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It's little known that the statue of "Honest John" Burke
represents North Dakota in the United States Capitol.
The statue stands as a testament
to the life of an early North Dakota governor,
whose hard work, intelligence, and dedication to duty
represents a man who was instrumental
in ridding the state of political corruption.
[banjo plays in bright rhythm]
♫
(Kim Porter) John Burke shows that with a concerted effort,
bossism can be put in its place,
that if the people get cranky enough
that change can happen,
which I think sometimes is quite comforting
to know that change can happen or change will happen
when good people get together.
He arrived just before statehood.
I think he arrives in 1888, and he's elected
to the State House of Representatives,
spends a term there and then is elected to the State Senate,
and he doesn't really shine.
But if you look at his first, say, ten years in public office,
they're not symbolic of the man he'll become.
This was a time that North Dakota politics
were for the most part Republican,
and for the most part
run from afar by a man named Alexander McKenzie.
One of the things that McKenzie did is, he has this control
over the railroads, insurance companies, banks,
and he's able to divvy out the goodies;
he's able to divvy out jobs,
free railroad transportation, these sorts of things.
And it's a pretty strong position;
he's got power, and delivers
to the extent that he actually moves his personal residence
to St. Paul and runs a dedicated telegraph line
from the Merchants Hotel to the Capitol.
So anytime McKenzie wants or needs something,
he can have a message sent directly to the state capitol.
He delivers the capitol; he delivers votes.
All of the governors
between statehood and John Burke
are essentially handpicked by the McKenzie machine.
It's your turn; you've paid your dues.
Fred Fancher, you've paid your dues, Roger Allin,
you've paid your dues, it's your turn to be governor.
And basically you had to be a party loyalist.
And many folks who were not part of the McKenzie gang,
really felt locked out of the Republican party.
You start to see the Republican party fracturing on McKenzieism,
and so you see a unity of individuals
who are progressive Republicans
and the Democrats joining together
in the 1906 election to take out the Republican nominee,
who actually was running for reelection, Elmore Sarles.
At the Democratic nomination process,
when it comes time to nominate a governor
for the 1906 election, Burke is nominated.
People start referring to him as "Honest John,"
"Honest John" Burke, and part of it I think was
his willingness to take on
some of the undesirables at state politics,
that he wasn't willing to be swayed
by apparently some nice offers to go away.
John Burke wins the election, not easily.
This is considered to be quite the surprise to McKenzie.
Supposedly he gets into a fistfight in Bismarck,
that how could he have possibly lost the governor's office,
even though he himself wasn't running,
but how could he possibly have not been able to control it?
Burke shows that you don't have
to be a party loyalist.
In fact, he's the anti-party loyalist, and after that,
I can't swear that every succeeding governor
was upright, upstanding, and morally acceptable,
but I think the governorship does elevate.
It's a different John Burke that takes office in January of '07,
than left politics in about 1905, 1906.
He's just a different--
something has changed in his political mindset.
I don't know if you could take one point
out of the Burke administration,
but I think there's two or three that make it a turning point,
and what it puts away and what it opens up.
We see pure food, pure health,
pure seed, railroads are taxed more highly than they had been,
making a contribution to the larger society.
We see the creation of a traveling public library.
I've always thought of him as the real voice
of progressivism in North Dakota.
We see, I guess would be, a kinder, friendlier government,
one that looks at its own people to what it can do
to make things a little bit better for folks.
I was in Washington, DC summer before last,
and you've got all of these guys lined up.
You've got, you know, Washington and Jefferson
and Robert Livingston almost in a toga,
everyone's looking pretty fine and fancy.
And then there's John Burke.
If you look at all those other statues, you go,
hm, that's North Dakota! [laughs]