Wayne Morse

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Wayne Lyman Morse
U.S. Senator, Oregon
In office 1945-1969
Preceded by	Rufus C. Holman
Succeeded by	Bob Packwood
Born	October 20, 1900 Verona, Wisconsin
Died	July 22, 1974 (aged 73) Portland, Oregon
Political party	Republican (1945-1952) Independent (1952-1955) Democratic (1955-1969)
Spouse	Mildred
Profession	attorney
Religion	Baptist

Wayne Lyman Morse (October 20, 1900 – July 22, 1974) was a United States Senator from Oregon from 1945 until 1969. He made a filibuster for 22 hours and 26 minutes in 1953 protesting the Tidelands Oil legislation, which at the time was the longest filibuster in Senate history.

Morse was born to a farming family in Verona, Wisconsin, who imbued the political beliefs of Robert M. LaFollette, Sr. in their children.

See also: Progressivism and Progressive Party (United States, 1924)

He received his Bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1923 and his Master's from the same college the next year. He received his degree in law from the University of Minnesota in 1928 and became an assistant professor of law at the University of Oregon in 1930. He was a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity.

Described as an electrifying speaker and having a brilliant legal mind, he quickly became an associate professor and then dean of the university and full professor of law in 1931. Columbia University awarded him a doctorate in law in 1932. In 1936, Morse became the youngest law school dean in the country at the University of Oregon. He served on many public commissions over the following years, including a Roosevelt appointment to settle labor disputes that threatened to halt production of Navy ships during wartime.

In 1944 he won the Republican primary election for Senator and the general election that November. Once in Washington, he revealed his progressive roots, to the consternation of his more conservative Republican peers. In protest of Dwight Eisenhower's selection of Richard Nixon as his running mate he left the Republican Party in 1952. After a term as an independent he became a Senator for the Democratic Party in 1955. Despite these switches in party allegiance, for which he was branded a maverick, Morse won almost every election for the United States Senate.

Morse was a late entry in the race for the Democratic nomination for president in 1960, although his campaign received little attention outside of Oregon and is largely forgotten. Many considered Senator John F. Kennedy's triumph in the primaries compltete after he defeated Senator Hubert Humphrey in the Wisconsin and West Virgina primaries. However, Kennedy still faced Morse in the May Maryland and Oregon primaries. By the time Morse entered the race, most prominent Oregon Democrats were supporting other candidiates. Congresswoman Edith Green was Kennedy's Oregon chairperson, and State Senator and former DNC Committeeman Monroe Sweetland, who had pushed Morse to switch parties, was a paid organizer for the Kennedy campaign. Morse's campaign chairman was Orde Pinckney of Bend, a Morse staffer and college professor. Kennedy won both primaries easily, and Oregon's winner take all rules resulted in the entire Oregon delegation supporting Kennedy at the Democratic convention in Los Angeles.

In 1964 he was one of only two United States Senators to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (Alaska U.S. Senator Ernest Gruening was the other), which authorized further United States involvement in the Vietnam War. During the following years Sen. Morse remained one of the most outspoken critics of the war. As early as 1966 Morse told a student union he would like to see "protests such as these multiply by the hundreds" across the country. Partially as a result, Morse lost his seat in the 1968 election to Bob Packwood by 3,000 votes.

Morse spent the remaining years of his life attempting to regain his seat. He was the Democratic Party nominee for the U.S. Senate in 1972 but lost to incumbent Mark Hatfield. He won his party's Senate primary again two years later, setting up a return match against Packwood, but died before the general election.

Morse's career is detailed in the documentary film The Last Angry Man: The Story of America's Most Controversial Senator, by Christopher Houser and Robert Millis.

In 2006, the Wayne L. Morse U.S. Courthouse opened in downtown Eugene, Oregon. In addition, he was recognized in the Wayne Morse Commons of the University of Oregon's William W. Knight Law Center. Also housed in the University of Oregon Law Center is the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics. The Lane County Courthouse in Eugene renovated and rededicated its adjacent Wayne L. Morse Free Speech Plaza in the Spring of 2005, complete with life size statue and quotation pavers. The Morse family's 26-acre Eugene property and home, Edgewood Farm, are a National Historic Site. The Morse Ranch, as it is now named, is operated by the City of Eugene as a multi-use park. Interpretive and educational outreach through the site are administered by the non-profit Wayne Morse Historical Park Corporation in order to preserve the Morse Legacy.

Preceded by Rufus C. Holman

United States Senator (Class 3) from Oregon 1945-1969 Served alongside: Guy Cordon (R), Richard L. Neuberger (D), Hall S. Lusk (D), Maurine B. Neuberger (D), Mark Hatfield (R)

Succeeded by Bob Packwood