It seems 83% of Amazon readers/reviewers gave this biography a 5 out of 5 star rating. I certainly enjoyed reading it. Not too lick-spittle, not too critical, an important life in American, and especially Californian, history is taken at face value, a man of his times, and visited again for his unifying demeanor so needed in today's partisan politics.
Warren's father supported Eugene Deb's American Railway Union and subsequent strike in 1898. He was fired, blacklisted and had to move his young family from Los Angeles and sprawling rail yards to a small outpost in Bakersfield in order to keep working in a hardscrabble way. The immigrant Norwegian and Swedish-American mother, along with his sister, Young Earl led a bucolic, agriculture centered up-bringing. His best friend was a mule named Jack. As a younger man, he had a job waking up railroad men and getting them to work. He saw first hand the effects of vice, drinking, and whoring had on men. In his legal and public service career he didn't stop such behavior, but he fought hard not to accept it.
His first day off the farm brought him to University of California - Berkeley. He was more social than book worn, average grades, got into law school there. Obviously, he had backers and whom might they have been? He began moving rapidly up the degrees of Masons. Joined the Odd Fellows, too, for insurance. The Native Sons (and Daughters) of the Golden West are a peculiar institution of Sons and Daughters of resident Californians, as the the name implies. Only native born may apply and has always held other races in suspicion. He was still a member of NSOTGW when in 1942 Warren was Attorney General of California, the Chief Law Enforcement Officer In The State, and working with the U.S. Army detained and removed 110,000 Japanese U.S. citizens and families for years at a time. War hysteria strikes again. (Are we still taking our shoes off at the airport?) Yet, Earl was never really grilled on that question.
Tule Lake, CA
Cross-filing was a primary election process where Democrat could file also as a Republican (throw in third party shenanigans of Sinclair Lewis, Ham and Eggers, etc.) or vice versa. Running as incumbent Republican Governor of California, Earl Warren won 70,000, (out of 500,000), more votes than the Democrat nominee IN THE DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY. His 11 years of stewardship, with a small dedicated staff, oversaw one of the fastest growing capitalist society ever, the Golden State, with post-world war prosperity, labor unions strong, shipping, railroads, roads expanding, California had so much riches and optimism.
By all accounts in this book, Warren was squeaky clean in his personal life. His devoted wife, Nina, and their six children were 1950's fresh look, athletic, just slightly above average. All the children went on to successful personal careers, no dishing the dirt on these, certainly not the Kennedys for flash. I wonder if anyone ever asked a one of them what they thought of Ole Earl walking down the Avenue of Aves at Bohemian Grove. ("Faggiest damn thing I have ever seen." - R.Nixon, White House Tapes). Earl never missed a summer romp at the Russian River with the Big Boys. BTW, during these years Earl rose to Grand Poobah DeLux of the California Masonic Lodge No. 1.
As Governor, he eliminated segregated schooling for the Mexican children. A little research by the Eisenhower administration should have seen those rulings. It was a foretelling of his stance as Chief Justice, and eventually a unanimous decision of the Court in Brown vs Board of Education of Topeka, KN.
Harry Truman
In 1948, he ran as Dewey's Vice President candidate and in 1960 was poised to be the Republicans Presidential nominee, but Dick Nixon fucked that up for him. A long criss-crossing of careers, with much antipathy, was with the Trickster and the Chief (as he was called long before his years on the Supreme Court.) Nationally, he was respected by all it seems, a globalist in the United Nations mold, a liberal on social policy. Earl Warren's first act as Governor was a bill to enact a state wide state run health care system. The California Medical Association beat that proposal back. He also raised the gas tax exorbitantly to fund the road building and public works that needed to be done. He rolled over his friends on this one. Not exactly, a rousing partisan Republican. Nationally, he was seen as the middle ground between Taft extreme and Nixon, the Vice President under 8 years of Eisenhower.
How the world would have been if Warren faced JFK at those debates.
He cut a deal with Eisenhower. Warren would resign from the Governorship and move into the Solicitor General role, until the first opening on the Supreme Court and he would take that appointment. Just so happens, a short time after this arrangement was settled, who croaks? Wouldn't you know, its the Chief Justice Vinson. Eisenhower wanted to appoint the Chief Justice and have Earl slide in onto the bench, but that wasn't going to happen. Earl stated a deal is a deal, I was to get the first opening and he was appointed and approved by the US Senate, overwhelmingly, Supreme Court Chief Justice.
And here in this life story I realized I don't know diddly-squat about the dealings of the Supreme Court and the impact on our lives. Earl Warren's 17 years on the bench (1952-1969) laid the groundwork for so much of where the relationship between governmental institutions and the individual rests. I encourage everyone to re-read Brown v Board of Education, Miranda, Gideon,or Grizwold, Sullivan v NY Times. These cases dictate today our behaviors and attitudes. There is no wonder to me that a large Impeach Earl Warren campaign was run in the 60's by the John Birch Society. He made decisions based on fairness. Which brings me to...
How the hell does this paragon of integrity gets his reputation tarnished by putting his name on the "official" report on the death of John F Kennedy? Warren said many times he didn't want his name on it, but there it is Big As Life - the Warren Commission, all 888 pages of it.
The secrets went to the grave.
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Mason Lyndon Johnson appointed Mason Earl Warren to investigate the death of Catholic Kennedy. Mason and member of the 33rd degree, Gerald R. Ford, was instrumental in suppressing what little evidence of a conspiratorial nature reached the commission. Responsible for supplying information to the commission was Mason and member of the 33rd degree, J. Edgar Hoover. Former CIA director and Mason Allen Dulles was responsible for most of his agency's data supplied to the panel.
Is it paranoid to be suspicious of the findings of the panel on these grounds?
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