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The Warren years.

by: National Educational Television and Radio Center; Indiana University, Bloomington

Publication date: 1969

Topics: 16mm Film, Educational Film, Warren, Earl, 1891-1974, Series: The Warren Years (1969), Philosophy

Publisher: Bloomington, IN : Indiana University

Digitizing sponsor: Internet Archive

Contributor: Internet Archive

Language: English

Produced by NET

Views the political and legal career and personal philosophy of Earl Warren

Search Educational Film Journals at Media History Project for references to this film

Summary

Discusses the political career and personal philosophy of Earl Warren.

Addeddate: 2015-01-16 19:47:01

Boxid: IA1113004

Identifier: thewarrenyearsprofileofearlwarren

Oclc_id: 317033205

Ocr: They tell us and refine my hand on the moon. Next month some time the month of July and I think. It's a great accomplishment and wouldn't be. Taught us how to live in our great cities New York. Thank. The age of seventy eight year old Warren is ending a judicial career as he began it believing that the rights and dignity of the individual must be the primary interest of a democratic society for the last sixteen years the Californian with the ingenuous face of every man. Let the Supreme Court with qualities that reflected a deeper concern for human needs and denials. Than for the strict canons of the law itself. If Ryan became the symbol of the court he also became the target of the reaction to his decisions he took his appointment to the court as a mandate to broaden his arises as prosecuting attorney they were the board is a valid needed County as governor the borders of California but those who expected the narrow conservative chief justice would be surprised by our alliance. Biographer John we've heard comments the decisions grow out of the man and man's reverence for the law and and for fairness. Is the above the Supreme Court are the words equal justice under law and professors of law so often emphasize the word law. Warren I think is emphasize the word justice and the word equal justice was not equal at the time he became chief justice of the United States was not equal for the Negro is not equal for the poor and it was certainly not equal for Peter been voter I think you have to understand the front here world in which he grew up he was born here in Los Angeles but when he was about four or five The family moved about ninety miles north of the town of Bakersfield because an oil in the railroad town left the front here. Place where gambling in it was like bad Westerns one grew up in this atmosphere years later when he was a prosecutor he knew all the tricks of the gamblers because gases in Bakersfield had told him about this when he was twelve or thirteen years old on his way home from high school he would stop in the county courthouse and what's the trials it was murder trials. The way we would watch. Math and they've seen in our time and out of this pain. A delight in the drama of law but also a reverence for its order. Luck leg to adjust as needs a knowledge of the constitution and also a knowledge of the man he works for in Washington last month the from the clerics to the chief justice and that for their annual religion while the public girl R.N. has revealed his philosophy and his decisions the private Earl Warren is best seen through the eyes of associates and friends from their personal relationships with the chief the clerics near greater insights into the matter I remember when the other clerks and I his clerks when in the meeting for the first time and he sat us down and he after pleasantries said Boys I said I want you to understand one thing says you're under no obligation to agree with me and what I say and what I do and you're under no obligation to to hide from me what your views are on these things he said you just call them just exactly like you seem you know sometimes in the afternoon like to go for a walk on the was causing some problem that was facing in this isn't there something. And one afternoon I was walking with him and sort of going the usual route down into the parking took a trip around the court and as we were coming home most in front of the court of big bus load tourist got out and they all got their cameras ready they were going to take a picture of the Supreme Court and they were just lined up just as the chief was walking right in front of me I said wait a minute hold it let's let the soul man get. This the thought it was the funniest thing in the real went on by get their picture of the Supreme Court I think one of the criticisms that is frequently made that is the least informed and least based is that the chief came to the court without any notions about what the function of the court was we're not without any funds. Notion of what the Supreme Court was supposed to do in that in his sixty some years of public life before he came there he was really living in a vacuum and that he entered the court and this was a foreign accents fear to him that simply just isn't true he had argued a number of cases before the court is train general California he'd been a prosecutor for a number of years in California in the courtroom is not a an alien atmosphere to him at all think the kind of reputation that lingers about Earl Warren as as governor at least of the state is one that is not particularly different actually from the feelings I have about the chief justice which are basically ones in which the chief justice was then