WAYNE MORSE-PROGRESSIVE REPUBLICAN
Neuberger, Richard L.
Wayne Morse—Progressive Republican By RICHARD L. NEUBERGER Washington, D. C. ONCE the Middle West was the source of American liberalism. From the vast bread-basket of the nation came the men who...
...But he does not believe in balanee-of-power politics and last week he spoke against the use of U. S. ships to transport Allied troops for service in the Javanese struggle...
...the young fellow's name was William Orville Douglas, now a justice of the Supreme Court...
...Although just out of college, he was appointed coach of the Wisconsin debate teams and a year later became assistant professor of speech at the University of Minnesota...
...It was the worst loss of face ever suffered by the leftwinger from Australia...
...He got there shortly after a young fellow from the state of Washington had enrolled in the Columbia Law School...
...Morse is an internationalist who favors world cooperation in this era of atomic power...
...Some of his friends think he has run too many errands for the Portland Chamber of Commerce and nearly all his supporters believe that his attack on Chester Bowles, when he asked the OPA administrator to resign, was a bad blunder...
...Morse is a Republican and an internationalist...
...He wrote a thesis on The American Gra?id Jury System which became a book on the desk of many district attorneys and judges...
...When the labor draft was at issue, he held his own against such skillful veterans as Hatch of New Mexico and Thomas of Utah...
...The general election was a massacre...
...Although F.D.R...
...He threw down the gauntlet to Rufus C. Holman, a reactionary Senator whose violent attacks on labor unions had aroused the unified opposition of the AFL, CIO, and Railroad Brotherhoods...
...Three Republicans customarily vote for the confirmation of liberal appointees to Federal office...
...Many Senators are prejudiced against learning and particularly against "per-fessers...
...Not since William E. Borah first came to the Senate nearly 40 years ago has a first termer made such an impression as a public speaker as has Wayne Morse...
...The Great Plains were the source of many healthful winds which swept through the halls of Congress...
...Many Senators were' offended when Morse began talking about "soft lamb" during the midst of the United Nations charter debate...
...Despite this, Morse was a character" witness for Bridges in the deportation hearings before Dean James M. Landis of Harvard Law School...
...So was Justice William O. Douglas of the U. S. Supreme Court...
...He licked Holman in the primaries by 11,000 votes...
...At the moment, he is particularly concerned over the lack of housing for war veterans...
...It was the most decisive Senate victory in Oregon history except for the huge margins piled up by the late Charles Linza McNary, the state's most beloved public figure...
...Morse taught in the home economics department of the Minnesota Agricultural School while her husband was learning torts, criminal law, and contracts in an adjacent building...
...The Pacific Northwest, 2,000 miles beyond the prairie states, now contributes far more liberals and progressives to the national legislature than does the Middle West...
...Morse remained on the campus and was awarded the Master of Arts degree...
...INTEREST in education in general and students in particular comes naturally to Morse...
...Bridges had to eat humble pie and beg Morse to return...
...Warren Magnuson of Washington was born in Minnesota...
...Morse was a cheeehako but people began to talk of him as a possible governor or U. S. Senator...
...He looks like a panther ready to strike...
...269,-095 votes to 174,140...
...When a situation interests him, he undertakes painstaking research, hiding away in a cubicle in the Library of Congress Annex so that he escapes the annoying interference of the telephone...
...Wayne Morse became the fourth man in history to receive the exalted degree of Doctor of Jurisprudence from Columbia University...
...He is among the few Senators who are actually acquainted with academic atmosphere...
...In 1929 Morse was appointed assistant professor of law at the University of Oregon...
...Already Morse has made some caustic remarks about this on the Senate floor...
...While on the Columbia campus Morse was a protege of Prof...
...Wayne Morse has the chance to become a spokesman before the nation for the entire...
...He believes that only by standing against special privilege and for the masses of people can the GOP ever legitimately return to national favor...
...But, added Morse, Bob La Follette should stay in the Senate, regardless of party label, for the whole country needs him there...
...I don't know whether this rumor is true or not," Morse said...
...MORSE'S friends hope he will not dissipate the chance which confronts him...
...Yet it is significant that still the Middle West maintains a claim, indirect it is true, to these new bearers of the progressive flag...
...He was on the campus debate team for three years and several times he had the benefit of advice and counsel from Robert M. La Follette, Sr., then vitally interested in the University...
...Some of his critics—and a few of his friends, too—believe that he takes a position on too many issues, that he fires at too many targets...
...His rise in the state was rapid...
...Homer Bone and Lew Schwellenbach are no longer Senators...
...But a Senate career lasts at least six years, God willing, and Morse has made a brilliant beginning despite a few mistakes...
...GOP followers of Wendell Willkie had been angered by Holman's isolationism, and good citizens generally were disturbed by his attacks on the Jews...
...Morse hopes to see the Republican Party a progressive institution rather than the vehicle of Big Business...
...The "Sons of the Wild Jackass," that noble tribe of reformers, stemmed mainly from the Middle West...
...That was why in Madison last Summer he said he wanted Bob La Follette to return to the Republican fold...
