Archives West Finding Aid

Senator Burton K. Wheeler (1882-1975) began his law career in Butte, and served as U.S. Attorney for Montana from 1913 to 1918 prior to his election to the U.S. Senate in 1922. His first action in the senate was to begin investigations of corruption in the Department of Justice which resulted in the resignation of the head of the Bureau of Investigation. Within six months, the Bureau of Investigation, seeking revenge, attempted to frame the senator. The case resulted in Wheeler being acquitted and becoming a national political figure, which standing was increased in 1924 when he ran for vice-president on the Progressive Party presidential ticket. Wheeler is remembered as one of the most powerful senators in Washington D.C. in the 1930s. Chairman of the Interstate Commerce Committee and of the Indian Affairs Committee, he personally influenced such key New Deal legislation as the Public Utilities Holding Company Act of 1935 and the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 (the Wheeler-Howard Act). In 1937, he successfully led the opposition to President Roosevelt's attempt to pack the Supreme Court with justices of his own political persuasion. Throughout his years of service he was consistently opposed to war, and so supported neutrality legislation in the 1930s, spoke out against peacetime conscription in 1940 and 1941, and fought against the Lend-Lease aid to Britain in 1941. After the United States decided to enter the war, however, Wheeler gave his full support to the effort.