within the parameters permitted really by political realities in this state very much for for the little me and very much for the little man I mean the fact that a Republican governor. In the state of California could be the one who when produced the first unsuccessfully I'm fortunately but the first Medicare program that was to be a state supported Medicare program that's it's an extraordinary thing given given the circumstances in this situation. Why aren't the consummate politician. Described by a one time political opponent Robert Kennedy. He was lucky. As he was governor not during the Depression years he was governor during the war years when our California industry boom post-war years of we had a post-war recovery. His timing as governor was very good. Israel conflict came after it was governor of the tough years game is just as he ran for reelection and I ran as a Democrat. Well I went round. And everyone must his hair. And and the worst was the cross filed against me and got the Democratic nomination is one of the Republican saying cap large and beautiful family it always appear in these campaign literature and I complained to him once that we were running against each other very governors is a fertility and. Every Sunday he took them promises one them put them for the whole day and he always told me No Billy said you do the same thing and if they say they want to go to his room and then he got halfway there and somebody else says although I'd rather go to the Smithsonian just remember it doesn't matter it's all time. He do anything that we wanted to do and all we had to do is express a bona fide interest and if it was not an improper thing to do he did he do it with us. He likes he likes all sports spectator sports and I think he likes to participate from the standpoint of fishing and hunting and so forth although I have to concede that when he goes hunting he's more likely to be watching the clouds in the mountains and things of that sort. Actually talking again. I was an established opponent. Who come from the east to find what weaknesses. He's like a bowling ball. Grip on him and easy to oppose and the Democrats are. Turning they never come up with anything tangible. Use against him and this is a very discouraging thing. Part of that record was Warren's role as California's attorney general in the internment of Japanese Americans during World War two and The Passion of the day. Many consider this a necessary defense measure but in the years since it is come to be regarded as one of the most flagrant denials of civil liberties in American history the man who was to make concern for the individual the hallmark of his philosophy. Knowingly joined the ranks of those who denied citizens their rights this is something that the chief does not like to talk about I remember the night of the so-called raid on Los Angeles and it was a time of terror and we did many bad things people do do bad things and war war itself is evil and this is not a bizarre thing. Warrant of blame for his part in it but we were all guilty and he heard along with Franklin Roosevelt and Walter Lippman and Westbrook Pegler and a great many other people. Everybody recognizes now at least I hope that that was a tragic mistake it was a tragic error but it's something all of the Sharon regardless of our ages all had exactly the same feelings. We responded to probably the panic of other people as as well as to our own and it was wrong and I'm sure he recognizes Ron I think you recognize it then it's wrong but sometimes when you're in a in a martial situation. Many things are wrong and you have to have to abide by them anyway I think it. Had to retool tremendously to go from being a governor and a state ministry chief just as the United States and then the stranger the court system and the fact that he could do do it and do it so successfully at age sixty three shows that he was really. At a time when most men are looking at the charts and getting ready to retire. Marketable featured not a strange thing for a man to change his mind when he gets on the court I changed my mind when I got on the court when you vote on Iraq. Take the old minister justice in accordance with law you have a different responsibility from a member of the executive or legislative branch. Then have the hard duty the inexorable duty of decision. You could go in and battle with the chief and he wanted you to battle and he wanted you to take them on in terms of his views. And he was completely open to any argument and he would respond to that was kind of detail complexity will a conversation at some point he would say however OK this is it and this is and and his view about that is that once he had reached his decision with and I concur with you very much once he reached his decision OK that's the end of argument and I was on the score of the court scarcely a day passed when my secretary would say the chief is outside and wonders whether he could come to see you and he would drop in we were always on a first name basis although I called him. Chief as I do now the chief he was on a first name basis with every member of the court he did not stand on ceremony although he had great dignity. He presided over the conferences with great fairness and with great patience but one of his great attributes was lack of animosity. Even when votes were taken and even win arguments were very vigorous he was not only humane man he was a real pro. These were differences on issues and they never. Any personal season I remember