Meet the People

One of the troubles of U.S. democracy, Oregon's Senator Wayne Morse had long since decided, is that U.S. citizens are sometimes a little lazy when it comes to working at it--especially if the work involves going to a political meeting and asking a challenging candidate a few sharp questions. Last week Morse set out to make the process really easy. Seated in a little studio in station KERG in Eugene, he invited listening farmers and townspeople to pick up the phone and ask him a question. The questions came with a rush; it kept three people busy just taking the calls.

The first question was tough: "Why do you vote so often with the Democrats and why don't you run on the Democratic ticket?" Glib Wayne Morse, a maverick on the Republican range who voted with the Democrats three times out of four in the 81st Congress, took nine minutes to answer it. Look up the Republican platform, he said, and you will find that the Morse record closely followed it. Other questioners wanted to know about the Columbia Valley Administration and the Administration's health insurance bill. He opposed CVA, he explained, because it would take control of the Northwest from the states and hand it over to the Federal Government. He was against the health bill for much the same reason. But, he warned, "The doctors are in the same position [as labor when it got Taft-Hartley] . . . Unless they are willing to sit down and help work out a sound program of health insurance, they will get legislation they won't care for a little bit."

The one-man quiz show went on for more than an hour and a half before Morse called a halt. Political reporters who heard him thought that he came out on top. Morse is up for re-election next year; so far, his possible opponents, like his questioners, are still out of sight.

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