Political Career
Wheeler was known as an outstanding orator, and frequently campaigned on behalf of Democratic candidates for office. He served as an assistant presidential elector for his party in the presidential elections of 1884 and 1888 and was the elector for the First District in 1892. In 1892, he was elected city solicitor of Paducah, serving until 1896.
Wheeler was elected to represent the First District in the U.S. House of Representatives. He served in the Fifty-fifth, Fifty-sixth, and Fifty-seventh Congresses (March 4, 1897-March 3, 1903). Wheeler secured significant appropriations for projects in his district, including the expansion of a federal courthouse in Paducah and the protection of a local ice harbor. He used his influence as a member of the Naval Affairs Committee to secure the naming of the USS Paducah. He was later chosen to give the presentation address when the city of Paducah presented a silver service for use on the ship. The Paducah Company of the Kentucky State Guard adopted the name "The Wheeler Guard" in his honor.
When the British tried to prevent U.S. involvement in the Cuban War of Independence and enlisted American citizens for service in the Second Boer War, Wheeler criticized the administration of Republican President Theodore Roosevelt, particularly Secretary of State John Hay, for bringing the country to "this humilitating condition". He vehemently opposed U.S. efforts to purchase The Philippines from Spain for the sum of $20 million. In 1902, he made national headlines by criticizing an official reception for Prince Henry of Prussia and the attendance of Alice Roosevelt at the coronation of King Edward VII as "flunkeyism" and "toadyism". His comments drew mixed reaction from the press, but President Theodore Roosevelt cancelled his daughters trip to King Edward's coronation as a result.
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