...He is especially outraged that returning soldiers, seeking an education under the GI Bill of Rights, have been turned away from colleges because there is no housing available for them...
...He is one of the most widely known Senators...
...All these groups wanted a candidate to center on against Holman...
...Pacific seaboard...
...Stormy petrel" is a cliche yet it describes Wayne Morse...
...carried Oregon for the fourth successive time, Morse swamped his Democratic adversary, Edgar Smith...
...They have been disappointed by his failure to lead boldly on the issue of public power, although those who respect his integrity and knowledge feel he eventually will be found crusading for a Columbia Valley Authority...
...He is a Republican but not an orthodox or regular one...
...All three of these appointments were attacked bitterly by reactionary sources...
...He was born on a farm » few miles from Madison in the fall of 1900...
...Morse represents both...
...By taking the floor each day at 5 o'clock, he forced the OPA to take milk-fed Oregon lamb off the ration lists, for this meat was spoiling so long as points were required...
...Raymond Moley, later an original Roosevelt brain truster who was to break with many phases of the New Deal...
...For four years he taught at Minnesota and also attended the law school, graduating LL.B in 1928...
...In that time he has achieved a national reputation...
...Generally on the side of labor, he nevertheless refused to be bluffed by Harry Bridges...
...He described Wisconsin's senior Senator as the type of man the Republicans needed to liberalize and reinvigorate the GOP party...
...Today, the wells of liberalism have shifted...
...Morse had supported Dewey, but Smith made the fatal mistake of failing to back Roosevelt...
...Many of the Northwest's most illustrious progressives are men who were born in the Middle West...
...In less than a year his escapades in the Senate have been many...
...He calls the situation "base ingratitude...
...Tom Connally stalked out of the Senate angrily in protest against Morse's attacks on OPA when the Charter was at stake...
...Much of the old tradition of the "Sons of the Wild Jackass" clings to Wayne Morse...
...He has a keen wit and vast knowledge...
...By 1931 he was dean of the Law School...
...The role of leader from the Far West is wide open...
...He is one of the ablest and most educated men in the Senate...
...MORSE has been a Senator less than a year...
...In 1944 Morse announced his candidacy for the Senate on the Republican ticket...
...This week another distinguished Pacific Northwest liberal went back to his Middle Western birthplace, when Wayne Lyman Morse, U. S. Senator from Oregon, spoke in the Wisconsin state capital of Madison...
...With his movie-villain mustache and lean stride, Morse presents a vigorous and forceful appearance as he walks onto the Senate floor...
...However, both of these positions are qualified...
...Yet despite all this, Morse himself was a supporter of the Charter and said that it "points towardcivilization and peace...
...He has a great opportunity...
...The three are George Aiken of Vermont, William Langer of North Dakota, and Wayne L. Morse of Oregon...
...He is almost certain to rank as one of the Senate's outstanding orators—perhaps in the same category with Borah, the elder La Follette, Hiram Johnson in his prime, Albert Beveridge, and Huey Long...
...Morse graduated in 1923 and married Mildred Downie, a Madison school teacher who had majored in home economics...
...They are the only Republican Senators who voted to confirm Henry Wallace as Secretary of Commerce, Aubrey Williams as administrator of the REA and Raymond J. MeKeough for a seat on the Maritime Commission...
...MORSE, elected last year to the upper chamber of Congress, represents the state of Oregon, but Wisconsin was his birthplace...
...From the vast bread-basket of the nation came the men who advocated reform in government and fought for the rights of the under-privileged...
...But I don't see why we should support Dutch Imperialism at the expense of transportation for our own homeward-bound soldiers...
...Oregon has only six electoral votes, but stranger things have happened than a Presidential nominee from so small a state...
...Shrewd in debate, he can master questions with the best of the Senate's parliamentarians...
...He went to public school in Madison, a university town, and it was just a short walk to the University of Wisconsin, where he won many honors...
...Faithful in attendance, Morse is among the few Senators nearly always on the floor...
...Morse's record at Minnesota has been so outstanding that he was awarded a $1,500 teaching fellowship at Columbia University...
...Most states jealously reserve high political office for native sons, or at least men who have lived on local soil for many years...
...Lewis Schwellenbach, former progressive Senator from Washington and now Secretary of Labor, was born in Superior, Wis...
...His forceful and challenging speeches made him friends in countless villages and towns...
...The role of arbitrator of waterfront labor disputes along the Pacific Coast brought Wayne Morse national prominence...
...When Bridges refused to abide by one of Morse's rulings, Morse quietly resigned as arbitrator...
...Wayne Morse became their man...
...Morse's present Senate term lasts until 1950...
...This reduced waterfront labor relations to a state of anarchy...
...He represents a state which symbolizes the progressive and ever-changing Far West...
...Morse is a brilliant speaker and the temptation to take the floor is undoubtedly great with him...
...He thought Roosevelt would lose in Oregon and proved to be wrong...
...Borah and McNary and Hiram Johnson are dead...
...He does not vote for his party when he feels it is taking a reactionary position...
...They feel that, to date, he has spoken up on too many questions, that he has not concentrated on one or two major issues...
Vol. 9 • December 1945 • No. 49
