by Jim Newton
To those who read the manuscript, I owe special thanks—for their time and insights and for the extraordinary depth and range of expertise they brought to bear on my behalf. Brad Hall read early drafts and was consistently a source of writerly insight. My brother John, the brains of our family, gave an early draft of the manuscript a thorough and much-appreciated edit; he and his partner, my brother-in-law Christopher Brescia, were also gracious hosts on my several trips to New York. Henry Weinstein, whose command of the law is surpassed only by his knowledge of baseball and his breath-taking decency, stole time from his important duties at the Los Angeles Times to give an insightful reading to a complete draft; Max Holland, the finest and most clearheaded of all scholars on the Warren Commission, generously agreed to read that chapter and significantly improved my understanding of that terrible year. Duke law professor Erwin Chemerinsky, who manages more commitments with better humor than anyone I know, read the entire manuscript and offered important insights, especially in the chapters relating to the Court. Scot Powe gave me a delightful evening in Austin, and a deeply appreciated read of the manuscript. Jeffrey Warren, who has treasured the memory and history of his grandfather, graciously devoted many, many hours to looking over my work for details of his family. And J. R. Moehringer, my friend of some twenty years, read many drafts and counseled me throughout. This is a more thoughtful and stylish book, and I am a more capable writer, because of him.
It should be emphasized that while I am deeply grateful to all of the above, any mistakes in this book are mine and mine alone.
I am especially thankful to members of the Warren family, who have shared many hours and memories in more than a dozen interviews, follow-up conversations, and e-mails. Alas, this book comes too late for me to have met Jim or Dorothy Warren (though Jim’s recollections were captured, along with so many others, by Berkeley’s Oral History Project). But Virginia Daly, Robert Warren, and Earl Warren, Jr., each sat down time and again, in person and over the telephone, to discuss their mother and father with me. If anything, Nina “Honey Bear” Brien was even more generous, as I called on her many times to fill in missing details. She is as lovely as she is giving. I am grateful to all four children for their generosity to me.
Beyond those who lent homes, evenings, time, and intelligence to the book itself, there are those to whom I am forever in debt for other lessons. Here again, there are indeed too many to count, much less list. My colleagues at the Los Angeles Times are a source of wonder; they do difficult, honest, and diligent work every day. Editor Dean Baquet manages that noble enterprise and encouraged my work on this book, even when it kept me from the newsroom. In addition, two Times colleagues, Dan Morain and Cathleen Decker, deserve special note, as Dan corralled Sacramento materials for me when he had better things to do, and Cathy weighed in over many lunches with her unfailingly insightful views on California politics. Mark Barabak, noted above, was likewise a font of knowledge and a good friend.
As lucky as I am to work for the Times, I am especially blessed to have had the great fortune to work over the years for four of America’s finest journalists. Bill Kovach, Sonny Rawls, John Carroll, and James Reston taught me—or at least tried to teach me—about integrity, determination, precision, and commitment to quality, mixed in among many other lessons about life and journalism. Few reporters—indeed, few people—are so lucky as to be able to draw upon such a group of mentors. I am mindful every day of my debt to all four. I reserve a special measure of gratitude for Mr. Reston, who launched me on a career in journalism and whose gentle, joyful excellence stands as the example for which I strive.
Still, at the end of this project as at the beginning, there are two unrivaled recipients of my appreciation and love.
Karlene Goller is my wife and the source of much of this book’s wisdom, as well as the great currents of its feeling. On more occasions than I can recall, she engaged in our running conversation about Warren and his life. Intuitively and with her perfect pitch of precision and grace, Karlene taught me about Warren; her patience with my need to think out loud allowed me to learn more. Beyond that, Karlene is a fine lawyer—she spearheaded the long and ultimately successful effort to obtain FBI files relating to Warren from the Bureau through the Freedom of Information Act—and a gifted reader. She was, among other things, the first to suggest the title. And still beyond that, she is the font of so much love that her influence is manifested across this entire book, as it is through every aspect of my life.
