Friday, April 20, 1962 University Daily Kansan
Page 3
And the Men Who Oil It
Wayne L. Morse Is He Courageous Or Arrogant?
By Richard Bonett
An intense national spotlight will focus this fall on Oregon, where Democratic U.S. Sen. Wayne Lyman Morse is expected to seek a fourth term.
Morse has not officially announced he will run, but such a decision by the fiercely independent and often controversial senator is almost a foregone conclusion.
The battle lines will be clearly drawn, for few persons are able to be neutral where Morse is concerned—a situation that accurately reflects a quality in the man himself.
THE ELECTION SHOULD provide answers to many questions. Most significantly, however, Oregon voters will give their judgment on whether Morse is the brilliant and courageous statesman his followers say he is, or an egocentric crackpot and hypocrite a favorite epithet of his detractors.
The intellectual capabilities of the former dean of the University of Oregon School of Law have been amply demonstrated since he first entered the Senate in 1944 under Republican sponsorship. But the 61-year-old senator, a master orator, shows little sign of having been touched by that spirit of compromise thought to be an essential ingredient of political wisdom.
Weighing heavily in the upcoming Oregon Senate race will be Morse's almost vitriolic denunciations of his late fellow senator, Richard L. Neuberger, who in his short tenure in Congress developed a strong popularity. Republicans also are bound to make what political hay they can out of Morse's now famous comic-operabattle of words with Clare Boothie Luce over her appointment by President Eisenhower in 1959 as ambassador to Brazil.
MORSE, WHO LOVES a political battle, usually can be found in the thick of most Capitol Hill campaigns. But the resulting smoke and fury generally serve to obscure the image of the man.
Wisconsin-born, Morse was nurtured on the progressive liberal philosophy of Robert LaFollette Sr.
in his early college days at the University of Wisconsin. The Morse family was poor and their 360-acre farm near Madison was in constant threat of foreclosure. At college, Morse was an honor student and a facile debater. As of 1961 he held seven academic degrees, including a Ph.D. from Wisconsin and a doctorate of law from Columbia University.
Morse taught argumentation at the Universities of Wisconsin and Minnesota until 1929, when he was appointed an assistant professor of law at the University of Oregon. Two years later he was dean of the school.
What some choose to call Morse's courage and others call his arrogance showed itself early when he led a faculty revolt at Oregon against autocratic old Chancellor W. Jasper Kerr. Kerr was ultimately forced to resign and the name of Wayne Morse received considerable play in the Oregon press.
MORSE SAW HIS FIRST government service as a member of the Railway Emergency Board in 1941. He went from there to the War Labor Board, where he forged a reputation as a meticulously fair arbitrator. When Morse decided to crash national politics by unseating crusty isolationist Rufus Hoiman from the Oregon Senate delegation, he allegedly considered the Democratic nomination first but rejected the idea because the Democrats were short of campaign funds.
In Washington, Morse, always self-confident, set the pattern of his later political career by ignoring the well-established tradition of freshman silence. Republican leaders soon had just cause to wonder about his party allegiance. From the 79th through the 82nd Congresses, Morse voted with his party on an average of only 35 per cent of the issues. He still wore reelection in 1950 as a Republican and was one of the earliest supporters of Dwight D. Eisenhower for President in 1952.
But the attraction Eisenhower had for Morse before the 1952 convention disappeared entirely after the general's nomination. In a dramatic tape-recorded interview, Morse renounced his Republican ties and charged that Eisenhower "was up to his neck in stinkholes of reaction." The trim (5-foot, 10-inches, 160-pounds) Oregon senator later called Eisenhower "the most dangerous man ever to have been in the White House."
Minority Leader: Charles A. Halleck
Charles A. Halleck gained the minority leadership in 1959 as a result of the Republican disaster in the Congressional elections of 1958. As leader he soon won a national reputation as a "gut fighter" and a ruthless party disciplinarian, and his colleagues still respect Halleck's talent at skirmishing. ("We gotcha licked," according to one administration official, is Halleck's favorite expression.) Halleck distinguished himself in the Eighty-sixth Congress by his ability to prod reluctant Republicans into support of President Eisenhower's program and to thwart the will of an ambitious Democratic majority. "One-third plus one," the number of votes needed to sustain a Presidential veto, became a Republican slogan. As a reward for his efforts Ike told him, "You are a political genius."
