MORSE FOR PRESIDENT
Neuberger, Richard L.
Morse for President by RICHARD L. NEUBERGER TN AMERICA today the political anchor is up and the moorings are loose. No hawsers fasten the frigate of politics to ancient and accustomed wharves....
...The address by Morse helped to prevent police-state snooping of the Soviet variety from being introduced into American homes, doctors' offices, and everywhere else reached by a telephone circuit...
...This may seem a heretical recommendation on my part...
...Lincoln started in politics as a Whig but became the first Republican President...
...Yet the problems are piling on the horizon like thunderheads...
...Most of these things never happened before...
...Another is the dominance of campaign funds by the Republicans, leading in turn to an overwhelming command of the standard avenues of reaching the voters...
...He has taken the lead in questions of foreign policy, public power, labor problems, and constitutional law...
...Where we have disagreed, he has never tried to throw his weight around or pull his rank on me...
...In several key Negro wards in Chicago, the Republican vote leaped from 30 per cent in 1952 to 43 per cent in 1956...
...That has been made satisfactorily evident to me ever since I originally proposed, in a speech in San Francisco November 14, that Senator Morse be nominated by the Democrats in 1960...
...This is sincere and of long standing, and not born of political convenience...
...The reRICHARD L. NEUBERGER is Wayne Morse's junior colleague from Oregon in the U. S. Senate...
...In Oregon a small group of us devoted to this cause have formed an organization known as National Friends of Wayne Morse...
...His recreation is the personal operation of a rented livestock farm in nearby Maryland...
...Although I am 12 years his junior, I find it exhausting to maintain his pace during a campaign...
...Yet I never have felt the slightest envy because of Senator Morse's greater fame and prestige...
...One other argument is sometimes made to us against Senator Morse...
...Republican strength at the polls is the product of many circumstances...
...In my opinion, the times and the challenge confronting the Democratic Party demand just the type of outspoken, forthright, and militant program Wayne Morse would bring to the Party's nomination...
...After all, dissatisfaction with General Eisenhower was what drove Morse out of the GOP...
...At the same time, Morse was inspired by the integrity and the high-level tactics of Adlai Stevenson...
...The Democrats never have won an election with such tactics in modern times...
...I imagine I am more friendly to reciprocal trade than he is...
...States of the deep South, solidly Democratic almost by rote, have voted overwhelmingly for a Republican Presidential candidate...
...9. Wayne Morse has the requisite age and physical condition...
...This was conclusively demonstrated in 1952...
...By 1960 the Democratic Party, which created the New Deal and the Fair Deal, will have been out of national office for eight years...
...To enter the White House at 60 is neither too young nor too old...
...Morse after the program, I looked suddenly at Morse...
...His influence, even from the sidelines, might be too much to overcome...
...By 1960 Wayne Morse will have been a Democrat for only five years...
...Last November, running as a Democrat, he won a third Senate term by defeating former Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay...
...President Eisenhower increased his 1952 plurality by nearly 3,000,000 votes...
...This must be the case when Democratic Louisiana votes decisively for a Republican President, while Republican grain growers in the Middle West are electing Democratic Congressmen...
...We have yet to quarrel or have a single sharp word about our respective jurisdictions...
...In addition, America does not need two conservative parties...
...The average American is not hidebound as to political affiliation...
...my school bill does...
...One of the greatest governors in Illinois history could not carry his own state for President on two successive attempts...
...He is more critical of the Administration's foreign policy than I am...
...Morse sat silently in the dark watching his old friend and colleague on the television screen...
...In addition to being forthright on the minority question itself, Senator Morse has been in the forefront of the fight to change the Senate rules so as to prevent a Dixie-crat minority from talking civil-rights legislation to oblivion...
...3. Wayne Morse has fought for labor benefits and against labor racketeering...
...Inasmuch as the record demonstrates conclusively that a candidate seldom wins in his own state if he is going to lose elsewhere, why should nominating conventions be shackled exclusively to nominees from the big states...
...It makes unnecessary elaborate and intricate explanations as to a candidate's position on basic issues like civil rights and human liberties...
...Eisenhower's victory seemed certain...
...7. Morse has been more critical of President Eisenhower than has any other Senator...
