The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-04-02
BURTON'S FALL IS
 TEXT FOR SERMON His Character We'll Known for
 Twenty Years RECOGNIZED AS A BOOOLER
He Has Repeatedly Violated the Conf dence of His Associates to Further His Interest and That
 of His Friends.

Chicago April 1.-The Tribune prints the following by William Allen White. author of whats the Matter With Kansas:
 THE TEXT. United States Senator Burton of Kan sas was convicted in the United States district court at St. Louis yesterday of corruptly using his official position to protect q bucket shop. He was found tenced to prison for ten years and fined $1O coo.
 THE SERMON.
 The conviction of United States Senator Joseph R. Burton of a felony in connec- ton with his official conduct will surprise no one in Kansas. Few of his senatorial associates will he even mildly astonshe1. Burton's character has been well known in Kansas for twenty years, and in the senate. while he has not been known so long, he has been shunned by the decent element there for two years and his name has been written amorg the impos- sitles
 For a dozen years before he went to Washington as a senator frcm Kansas Il 3 was professional candidate for sena torial honors He had served q term O. two In the lower house of the state legis- latnre. where he openly solicited bribes and was charged dozens of times in tie newspapers of the state with being boodler without the slightest resentment upon Burton's part. Time and again per feetly reputable and financially respon sible newspapers have charged Burton with violating every obligation of life. social, moral. political, and financial, and he made no attempt to bring these news papers to the bar of justice
 Promised Nothing More.
 His most ardent enemies promised noth- ing more for him when he was elected to the senate than that he would reform.
 His election was due to the influence of railroads in state politics. Every local attorney for the Rock Island, the Mis- souri Pacific. the Santa Fe and the On- ion Pacific who had any influence was at Topeka working for Burton. Peremptory orders came out of Chicago and St Louis in the campaign which ended with Bur toms election demanding that local Kan sas railroad lawyers support Burton or lose their places.
 A railroad has a right in politics for defense, but the railroads campaign for Burton was not defensive, but offensive. It was war of conquest.
 Before Burton had been senator six months he had alienated President Roose- welt by recommending improper men for federal office His candidates were ig- nored and the men whom President Me Kinley had named for Burton were in- continenty thrown out of office.
 To win a place for a follower Burton forged a telegram from Congressman Long endorsing the Burton candidate to President Roosevelt. and when confront ed with his deed by the President, Bur ton tried to laugh 1t off.
 He allied himself with the beet sugar interest against the resolutions of the Kansas republican convention and in vio- lation of his promise to President Roose- welt to stand by the administration In the campaign for Cuban reciprocity.
 Worked a Shell Game.
 He worked a shell game on the Pres ident by which Burton got Roosevelts signature to an Endorsement of midway show at St. Louis and tried to get the President to write letter indorsing a patent toy, for whose manufacturers Bur ton was an attorney
 He has sustained his Kansas reputation with remarka ble consistency and has ended his political career by furnishing a horrible example to young men who would go into politics as means of profit He has been of no assistance to the railroads that elected him. because he could not be trusted with any important work, and his connection with even worthy minor measure subjected 1t to sus- picion. He was always being searched for "the goods
 He has no philosophy of life, no horizon beyond office brokerage.
 When he retres from the senate he will give up the ambition of lifetime and great opportunity utterly frittered away.
 He will go out of office poor in worldly goods and still poorer in friends, and robbed of his good name. the only capital a man may have who begins life anew on the shady side of the hill. He has fiourshed and haunted himseil in the eyes of his people; young men have saan his wicked prosperity and have been misled to believe that mere smart ness pays.
 Is an Object Lesson.
 Yet by the miserable tragedy of his Tall he has written for the whole nat on all obiect lesson in the prohtableness of de- cencv and of the simple life. with it's simple, homely rules of honesty and it's plain, wholesome joys
 Providence economies in her warnings. She ruins few men utterly, but when she does break a man entirely she makes the object big and the collapse terrible.
 This haggard, nerveless man who sat listening to the lawyers harangue the jury, with his face in his hands, the hu- man pendulum that swung up and down the long corridors of the criminal court in St. Louis, speaking to no one, with blazing, terror stricken eyes, waiting the clock around for the jury to come in, that man should be pointed out to the young men of America as the most tragic figure, of his day-the man who went wrong.
 There is something big and histrionc in the calm way in which Providence smiled as she took this man up to high place, only to cast him down and crush It,, la, tl,a inavitahle fall