Now that Halleck is on his own, however, some of the members of the House are beginning to wonder to what end his combat skill is being employed. Halleck, by and large, speaks for the standpatters, who are accused by the "constructive" group of intellectual lethargy, endemic negativism, and a failure to oppose the Democrats in any meaningful way. Halleck himself denies the charges and is at pains to disown the "gut fighter" label, which has come to connote a sort of obstructionist without a cause.
It is true that Halleck has become something of an "aginner" by habit. Only twice since he came to the House in 1935 has there been a Republican majority, and only eight of his twenty-seven years in Congress have been served under a Republican President. Halleck and a great many of his colleagues have spent their adult lives fighting the New Deal, the Fair Deal, and now the New Frontier. They have come to relish the battle.
—Excerpted from an article by Meg Greenfield in The Reporter, March 29, 1962.
For a while Morse stayed aloft from both parties. But by 1956 he had officially declared himself a Democrat and heaped humiliation on the Republican party and the Eisenhower administration when Oregon voters sent him back to the Senate for a third term. Morse's opponent in the race was Douglas McKay, former Eisenhower secretary of the Interior, who had been hand-picked by the administration.
STILL MORSE MANAGED to cause bewilderment among his supporters for what at times seemed to be daring but pointless independence.
Sen. Wayne Lyman Morse
Perhaps some of this can be traced to his intense dislike for Eisenhower. Whatever the cause, Morse in 1957, as a ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, opposed the administration's request for a long-range economic development program for under-developed nations of Africa and Asia, something many responsible government leaders favored as a means of bringing a semblance of order to a meandering foreign aid program.
The normally staunch internationalist, who served as a member of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations in 1960, charged the bill granted the Chief Executive too much unchecked authority in the allocation of funds. The bill eventually passed with overwhelming bipartisan support. Many, stunned by Morse's opposition, pointed out that the measure was actually stricter in its limitations than the old Marshall Plan.
50 Years in Congress一
Since the advent of the Kennedy administration, the senior Oregon senator has been noticeably less controversial. He has supported the new President's foreign and domestic legislation in 72 per cent of the issues, compared with only 39 per cent support he gave Eisenhower-backed bills in the 1959-60 legislative session.
But the big election crisis for Morse probably will appear in the form of the ghost of Richard Neuberger, whom More helped to boost to the U.S. Senate in 1954. The two were so closely allied at first that Time magazine referred to the Oregon senate delegation as the "Morse-berger." But Neuberger's more conciliatory attitudes soon placed him in a position of opposing his colleague's aggressive independence.
If Morse has enjoyed the martyr aspect of the unyielding individualist, he may find this November that the martyr's path leads inevitably to the stake. And Republicans would like nothing better than to sacrifice Wayne Lyman Morse to the political gods.
Carl Hayden: Senate Workhorse
By Chuck Morelock
On Feb. 19, 1912, a young Democrat from the brand new state of Arizona was sworn into the House of Representatives.
On Feb. 19, 1962, that man, still lively and going strong at 84, became the first political figure in American history to have served in Congress for 50 years.
AND CARL HAYDEN, senior senator from Arizona, isn't about to call it quits either—he's seeking reelection for another term. Well known in the nation's capital but relatively unknown elsewhere, Hayden, a tall, lean, balding cigar smoker, attributes most of his success to hard work and a willingness to do his homework. While his more eloquent colleagues in the Senate are busy issuing gems of oratorical brilliance, Hayden usually can be found in the Library of Congress, digging out the intimate details of a proposed bill.
This digging takes a lot of time, but Hayden, who works up to 12 hours a day 7 days a week, wouldn't have it any other way. He's worked hard ever since he got a bit of sage advice 50 years ago. At that time, wishing to make a good impression during his first days in office, Hayden made a flowery, cliche-filled speech in the best Senator Claghorn tradition.
Afterwards, a wise old representative suggested that the budding young Flato be a "workhorse," not a "show horse." Hayden has made few speeches since.
