US Senator. He served in the United States Senate from the state of Oregon from January 3, 1945 to January 3, 1969. He graduated from University of Wisconsin-Madison with both a bachelors and masters degree in speech. He went on to teach speech at the University of Minnesota Law School and later earned his LL.B. degree from there in 1928. During this period, he also held a reserve commission as a second lieutenant in the United States Army Field Artillery. In 1929, he became an assistant professor of law at the University of Oregon School of Law, where he later was promoted first, to associate professor and then, to dean of the law school. He also earned his S.J.D. at Columbia Law School in 1932. During the late 1930s and early 1940s, he served on many government boards and commissions. In 1944, he ran in the United States Senate Republican primary and defeated incumbent Sen. Rufus C. Holman. He was successful in the general election in November of that year and went on to serve in the United States Senate for four terms before losing his re-election to Republican Bob Packwood in 1968. In 1952, he switched his party affiliation from Republican to independent to protest the party's selection of Richard M. Nixon as its vice presidential nominee. He remained an independent for three years before joining the Democrats in the Senate. He made a brief run for president in 1960, but dropped out after losing his state's Democratic primary. He, along with Sen. Ernest Gruening of Alaska, were the only two senators to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which authorized the expansion of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, in 1964. His opposition to the Vietnam War was a key factor in his 1968 re-election loss. He would try to regain a seat in the Senate in 1972, but lost the general election to Republican Sen. Mark O. Hatfield. In 1974, he won the Democratic nomination to regain the seat he lost in 1968, but he passed away of kidney failure during the campaign.