...We have worked together as harmoniously as two Senators could...
...Amidst such deep and cataclysmic political changes, I can think of no better counsel than that contained in a couplet from the stirring poem which was Abraham Lincoln's favorite, The Present Crisis, by Lowell: "New occasions teach new duties, "Time makes ancient good uncouth . . ." My suggestion to the Democratic Party is that it nominate for President in 1960 the only person in modern times who ever has been elected to the U.S...
...If his health permits, Senator Paul H. Douglas might be a candidate of intellectual brilliance rivaling that of his fellow citizen of Illinois, Adlai E. Stevenson...
...I refer, of course, to my senior colleague from Oregon, Senator Wayne Morse...
...He is merely the symbol of the sort of nominee whom the party now desperately needs...
...But I believe that Morse possesses certain unique advantages and qualifications as a possible nominee for the Presidency, and these I hope to emphasize...
...His proposals for federal aid to education do not call for matching funds by the state...
...Pennsylvania's Joseph S. Clark, Jr., is a highly literate and able newcomer to the ranks of liberal Senators, and he helped to turn around what had been a steadfastly-Republican state—and a big state, too...
...It rivals the theater in this respect...
...If the Democratic Party is not to be a bold party of liberalism, then what is its role...
...The Democrats then confront a deficit of more than 2,600,000 votes...
...I would not write off Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, whose facile oratory can dramatize the cause of liberalism more vividly than anyone else in the Senate...
...8. Morse is one of the most powerful and tireless orators of all time...
...Morse's three attractive daughters have been raised as church members...
...Besides being a hammering, slashing speaker, Senator Morse can keep going from dawn until midnight...
...But if the uncontested seats in the Southern states are removed from this total, quite a different tale emerges...
...It attests to Morse's courage...
...Despite the enthusiastic response, one question often arises: Can a man be nominated for President from a state with only six electoral votes...
...5. Wayne Morse has political courage...
...Yet, at the same time, he has supported legitimate Senatorial investigations of alleged rackets in the Teamsters' Union, and he has cooperated with men like the brave and maimed Victor Riesel in seeking to rid labor of criminal elements...
...There were indications from Los Angeles to New England that colored voters had tired of pussyfooting on civil rights...
...But he soured on Eisenhower's shabby campaign, on the truckling to McCarthy in Wisconsin and Jenner in Indiana...
...Popular though Governor Earl Warren was in his native California, he failed to influence California's substantial bloc of electoral votes when he was Dewey's running-mate in 1948...
...This might be more acceptable in rural areas than golf or quail-shooting...
...But I believe that when Americans favor a conservative political party in charge of their government, they will vote for the Republican candidates...
...Only Senator Herbert Lehman of New York—now, alas, gone from the Senate—was quicker than Morse to seek censure of McCarthy's witch-hunting behavior...
...sponse has been enthusiastic, spofr taneous, and continuous...
...Senate as a Republican and as a Democrat...
...Wayne Morse, would return these nomads to the Democratic corral...
...Estes Kefauver was unable to save normally-Democratic Tennessee for the Democrats in 1956...
...He has fought for the expansion of Social Security...
...Herbert Hoover could not carry his adopted state of California in 1932, and Colonel Frank Knox of the Chicago Daily News never came within telegraphic distance of carrying Illinois for the Republican ticket four years later, as Landon's Vice-Presidential partner...
...Wayne Morse has a profound religious and spiritual interest...
...My own experience as Morse's junior Senate colleague is the best refutation of such an impression...
...Why should the Democrats try to crowd the Republicans away from this circuit...
...One of his Senate speeches of which Morse is proudest took place three years ago, and it was in opposition to legalization of wire-tapped evidence in Federal courts...
...This does not mean Senator Morse and I invariably agree on every issue...
...4. Wayne Morse was one of the first members of Congress to assail the Eisenhower proposal for "partnership" with the private utilities...
...6. Wayne Morse has fought mili-tantly for fundamental freedoms...
...If we Democrats are to be again a party which adheres stubbornly to the great maxim of "the greatest good for the greatest number in the long run," Wayne Morse would be an ideal Presidential nominee for such a party...
...The Negro vote, the labor vote, and the liberal vote all have been shaken loose from their normal Democratic allegiance— particularly in the great metropolitan areas where the fate of key states is determined...
