lawyer

In 1874 Burton began to read law in the office of Gordon, Brown & Lamb, at Indianapolis, and in 1875 was admitted to the bar. In the spring of that year, he married Mrs. Carrie (Mitchell) Webster of

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. In 1876 Mr. Burton was nominated by the Republicans for presidential elector and made many speeches during the campaign. In 1878 he moved to Abilene,

, where he formed a partnership with Judge John H. Mahan for the practice of law.

Politician

He was elected to the

Kansas House of Representatives The Kansas House of Representatives is the lower house of the legislature of the U.S. state of Kansas. Composed of 125 state representatives from districts with roughly equal populations of at least 19,000, its members are responsible for crafti ...

in 1882; was re-elected in 1884 and again in 1888; and was appointed a member of the World's Fair Columbian Commission at

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in 1893, representing Kansas. In 1895 Burton lacked but one vote of being the Republican Party nominee for United States Senator. But in January 1901, he was elected Senator and began service on March 4, 1901. While in the Senate, he was chairman of the Committee on Forest Reservations and Game Protection ( Fifty-seventh and Fifty-eighth Congresses). He served until June 4, 1906, when he resigned.

Corruption conviction

On January 23, 1904, Burton was indicted by a Federal grand jury at

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, on the charge of having accepted $2,500 from the Rialto Grain and Securities company (a "get-rich-quick" concern), to represent Rialto before the Post Office. He was to have prevented the issuance of a fraud order against the company, thus denying it the use of the US mails. Burton was tried before Judge Adams of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, in St. Louis, found guilty in March and sentenced to pay a fine of $2,500 and serve six months in the jail at Ironton, Missouri. He was the first United States Senator to be convicted of a crime.United States Senate Historical Office
Expulsion and Censure
He appealed the case to the

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, which in January 1905, reversed the decision of the district court, on the grounds that the venue was improper since the money was paid to Burton in Washington, D.C, and remanded the case for a new trial there. The second trial was before Judge Van Devanter of the

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. In November 1905 he was given the same sentence. A second appeal to the Supreme Court followed, and this time the decision of the lower court was sustained. On June 4, 1906, Burton resigned from the Senate.

Later life

After his resignation, he returned to his law practice in Abilene and engaged in the newspaper business. Joseph Burton died in

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in 1923; the body was cremated and the ashes deposited in the columbarium of the Los Angeles Crematory Association. The ashes were removed in 1928 for burial in the Burton family plot in Abilene Cemetery.

References