The Politics of Reason: The Life of Rogers Morton

Editor note: This was originally published on July 16, 2012

When the Talbot Spy formally launched in the Spring of 2011, it dedicated itself to the memory of Talbot County’s Rogers C.B. Morton, a Republican Congressman and former Secretary of the Interior and Commerce in the Nixon and Ford Administrations.

This might have been seen as an odd choice for a brand new e-newspaper, with a decidedly progressive point of view, to honor  a former Republican congressman, let alone one who had passed away more than thirty years ago. Indeed, even many of the GOP faithful have lost memories of one of their great Republican icons of the region.

While we knew that Morton (who represented the Eastern Shore in Congress from 1962 to 1972), was undoubtedly a good man, our reasons to acknowledge his contributions were motivated by his legendary capacity to reach across the great political divide. Despite his active and very public partisan roles (he also served as Chairman of the National Republican Party) Morton was behind the scenes working with Democrats and conservatives in his own party to protect the Chesapeake Bay, usher in civil rights, fair housing, ethics reform, environmental protection and land conservation.

His daughter Anne “Babe” Wyman recalls that her father’s self-image was one of a businessman first and foremost. “He liked the fact that he came from business. He had a love of the Bay and farming, but what he thought he brought to the table was a business-like mindset such as keeping taxes down and government’s role limited, but be fair.”

Morton’s unique sense of reasonableness however transcended party lines, wealth, or race. In many ways, he embodied the best qualities of the Eastern Shore, and, in particular, his adopted home of Easton, and it seemed appropriate for us to set the tone for our new undertaking by tipping our collective hat to Rogers C.B. Morton.

But who was Rog Morton? And how did his collegial form of politics fair in the policy jungles of Washington DC? In a three-part series, the Spy takes a second look at the Morton legacy and the man himself.

The Man

On a hot August morning in 1968, Richard Nixon was enjoying perhaps the most stunning political comeback in American history, having just secured the Republican nomination for president the night before only six years after telling the press in 1962 that “they won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore.”

The “New Nixon” had masterfully crafted his comeback with a primary campaign of remarkable organization and planning. Unlike his poorly executed presidential run in 1960, almost every detail and strategy had been anticipated with laser-like focus, including the tapping into Madison Avenue for the successful “Nixon’s the One” slogan.  And yet, even with this “big picture” approach, and knowing full well he had locked up the nomination weeks before Miami, he was uncharacteristically indecisive about who would be his running mate.

It wasn’t all that surprising Nixon was avoiding making this particular call. Given his own selection to be Eisenhower’s VP nominee eight years before, this was not a front-burner issue for Nixon. In his mind, his choice was to be a political calculation based on conditions on the ground in Miami. There was no need to look seriously at such things as compatibility or assessing presidential timber, let alone personal finances. The paramount consideration was who would best attract the independent voter that year. Nonetheless, Nixon struggled.

In fact, Nixon had already met twice with aides and congressional leaders to consider possible choices, and it was apparent to key aides at the time that no firm candidate had emerged. But now, with only hours left to make up his mind, he called for yet another meeting with his closest people to put the issue to bed that morning.

Six arrived and took seats in the living room of the suite: Headed up by Nixon’s pipe-smoking campaign manager John Mitchell, future White House chief of staff and Watergate felon Bob Halderman, old California friend Bob Finch, convention floor manager Robert Ellsworth, as well as party leaders, Senator John Tower from Texas and Congressman Rogers Morton from the small Eastern Shore town of Easton, Maryland.

After tossing out names like Massachusetts Governor John Volpe, Howard Baker of Tennessee, and a few other dark horses, there was a decidedly indifferent response from his team. Nixon finally circled back to the Spiro Agnew option again.

Agnew looked good to Nixon. He had been particularly impressed by his quick political rise in Maryland. Within four years, Agnew had gone from a county executive to governor of a major state, very similar to Nixon’s own rise from the House to the Senate and finally Vice President in almost the same amount of time. He was also perceived as a moderate with strong civil rights credentials. It also didn’t hurt that Agnew had working class roots as well as Greek-American ancestry.

On the other hand, he had spent very little time getting to know Agnew. While Ted Agnew had endorsed Nixon early in the primary season, they had never had a formal meeting of any significance prior to the Miami Convention. More importantly, there was no serious due diligence on Agnew, or any other possible running mate up for review. It would be four years later when both parties started to take the VP selection seriously in the aftermath of the famous George McGovern debacle with his selection of Senator Tom Eagleton in 1972.  There was no “Agnew file” to measure performance or to know what ghosts hid in the closet.  Nixon needed some raw information.

He turned to Agnew’s fellow Marylander Rogers Morton for a frank assessment.

Unlike most of his other personal relations in politics, he actually liked “Rog”. While he was pleased that Morton had endorsed Nixon very early on in 1968, there was something else about Rog, a rare likeability hard to define,  that placed Morton on Nixon’s very, very short “good guy” list.

