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. |