Politicians today get a bad rep. Instead of serving their constituents, most politicians only serve themselves. Yet William A. Wheeler, the 19th Vice President under Rutherford B. Hayes stands apart from the rest.
Whilst there is – and always has been – debate on whether politicians should dictate their own salaries, William A. Wheeler was one of the few politicians to actively campaign against it.
He believed in this so much that he even refused a salary increase in 1873 after Congress pushed through highly controversial legislation some have called the “Salary Grab Act”.