Come back to the Senate, Wayne Morse, Wayne Morse

I sure miss former Oregon Senator Wayne Morse. Elected to the Senate from Oregon as a Republican in 1944, Morse was re-elected in 1950, but as a Democrat in ’56 and ’62. Running for a fifth term in ’68, Morse was defeated by Bob Packwood for the worst political reason ever: Morse opposed the Vietnam War.

Born in 1900 to a farm family outside of Madison, WI, Morse was imbued with the progressive political ideals of legendary Wisconsin progressive Robert La Follett Sr., opposing political corruption, corporate domination while championing labor rights, women's suffrage, education, and later on, opposition to war.

Morse earned a law degree at the University of Wisconsin and later taught there. He eventually moved to Oregon where he became Dean of the University of Oregon Law School. Military service and numerous government jobs preceded his election to the Senate in ’44.

For the next 24 years Morse exerted his genuine maverick vision on the Senate and nation decades before the fake maverick and unrelenting warmonger John McCain.

Once in office Morse quickly alienated his right wing Republican colleagues by promoting his progressive roots. They were horrified Morse’s Republican heroes were progressives Teddy Roosevelt and Robert La Follett Sr., rather than the moribund conservatives that now ruled the party.

Morse was an early and lonely Senator who advocated détente between the U.S. and Russia; even calling for UN control over all nuclear weapons. He championed justice for weak nations from domination by the strong; fervently opposed imperialism.

Tho Morse initially supported the U.S. ‘police action’ in Korea, he concluded Truman’s action was an illegal abrogation of Congress’ Constitutional war declaration power.

In 1952, Morse quit the Republican Party for 3 good reasons: Ike’s promoting red baiter Richard Nixon for VP, Republican calls to reverse New Deal reforms, and Ike’s cowardice in failing to confront reckless anticommunist hatemonger Senator Joe McCarthy.

But it was Morse’s antiwar chops that make him my all-time Senate hero. In 1954, he opposed Ike’s plan to reinforce the French facing defeat in Indochina (Vietnam) saying, "The American people are in no mood to contemplate the killing of thousands of American boys in Indochina.” Little did he realize at the time that future presidents JFK, LBJ and Nixon were in the mood to ratchet that number up to over 58,000.

Later in ’54 Morse was one of only 3 Senators to oppose the Formosa Resolution that gave the U.S. President the authority “to employ the Armed Forces of the United States as he deems necessary for the specific purpose of securing and protecting Formosa (Taiwan) against armed attack by the Communists.” Sixty-eight years on sees the current president threatening unilateral military action against China should it attack Taiwan, again subverting Congressional war power Morse so eloquently championed.

In 1957, Morse, livid that Ike was lavishing praise on brutal, repressive Saudi Arabia as America’s greatest Middle East ally, proclaimed, "Here we are, pouring by the way of gifts to that completely totalitarian state, Saudi Arabia, millions of dollars of the taxpayers' money to maintain the military forces of a dictatorship. We ought to have our heads examined!" Sixty-five years on, Saudi Arabia is still No.1 on the totalitarian scale and No. 1 on American’s Middle East ally list.

In 1961, Morse was outraged by JFK’s Bay of Pigs invasion, again citing unconstitutional presidential bypassing of Congress before engaging in war. Morse warned, “We are in a situation in which we shall probably never again see Congress pass a declaration of war prior to the beginning of a war."   History has validated Morse’s wisdom and common sense.

Morse went into overdrive opposing U.S. escalation of war in Vietnam. On August 7, 1964, he was one of only two Senators who opposed LBJ’s Tonkin Gulf Resolution which paved the way for full blown U.S. war in Vietnam. He stated, "I rise to speak in opposition to the joint resolution [S.J. Res. 189]. I do so with a sad heart. But I consider the resolution, as I considered the resolution of 1955, known as the Formosa resolution, to be naught but a resolution which embodies a predated declaration of war."

Morse didn’t just vote and rail in the Senate against the war. He praised the protesters, spoke at teach-ins; even addressed large antiwar rallies.

But Morse, unlike virtually every other Senator and Representative, failed to learn that being antiwar doesn’t pay…or get re-elected. He lost to pro Vietnam War Bob Packwood in 1968 and faded from the historical antiwar scene.

I’m reminded of Morse upon hearing all 48 Senate Democrats present, voted to squander $40 billion in weaponry, with no oversight whatsoever, to prolong the Russian war in Ukraine rather than negotiate a settlement. Virtue signaling at its worst, while more Ukrainians die needlessly, and risk of world war between the U.S. and Russia rises.

Come back to the Senate Wayne Morse, Wayne Morse, indeed.