On this day in 1941, Charles Lindbergh at a rally of the American First Committee in Oklahoma City warned the audience that the United Kingdom might turn against the US "as she had turned against France and Finland".
Lindbergh was backed up by Montana Senator Burton K. Wheeler who counseled that "If our interventionist want to free a country from the domination of another country, we ought to declare war on Great Britain and free India. I have never seen such slavery as I saw in India a few years ago".
Wheeler was an outspoken left wing Democrat who had at one time crossed over to the Progressive Party and then back. He opposed entry to the war right up until December 7, 1941 and was instrumental in the leaking of US plans to aid the British prior to the war, which went to press on December 4, 1941. His isolationist stances caused him to suffer defeat in the first Montana election in which he was up after December 7, and he never returned to politics. A lawyer by training, he returned to practicing law and defended Max Lowenthal in front of the House Committee On Un American Affairs in the 1950s. He's an example of how opposition to entry into the war was not, as sometimes imagined, politically uniform.
The rally itself was not well received by the public, and polls started increasingly swinging towards the Administration's interventionist policies.
Speaking of Finland, the Finns retook Viipuri. Not forever of course, its Vyborg, Russia.
