Wayne Lyman MORSE, Congress, OR (1900-1974)

1900-1974
Senate Years of Service:
1945-1969
Party:
Republican; Independent; Democrat

MORSE, Wayne Lyman, a Senator from Oregon; born near Madison, Dane County, Wis., October 20, 1900; attended the public schools; graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1923, and received a graduate degree from that institution in 1924; graduated from the law department of the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis in 1928, and from the law school at Columbia University, N.Y., in 1932; held a reserve commission as second lieutenant, Field Artillery, United States Army 1923-1929; taught argumentation at the Universities of Wisconsin and Minnesota; assistant professor of law at the University of Oregon at Eugene 1929, associate professor 1930, and dean and professor of law 1931-1944; member of the Oregon Crime Commission; administrative director, United States Attorney General’s Survey of Release Procedures 1936-1939; Pacific Coast arbitrator for the United States Department of Labor (maritime industry) 1938-1942, and also served in other capacities of the Labor Department; chairman of the Railway Emergency Board 1941; alternate public member of the National Defense Mediation Board 1941; public member of the National War Labor Board 1942-1944; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1944; reelected in 1950; reelected as a Democrat in 1956 and again in 1962, and served from January 3, 1945, to January 3, 1969; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1968; lecturer and labor arbitrator; distinguished visiting scholar, State University of New York 1969-1970; unsuccessful Democratic candidate for the United States Senate in 1972; won the Democratic senatorial nomination in 1974 and was actively engaged in campaigning when he died July 22, 1974, in Portland, Oreg.; interment in Rest Haven Memorial Park, Eugene, Oreg.

Bibliography

American National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Drukman, Mason. Wayne Morse: A Political Biography. Portland: Oregon Historical Society, 1997; Wilkins, Lee. Wayne Morse: A Bio-Bibliography. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1985.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present