It seemed like everyone liked Rog. Republicans, Democrats, Chesapeake watermen, Eastern Shore farmers, and more than a few landed gentry. The six-foot seven congressman, with Kennedy length white hair, a belly laugh heard through walls, and native Kentucky charm, quickly became known as the “gentle giant” around Washington.

Unlike Morton’s good friend, the six-foot four Lyndon Johnson, who made physical intimidation into a Washington art form, Morton used his massive frame to engulf people in a sea of fraternal friendship, that even the introverted and cautious Nixon found hard to resist.

As a testament to Nixon’s affection for Morton, he had elected to ignore Morton’s blue blood pedigree, which in most cases was a deal killer for the class conscious Southern Californian. As a product of Woodberry Forest, Yale and, even worse for Nixon, inherited wealth, it was impossible to hide his establishment credentials.

After the family flour business was acquired by Pillsbury in the 1950s, it was no secret that Morton lived a very comfortable existence. His move to Talbot County was due to his love of sailing, not because it was territory for a political opportunity. While he never stopped working, as he was always eager to point out, he spent his professional life mostly serving on corporate boards (like Pillsbury), gentleman farming and occasionally boat building before his years in Congress.

There seems to be some truth in the story that Morton entered politics in part to compete playfully with his beloved older brother, Thurston, who had become a popular U.S. Senator from Kentucky.  But Morton’s road with his own political career was more or less a set of random occurrences which eventually led  to winning Maryland’s 1st Congressional District in 1962.

The first random event was his close friend and former incumbent Ed Miller who unexpectedly pulled out of the 1962 race. The second was that his very popular opponent in the general election, Democrat Tom Johnson, was charged with federal bribery charges just weeks before the election.

This was not the kind of tough political training Nixon admired. And yet with Morton, it didn’t matter. He trusted him.

“Rog, what’s your take on Agnew,” asked Nixon.

Morton with no hesitation noted that Agnew’s downside was his “tendency to be lazy.”

Nixon quickly responded,“Well, Rog, maybe you would be the better choice for me.”

Morton, while a political novice compared to Nixon, was well aware that a simple change in voice inflection, an ambiguous “it’s your call, Dick” response would have started a serious conversation.  But, by all all accounts, Morton instantly fired back, “If it’s between me and Ted Agnew, Ted would be the better choice.”

Nixon, who knew Morton was not bluffing, quickly acknowledged the non-starter by turning quickly to John Mitchell with a formal nod indicating the this last option was off the list and then swung back to Morton and said, “call Agnew.”

For those who knew Rogers C.B. Morton, the consequences of Nixon’s decision on American history can not be overstated. While Morton would have more than likely failed to save Nixon from the crippling paranoia that ended his presidency in disgrace, Morton’s friends nonetheless suggest he would have saved the country from the trauma of having both a president and vice president resign due to scandal within months of each other.  And more than a few suggest he might have proven to be a more remarkable leader for the country than his good friend Jerry Ford.

But those same friends were also not surprised by Morton’s instinctive gesture to defer in the face of ambition.  In fact, Morton had a remarkable record of these gentlemanly deferments. He had only recently bowed out of Maryland’s governor’s race in 1966 (that Agnew eventually won) even after a Baltimore Sun editorial called on him to enter the race.  And more recently, in early 1968, he had graciously decided to hold the door open for his friend Mac Mathias to run for the US  Senate even though in the Maryland’s GOP circles, Rog was considered the more attractive candidate.

While modesty might have played a role in Morton’s low key approach to political ambition, he also had an equally strong desire to avoid jobs where he didn’t think he could experience a certain degree of fun and enjoyment.

And what he enjoyed most were people. From the extremes factions of the Goldwater wing in the GOP to the new “hippies” that started to emerge in the late 1960’s, Morton could always find common ground.

At the heat of the protest movement against the Vietnam War, his then aide Jay French tells a story of driving in DC  with Morton during Nixon’s first term when they spotted protesters from the other side of the street.

“We were in a place where kids were clearly going to disrupt the event we were attending. They were radicals, and loud, and he walked right into the middle of the group, and of course towered over them with that 6.7 foot frame.  By the end, everyone was laughing. It was just the way he had with people when there were disagreements. He seemed so darn reasonable to people.”

While there is a current wave of nostalgia these days for the demise of “moderate Republicans,” friends of Morton tend to explain his approach to politics in different terms.  Fellow Congressional colleague and friend Don Rumsfeld warns that the label “moderate” is too neat a category to fit Morton.

“I’m not sure we would have used the term ‘moderate’.. but I think we did see ourselves as reformers,” says Rumsfeld. “Rog and a number of us were trying to get the Congress to have better rules and procedures, like supporting an ethics committee” as well as civil rights and environmental protection.

What does emerge from Morton’s time in Washington was a remarkable period for bipartisanship and reason.  And it was a core value for Morton. He had been reasonable about civil rights when many Democrats had been opposed to it, reasonable on medicare, reasonable on international relations, and reasonable in protecting the country’s natural resources.