Theodore E. Burton
Whatever may have been true in the earlier life of the American republic, it is now quite generally recognized that being elected to Congress is a somewhat uncertain and temporary distinction. The names and deeds of congressmen are written in the sand, and the nation has no long memory of them. Only the few and the exceptional, and those endowed with something of the primeval qualities of leadership and power, become really national figures and forces. It is doubtful if even a well informed student and observer of public affairs could readily name more than a dozen congressmen and senators since the beginning of this century whose name still have significance and vitality and stand out clearly in the national consciousness.
That approximation of political fame has been as nearly attained by Theodore E. Burton of Cleveland as by any of his contemporaries. There was an elemental ruggedness, a definiteness of conviction, and a certain loftiness of purpose in Mr. Burton’s career in the House of Representatives and the Senate during the twenty-two years he was a member of those bodies which men do not forget. In Ohio, of course, and in Cleveland, his home city in particular, hundreds of associations have been built up around his name. But considering him as a national figure, his work as an expert in finance and as a determined enemy of unscientific appropriations fore internal improvements, has gained him hundreds of friends and admirers who perhaps do not know and have never known from what state he comes or anything about his private life except his service in Congress.
Theodore E. Burton is a native of Ohio. In January, 1917 he was elected president of the Merchants National Bank of the City of New York. The duties of that position take him much to the national metropolis, but now as for more than forty years past his home is in Cleveland and that is his legal place of residence.
He was born at Jefferson, Ohio, December 20, 1851. Jefferson was the old home of Joshua R. Giddings and Senator Ben Wade, while other men of national stature and fame came from the same section. It was a community well calculated to inspire high ideals in a boy. But Theodore Burton did not need to look outside his own family for such inspiration. He was of New England stock. His father, Rev. William Burton, was a high-minded minister of the Presbyterian Church and held many pastorates in Southern and Eastern Ohio. In Southern Ohio, Rev. Mr. Burton was intimately associated with Rev. Thomas Woodrow and Rev. Joseph R. Wilson, grandfather and father, respectively of Woodrow Wilson. Senator Burton’s mother was Elizabeth Grant, a distant cousin of the father of Gen. Ulysses Grant.
Senator Burton’s people were in moderate circumstances. They could give him just enough advantages away from home to inspire his zeal and ambition to acquire more. As a boy he attended Grand River Institute at Austinburg, Ohio. When he was still only a boy he moved to Grinnell, Iowa, lived on a farm, and from the farm entered Grinnell College. Returning to Ohio, he graduated from Oberlin College in 1872, and owing to his special proficiency in the classics he remained as a tutor at Oberlin. While there he acquired a considerable knowledge of the Hebrew languages and afterwards he familiarized himself with the French language. It is said that Senator Burton even to this day can quote entire pages from some of the Latin authors.
He studied law at Chicago with Lyman Trumbull, a contemporary and friend of Lincoln and for eighteen years United States Senator from Illinois. It might be mentioned incidentally that William Jennings Bryan was subsequently a student of law in the same office.
Mr. Burton was admitted to the bar at Mount Gilead, Ohio, July 1, 1875, and at once began practice at Cleveland with his cash capital of $150, which he had borrowed.
Mr. Burton’s first public service was as a member of the city council of Cleveland. An associate in the council was Myron T. Herrick, later governor of Ohio and ambassador to France. It was characteristic of Mr. Burton that he did not accept the duties of city councilor lightly. In fact, he gained considerable distinction by his diligent study of municipal problems and a through mastery of the questions of city finance.
