BURKE, John, State governor and national treasurer: b. Keokuk County, Iowa, 25 Feb. 1859. He studied at the University of Iowa, receiving the LL.B. degree in 1886, when he removed to North Dakota and was county judge during several years of Rolette County. After being elected member of the North Da kota House of Representatives (1891-93) and State Senator (1893-95), in 1906, 1908 and 1910, on three' occasions, he was elected Democratic Governor of North Dakota. President Wilson in 1913 appointed him Treasurer of the United States.
the New to the Old Whigs' (1791), on French Affairs' (1791), (Remarks on the Policy of the Allies' (1793), (Observations on the Conduct of the Minority) (1793) and (Let ters on a Regicide Peace' (1796)— the reason ing grew feebler, the scolding shriller.
During the same period, when Burke was dealing with a subject on which he was more thoroughly informed, Ireland, he showed his old qualities of statesmanship. He had always been a champion of his down-trodden native land. When Ireland caught the contagion of the French Revolution, and when the war be tween England and France made Ireland still more restless, Burke urged for Ireland the same policy of conciliation that he had urged for America. In letter and pamphlet he unceas ingly advocated relieving the Catholics of their political disabilities.
In 1794 he retired from Parliament. He was to have received a peerage with the title Lord Beaconsfield; but since the death of his son left him without direct male heir, he ac cepted instead a pension. This was the occa sion of a fresh attack upon him by his enemies. He replied effectively in the (Letter to a Noble Lord' (1796).
His zeal in behalf of the wretched and the oppressed was not a mere vague sentiment; it was a motive in his daily conduct. When the poet Crabbe was obscure and penniless, Burke took him into the family, found a printer for his verses and finally obtained for him a living in the Church. At the time of the Revolution,
Burke also kept open house for French refu gees and established a school for their chil dren. Burke's principles of statesmanship, when briefly set down, seem very bald and simple. The basis of his system is explained in a sen tence from one of his letters: "The principles of politics are those of morality enlarged.° The first of the moral laws upon which he rested great weight was justice; the second,. generosity. Knowing that perfect justice could never be obtained, that human institutions are at best compromises, he was not a theorist; he did not fall into the fallacy that the machinery of government may be constructed as if men were uniform, passive units. These phases of his bent for the practical are in the last analy sis a trust in experience. A man who clings so tenaciously to experience is likely to be an uncompromising conservative; and Burke was, for his generation and all generations since, the [great pleader for conservatism.° As an orator he frequently produced no immediate effect. His gestures were clumsy, and when he spoke in public his voice was somewhat harsh, he dropped into a strong Irish brogue and, times, a hurried articulation. But, above all, he overestimated the capacity of his hearers. Not content with a concise presentation of leading points, he insisted on applying profound philo sophic principles. Yet some of his speeches, notably at the trial of Warren Hastings, pro duced a profound effect. This effect was largely due to the vigor of his style as a writer. He was virile, vivid in description and unsurpassed in lucid and logical arrangement of material.
In the winter of 1756-57 he married Jane Nugent, daughter of a physician. Her capacity for management lifted many burdens from his shoulders. His only child, a son, Richard, died in 1794.