Burton K. Wheeler
Burton Wheeler | |
---|---|
United States Senator from Montana | |
In office March 4, 1923 – January 3, 1947 | |
Preceded by | Henry L. Myers |
Succeeded by | Zales Ecton |
United States Attorney for the District of Montana | |
In office 1912 – October 1918 | |
Member of the Montana House of Representatives | |
In office 1910–1912 | |
Personal details | |
Born | Burton Kendall Wheeler February 27, 1882 Progressive (1924) |
Spouse | Lulu White |
Children | 6, including Frances |
Education | University of Michigan (LLB) |
Burton Kendall Wheeler (February 27, 1882 – January 6, 1975) was an attorney and an American politician of the Democratic Party in Montana, which he represented as a United States senator from 1923 until 1947.[1]
Born in Massachusetts, Wheeler began practicing law in
As a freshman senator, Wheeler played a crucial role in exposing the
Wheeler lost reelection in 1946 and retired to private practice in Washington, D.C.
Early life
Wheeler was born in
He traveled west to attend University of Michigan Law School, where he graduated in 1905. He initially intended to settle in Seattle, but after getting off the train in Butte, Montana, he lost his belongings in a poker game. The new attorney settled there and began practicing law.[4][5]
Political career
1910s
Wheeler was elected as a
1920s
In
Wheeler ran as a Democrat for the Senate in
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.[8][9] He voted for the Immigration Act of 1924 which limited Catholic and Jewish immigration, and almost entirely banned Asian immigrants.[10] 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.[11][12][13][14][15] In an otherwise negative assessment of Wheeler's career and views, journalist John Gunther called the indictment "pure vindictive retaliation, a frameup," laying the blame upon Attorney General Daugherty.[16]
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.
1930s
In 1930, Wheeler gained national attention when he successfully campaigned for the reelection to the U.S. Senate of his friend and Democratic colleague
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.[17] Now commonly known as the Wheeler resolution, it was approved on June 13, 1938[18] and the next year the Federal Communications Commission implemented a 50,000 watt cap, which still remains in force.[19]
1940s
America First Committee
Wheeler, an outspoken
He strongly supported the isolationist
As chair of the "Wheeler Committee" (formally, the
After the start of World War II in Europe, Wheeler opposed aid to Britain or France. 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's secret Victory Program was leaked on 4 December 1941 to Wheeler, who passed this information on to three newspapers.[5][27][28]
World War II
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."[29]
Wheeler had always considered himself to be a champion of civil liberties for unpopular groups and World War II was no exception. Agreeing with such critics of the Sedition Trial of 1944 as Senator Robert A. Taft and leading constitutional scholar Zechariah Chafee, he regarded the Sedition Trial of 1944 a “disgrace” and a scheme to smear more mainstream critics of FDR's pre-war foreign policy. Wheeler also criticized the internment of Japanese Americans though he apparently did not speak out publicly. In 1962, he recalled that he had “protested to various high-level government officials,” including his friend Under Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson, asserting that internment violated the “principles of the Four Freedoms.” He warned that if the government “can get away with such treatment of citizens of Japanese descent, it can do the same to any minority.” [30]
In 1945, Wheeler was among the seven senators who opposed full United States entry into the United Nations.[31]
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. His defeat has been attributed, in part, to a pamphlet by David George Plotkin entitled The Plot Against America: Senator Wheeler and the Forces Behind Him. Published by supporters of the Communist Party, the pamphlet accused Wheeler, along with President Harry S. Truman, of being part of a fascist conspiracy.[32] Montana writer Joseph Kinsey Howard called it "one of the worst books ever written" about a politician. It later emerged that the pamphlet had been backed by an aide of Jerry J. O'Connell, a political rival of Wheeler's in Montana politics.[33]
One political commentator characterized the fall of Wheeler's political fortunes by the end of his career:
Though Wheeler was accused of becoming a conservative, even reactionary, he remained consistent to the Populist-Progressive tradition in blaming eastern bankers for his ills. In his early years he lumped together the eastern financial interests with capitalism; in 1946 they were partners in crime with Communism. The man was the same, as were his methods, but his sense of timing and knowledge of the Montana voter were not as acute as they had been. By 1946, Wheeler was more acceptable to conservatives than liberals.[34]
1950s
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.[35]
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.
