Burton K. Wheeler

Wheeler was elected as a Montana state legislator in 1910, and in that position, he gained a reputation as a champion of labor against the Anaconda Copper Mining Company that dominated the state's economy and politics. He was appointed as a United States Attorney. During his tenure, he was notable for not issuing a single sedition indictment during World War I, especially significant as Montana was a large stronghold of the Industrial Workers of the World. In other parts of the country, IWW membership was suppressed under the new sedition law.

Time cover, 18 Jun 1923

US Senator Burton K. Wheeler

In 1920, Wheeler ran for Governor of Montana, easily winning the Democratic primary, and he won the support of the Non-Partisan League in the general election. The ticket included a multi-racial set of candidates, unusual for 1920, including an African American and a Blackfoot Indian.[6] Wheeler was defeated by Republican former U.S. Senator Joseph M. Dixon.[5]

Wheeler ran as a Democrat for the Senate in 1922, and was elected over Congressman Carl W. Riddick, the Republican nominee, with 55% of the vote. He broke with the Democratic Party in 1924 to run for Vice President of the United States on the Progressive Party ticket led by La Follette. They carried one state—La Follette's Wisconsin—and ran well in union areas and railroad towns.

Early on in his career as a U.S. Senator, Wheeler played a leading role in exposing the Harding Administration's unwillingness to prosecute administration officials involved in the Teapot Dome scandal. His special committee held sensational Senate hearings regarding bribery and other corruption in Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty's Justice Department, which ultimately resulted in the indictment of Daugherty and others.[7][8] In 1925, Wheeler faced investigation, without major impact, by Blair Coan, a Justice Department investigator from Chicago, who suspected Wheeler of involvement in communist conspiracy.[9][10][11][12][13]

Wheeler returned to the Democratic Party after the election, which Republican Calvin Coolidge won in an Electoral College landslide. He served a total of four terms and was re-elected in 1928, 1934, and 1940.

In 1930, Wheeler gained national attention when he successfully campaigned for the reelection to the U.S. Senate of his friend and Democratic colleague Thomas Gore, the colorful "Blind Cowboy" of Oklahoma. Wheeler supported President Franklin D. Roosevelt's election, and many of his New Deal policies. He broke with Roosevelt over his opposition to the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937, and also opposed much of Roosevelt's foreign policy before World War II. In the 1940 presidential election, there was a large movement to "Draft Wheeler" into the presidential race, possibly as a third party candidate, led primarily by John L. Lewis.

In 1938, Wheeler introduced Senate Resolution 294, a "sense of the senate" statement that, in order to ensure fair competition, AM radio stations in the United States should be limited to a transmitter power of 50,000 watts.[14] Now commonly known as the Wheeler resolution, it was approved on June 13, 1938[15] and the next year the Federal Communications Commission implemented a 50,000 watt cap, which still remains in force.[16]

Wheeler, an outspoken non-interventionist, opposed the U.S. entry into World War II.[17]

As tensions mounted in Europe, he supported the anti-war America First Committee, appearing to give the Nazi salute at a rally for the committee in 1941.[18] As chair of the "Wheeler Committee" (formally, the Subcommittee to Investigate Railroads, Holding Companies, and Related Matters of the United States Senate Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce),[19] Wheeler announced in August 1941 he would investigate “interventionists” in the motion picture industry, which was interpreted as anti-Semitic. He questioned why so many foreign-born men were allowed to shape American opinion. "Critics charged that the Committee was motivated by animus to Jewish studio heads."[20] Representing the studios was 1940 Republican Presidential candidate Wendell Willkie who charged that Wheeler and other critics sought to impose the same kind of censorship that Nazi Germany was enacting all over Europe. Wheeler also led the attack on Roosevelt's Lend Lease Bill, charging that if passed "it would plow under every fourth American boy".[21] Roosevelt in response charged that Wheeler's statement was "the damnedest thing said in a generation".

After the start of World War II in Europe, Wheeler opposed aid to Britain or the other Allies, already fighting in the war. On October 17, 1941, Wheeler said: "I can't conceive of Japan being crazy enough to want to go to war with us." One month later, he added: "If we go to war with Japan, the only reason will be to help England." The United States Army secret Victory Program was leaked on 4 December 1941 to Wheeler, who passed this information on to three newspapers.[5][22]

Following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, Wheeler supported a declaration of war saying, "The only thing now to do is to lick the hell out of them."[23]

Wheeler sought renomination in 1946 but was defeated in the Democratic primary by Leif Erickson, who attacked Wheeler as insufficiently liberal and for his "pre-war isolationist" views. Erickson in turn was defeated by Republican state representative Zales Ecton.

On September 15, 1950, Wheeler served as counsel to fellow Democrat from Minnesota Max Lowenthal during the latter's testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee.[24]

Wheeler did not return to politics, nor full-time to Montana, but took up his law practice in Washington, D.C. Aided by research by his daughter, Frances (died 1957), Wheeler wrote his autobiography, with Paul F. Healy, Yankee from the West, published in 1962 by Doubleday & Company. He dedicated the book to his wife and daughter.

• Wheeler, Burton K., with Paul F. Healy, Yankee from the West: The Candid, Turbulent Life Story of the Yankee-born U. S. Senator from Montana, Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1962, full text online at Internet Archive Website