Library of Congress

BURTON, Joseph Ralph, a Senator from Kansas; born near Mitchell, Lawrence County, Ind., November 16, 1852; attended the common schools, Franklin (Ind.) College, and DePauw University at Greencastle; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1875 and commenced practice in Princeton, Ind.; moved to Abilene, Dickinson County, Kans., in 1878; member, State house of representatives 1882-1886; appointed a member of the World’s Fair Columbian Commission at Chicago in 1893, representing Kansas; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1901, until his resignation on June 4, 1906; chairman, Committee on Forest Reservations and Game Protection (Fifty-seventh and Fifty-eighth Congresses); convicted in 1904 (convicted again on appeal in 1906) of the charge of illegally receiving compensation for services rendered before a federal department and served five months in prison; returned to Abilene, Kans., and engaged in the newspaper business; died in Los Angeles, Calif., February 27, 1923; was cremated and the ashes deposited in the columbarium of the Los Angeles Crematory Association; ashes removed in 1928 for burial in Burton family plot in Abilene Cemetery in Abilene, Kansas.