Wayne
Morse was born in Madison, Wisconsin, on 20th October, 1900. After
graduating from the University of Wisconsin in 1923 he studied law
at the University of Minnesota and Columbia University. As a young
man he came under the influence of Robert
La Follette, a Republican from Wisconsin.
Morse
became assistant professor of law at the University of Oregon in 1929.
Over the next few years he gained national recognition as an arbitrator
of industrial disputes and served as a member of the National War
Labor Board (1942-44).
A
member of the Republican Party, Morse
was elected to the Senate in 1944. On the left of the party, Morse's
liberal views made him a target of Joseph
McCarthy. However, Mansfield was extremely popular in Oregon and
he was able to survive McCarthy's claims that he was a Communist sympathizer.
Although an anti-Communist, Morse continued to support the civil liberties
of members of the Communist Party.
He also signed the Declaration of Conscience, a document that attacked
the abuses of McCarthyism.
Morse
was an advocate of Afro-American civil
rights and fought for the desegregation of the District of Columbia
and upset senators from the Deep South by inviting black leaders to
meetings in the Senate.
In
1952 Morse refused to support the Republican presidential nominee,
Dwight Eisenhower and and sat in the
Senate as an independent. He also attacked the vice president, Richard
Nixon, and the smear tactics he used against his opponents. He
eventually joined the Democratic Party
and won his seat in the Senate in 1956.
A
strong opponent of the Vietnam War, Morse
was one of only two senators to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin resolution
in 1964. Morse was defeated for re-election in 1968. Wayne Morse died
in Portland, Oregon, on 22nd July, 1974.
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