everybody saying on. The court. Never been a. Great legal scholar. Supreme Court. Judging. Deciding. Cases their principles. Termite. Was a ring vs Cooper which was the case from Little Rock in which govern the focus. To stop. It was had been wanted by the court and in the course of the argument with the Arkansas Attorney General I guess or cities turning arguing he said in support of of not integrating into Little Rock schools the people believe and the chief justice leaned forward and he said what people are talking about. The John Birch Society contest on. Why he shouldn't be chief justice and I believe his comment was that he was going to hold. More reasons than anybody. I don't think the Brits aside a thing as he has in his study. WASHINGTON The original of that cartoon in The New York it was so wonderful of the little old lady that looks like with the knitting the. Player you know. Think it's very funny you know he's he's element of politics be it in the Republican Party or the right wing element of the Democratic Party political life and he's never had to. Maybe Holden and anyway to those people. Partly through fortuitous circumstances because they never would support him and he never had any strings on him whatsoever with these people and as a matter of fact they opposed him constantly throughout his tenure as attorney general. Throughout his tenure is a three term governor and no different that we've always had a very substantial extreme radical right wing in California and these people have always been against. All. Conference. Deciding cases when a messenger came and hand of the chief justice. And his voice broke the first time I ever heard his voice. And. Simple statement. Tragic statement the president had been shot. And then without a moment's hesitation he had during the conference and then we all the chief and all of us crowded around the television set because we did not know how fatal shot was and we sat there until very sad news came about the death of the president. If there's anything that's six out in my mind on a personal matter it is that day. When the president went to Dallas in November sixty three six seven in my mind the most. Met with pretty obvious issues and a highly traumatic experience for my I don't think in all the years that I've known my father I've ever seen him go through a period that I felt was draining on him as this of course at the time he was carrying basically three loads. He's carrying it tremendously heavy workload with the court itself on the decision and of it they had many crucial decisions at that time. Secondly he had tremendous administrative. Chores with the court the full story of what went on the commission of course has never come out but I I suspect that it was it was not an easy chore from the standpoint of the personalities involved. I imagine it was it was exceptionally difficult even to get the parties to agree on what form the investigation would take and it was very noticeable to me that this was it was taxing in the extreme the heavily and I know that that he personally had to relive constantly that assassination and with his tremendous regard for the dead president I I just think that in itself was more than a man should be asked to do he came to Berkeley and he gave the keynote speech for a conference on human rights which he's gotten as we all know very interested in and it was the whole thing was really marvelous first of all the students all over the campus just flocked in great numbers and he's got an absolutely enormous standing ovation that must have lasted three four minutes as he came in and it just struck me and it struck a number of others that he was probably already probably is the only national political governmental or one of the only national political governmental officials who could have that kind of response from you today from college youth and it was really just exploded. During the course of my research I found I talked to I think all of the surviving high school classmates but also as many of his college classmates a class of one hundred twelve at University of California as I could locate and in those dances this is college classmates were terribly distressed by the. Time that once on the Berkeley campus and I was curious to know what he thought about it so I asked him one time and his eyes lighted up and he said it was always the campus he said that he started telling anecdotes about his own college years in the pranks they played and so on and then he said in substance. He said this is in my opinion the. The finest generation of young people that this country has ever produced and we are very fortunate indeed to have them and I looked at it and I realized this man is so much younger than his classmates they have grown old and he hasn't. On any journey it is essential to know not only where we came from but how we are to travel to our destination you know from your studies something about how civilization reached this point but your problem is to visualize what it will be twenty thirty forty or fifty years from now when your life plans are being fulfilled if I were in your place I would have deep concern about the status of the individuals at those guideposts. Will he be living under free institutions according to the original American concept will govern but still be this is preacher or well it's preacher will he be able to live with dignity. According to his own conscience. Well our big word justice under law for all Americans regardless of race color or religion.