Wayne Wheeler

Wayne Bidwell Wheeler (November 10, 1869 – September 5, 1927) was an American attorney and longtime leader of the Anti-Saloon League. The leading advocate of the prohibitionist movement in the late 1800s and early 1900s, he played a major role in the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which outlawed the manufacture, distribution, and sale of alcoholic beverages.

Wheeler was a native of Brookfield Township in Trumbull County, Ohio, where he was raised on his family's farm. A childhood accident caused by an intoxicated hired hand gave Wheeler a lifelong aversion to alcohol. He used the story later to recruit converts to the prohibition movement and to promote a prohibition amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Wheeler graduated from high school in Sharon, Pennsylvania, received his teaching qualification, and taught for two years before becoming a student at Oberlin College. After graduating in 1894, Wheeler became an organizer for the Anti-Saloon League. He earned his LL.B. degree from Western Reserve University in 1898. In 1902, Wheeler became a leader of the Anti-Saloon League, and perfected a system of single-issue pressure politics, including media campaigns and public demonstrations, to win enactment of laws limiting or banning the sale and consumption of alcohol.

Wheeler's career hit its high point with the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act in 1920. As enforcement of Prohibition became increasingly difficult, federal agencies resorted to draconian measures including poisoning alcohol to try to dissuade people from consuming it. His nondrinking stance started while working on the farm, when an intoxicated hired hand accidentally stabbed Wheeler with a hayfork. As an adult, Wheeler turned the incident into an effective anecdote that supported his position on banning the use of alcohol.

Early career Wheeler was studying at Oberlin when Howard Hyde Russell offered him a job with the newly-organized Anti-Saloon League (ASL), saying later that he saw in Wheeler "a loving, spirited self-sacrificing soul who yearns to help the other fellow."

After graduating in 1894, Wheeler accepted Russell's job offer and became a field organizer for the ASL. Wheeler studied law while working for the ASL, and in 1898, he earned his LL.B. degree from Western Reserve University.

Wheeler's background in teaching and law enabled him to become a skilled organizer and debater, and after receiving his law degree, he was appointed head of the ASL's legal office, where he was responsible for initiating numerous lawsuits in support of regulating the production, sale, and consumption of alcohol. and its full-time executive director, and in 1904, he was appointed to the post permanently. Wheeler advocated for prohibitionists to enforce laws strictly and unsympathetically, rather than attempting to curb alcohol consumption through treatment and education. Wheelerism also included direct persuasion of those in power with tactics such as threats to withdraw campaign endorsements; endorsing and financing opponents; and revealing embarrassing information to obtain support for restrictions on the liquor trade.

Wheeler was able to elect politicians by encouraging the prohibitionists of both political parties to vote for candidates who supported the cause, regardless of party affiliation or position on other issues. Unlike other temperance groups, the ASL recognized the supremacy of the two-party system and worked with Democrats and Republicans, rather than the small ineffective Prohibition Party.

During the Wheeler years, the ASL elected numerous statewide officials, state legislators, and members of Congress. He was buried at Green Lawn Cemetery in Columbus, Ohio.

Legacy Wheeler is not widely known today, but historians familiar with the Prohibition era regard him as playing an important role in the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment. His use of pressure politics, his expertise in building the Prohibition movement, and the time and effort that he contributed to the ASL were the keys to the success of the ASL and the Prohibition movement as a whole.