Who Was Delegate Jim Harrison?

In my collecting adventures recently I came across this John F. Kennedy 1960 delegate badge owned and worn by Jim Harrison. It didn't take me long to find out more information on Harrison.

WRITE-IN MORSE Found

It has been a really slow year for finding new Wayne Morse items. I really haven't picked up much since January. That all changed the other day. I was getting ready to leave the house for a long day of activities and I randomly decided to login to ebay and look for some political items. That's where I stumbled upon this bumper sticker.

Oregon JFK Items

Let's take a look at some Oregon 1960 JFK related items! These items mostly come from the collection of John Gearhart, John Silvertooth, and Carl Fisher. Many of these items were not featured in the Oregon Historical Society High Hopes exhibit.

First some JFK Oregon pins. There are at least three known pins. Two show up fairly frequently online and in collections of JFK and Oregon items. These two pins were featured in the High Hopes exhibit.

The third Blue-White-Black Kennedy shows up rarely. This is the only one I have ever seen.

Here is a great Kennedy newspaper sent during the 1960 Oregon Primary. I had been trying to purchase one for most of this year, and finally was able to get one.

JFK at 100: High Hopes

This weekend I had the chance to finally go down to the Oregon Historical Society and visit High Hopes: The Journey of John F. Kennedy. We are over half way through the JFK centennial year. While it is highly unlikely JFK would have lived to be 100 had his life never been taken so early, it is sometimes interesting to think what his life and ours would have been like had he lived.

Would he have beaten Barry Goldwater to serve a 2nd term? What would have he occupied himself with during his post-presidency? Would he have lived into the 1980s or early 1990s? Could you imagine JFK doing the talk show circuit that the 24 hour a day news service gave us? All that is fun to think about. Let's get back to the exhibit down at OHS.

Photo is Morse of Course!

An old newsprint photo has been causing some discussion amongst collectors on the APIC facebook page. I was searching for photos used in newsprint of collectors and their collections when I stumbled upon this photo of Emanuel Ress from 1960. He is inspecting laminated prints for 1960 presidential hopefuls that he plans to sell to the public. As you can see there are pins for Nixon, Kennedy, Johnson, Humphrey and several for Senator Wayne Morse.

Morse of course, was the Oregon Democrat running for President in the 1960 primaries. While he was only officially on the ballot in three contests (Maryland, DC, and Oregon) he claimed to have organizers working for him in most states that held state conventions to select delegates. I am a huge Morse fan and wrote my last political science paper in college on his 1960 effort. I have so far been unable to find ay firm details on these various efforts outside of those three mentioned above, but, like so much political organizing today it may have gone largely unnoticed.

Ress inspecting the quality of his prints for buttons.

The Neuberger Record

We've posted about Maurine Neuberger before. I recently picked up a record album from 1960. I had seen it on ebay for a few months, but listed for more than I thought it should go for until it recently came down in price. I grabbed it. What it contains is a cache of old campaign ads made for radio. There are 9 ads in total and I can't wait to hear them.

What makes this record so interesting is that it is possibly full of ads that were never used in the May 1960 campaign. Earlier that year, Oregon's junior Senator had passed away. He was only 47.  This record may be full of campaign advertisements from his 1960 re-election effort. Then again, they could be ads from the joint Special and Regular May Primary for Maurine Neuberger. I will find out when get the old record machine up and running. I can't wait to listen.

What's In A Name? & Update

This article originally appeared in the American Locals Political Item Collectors Newsletter in the Summer 1991 issue. It was written by APIC member David Shanton. We have added more photos to supplement the original article and provided a short update on Neubergers life from 1991-2000.

As crass it may sound, for most of our nation's history, the single most direct route to the United States Senate for a woman was through the cemetery. With the exception of Margaret Chase Smith, the ten women who served in the Senate prior to the 1978 election of Nancy Kassenbaum arrived there by virtue of the death of their husbands.


Oregon's Maurine Neuberger was no different. Her husband, Richard L. Neuberger was the first Democrat elected to the Senate from Oregon in 40 years when he took the seat in 1954. His sudden death in March 1960, just days before he planned to file for re-election, left Oregon Democrats in a quandary. Most realized that Maurine Neuberger would be a formidable, perhaps unbeatable candidate, but would she run?

1960 Bumper Sticker

Wayne Morse Christmas Surprise

The year was 1959, and the Christmas season was in full swing here in Oregon. Families were gathering and preparing to celebrate the end of a busy year. President Eisenhower was entering his last year in office and candidates from all around the country had been announcing their intentions to run to replace him all year. A late entrant to the Democratic nomination came on December 22,1959 out of Oregon.

Morse Talks to Young Voters after event in Maryland

Senator Wayne Morse, a man who had been supposedly uninterested in running for President announced his candidacy. Appearing above the front page headline in the Oregonian read: "SEN. WAYNE MORSE ENTERS PRESIDENTIAL RACE". It was a Christmas surprise that some Oregon Democrats loved and other Democrats cringed at unwrapping. There were several factors that led Morse to announce and they all played a part in his campaign. Be it ego, pressure from a citizens petition drive to place him on the ballot, Jack Kennedy's unimpressive progressive credentials, a hope that Adlai Stevenson may still be willing to run at the convention and finally fears that Republicans would place him on the ballot to embarrass him for his 1962 re-election campaign.

Morse for President Bumper Sticker

A Time For Greatness

Here is an example of a JFK Oregon campaign poster. 

This poster showed up on ebay a few months ago, and it was the first time I had ever seen this style of poster in an Oregon version. It looks to be printed on heavier cardboard stock and has the Oregon campaign information on the bottom.

JFK 50 Years Later

With the approaching 50th Anniversary since JFK's passing I went through my collection and pulled out all my JFK pins. It isn't much, but when you've been in college and working part time for the better part of the time you've been collecting you don't get much of a chance to get some of the 'good stuff', as JFK items have always been desirable.

From Carl Fisher Collection

Oregon member Grant Schott wrote up a great recap of JFK's visits to Oregon in the lead up to the 1960 Oregon Presidential Primary over at BlueOregon (one of the leading political blogs of the state). 

The Universal Party's Oregon Connections

I was doing some reading of some old Keynoter magazines that I was able to find and found an article by Stephen K. Hauser in the Summer of 1998 issue. His article is about the several campaigns ran by the Universal Party of the 1960s and early 70s. The Universal Party was founded by various UFO enthusiasts and contactees (for those of you who have never seen the X-Files, this was a term popularized in the 50s and 60s for individuals who have supposedly have contact with extraterrestrials).