User:Fornax52B/Steven Burgauer

Steven Burgauer was an author and former stockbroker and ran as a Libertarian candidate against Dick Durbin in the 2002 Illinois United States Senate race. He received 57,382 votes or approximately 2% of the vote total.

As a candidate, he laid out seven goals: sharply cut income taxes, eliminate the Social Security tax, eliminate the capital-gains tax, protect the 2nd and 4th amendments, introduce choice into education, strengthen our intelligence-gathering capability, and build a national missile defense system.

He wrote and distributed to newspapers and other venues nearly a dozen position papers outlining how these goals might be achieved.

Position Papers

Some of the titles include:


 * The Proper Role of Government
 * How To Pay For Government
 * The Modern-Day Serf
 * School Choice
 * An Armed Society Can Be a Polite Society
 * Where Can We Cut?
 * The United Nations
 * Limited Government--A Quaint Idea?
 * A Grim Fairy Tale
 * Sewage and Perfume
 * Pocket of Tyranny
 * A Sane Transportation Policy for Illinois
 * The Economic Slavery of our Children
 * From Each According to His Ability . ..
 * The Scam That is Social Security

His background as an economist and as a stockbroker was cited by him as the reason for wanting to run for public office. Some commentators did not take his candidacy serious because he also wrote science fiction.Steven Burgauer's Science Fiction

His degree in economics was from Illinois State University, where he also taught for two years. As a stockbroker he worked for a predecessor firm to the modern Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, which was Hornblower & Weeks. He started a mutual fund, Guidance Investments, Inc., and successfully managed it for seven years. As a broker he formed a partnership with Ferdinand P. Sperl, a hotel owner and officer in World War II. (See below for some interesting tidbits on Mr. Sperl's military career.)

Steven grew up in Libertyville, Illinois, and lived most of his adult life in Peoria, Illinois, also the home to Philip José Farmer, world-famous science fiction writer and Hugo Award winner. Mr. Farmer helped Steven in several ways to become a better writer. Mr. Farmer wrote a blurb for Steven's second book, "The Brazen Rule". They also collaborated, along with several other prominent authors, on a round-robin mystery book entitled "Naked Came The Farmer", loosely based on the earlier and more famous literary hoax "Naked Came the Stranger". Other similar books include "Naked Came the Manatee," a project of the Miami Herald and headlined by the humorist Dave Barry. Also, "Naked Came The Summer" and "Naked Came The Phoenix."

The other authors in the "Naked Came The Farmer" project were (in the order of their chapters): Philip José Farmer, Dorothy Cannell, Nancy Atherton, Julie Kistler, Steven Burgauer, Terry Bibo, Jerry Klein, Tracy Knight, Garry Moore, Joel Steinfeldt, David Everson, Joseph Flynn, and Bill Knight.

More recently Mr. Burgauer has written books on other subjects besides science fiction, including an investment guide and a first-person account of the D-Day landings on Omaha Beach, June, 1944, entitled "THE ROAD TO WAR: Duty & Drill, Courage & Capture." It is based on the memoirs and diary of Captain William C. Frodsham, Jr. of Hackensack, New Jersey. Captain Frodsham was in the 29th Infantry Division and held in Oflag 64, a German POW camp.

Mr. Burgauer is a member of the Society of Midland Authors.

Steven's business partner, Ferdinand P.Sperl, served with distinction as an American officer during World War II.

As World War II neared its end in Europe, an interesting story of rescue unfolded. With his Lipizzaner stallions now in the safe hands of General George S. Patton Jr., and the U.S. Third Army, Colonel Podhajsky was faced with another concern. Two years earlier in 1943, the Lipizzaners' breeding mares, which were bred to supply the Spanish Riding School's stallions, were taken by the German High Command from the lush green pastures of the Austrian Federal Stud in Fiber. Podhajsky knew that without the mares, the Lipizzaner stallions and the Spanish Riding School faced extinction.

What Colonel Podhajsky did not know at the time was that General Patton was already involved in the Spanish Riding School's destiny.

Nine days before, Patton had given approval to one of his commanders, Col. Charles Hancock Reed of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Group (Mechanized), to execute an operation to rescue from the German Army more than 1,000 horses that included the Fiber breeding mares.

The story of the dramatic rescue began on April 25,1945, when Capt. Ferdinand P. Sperl, who was attached as an interrogator to the 2nd Armored Cavalry Group, received information that a German intelligence unit that lacked transportation to Berlin was bivouacked in an area on the Czechoslovakian border. After negotiating with the German commander, Capt. Sperl led an "attack" early on April 26, and after a prearranged exchange of harmless gun fire, the Germans surrendered.