On September 13, just over a month before Oregonians would head to the polls in the 1956 Senatorial election, Senator Wayne Morse made a stop at the Eugene Chamber of Commerce. He addressed a number of topics, including his stance on Northwest dam Projects and his views on his critics. However the subject most on the minds of the audience, many of them Republican, was Morse’s decision to switch from to the Democratic party four years earlier.
Morse justified his switch in a number of ways. Repeating a refrain that would sound in many of his speeches of this era, he spoke to his political conscience, one which compelled him to switch:
Leaving the Republican party for Morse was not an act of political expediency, but a decision borne out of his belief that he could no longer serve Oregonians effectively while under party control:
The Q&A Session that followed his half-hour speech opened up the floor to more inquiries regarding the party switch. Taking such questioning in stride, Morse spoke to both the hypocrisy of claiming to represent a people while in the pocket of the party and of the unfair attention his party switch had drawn compared to other Senators who had done the same:
Morse had a way of embracing the criticism levied at him, in particular the charge that he was an idealist academic. Moving to the Democratic side of the aisle had now earned him the “liberal” label. Here he responds by defining the necessary job of the liberal in Congress:
Of course the label Morse best earned over the course of his Senatorial career was “maverick,” always asserting his right to “vote his conscience” despite party, special interest, or outside influence. His closing passage from the Chamber of Commerce speech encapsulates that spirit with impressive precision:
Wayne Morse at the Eugene Chamber of Commerce
September 13, 1956
Text and Digitized Audio by J.D. Swerzenski
