Missoulian file Though a staunch progressive, Burton K. Wheeler was an isolationist who criticized Franklin Delano Roosevelt's foreign and domestic policy.

7. Burton K. Wheeler

A fiery progressive, he took on management, a crooked attorney general and FDR

By DON SPRITZER for the Missoulian

Burton K. Wheeler was perhaps the most dynamic and colorful personality ever to cross Montana's political landscape.

In an autobiography written shortly after he left the U.S. Senate, Wheeler astutely summarized his five decades in politics: "Controversy has sparked my public life from start to finish. My opponents have ranged from the giant Anaconda Mining Company to the leaders of both my own Democratic party and the Republican party. The names I've been called run the gamut from Communist to Fascist. ... I've been accused of almost everything but timidity."

The son of a Massachusetts Quaker father and a Methodist mother, Wheeler ventured west after earning a law degree from the University of Michigan. He had not planned on staying in Butte until a poker game in a local saloon cost him his entire savings account. Forced to take a low-paying job with a local attorney, Wheeler quickly adjusted to his new hometown.

As an active Democrat, Wheeler earned a reputation as a champion of organized labor and an outspoken opponent of the Anaconda Copper Co. In 1911, as a young state legislator, Wheeler supported the U.S. senatorial candidacy of Helena attorney, Thomas J. Walsh. After Walsh gained the Senate seat, he repaid Wheeler by securing his appointment as U.S. Attorney for the Montana district. At 31, Wheeler became the nation's youngest federal district attorney.

As wartime hysteria gripped Montana in 1918, the list of Wheeler's enemies grew because he refused to prosecute many of those charged with sedition or treason. He also continued to court the backing of Butte's more radical labor leaders. After securing the support of the powerful, left-leaning nonpartisan league, Wheeler garnered the Democratic nomination for governor.

Labeled a "Bolshevik" by the Anaconda Co. press, Wheeler lost the election by a large margin to fellow progressive Joseph M. Dixon. The volatile race almost cost Wheeler his life. While campaigning in Dillon, he spent the night hiding in a railroad car in order to escape a lynch mob. Opponents later referred to him as "Boxcar Burt."

Wheeler managed to overcome such labels and gained election to the U.S. Senate in 1922 after voters blamed Republicans for Montana's worsening agricultural depression. Once in the Senate, Wheeler earned national headlines for his vigorous prosecution of President Warren Harding's crooked attorney general, Harry M. Daugherty. In 1924, the young senator temporarily abandoned the Democratic Party to run for vice president on the national Progressive Party ticket headed by Wisconsin's Robert LaFollette. The third-party rebellion had gained heavy support in many states including Montana.

By 1930, Wheeler was back in the Democratic fold and became one of the first national figures to support the presidential candidacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt. During the early New Deal years, Wheeler sponsored a number of important successful bills, including measures to regulate public utilities, reorganize the nation's Indian reservations and fund construction of Montana's Fort Peck Dam.

But in 1937, the independent-minded Wheeler parted company with Roosevelt after the president sought passage of a measure to add new justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. Wheeler led the successful fight in the Senate against the so-called "court packing" bill. By 1940, many were backing Wheeler's unannounced bid for the presidency until Roosevelt decided to seek a third term.

As America inched ever closer to involvement in World War II, Wheeler, an avowed isolationist, emerged as a leading opponent of Roosevelt's foreign policy. As the debate grew ever more heated, Roosevelt labeled one of Wheeler's more vitriolic anti-war remarks "the most untruthful, dastardly, unpatriotic thing that has been said in public life in my generation."

Throughout the war, Wheeler remained an outspoken critic of many of the president's programs. But the senator's star was beginning to fade. At its peak during the 1930s, the powerful bipartisan "Wheeler machine" in Montana had secured the election of at least two Republican congressmen and a Republican governor.

By 1946, however, Wheeler's continued opposition to Roosevelt and support of Republican candidates in Montana had eroded his base of support among the state's farmers and labor unions.

In that year's Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate, young upstart Leif Erickson unseated Wheeler in one of the most stunning political upsets Montanans had ever witnessed.

Wheeler survived the loss and continued to practice law until his death in 1975 at age 92. He also continued to speak out on the issues of the day. In typical Wheeler form, he blasted America's involvement in the Vietnam War and the tactics employed by young anti-war protesters.

– Don Spritzer is a reference librarian at the Missoula Public Library and author of "Roadside History of Montana."