Baby’s Awake Now

Montana’s arch-isolationist Senator Burton K. Wheeler voted against repeal of the arms embargo, against Lend-Lease, against draft extension; he protested loudly when U.S. destroyers were traded to Britain, when U.S. troops took over Iceland; he scoffed at the idea of an attack on the U.S. or that such an attack could cut off the nation from strategic materials. Last week, when Secretary of Agriculture Claude R. Wickard told a Senate subcommittee that 80,000,000 bushels of wheat could be made available for manufacture of synthetic rubber, angry Senator Wheeler wanted to know why the delay. “You’ve been asleep at the switch,” shouted wide-awake Mr. Wheeler.