My son Jack, meanwhile, cheerfully coordinated the filing of my papers and supplied inspiration throughout. I am glad to have made Earl Warren a part of his young life, and I marvel at the ways this story has penetrated his upbringing. Early in the writing, I overheard Jack describe Warren to a friend. Warren, my six-year-old son explained, was the man who helped Martin Luther King make it so the two of them could go to school with their friends who are African-American. I’ve never forgotten Jack’s elemental observation, and it was one of many that helped clarify my work. Over the long labor of a work such as this, a subject’s essence can slip beneath the seas of detail. Time and again, Jack has been there to rescue me with the clear vision. I admire, appreciate, and love my son very much, and I am grateful to him for his many insights.
In the end, a book is a story you tell to those you love, and it is Jack and Karlene to whom I have been telling it for many years now. It is thus fitting that this book is lovingly dedicated to them.
Notes
ABBREVIATIONS USED IN NOTES
BL—Bancroft Library
HI—Hoover Institution Archives
LBJ Library—Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum
LOC—Library of Congress
MD—Manuscript Division
NARA—National Archives and Records Administration
PU—Princeton University
RNLB—Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace
All references to Memoirs are to Earl Warren’s memoirs. “State archives” indicates the California State Archives.
PROLOGUE: FIRST VACANCY
1 Oral history interview with Bartley Cavanaugh, Hunting and Fishing with Earl Warren, p. 33.
2 Santa Barbara News-Press (AP report), Jan. 19, 1939.
3 Oral history interview with Bartley Cavanaugh, Hunting and Fishing with Earl Warren, p. 3.
4 Ibid., p. 33.
5 Ibid., p. 34. Cavanaugh’s account is unclear on some details. He refers, for instance, to a matter of days between these phone calls and Warren’s nomination, when in fact weeks transpired. Still, his conversations with Warren appear correctly rendered, and Warren himself, while disputing other accounts of the confirmation, did not take issue with Cavanaugh’s version.
6 Justice Tom C. Clark, quoted in the New York Times, Sept. 9, 1953.
7 New York Times, Sept. 9, 1953.
8 This remark has been recounted in various renderings, perhaps first by Joseph L. Rauh in a New Republic article titled “The Chief” (Aug. 9, 1982, p. 31). It has been included subsequently in many volumes, including Henry J. Abraham’s Justices and Presidents: A Political History of Appointments to the Supreme Court (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 254.
9 New York Times, Sept. 9, 1953.
10 Stephen Ambrose, Eisenhower: Soldier and President, p. 337.
11 Herbert Brownell, Advising Ike: The Memoirs of Attorney General Herbert Brownell, p. 166.
12 Roger K. Newman, Hugo Black: A Biography, pp. 345-47.
13 John Aubrey Douglas, “Earl Warren’s New Deal: Economic Transition, Postwar Planning, and Higher Education in California,” Journal of Policy History, vol. 1.2, no. 4 (2000).
14 Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change: The White House Years, 1953-1956, p. 228.
15 Memoirs, p. 260.
16 Brownell, Advising Ike, p. 166.
17 Los Angeles Times, Sept. 4, 1953.
18 Oral history interview with Warren, Conversations with Earl Warren on California Government, p. 285.
20 Oral history interview with Warren, Conversations with Earl Warren on California Government, p. 285.
21 Oral history interview with Warren Olney III, Law Enforcement and Judicial Administration in the Earl Warren Era, p. 386.
22 Author interviews with Earl Warren, Jr., Nov. 25, 2003, and Robert Warren, Dec. 12, 2003. Warren recalled being fetched from the island by plane not boat, but both his sons dispute that, and their recollection seems more convincing, as there is no airstrip on Santa Rosa Island.
23 Oral history interview with Merrell Small, The Office of the Governor Under Earl Warren, p. 209.
24 Oral history interview with Bartley Cavanaugh, Hunting and Fishing with Earl Warren, p. 34.
25 Pat Nixon, personal diary entry for Oct. 5, 1953, RNLB.
26 New York Times editorial, Oct. 1, 1953.
27 Los Angeles Times editorial, Oct. 1, 1953.
28 Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, p. 230.
