Evening star., 1924-07-19

village shoemaker, though his mother
was a Hale and member of a New
England family of note. An unevent-
full youth presently brought out the
boy as a graduate of business train
ing school and a stenographer, who
got a job in Boston and went to work
at it.
He mad. however. an ambition to
study law, which was little encour-
aged by his older brothers, and an
ambition to go West, which was even
less encouraged. With the savings
of his stenographic employment he
cut himself loose from Massachu-
sets. went to Ann Arbor, Mich, and
entered University of Michigan Law
School He waited table, cut lawns
and tended furnaces outside of lee
ture hours at the university, and in
summer secured the rural sections
of the Middle West. selling books. So
engaged, he stopped one day at an
Illinois farmhouse and met the
daughter of the family, Miss Lulu
White, now his wife and mother of
his four children.
Forced to Stop in Butte.
Through school. and possessed OF
the legal education he had sought in
spite of the advice of relatives and
friends Wheeler started west again,
aiming for San Francisco. He had as
little money as when he landed at
Ann Arbor, and when he got to Butte,
Mont, he had to stop to earn some
more.
The great Montana copper city was
a difficult town in the early years or
the present century when the future
senator landed there, minus frlenos
and money, and. cursed with the COM
hination of nasal and broad-voweled
Yankee accent, which in those times
always pricked up suspiciousiy the
Western ear But, somehow. the
Young attorney got on his feet. BY
pushing forlorn-h hope damage suits or
injured miners against the big min
ing companies he began to attract
attention in his profession and at tho
same time was drawn into alignment
with q liberal political element as q
spokesman of which he was sent to
the Montana State Senate. He aided
there in the election Of Senator Walsh,
Democrat Montana, and later Senator
Walsh procured for him the appoint
ment as Federal district attorney in
Montana, in 1913.
Rejected by Wilson.
The turbulent hard-rock miners OF the
Butte underground were stirred to
pretty constant activity from the time
the German kaiser tried out his war ma
chine against the world. The soaring
price of copper, which registered the
| munitions demand. was a temptation for
| agitation, and there was constant clash
| ing between employer and employe and
between I. w. w. and trades unionist.
| When the United States was drawn into
the war the labor struggles grew more
deadly, and Wheeler was accused by his
enemies of looking with q too friendly
eye upon all the miners and their leader.
In 1918 President Wilson settled the is
sue by refusing to reappoint him as dis
trict attorney.
Out of the schism grew a fight inside
the Democratic party. In 1920 Wheeler
was nominated for governor against the
opposition Of most Of the regulars Of his
| party. but with the Endorsement of the
| Non-Partisan League. Defeated in this
campaign, he was promptly nominated
in 1922 for the Senate, with the same
backing, and swept the field, coming
down to Washington to align himself
with the Senate La Toilette group a.
one Of its most outspoken adherentA
Warred on DanEAeFty.
Taking charge OF the attack on
former Attorney Gen. Daugherty, he
waged q war as unrelenting - any Of
the, Montana campaigns out Of which
arstn>SanatoeahiA .1ns1tz