Joseph Wallace Berks

"*People say I'm an evil man, well I love being an evil man, and nobody can stop me from becoming an evil man.*"
—Joseph Wallace Berks

## Chawosaurian

### Roll

*Prime Minister-Regent of the Empire of Chawosauria and eventually CEO of Berks Industries after his father's death in 1923*

## Office/Position

* **High Ranking Member of the Garfield Lucas Webster Administration**
	+ January 1, 1910 - December 31, 1919
* **Chief Executive Officer of Berks Industries**
	+ August 29, 1923 - August 23, 1965 (his death)
	+ **Preceded By** George Washington Berks
	+ **Succeeded By** Joseph Wallace Berks II

## Biographical Details

### Born

January 23, 1880Saranac Lake, New York, USA

### Died

August 23, 1965 (aged 85)Saranac Lake, New York, USA

### Parents

* George Washington Berks
* Abigail Elizabeth Wallace

### Children

* Joseph Wallace Berks, Jr.
* Joselyn Wanda Berks
* Jane Ann Berks
* James Aaron Berks
* Juliet Diana Berks
* Jason Wallace Berks
* Jill Eva Berks
* Jacob Tyler Berks

**Joseph Wallace Berks** (January 23, 1880 - August 23, 1965), also known by his initials as **JWB**, was a Chawosaurian businessman who served as Chief Executive Officer of *Berks Industries* from August 1923, until his death in August 1965, much like American businessman Joseph P. Kennedy, he also held political office served as *Prime Minister-regent of the Empire of Chawosauria* serving from December 31, 1917, until December 31, 1919. Berks served as Prime Minister-regent during the reign of the actual Prime Minister Garfield Lucas Webster, who becomes mentally debilitated. It was proposed that Berks should become Prime Minister legitimately but he declined the job, Webster was instead replaced by Theodore McClellan.

Joseph Wallace Berks was born on January 23, 1880, in Saranac Lake, New York, to businessman George Washington Berks and Abigail Elizabeth Wallace. Baptized and christened by the Episcopal Church, Joseph Berks was named after Saint Joseph, the stepfather of Jesus. At 17, Joseph Berks married Juliet Diana Burton from Pennsylvania on August 23, 1897, in his hometown, and went on to have eight children: twins Joseph Jr and Joselyn (b. 1900), Jane (b. 1901), James (b. 1903), Juliet (b. 1904), Jason (b. 1907), Jill (b. 1908), and Jacob (b. 1910), Berks attended and graduated from State University of New York in 1902, and became a lifelong employee of Garfield Lucas Webster.

Joseph W. Berks becomes an advisor to Prime Minister Webster and helped him expand his progressive agenda. When Webster became mentally-ill in 1918, Berks reluctantly takes over Webster's prime ministerial responsibilities as *Prime Minister-regent* or Acting Prime Minister. Berks retired in 1919. Berks succeeded his deceased father as Chief Executive Officer of Berks Industries and from 1923 until his own death in 1965, Berks expanded the family business by taking advantage of Webstermania in which he helped established.

Berks died to a brain aneurysm in his home on August 23, 1965, at age 85. He was buried with his parents in Hamilton County, New York with his family.

Since Berks' death, he is known for his amoral business practices such as the use of child labor, wage slavery, money grubbing, and his opportunistic outlook on achieving success, as well as his narcissistic leadership. Berks gained credit also, for trying to retain social order during Garfield Webster's mental breakdown, but his post-Websterian career overshadows this, he was an opportunistic narcissist willing to cross all kinds of moral lines to achieve his ends, and for that, he receives polarizing evaluations, praise for his contributions to Chawosauria, but criticism for his corrupt and immoral exploitation of capitalism.

Saranac Lake in New York is greatly associated by the Chawosaurian world to Joseph W. Berks as well as his enemy, Charles Lee Oakes IV, an environmentalist businessman whose technology will be developed in the 2020s.

## Early Life

### Early Years and Family

Joseph Wallace Berks was born on January 23, 1880, in a lake village community in the Adirondack Mountains known as Saranac Lake in Essex County of the U.S. state of New York, to George Washington Berks a mechanic worker and eventually businessman, and Abigail Elizabeth Wallace who works around the Adirondack Mountains. Joseph was named after Jesus' stepfather, Joseph, his middle name is his mother's maiden name, and for his last name, he inherited the family name, Berks. Joseph was baptized by the Episcopal Church as a newborn and becomes a lifelong member.

