Burton K. Wheeler

Burton K. Wheeler was a leading Senate opponent of American involvement in the European war before the attack on Pearl Harbor. His opposition to preparedness and aid to Britain placed him at odds with Harry S. Truman and Franklin D. Roosevelt; after the attack, Wheeler acknowledged that the United States had to fight and defeat its enemies.

Isolationism and Preparedness

As war spread through Europe, Wheeler stood among the Senate’s strident isolationists, alongside Borah and Bennett Clark. Truman, who had once voted for the Neutrality Act of 1936 but came to regard it as a mistake, called instead for stronger military preparedness and changes to the law. His criticism of isolationism put Wheeler on the opposing side of a debate that grew more urgent as Nazi Germany’s military power expanded.

Opposition to Aid for Britain

The dispute sharpened in 1941, when Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed Lend-Lease, which would send arms to Britain on credit. Wheeler opposed the measure and described it as a road to war. His warning that it would “plow under every fourth American boy” became one of the controversy’s most forceful arguments. Roosevelt condemned the remark, while Truman repeatedly voted against amendments intended to restrict the President’s ability to administer the bill.

Wheeler’s position was part of a wider Senate resistance to Roosevelt’s policy. Bennett Clark, who praised Charles A. Lindbergh and opposed aid to Britain, argued that the United States would be better off defending itself than sending supplies to Europe. Truman regarded such arguments as shortsighted and believed that the isolationists had failed to grasp the danger of a German victory.

After Pearl Harbor

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor changed the immediate terms of the debate. By then, Wheeler was saying that the only thing left was to defeat the enemy. The shift marks the limit of the prewar opposition documented here: once the United States had been attacked, the question was no longer whether to provide assistance while remaining outside the war, but how to win it.