Today, as president pro tempore of the Senate and chairman of the powerful Senate Committee on Appropriations, Hayden is one of the most respected politicians of this century and whose wishes, it is said, have almost the effect of law. And every president from Wilson to Kennedy has sought his advice. But in spite of his lofty position, Hayden is considered a kind, friendly, almost humble man. Harry Truman will second that. HST was greeted by a cool reception when he first joined the Senate, thanks to his reputation as an alleged "tool of the Pendergasts." When the two men first met, Hayden stuck out his hand and said, "Welcome to Washington, senator. I'm Carl Hayden of Arizona, an old timer here. Call on me for any help I can give you."
Truman has never forgotten.
AS CHAIRMAN of the appropriations committee, Hayden has the power to touch every pocketbook in the land. But for a man who works with billions of dollars every day, Hayden in his personal life is a thriftmaster, the kind who will turn off unneeded lights and purchase cheap ballpoint pens to save a few pennies.
In committee sessions, Hayden may sit virtually forgotten for three or four hours, then in 25 words or less point out exactly what must be done and why. This ability to "sift out the chaff," as he puts it, has proved invaluable throughout the years.
Hayden was born Oct. 2, 1877, in Tempe, Arizona, and attended Stanford University and served as Maricopa County treasurer from 1904 to 1906 and as sheriff from 1907 to 1912. The only time he ever lost an election occurred while he was running for student body president in college. Hayden lost by two votes because he and his girl friend Nan Downing—later Mrs. Hayden—felt it would be fairer to give those votes to his opponent.
Elected to the 62nd Congress as a delegate-at-large in 1912, Hayden was reelected for seven consecutive terms until he moved over to the
Senate on March 4, 1927. And since then he has been reelected in 1932, 1938, 1944, 1950, and 1956. He is not only the dean of Congress but the dean of the Senate as well, out-serving Georgia's Richard Russell by six years.
A FEW YEARS after he went to Washington for the first time, Hawden made friends with a young Justice Department clerk, Ed Hoover. In 1924, Hayden helped push through a bill for $66,320 to start a finger-printing bureau, a move that paved the way for the creation of the FBI, which his friend—J. Edgar Hoover—would head.
Thirty-five years of experience with the appropriations committee have given him an insight into virtually every phase of Senate life, although essentially he is a specialist in irrigation and highway matters. Several years ago, deploring the lack of a definite plan for road and turnpike networks, Hayden told a conference of state highway commissioners to go home and work out plans for a national system.
"They did that and the result is the fine system we have today," says Hayden.
As far as irrigation is concerned, Hayden considers one of his biggest pieces of unfinished business is the authorization and construction of a billion dollar federal irrigation project for rapidly expanding central Arizona.
In good times and bad, he has consistently supported the Democratic Party. But like all congressmen, he sometimes strays from the fold. One good reason is his refusal to straddle the fence. In his words, "You must take a firm stand on every issue to avoid making a fool of yourself. If you inform yourself well, both sides will respect you."
AMONG OTHERS, he voted for or against the following bills or amendments in the First Session of the 87th Congress:
For: amendments to provide three-fourths federal contributions instead of two-thirds on urban renewal housing in small communities in distressed areas, to reduce until 1962 instead of 1963 the time for making agreements with states for regulating billboard advertisements on the Interstate Highway System, to reduce by $10 million funds for forest protection and utilization and to bar funds to any country unless the president has determined that that country is not dominated by communism.
He also voted for bills to amend the Mutual Defense Assistance Control Act of 1951 to provide additional economic assistance to non-Communist countries, to extend the Unemployment Compensation Act of 1951 and to establish a National Wilderness Preservation System.
He voted against a bill to reduce by $100 million funds for soil and water conserving practices and an amendment to reduce Peace Corps appropriations from $40 million to $25 million.
"MR. MONEYBAGS" and "The Desert Fox," as he is sometimes called, is third in line for the presidency, a fact many Americans would not realize. The Constitution specifies that in the death of the president, the job goes to the vice president, then to the speaker of the House. After that comes the president pro tempore of the Senate.
Havden was noncommittal when asked in a recent rare interview to name his greatest accomplishment.
"When you've been in Washington for 50 years, you just can't single out one particular accomplishment. After all, 50 years is a long, long time."