Joseph Berks lived in the mountains of Essex County with a big family of him, his parents, and 10 siblings born between 1881 to 1893, when Joseph was 13, his youngest sibling John was born. Joseph's siblings were Tiffany (b. 1881), Jill (b. 1881), Reese (b. 1883), Josiah (b. 1884), Juliet (b. 1886), Samuel (b. 1888), Casper (b. 1890), Janet (b. 1891), Janie (b. 1891), and John (b. 1893). In 1907, John died as a teenager, and Samuel died in 1921 at age 32.

Joseph becomes interested in both politics and mechanics, he inherited his father's affiliation with the Republican Party, the party that dominated politics back in his time, but New York was a swing state rather than a Republican state. Upstate New York was (and still is today) a reliably Republican stronghold within the state of New York while Southern New York had always leaned Democratic and still does today. Joseph's mother got him an environmental job in the Fulton Chain of Lakes in 1896.

### Education and Early Career

Joseph went to high school in Mont-Tremblant, Quebec, Canada, due to a student exchange program, and his parents were extremely proud. Joseph saw his cousin Jack King Berks there. In 1898, he graduated and attended the State University of New York after returning back to the United States of America in 1899. At some point, he met, dated, and then married Juliet Diana Burton in 1897. Berks started to work in a steel factory, gaining a leadership position for his rising reputation of being a well-prepared worker. He was transitioned to work for his father's mechanic business, Berks Industries. Berks ran a bootlegging business during prohibition to make extra money for his new family, in which his first son, Joseph Wallace Berks II was born in 1900, and then another child on the way will be Jane Ann Berks by 1901. Berks' association with Moonshiners have threatened Berks if he were to enter public life when he'll join Garfield Webster's administration.

Berks joined the Republican Party, which was part of the Fourth Party System, which was an era of Republican dominance starting with the 1896 election of President William McKinley, and it ended with the Great Depression and the subsequent election of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

### Lack of Personal Morality

Starting in 1896, it was becoming clear that Joseph Berks had no regard for personal morality. Berks gained a personal distaste for the poor, though he favored having them work for his father's business, but he wanted them to work as slaves. In 1907, he opposed giving help for his younger brother, John, before he would die at age 14, because he saw helping someone in desperate need would be a "sign of weakness". In 1921, he opposed giving help to his dying grandmother, Eleanor Joan Winslow Berks, from facing death from sickness.

In 1901, he started using child labor and getting money off from the children.

## Webster Premiership

Getting involved in politics, Joseph Berks becomes an advisor for Prime Minister of Chawosauria Garfield Lucas Webster. Berks was never a progressive, he was a conservative Republican, but he made compromises with the extremely progressive Republican Garfield Lucas Webster. Webster enacted stronger labor unions, stronger protections for workers, and strong environmental regulations, which none of which were supported by Berks, but compromised in favor of Webster's policies. But Joseph Berks was a supporter for civil rights for African Americans, while Webster was not, Berks tried to convince Webster to oppose Jim Crow, but Webster refused.

In a segregated America, Berks fought for the promotion of black employment, the reliability on black workers, and stronger relations with black workers as key for business success but Berks was often shrugged aside as a result.

Berks offered Garfield Webster that he can have sex with his own daughter, Jane Ann Berks, despite she was underaged. Webster and Berks stroke a deal that Webster can hire Jane as an intern, and then he can rape her with Berks' "permission", the reason Berks made this deal was because he wanted to win over Webster over a policy. Jane was informed that Webster was tapped her for employment, Jane was told by her father to take the job offer. Eventually, Webster did tried to rape Jane but failed because Jane fought back and told him that she loved her old friend and partner James Dylan Oakes. Webster fired her and wished for her death from a sexually transmitted disease from James Oakes.

Furious with Joseph Berks, Webster threatened to terminate Berks. The fallout of Webster's sexual assault on Jane was bad, Berks' mother was angry with him and Webster, but Abigail Wallace Berks was mostly upset with Garfield Webster because he knew him they were children and was shocked that Webster would assault her granddaughter, but furious with her son for allowing his daughter to be assaulted. Joseph Wallace Berks II gave his daughter comfort. Berks' other daughters: Joselyn, Juliet, and Jill were angry and afraid of him.