It was some years later, and after he had acquired a secure position in the Cleveland bar that Mr. Burton was first elected to Congress. He was elected in 1888, and was associated with William McKinley in framing the McKinley Tariff Act of 1890. In the latter year he was defeated for re-election. He then resumed practice but in 1894 again became a candidate for Congress and defeated the late Tom L. Johnson. From 1895 until March 4, 1909, a period of fourteen years, Theodore E. Burton was continuously a member of the House of Representatives. Frequently no candidate was nominated in opposition to him. During much of this service he was a member and for ten years the chairman of the committee on rivers and harbors. He appointed all the resources of a trained legal mind to the study of the vast and intricate problems that came before this committee for solution. From that study and work was evolved his reputation as the leading authority in the United States on waterways and river and harbor development. President Roosevelt appointed him first chairman of the Inland Waterways Commission and subsequently he was chairman of the National Waterways Commission. These commissions under the direction of Mr. Burton published a series of reports which have become the standard library of waterway problems.
Another subject to which Mr. Burton gave special attention while in the House was monetary and banking legislation. He was prominent in framing the Aldrich-Vreeland Emergency Currency Act, and was a member of the Monetary Commission and author of much of its exhaustive report on the subject of financial legislation and conditions throughout the world. His was one of the strongest influences, both in the House and later in the Senate, in shaping and strengthening the Federal Reserve Law.
It would be impossible to describe in detail all his work while in the House of Representatives. But at least another point should be mentioned. One of the chief questions before the country at that time was the construction of a canal linking the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. It will be recalled that a powerful contingent, headed by the late Senator Morgan, favored the construction along the Nicaragua route. Mr. Burton had made an exhaustive study of both routes, and his presentation of data on the subject proved such a forceful argument for the Panama route that the House supported his contention by a large majority. In a single speech he afterwards changed the opinion of the House from favoring a sea level canal to one of lock type.
On March 4, 1909, Mr. Burton took his seat in the United States Senate. He was elected a member of that body after a spectacular contest with ex-Senator Joseph Foraker and Charles P. Taft. The reputation for sound wisdom he had made in the House preceded him into the Senate, and he at once became a leader in the debates and deliberations of the body. One measure championed by him in Congress, if none other, would make him a proper object of gratitude on the part of the American people. This was the Burton Law, the enactment of which prevents the spoliation of the beauty of Niagara Falls by private corporations. His support to other matters of the conservation of natural resources was always consistently and forcefully given. He fought against the ship purchase program of the democratic administration, and was especially powerful during the consideration of the tariff bills submitted while he was a member of the Senate.
But more than all else he gained the approbation of right thinking citizens by his work in connection with waterways and other internal improvements. He took a firm stand for the application of business standards to the treatment of rivers and harbors and fought, both in committee and on the floor of the Senate, against the waste of public money by lavish appropriations for streams which by nature or experience were found unfitted for practical use. Those who have followed the work of recent congresses will recall how by a single handed filibuster Senator Burton defeated the River and harbor Bill of 1914. By that act he was credited with saving the Government the sum of more than $30,000,000. It required a speech seventeen hours long, during which he exposed the indefensible items contained in the measure. A prophecy made by him in the course of that speech, which not yet fulfilled, is as applicable today as it was then, and contains a political wisdom the country is slowly realizing. He said: “We must test government projects by the same economic rules as a successful business concern would apply to its enterprise and investments. Unless the whole system is overhauled, it will soon be impossible to pass any kind of a river and harbor bill. A commission should be created, preferably composed of the Secretaries of War, of the Interior and of Commence, (sic) with or without other members from civil and military life, to study the whole question and recommend a proper policy for inland waterway and harbor projects. The time is perhaps not far distant when the making of these appropriations will cease to be a legislative function and will depend on the recommendations of a commission, possibly appointed by the president.”
Senator Burton declined to become a candidate for re-election and retired from the Senate March 4, 1915. Since then he has been prominent in public life only in his capacity as a private citizen. In 1916 the Ohio republicans gave him their enthusiastic endorsement as a candidate for the republican nomination for President.
Mr. Burton has been for many years, whether in public life or as a lawyer, a student of business and monetary affairs. These studies have found expression in several books, including “The Life of John Sherman,” “Financial Crises and Depressions,” and “Corporations and the State.”
From Cleveland - Special Limited Edition, The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago & New York, 1918 v.1