Great Oregon Democrats

Wayne Morse

October 20, 1900 — July 22, 1974.
United States Senator from Oregon 1945 - 1969.

Brief Biography

The notoriously independent Wayne Morse (1900-1974), who set a filibuster record in 1953, was first elected to the Senate as a Republican. He broke with that party in 1953, leaving Democrats and Republicans evenly divided in the Senate. Rather than allow the Democrats to take the majority, however, Morse symbolically moved his chair into the center aisle of the Senate Chamber for a day to show that he belonged to no party. Two years later, Democratic leader Lyndon Johnson persuaded Morse to join the Democratic Conference, giving Democrats a one-vote majority. Nevertheless, Morse retained his independent spirit. A decade later, after Johnson had become president, Senator Morse cast one of the two votes in Congress against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and became an unrelenting critic of the president on the Vietnam war.

Biography (Wikipedia)

April 24-25, 1953 Wayne Morse Sets Filibuster Record (U.S. Senate history)

Radio commercials from 1968 campaign (DPO Archives)

Morse and McCarthyism (Paper from UO, 2000).

One Man With Courage Makes a Majority (2003 Profile in Courage Essay Contest Winning Essay, JFK Library)

The Last Angry Man Video tape 1999. (Link to Amazon.com) The Last Angry Man uses a terrific blend of archival footage and interviews with everyone from Ken Kesey and George McGovern to Bob Packwood and Mark Hatfield to look back on a true giant of Oregon's history... Morse stood alone against the lunacy of Vietnam when virtually no other politician-even those who agreed with him-had the guts. He foresaw the dangerous corporatization of America years before Ralph Nader and company picked up the scent. And unlike all too many of today's leaders-especially the man who finally defeated him: Bob Packwood-Morse was completely untouched by personal controversy. He didn't get a lot of buildings and parks named after him like Tom McCall or Mark Hatfield, but Morse is just as important to Oregon's history. And as the years go by, the angry battles he fought only seem more justified. --Brian Libby, Willamette Week, 12/01/99

History of the Democratic Party in Oregon

Formed in 1852

The organization of the Democratic party in Oregon Territory early in 1852 was a matter of considerable moment because it marked the beginning of local political thinking in terms of natural issues. Although, as has been made plain, Americans had forced the issue of Provisional Government and had shaped its course, abating nothing of their nationalism except on the occasion when in 1845 the Applegate expedient was resorted to as a compromise with the Hudson's Bay interests, party lines as they existed elsewhere in the US were not locally defined in the early days of territorial government.

Judge Samuel R. Thurston, the first delegate, was a Democrat, but there was no party organization at the time of his election. When Joseph Lane (March 3, 1849-June 18, 1850), who was a Democrat, in 1851 ran for the place left vacant by Thurston's death, his opponent was W. H. Wilson, a former ship carpenter, who had come out with the first reinforcement of Jason Lee's Walamet Mission in 1837, and who represented the early missionary hospitality to the Hudson's Bay Company, but he was also a Democrat, so that no party issue was joined here. By 1852, the opposition to the Whig, John P. Gaines (August 18, 1850-May 16, 1853), who happened to be also a non-resident appointee, crystallized into the form of an organization of the Democratic party, of which Lane became the logical candidate, since he had avoided making political enemies, had a record in public affairs which most of the people approved, and had a talent for effective campaigning in the frontier settlements.

The Democrats made themselves known as an organization by holding a convention July 4, 1851, and thereafter by holding caucuses of the Democratic members of the legislature of 1851, at which a central committee was chosen and James Willis Nesmith (December 25, 1844-August 9, 1845) was made chairman. The population was preponderantly Democratic since It came principally from Democratic states, and the party organization had no difficulty in electing a large majority of the legislature in June 1852.

James Nesmith
July 23, 1820 - June 17, 1885

Nesmith was elected judge of the Provisional Government of Oregon in 1845. He was captain in 1848 and 1853 of expeditions against hostile Indians, and was United States Marshal for Oregon from 1853 to 1855. He was superintendent of Indian affairs for Oregon and Washington Territories from 1857 to 1859.

Nesmith was elected as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate and served from March 4, 1861, to March 3, 1867 [succeeding Joseph Lane]; he was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection, and was appointed Minister to Austria, but his nomination was not confirmed. He served as road supervisor of Polk County in 1868, and was elected to the Forty-third Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of his cousin, Joseph G. Wilson, and served from December 1, 1873, to March 3, 1875; he did not seek renomination in 1874 to the Forty-fourth Congress. He died in Rickreall, Oregon in 1885; interment was in Polk County on the south bank of Rickreall Creek.

In addition to his cousin Joseph Wilson, Nesmith's grandson, Clifton Nesmith McArthur, was also a United States Representatives from Oregon. Levi Ankeny, Senator for Washington, was his son-in-law.

Reports for Oregon Democrats

An archive of our reports, including biennial reports.

• 2005 Biennial Report 1.69MB
• 2005 Year in Review

Video & Audio

• Watch Howard Dean kick off the 2006 Oregon Democratic Party State Convention in Eugene, June 2nd.