Personal life, death, and legacy
Wheeler married Lulu M. White. She was a major political advisor. They had six children: John, Elizabeth, Edward, Frances, Richard and Marion and beloved great grandchild Willa K Snow (of Edward). Frances helped her father with his research for his autobiography, Yankee from the West: The Candid, Turbulent Life Story of the Yankee-born U.S. Senator from Montana, which he published in 1962 and dedicated to her and his wife.[36]
Wheeler died age 92 on January 6, 1975, in Washington, D.C., and is interred in the District of Columbia's Rock Creek Cemetery.[37] His Butte home is a National Historic Landmark in recognition of his national political role.[38]
In 2004, political writer Bill Kauffman of The American Conservative described Wheeler as having been notable as an "anti-draft, anti-war, anti-big business defender of civil liberties".[39]
In popular culture
- The 1939 film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and its source material, the unpublished novel The Gentleman from Montana,[40] were loosely based on Wheeler's experience investigating the Harding administration.[41]
- In Governor of Montana Sam V. Stewart during World War I.)[39]
- In a lesser-known alternate history novel, The Divide (1980) by William Overgard, Wheeler becomes president in 1940, campaigning on a platform of isolationism despite Axis victories (far larger than those which actually occurred). When the U.S. belatedly enters the war, it is defeated in 1946 and partitioned between Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, and Wheeler is ultimately executed as a war criminal.[citation needed]
See also
References
- ^ Howard, Joseph Kinsey (March 1947). "The decline and fall of Burton K. Wheeler". Harper's Magazine. March 1947. Harper's. Retrieved May 19, 2019.
- ^ "Burton K. Wheeler, Isolationist, Dies". The New York Times. January 7, 1975.
- OCLC 800737501.
- Harper & Brothers. p. 176.
- ^ a b c Tribune Staff. "125 Montana Newsmakers: Burton K. Wheeler". Great Falls Tribune. Archived from the original on January 10, 2013. Retrieved August 27, 2011.
- JSTOR 26322816. Retrieved March 25, 2021.
- ^ Current Biography. 1940. p. 858.
- ^ "Burton Wheeler, former Senator for Montana". GovTrack.us. Retrieved March 6, 2021.
- ^ Bianculli, Joseph L. (April 23, 1993). "The Indictment and Trial of Sen. Wheeler". The Washington Post. Retrieved March 6, 2021.
- ^ "TO AGREE TO REPORT OF CONFERENCE COMMITTEE ON H.R. 7995, (APP. 5/26/1924, 43 STAT. L. 153), A BILL TO LIMIT THE IMMIGRATION OF ALIENS INTO THE UNITED STATES. (P. 8568-2)". Senate Vote #126 in 1924 (68th Congress).
- ^
LCCN 26000277.
- ^
Fischer, Nick (May 15, 2016). Spider Web: The Birth of American Anticommunism. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 9780816658336. Retrieved May 19, 2019.
- ^ Dallek, Matthew (February 18, 1996). "The Good Anti-Communists". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved May 18, 2019.
- ^
Kelley, Beverly Merrill (1998). Reelpolitik. Praeger. p. 154. ISBN 9780275960186. Retrieved May 18, 2019.
- ^ "Wheeler to Call His Foes in Frame-Up" (PDF). Daily Worker. April 11, 1924. p. 2. Retrieved May 18, 2019.
- ^ Gunther, John, Inside USA, Curtis Publishing Company, 1946, pg. 178
- ^ "Limitation of Power of Radio Broadcast Stations" (Senate Resolution 294), Journal of the Senate of the United States of America (Seventy-Fifth Congress, Third Session), June 9, 1938, page 507.
- ^ "Radio Stations Broadcasting in Standard Band", Journal of the Senate of the United States of America (Seventy-Fifth Congress, Third Session), June 13, 1938, page 539.
- ^ "Proposed New FCC Rules Well Received", Broadcasting, February 1, 1939, pages 16-17, 70-73.
- ^ gordonskene (May 4, 2017). "May 4, 1941 - Burton K. Wheeler Makes The Case Against Intervention". pastdaily.com. Retrieved April 17, 2018.
- ^ Johnson (2012), p. 12.
- ^ Anderson (1982) p 142.
- ^ Seaton, Matt. "When Is a Nazi Salute Not a Nazi Salute?". New York Review of Books. Retrieved July 29, 2020.
- ^ Investigation of Communist Infiltration of Government. US GPO. December 13, 1955. pp. 2957–8. Retrieved November 12, 2019.
