Warren, Earl

In a leadership manner akin to that of his political hero Abraham Lincoln, Earl Warren (1891–1974) transformed the nation as the fourteenth chief justice of the United States. Both Lincoln and Warren were Republicans who believed in promoting democratic values. Warren implemented the Great Emancipator’s belief in equality, fairness, and individual dignity through a human rights due process revolution, fair trial procedures, and fairer representation in state legislatures.

Born in Los Angeles, Warren was raised in the frontier town of Bakersfield, California. Warren skipped two grades in elementary school, which led to his being somewhat of an outsider in high school. After graduating in 1908, he moved to Berkeley to attend the University of California—the first youth from East Bakersfield to do so.

Determined to become a lawyer like Lincoln, Warren majored in political science at Berkeley while at the same time becoming involved in Theodore Roosevelt’s progressive politics. After three years he entered the university’s Department of Jurisprudence, ultimately receiving a bachelor of law degree in 1914, the same year he was admitted to the California bar. He then began practicing law in San Francisco, becoming a lifelong Republican after the newly formed Lincoln-Roosevelt League swept progressive Hiram W. Johnson into the governorship in 1910 on an anti-railroad, reform platform. During World War I, Warren briefly served in the army but remained stateside, rising to the rank of captain.

In 1926 Warren began his long career as an elected official as the district attorney for Alameda County. He made a name for himself fighting political corruption, and in 1938 he ran for attorney general. During that campaign, Warren’s father was murdered on May 14, 1938. After he learned that the police had found a suspect, Warren refused to let them coerce a confession, and the murder was never solved. He became the state’s chief law enforcement officer on December 29, 1938. In that position he was swept up in the war hysteria after the attack on Pearl Harbor. As a result, he strongly supported the military’s forced evacuation of persons of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast even though two-thirds of them were native-born American citizens. This popular action in the state was backed by the president, Congress, and the Supreme Court. As governor and chief justice he strove to compensate for this injustice, and in his memoirs he would express belated regret over his action.

By now the most popular politician in the state, he won the governorship in 1942. Franklin D. Roosevelt refused to campaign against him; Warren garnered 57 percent of the vote, and his fellow Republicans won control of both chambers of the state legislature. As governor he served an unprecedented three terms, compiling a progressive record. In 1944 he twice turned down Thomas E. Dewey’s offer to serve as his running mate on the Republican ticket for president, but he did agree to join the ticket in 1948.

As a result of his vice presidential race in 1948, Warren became a contender for the 1952 Republican presidential nomination. After the contest narrowed to one between conservative Robert A. Taft and World War II hero Dwight Eisenhower, Warren threw his support behind the more moderate Eisenhower. After his victory, Eisenhower promised to make Warren his first appointment to the Supreme Court. When Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson died suddenly of a heart attack on September 8, 1953, Eisenhower was at first reluctant to name Warren to head the Court, but he followed through on his promise and nominated him to the chief justiceship. Warren was confirmed by the Senate on March 1, 1954.

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