29 John Lewis, Walking with the Wind, p. 54.
CHAPTER 1. YOUNG MAN OF CALIFORNIA
1 David Starr Jordan, California and the Californians, p. 46.
2 Memoirs, p. 14.
3 This description is drawn largely from Memoirs, pp. 14-16.
4 J. A. Alexander, Life of George Chaffey, p. 33.
5 Charles Fletcher Lummis, “One of the Old Guard,” 1900, Los Angeles Times History Center, Lummis Papers.
6 T. H. Watkins, California: An Illustrated History, p. 299.
7 Ray Ginger, The Bending Cross, p. 127.
8 Lummis, “One of the Old Guard.”
9 John D. Weaver, Warren: The Man, the Court, the Era, p. 21.
10 Memoirs, p. 13.
11 William Henry Bishop, “Southern California,” Beale Library, Local History collection, Bakersfield folder.
12 Oral history interview with Francis E. Vaughn, Earl Warren’s Bakersfield, p. 21.
13 Daily Californian, Feb. 27, 1900.
14 Daily Californian, March 27, 1900.
15 Daily Californian, Feb. 2, 1900.
16 Daily Californian, Feb. 14, 1900.
17 Author interview with Robert Warren, Dec. 11, 2003.
18 Warren’s childhood books are kept by his grandson, Jeffrey Warren, who shared them with the author.
19 This description comes from books collected by Warren’s family, particularly those kept by Jeffrey Warren. Warren’s right-handedness was relayed to the author by Robert Warren.
20 Jack Harrison Pollack, Earl Warren: The Judge Who Changed America, p. 24.
21 Memoirs, p. 21. See also oral history interview and letter from Ruth Smith Henley, Earl Warren’s Bakersfield.
22 Bill Severn, Mr. Chief Justice, p. 6.
23 Author interview with Jeffrey Warren, Aug. 26, 2003.
24 As chief justice, Warren would often be asked by schoolchildren and others to name his early influences. In a speech he delivered at Temple University on March 4, 1954, Warren recalled the impact that “Acres of Diamonds” had on him. LOC, MD, Warren papers, Speeches file.
25 Russell H. Conwell, “Acres of Diamonds,” p. 64.
26 Warren speech at Temple University, March 4, 1954, LOC, MD, Warren papers, Speeches file. Warren often referred correspondents, particularly students, to “Acres of Diamonds” when they inquired about his boyhood influences.
27 Journalist John Gunther in 1947 predicted that Warren would “never set the world on fire.”
28 Memoirs, p. 23.
29 Daily Californian, April 16, 1903.
30 Headlines and story references all drawn from the Daily Californian, week of April 10, 1903.
31 Oral history interview with Maryann Ashe, Earl Warren’s Bakersfield, p. 29.
32 High school transcript, June 1908, LOC, MD, Warren papers, family file.
33 From Milton to Tennyson, Masterpieces of English Poetry. Warren’s copy, signed and dated April 6, 1904, is in the collection of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
34 The Oracle, commencement issue, 1908.
35 Ibid.
36 Warren speech at Sailors Union Building, San Francisco, Nov. 3, 1950, state archives, Warren administrative papers, Speeches, Alpha Files “P.”
37 Ibid.
38 See, for instance, the undated tribute to Warren prepared by Douglas after Warren’s death in 1974, LOC, MD, William O. Douglas papers, Part 1, Subject files, Earl Warren.
39 Memoirs, p. 22.
40 Certificate of the Musicians’ Mutual Protection Union, June 22, 1926, LOC, MD, Warren papers, family file.
41 Memoirs, p. 28. See also oral history interviews, Earl Warren’s Bakersfield, and John Weaver, Warren: The Man, the Court, the Era, p. 29.
42 Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of California, vol. 7, 1860-1890, p. 698.
43 Ibid., pp. 698-99.
44 Ibid., p. 699.
45 Michael W. Donley, Stuart Allan, Patricia Caro, and Clyde P. Patton, Atlas of California, pp. 22-23.
46 For this and other details of California’s labor history, I am indebted to several studies, most notably Ira B. Cross’s A History of the Labor Movement in California.
47 Given the rudimentary seismology of the period, estimates differ on the precise length of the initial shock. Contemporary accounts placed it at forty-seven seconds, though witnesses and equipment across the Bay, in Oakland, suggested that it lasted longer than a minute. Aftershocks were recorded at 5:18 A.M., 5:20 A.M., 5:25 A.M., 5:42 A.M., 8:13 A.M. (a particularly severe one), 9:13 A.M., 9:25 A.M., 10:49 A.M., 11:05 A.M., 12:03 P.M., 12:10 P.M., 2:23 P.M., 2:27 P.M., 4:50 P.M., 6:49 P.M., and 7 P.M. (See San Francisco Chronicle, April 24, 1906, courtesy Museum of the City of San Francisco.)
