Bucks for Morse Button

 This is a follow up to Preston Malcolm's Keynoter article Odd Man Out Wayne Morse of Oregon that first appeared in the Summer 1981 issue. The article identifies the Volunteer Solicitor Bucks for Morse pin as one of the more scarce Morse pins. It seems to be very scarce based on conversations and posts on social media with fellow locals collectors. I have not been able to find one of these pins yet in Oregon. I was able to pick one up a few years ago in one of Norm Eavenson's online sales. I was ecstatic to find one finally! The one I purchased was number 987. Since finding the button and tracking down a few more in other collectors collection I started asking around about what campaign it was used in and who issued it. Little seemed known from other collectors. They just knew like me that it was from the 1950s and was very hard to find. The button is a 3" celluloid pin with a Portland, Oregon union bug on the face. Known numbers in private collections include 41, 331, 592, 610, 848, and 987. If you have one, please be kind and send me your number.



I started trying to find out more about the button from the archives of the Oregonian and other Oregon newspapers. There is not much out there. The phrase 'Bucks for Morse' did show up in several articles about the 1956 campaign. This was the campaign right after Wayne Morse switched from Republican to Independent and finally became a Democrat. The Republican Party of Oregon nominated former Governor Douglas McKay, at the time he was serving in Washington D.C. as President Dwight Eisenhower's Secretary of the Interior. One instance of the phrase Bucks for Morse was found in the August 31, 1956 edition of the Salem Statesman Journal. The news clips section reads:

Anthony Vavorus, Legislative representative for the Oregon Joint Council of Teamsters, reported this week that the Teamsters' Bucks-for-Morse program was progressing satisfactory.

The Teamsters' it seems created the 'Bucks for Morse' program. Other articles from the Oregonian detail that the Teamsters' union made donations totaling $17,000 to the Democratic Party of Oregon. It is unknown if this money was raised solely via the Bucks for Morse initiative.

In the mid-fifties, the union was one of the most powerful in the country and was starting to come under intense scrutiny both locally and nationally. By December of 1956, it was clear that investigations and hearings would begin in the new year by the McClellan Committee. Oregonian investigative reporters Wallace Turner and William Lambert had just spent the last year diving deep into investigations to expose organized crime connections to local government. This led the committee and it's Chief Counsel Robert Kennedy, to investigate racketeering by union officials in multiple cities across the United States.

Morse and his allies like the Teamsters' were outspent according to what few reports exist in the newspaper archives. McKay spent an estimated $188,000 while the Re-elect Morse Committee spent $89,000, and a PAC supporting Morse spent $87,000, bringing a total near $176,000 between pro-Morse forces. In the same election that President Eisenhower won Oregon with 55% of the vote, Morse only underperformed Eisenhower by 1%, earning 54% of the vote against the Douglas McKay who earned only 46% of the vote

The button stands out as the largest known Morse pin from 1956. Nearly all the other Morse pins identified from that year are 1" inch sized pins. Rumors also speak of a Stevenson-Morse coattail pin, but it has never been proven to exist. Until someone shows us one, the best Morse pin of 1956 will remain the Bucks for Morse pin.