Warren, Earl (1891–1974)

Early Years

Warren was born in Los Angeles, California, on March 19, 1891, to Scandinavian immigrant parents. Shortly after his birth, his father, who was employed by the Southern Pacific Railroad, moved the family to Bakersfield, California. There, as a young man, Warren witnessed a city that was at the time best known for being vice ridden and for its corrupt city government. As he grew older, he worked for the railroad during summer vacations and saw firsthand the plight of the working poor and racial prejudice against Asian workers. These childhood experiences helped shape Warren's later views of the role of law and government in addressing societal ills.

Warren attended the University of California, Berkeley, from 1909 to 1914, earning his undergraduate and Juris Doctorate degrees. After brief stints working for an oil company and then a law firm, he enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War I, serving from 1917 to 1918, with the rank of first lieutenant; he never left the United States and did not engage in actual combat. After being discharged from the military, Warren worked in 1919 as clerk of the California State Assembly Judicial Committee. In 1920, he became deputy city attorney for Oakland and deputy district attorney for Alameda County; and in 1925, the same year he married his Swedish immigrant wife, Nina, he became district attorney for the county. The couple would have six children.

Some of Warren's detractors questioned his legal background. However, he was an experienced, aggressive, and successful prosecutor, never having had a conviction overturned. During his career, he professionalized the district attorney's office, and although he was regarded as a tough-on-crime prosecutor, he was also fair-minded about the rights of the accused and saw to it that indigents had public defenders. In 1932, Warren was voted the best prosecutor in the country.

Rise to the Bench

Warren, a Republican, was elected attorney general of California in 1938 and governor in 1942. In what is often viewed as a blemish on his record as a civil libertarian, while serving as governor he supported the internment of California's Japanese and Japanese American populations during World War II. Warren was so popular as governor that he won the Republican, Democratic, and Progressive primaries during his reelection campaign in 1946. After a failed bid for the vice presidency of the United States, as Thomas Dewey's running mate against Harry Truman in 1948, Warren became a national figure and a possible candidate for the 1952 Republican presidential nomination. At the national convention, seeing that he could not win the nomination over Dwight Eisenhower, he put his full support behind Eisenhower.

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