48 Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan Witts, The San Francisco Earthquake, p. 70.
49 Memoirs, p. 34.
50 Walton Bean, Boss Ruef’s San Francisco, pp. 93-94.
51 Fremont Older, My Own Story.
52 Ibid., p. 80.
53 The description of Schmitz during the earthquake is widely shared. See, for instance, the works on this period by Kevin Starr and David Lavender.
54 David Lavender, California: Land of New Beginnings, p. 340.
55 George E. Mowry, The California Progressives, p. 60.
56 Kevin Starr, Inventing the Dream, p. 204.
57 Eradicating Plague from San Francisco: Report of the Citizens’ Health Committee and an Account of Its Work, prepared by Frank Morton Todd, historian for the Committee, March 31, 1909, p. 30.
58 Ibid., pp. 9, 40.
59 Older, My Own Story, p. 143.
60 Memoirs, p. 39.
61 Spencer C. Olin, California’s Prodigal Sons, p. 179.
62 California Weekly, Dec. 18, 1908, quoted in George E. Mowry, The California Progressives, p. 97.
63 G. Edward White, Earl Warren: A Public Life, p. 19.
64 Memoirs, p. 39.
65 Warren telegram to Johnson, Nov. 7, 1934, Warren papers, state archives, Sacramento, Republican State Central Committee file.
CHAPTER 2. AWAY FROM HOME
1 Oral history interview with Newton Drury, Parks and Redwoods, p. 67.
2 Grace Noble scrapbook, Class of 1912, Bancroft Library.
3 Memoirs, p. 35.
4 Oral history interview with Newton Drury, Parks and Redwoods, p. 67.
5 Bill Severn, Mr. Chief Justice, p. 21.
6 Oral history interview with Robert Warren, The Governor’s Family, p. 7.
7 Oral history interview with Newton Drury, Parks and Redwoods, pp. 67-68.
8 A copy of the sophomore hop dance card is included in the Boalt Law School archival collection, University of California, Berkeley.
9 John Weaver, Warren: The Man, the Court, the Era, p. 31.
10 Ibid.
11 Memoirs, p. 36.
12 Ibid., pp. 36-37.
13 Oral history interview with Newton Drury, Parks and Redwoods, p. 68.
14 Undated Jeffrey Warren speech honoring Earl Warren after Warren’s death.
15 Blue and Gold, vol. 41 (1915). The entry for U.N.X., listing Warren as a graduate, appears on p. 339.
16 Poem and history supplied to the author by Charles Faulhaber, curator of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
17 William Sweigert, “The Legend of the Earl of Warren,” included in oral history interview with Sweigert, Administration and Ethics in the Governor’s Office and the Courts, California, 1939-1975.
18 Weaver, Warren: The Man, the Court, the Era, p. 30.
19 George E. Mowry, The California Progressives, p. 11.
20 Frank Norris, The Octopus, A Story of California (first published by Doubleday, Page, 1901; edition cited here, New York: Penguin, 1994), pp. 179-80.
21 Ibid., p. 502.
22 Forty-ninth Commencement program, May 15, 1912, Grace Noble scrapbook, BL.
23 Weaver, Warren: The Man, the Court, the Era, p. 32.
24 Author interview with James Gaither, June 2, 2002.
25 The thesis is on file at the University of California, Berkeley’s Doe Library.
26 Memoirs, p. 45.
27 Memo, State of Military Service of Earl Warren, 0 111 042, Department of the Army, April 28, 1958, LOC, MD, Warren family file.
28 Severn, Mr. Chief Justice, p. 32.
29 Jack Harrison Pollack, The Judge Who Changed America, p. 34.
30 Ibid.
31 Warren’s letter, of Oct. 13, 1918, was saved by her nephew George Perham, and shared with Jeffrey Warren, who supplied a copy to the author.
32 Pollack, The Judge Who Changed America, p. 35.
33 Oral history interview with Maryann Ashe, Earl Warren’s Bakersfield, p. 31.
34 Oral history interview with Horace Albright, The Warrens: Four Personal Views, p. 2a.
35 Irving Stone, Earl Warren, A Great American Story, p. 32.
CHAPTER 3. PROSECUTOR, FATHER
1 Oral history interview with Clarence A. Severin, Perspectives on the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office, vol. 2, p. 13s.