New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1914-08-10
C. r. Burke, Member OF
Alimony and OtherClubs,
Charges Plot.
ASKS PRESIDENT TO
AID PATENT PROCESS
Says Wife Had Him Put in jail
to Help Corporations Foil
GasOlene Plans.

A new duty Tor the ftesIuSHV VI '"S
United States has been invented oy
Charles Russell Burke, who is mem
Der Of the Union League Club, grad
uate of Columbia University, nephew
of the late Senator Redheld Proctor,
Of Vermont. and for the time being a
member of the Almony Club IN Ludlow
Street Jail He mas established the
precedent Of using the President as
confidant in all ones difficulties mari
tai as we'll as business.
Burke was sent to Ludlow Street
Jau on June 5 for OWN his second
wife. Katherine Pope Burke, S3,272
which had accrued TO her credit since
she obtained decree Of separation
/ from him with $3.50 a month allmony.
I He doesn't want 70 pay IT, and yet he
wants 10 be freed from the Alimony
Club because he is not well CROUCH 20
enjoy Jail life and because 1t Is lmpos-
sible for him to sell a process ior
making gasolene out of petroleum TO
a.. of the members of the club.
Mrs. Burke refuses to aid IN her nus
bands efforts to gain his freedom, be-
cause she says he could have paid her
the alimony easily enough If he had
not been supporting a woman wnom
Burke says he married in Ontario IN
1911 and had not given her 400 shares
of stock in the international Petrol
b Company. She says also that he re-
ceives an income in royalties from the
Cudahy Refining Company and the
/ Tribal Oil Company.
The letters referred to as written to
| Preside.t Wilson last fall, making him
the confdant of Burke's troubles,
were filed in the Supreme Court oy
Burke among documents which he sub
mitted in his attempt to leave the JAIL.
In the early letters Of the series
Burke says that the International Pc
troll Company has been plotting again :
him for the possession OF refining Sc
crets he holds, and that the desire to
get hold Of these secrets IS the thing
that has caused the matrimo nlal pros
ecution TO be brought upon him. Then
he tells the President that, after all,
the corntry's divorce law, are all
wrong anyway.
Burke's letters to President Wilson
put most of the blame on the Shout
der Of Colin II. Livingston formerly
clerk of the Interstate Commerce Com
mittee of the Senate and now vice.
president and treasurer of the Inter-
national Petrol Company. He writes
that Livingstone, who comes from
Washington, asked Mrs. Burke to so
act that | would be worn gu and har-
assed by her action and would bend
to the will of those who are opposing
me in the business involved"
In continuing his accusations Of Liv-
ingstone he wrote that Livingstone
had told him he was the pal repre-
sentative of Armour, Pullman, the
American Telephone and Telegraph
Company and Standard OIL" and that
"he was the means of freeing Charles
W. Morse and also preventing the
trial of the packers when they had
given up hope of preventing trial"
Then Burke began to appeal TO the
President to allow him to make a
demonstration of his oil refining pat
ents under the eyes of government Of
ficials and so prove that his patents
would have been a great success ex-
cept for the conspiracy against him.
He has tried TO get the United States
Patent Office to appreciate the value
of his processes, but says that the Of
flee failed to take favorable action on
them,
On September 9, 1918, the President
Teplleu 10 burke charges OF cOnsplr-
acy on the part of the Patent Office,
and said:
81 should wish in every case to be
instrumental in seeing that justice is
done" Burke finally proposed how
ever, and the proposal was put in the
hands of Corporation Counsel Polk,
who has for some time been counsel
for Mrs. Burke, that he would give her
the alimony regularly if she in return
would help him in his business trou-
( bles. His suggestion was that she
should get him free from the Alimony
Club by withdrawing the charges she
has filed against him; then she should
sue him for divorce, and then that
she should help him to prove that these
various business interests he names
have been plotting against him.
In return he would, he says, assure
her her 5000 month alimony by Civ
ing over his assets into the hands of
trustees. Mrs. Burke has refused the
pact, however, and insists that he
must either pay the alimony due her or
stay in Jail.