- ^ David Gordon.America First: the Anti-War Movement, Charles Lindbergh and the Second World War, 1940-1941
- ^ Inside U.S.A. (Gunther), p. 175.
- ^ Charles E. Kirkpatrick, Writing the Victory Plan of 1941, Ch. 4, "Detailed Planning", United States Army Center of Military History, CMH Pub 93-10.
- ^ Anderson (1982) pp 255-268.
- ISBN 9780300190861.
- ISBN 978-1598133561.
- ^ "UNO Bill Approved By Senate, 65 to 7, With One Change". The New York Times. December 4, 1945. Retrieved December 27, 2016.
- ^ "Wheeler's Progress: The Evolution of a Progressive", antiwar.com, May 1, 2009.
- ^ Johnson, Marc (January 2, 2021). "Montana Profile: The Montana Roots of "The Plot Against America"". Montana View. Retrieved December 11, 2022.
- ^ Study of the defeat of Senator Burton K. Wheeler in the 1946 Democratic primary election. August 28, 1950. Retrieved December 11, 2022.
- ^ Hearings Regarding Communist Espionage in the United States Government. August 28, 1950. pp. 2959–2986. Retrieved October 21, 2017.
- ^ Yankee from the West: The Candid, Turbulent Life Story of the Yankee-born U. S. Senator from Montana, by Burton K. Wheeler and Paul F. Healy, Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1962, full text online
- ^ Burton K. Wheeler profile, Political Graveyard website
- ^ George R. Adams and Ralph Christian (February 1976). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination: Burton K. Wheeler House" (pdf). National Park Service.
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(help) and Accompanying 2 photos, exterior, from 1975. (681 KB) - ^ a b Bill Kauffman, "Heil to the Chief", The American Conservative, September 27, 2004.
- ^ "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) - Notes". TCM. Retrieved March 28, 2020.
- ^ Sklar, Robert (2002). "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (PDF). loc.gov. Library of Congress. Archived (PDF) from the original on March 24, 2019. Retrieved March 6, 2021.
Works cited
- Johnson, Marc C. (2019). Political Hell-Raiser – The Life and Times of Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana. ISBN 9780806163765.
Further reading
- ISBN 978-1598133561.
- Burke, Robert E. “A Friendship in Adversity: Burton K. Wheeler and Hiram W. Johnson.” Montana: The Magazine of Western History, 36#1 (1986), pp. 12–25. online
- Johnson, Marc C. (2019). Political Hell-Raiser – The Life and Times of Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana (University of Oklahoma Press). Scholarly biography.
- Johnson, Marc C. (Winter 2012). "Franklin D. Roosevelt, Burton K. Wheeler, and the Great Debate: A Montana Senator's Crusade for Non-intervention before World War II". ISSN 0026-9891.
- Malone, Michael P. "Montana Politics and the New Deal." Montana: The Magazine of Western History 21.1 (1971): 2–11. online
- Morrison, John; Morrison, Catherine Wright (2003). Mavericks: The Lives and Battles of Montana's Political Legends. ISBN 978-0-917298-93-6.
- Ruetten, Richard T. "Showdown in Montana, 1938: Burton Wheeler's Role in the Defeat of Jerry O'Connell" Pacific Northwest Quarterly 54.1 (1963) 19-29 online
- Ruetten, Richard T. “Burton K. Wheeler and the Montana Connection.” Montana 27#3 (1977), pp. 2–19. online
PhD dissertations available at academic libraries
- Anderson, John Thomas (1982). Senator Burton K. Wheeler and United States foreign relations (PhD thesis). OCLC 830732304.
- Ruetten, Richard T. (1961). Burton K. Wheeler of Montana: A Progressive Between the Wars (PhD thesis). OCLC 8396313.
- Ruetten, Richard T. (1957). Burton K. Wheeler, 1905-1925, An Independent Liberal Under Fire (Master's thesis). OCLC 26530769.
Primary sources
- Wheeler, Burton Kendall; Healy, Paul F. (1962). Yankee from the West: The Candid, Turbulent Life Story of the Yankee-born U.S. Senator from Montana. OCLC 800737501., his autobiography.
External links
- Media related to Burton K. Wheeler at Wikimedia Commons
- Congress bioguide
- Burton K. Wheeler mentioned in Episode 5 and Episode 8 of Rachel Maddow's Ultra podcast (2022)