...Aside from banks and counting houses, "partnership" has few friends—and probably none at the grassroots...
...Traditionally-Democratic states like Maryland, West Virginia, and Kentucky have elected Republican Senators...
...He has not tried to impress upon me his longer experience and service...
...Relatively little about the 1956 election merits complacency by the Democrats...
...Any Democrat who can be indifferent to these statistics is an optimist of heroic proportions...
...But if Eisenhower's inadequacies and procrastinations become evident to the average voter, what Democrat is in a more strategic position than Wayne Morse to say, "I told you so...
...People ask if he is not too harsh and strident and arrogant—an opinion perhaps inspired by his fiery, pounding political speeches...
...Because he was born with the century, Morse will be exactly 60 at the time of the next Presidential election...
...The Republicans have the side of the track where conservative footing predominates...
...Even the electoral stars in their courses now defy time-honored rules of political astronomy...
...Adlai Stevenson was an outstanding governor of Illinois, but he failed both times to carry Illinois for President...
...Anybody in doubt that such a position is indispensable to Democratic success in 1960 must be incapable of understanding arithmetic...
...Politics is a profession notorious for its jealousies...
...Would such a newcomer merit a Party's choicest prize...
...Principally as a result of this, the Democratic margin in the nation's largest city dropped from 55 per cent to 51 per cent—far too narrow to swing strategic New York state...
...Furthermore, the same grim analysis applies to Senate contests...
...This, of course, means that a possibility from six-vote Oregon becomes quite as qualified as somebody from 45-vote New York state...
...Then, because he could not square prevailing Republican policies with his conscience, he gradually shifted to Independent status and then joined the Democratic Party in 1955...
...I am certain this interlude will be prolonged unless a candidate with the views, militancy, and courage of Wayne Morse is nominated next time...
...While still an active Republican, Morse joined in signing Senator Margaret Chase Smith's famous "Declaration of Conscience," which was the first manifestation of Congressional distaste for McCarthyism...
...I regard it is an enormous asset...
...But what if the Senate seats in the South, which went to the Democrats practically nolo contendere, are removed from the compilation...
...Morse has pioneered in denouncing the anti-labor bias of certain phases of the Taft-Hartley Act...
...Morse possesses a cast-iron constitution...
...2. Wayne Morse has been consistently in favor of a strong civil-rights program...
...They fall into no fewer than 10 categories: 1. Wayne Morse has been prominent in both parties...
...This impelled Morse to an act of supreme political valor...
...His 22-hour speech against the surrender of the tidelands-oil reserves still ranks as the longest in Senate history...
...Civil rights might be cited as one such area, although this may have been somewhat alleviated when the Democrats voted in greater numbers than Republicans to favor the Anderson Resolution which proposed a change in the Senate rule allowing unlimited debate...
...For years there has existed a theory that Presidential and Vice-Presidential nominees had to come from large, populous states because they at least would bring these states with them as a dowry...
...Wiretapping," said he, "is an insidious kind of intrusion upon personal privacy...
...If Eisenhower's popularity continues at the phenomenal rate of 1956, the Democrats may not be able to win anyway, in 1960...
...I was with Morse at his home during the Edward R. Murrow "Person-to-Person" TV show which featured former Senator Herbert Lehman and Mrs...
...Traditionally-Republican states like Iowa, Oregon, and Kansas have elected Democratic governors...
...The Democratic nominee must rely upon this kind of persuasion, for he is sure to face a hostile press...
...Republican Oregon, which could elect no Democratic Senators during the reign of the most popular Democratic President in history, has just elected two Democratic Senators during the regime of the most popular Republican President in history...
...The result is that a Democratic surplus of 1,062,-000 votes for the Senate becomes a Democratic deficit of 1,312,000 votes...
...Alf Landon could not bring with him his own Kansas in 1936...
...Eisenhower recently polled 35,575,000 votes and carried 41 states...
...This is a useful record to take to the people in any national campaign...
...In the Harlem area of New York, President Eisenhower registered gains averaging 12.5 per cent...
...Let me make clear that I do not regard my colleague as the sole possibility for this honor from Democratic ranks in Congress...
...He won in 1944 and in 1950 on the Republican ticket...
...Morse could have been an influential factor at the White House...
...But on most of the big major questions, Senator Morse and I see things from the same perspective...
...For example, in 17 all-Negro precincts in Kansas City, the Republican vote soared from 24 per cent in 1952 to 43 per cent last year...
...Popular fig* ures like Robert M. LaFollette, George W. Norris, William E. Borah, Charles L. McNary, and Earl Warren have worn party robes only loosely...
...And still another is the basic fact that the Democrats, in a few realms of policy, have encountered difficulty in keeping to the left of the right-wing Republican Party...
...Democratic Senatorial nominees in 1956 ran up a total of 1,062,000 more votes than did Republican candidates...
...Lehman...
...A strong sense of the power of prayer and of the influence of the Supreme Being gleams through an impressive speech which Morse delivered against capital punishment last year in the Senate, at the time that the death sentence was being proposed in connection with dope-peddling crimes...
...Tears had welled in his eyes and were staining his checks...
...I do not think so...
...One is the unwillingness of the press to eye the present Adminstration as searchingly as it did the Roosevelt and Truman regimes...
...Morse does not drink or smoke (habits I share with him), and he carefully avoids rich foods in order to keep his weight at fighting trim...
...He abandoned his own party and began to campaign for the Democratic nominee, even when all the odds were in favor of a triumph for Eisenhower...
...Wendell Willkie was appearing on the New York Herald-Tribune forum as a Democrat as late as 1938, but two years later he was the Republican Presidential nominee...
...It is true that the Democrats polled 1,600,000 more votes than did the Republicans for seats in the House of Representatives...
...A slackness in party fetters on a man could be a genuine advantage during the political uncertainties existing today...
...It leaves no doubt as to where he stands...
...The compass no longer responds predictably to orthodox magnetisms...
...The answer, I think, rests in the fact that people vote for a citizen and a program, not for the state where he owns a residence...
...Morse had been an original Eisenhower backer...
...In addition, the thorough findings of Senator Albert Gore's committee have demonstrated the preponderance of campaign funds in the possession of the Democratic Presidential candidate...
...Dwight D. Eisenhower himself was not sure until a comparatively few years ago which party claimed his fidelity...
...He has been a frequent visitor to the Naval Hospital in Bethesda while his warm friend, Senator Matt Neely of West Virginia, has been critically ill...
...They might as well range the field, picking the man and not the state sponsoring him...
...The handling of the resource and public-power issue by the Administration is one of its weakest links...
...With trembling voice, Neely told me what a great President Morse might be...
...As an active Congregationalist and former Sunday-school teacher, Morse is in harmony with the church-going proclivities of millions of Americans...
...Only one fault disturbs this theory...
...This would make him two years younger than was General Eisenhower at the time of his original victory at the polls...
...And Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, author of the moving Profiles in Courage about valiant Senators of the past, might make an appealing and attractive running-mate for Wayne Morse or any of these other Democratic leaders of liberalism...
...This, I am convinced, is in harmony with the dominant view of most working-class families today...
...We have "briefed" each other accordingly...
...This, again, might seem an encumbrance, particularly after Mr...
...it simply is not true...
...Senator Morse sometimes fails to share my emphasis on preservation of big-game animals and migratory fish...
...I have emphasized conservation of forests and wildlife, Social Security expansion, schools, and public-health matters...
...At first blush, this might seem a handicap...
...A President has been victorious by more than 9,000,000 votes without carrying either chamber of Congress for his party...
...Republican Maine has twice in succession elected a Democratic governor...
...Morse shares these religious convictions...
...Furthermore, Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee rises constantly in my estimation as I see how bravely he has defied mob opinion in his own state on the question of school integration and civil rights...
...When the lights in the room were flicked on by Mrs...
...Charted waters have been left behind...
...One might consider such an affiliation a grave liability...
...Recent history supports my thesis...
...There is a strong sentimental streak in Wayne Morse which many persons do not suspect...
...Wayne Morse is a national symbol of early opposition to this scheme for surrendering valuable power plants to the utilities...
...In addition to this, Morse is a vice-president of Americans for Democratic Action...
...Four years of indifference and delay may be coming home to roost...
Vol. 21 • April 1957 • No. 4
