Earl+Warren+Obit

** July 10, 1974 **
**OBITUARY**

** By ALDEN WHITMAN **
Presiding over the Supreme Court for 16 years--from 1953 to 1969--Earl Warren championed the Constitution as the vigorous protector of the individual rights and equality of all Americans. Reflecting the dynamics of social change in the nation (and profoundly affecting them) Mr. Warren's Court, amid much dispute, elaborated a doctrine of fairness in such areas as criminal justice, voting rights, legislative districting, employment, housing, transportation and education. In so doing, the Chief Justice of the United States contributed greatly to a reshaping of the country's social and political institutions. "I would like the Court to be remembered as the people's court," he remarked on his retirement, expressing his strong sense of indignation over wrongs done to obscure citizens in the Government's name. This was a quite different attitude from his earlier law-and-order views as a California prosecutor; but Mr. Warren had become more liberal with age and perspective. "On the Court I saw [things] in a different light," he once explained. The impact of the Warren Court was cumulative, and Mr. Warren's stature grew perceptibly over 16 years. The parts that constituted the whole were embodied in a series of decisions that had the collective effect of reinforcing popular liberties. Among these were rulings that: Outlawed school segregation. Enunciated the one-man, one-vote doctrine. Made most of the Bill of Rights binding on the states. Curbed wiretapping. Upheld the right to be secure against "unreasonable" searches and seizures. Buttressed the right to counsel. Underscored the right to a jury trial. Barred racial discrimination in voting, in marriage laws, in the use of public parks, airports and bus terminals and in housing sales and rentals. Extended the boundaries of free speech. Ruled out compulsory religious exercises in public schools. Restored freedom of foreign travel. Knocked out the application of both the Smith and the McCarran Acts--both designed to curb "subversive" activities. Held that Federal prisoners could sue the Government for injuries sustained in jail. Said that wages could not be garnished without a hearing. Liberalized residency requirements for welfare recipients. Sustained the right to disseminate and receive birth control information. Although Mr. Warren did not write the opinions in all these cases, he bore the brunt of the criticism that many of them aroused. This criticism came from policemen and prosecutors; politicians; white supremacists; conservatives; and, indirectly, from the Nixon White House. The cry from the Nixon Administration that the Warren Court "coddled criminals" and fostered permissiveness" misled many people, according to Mr. Warren. In an interview Mr. Warren bristled visibly as he recalled charges that he had been "soft" on crime. "I wasn't 'softer' on crime that I ever was," he declared. "All we did on the Court was to apply the Constitution, which says that any defendant is entitled to due process and to certain basic rights."  Some critics of Mr. Warren wanted him removed, and at one time there were a spate of billboard and bumper signs that said "Impeach Earl Warren."  Of the signs, Mr. Warren said, "It was kind of an honor to be accused by the John Birch Society [the right-wing group that opposed him strenuously]. It was a little rough on my wife, but it never bothered me." Although impeachment was clearly a minority movement (there was never even a House resolution), there were conservatives, some lawyers among them, who agreed with President Eisenhower when he called the Warren appointment "the biggest damned-fool mistake I ever made."  He was alluding to the Court's desegregation decisions, which provoked lawless dissension among many Southern whites, before they became reconciled to laws fostering racial equality.  Many observers believed that the desegregation rulings, starting with Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in 1954, were the Warren Court's most important because they led to a readjustment of long-standing racial imbalances in the country. Mr. Warren himself, however, regarded the redistricting cases as the most significant. He expressed his feelings this way:  "If everyone in this country has an opportunity to participate in his government on equal terms with everyone else, and can share in electing representatives who will be truly representative of the entire community and not some special interest, then most of the problems that we are confronted with would be solved through the political process rather than through the courts." If the one-man, one-vote principle had been in effect much earlier in our history, according to Mr. Warren, "our Court would not have been compelled to decide big cases just on the bare bones of the Constitution, on the bare bones of the Civil War Amendments." If the 15th Amendment, assuring the right to vote regardless of race, had been translated into legislation giving the black man the right to vote, "by this time racial problems should have been solved by the political process," he said, adding: "If Baker v. Carr [the leading re-districting case] had been in existence 50 years ago, we would have saved ourselves acute racial troubles. But as it was, the Court just had to decide." The essence of Mr. Warren's (and the Court's) position on one man, one vote--a doctrine that transformed the political map of the nation--was set forth in Reynolds v. Sims. At issue was whether factors other than equal representation of voters could be considered in electing state legislators. Assuming that members of one house would be elected from districts of equal populations, could members of the other house represent geographical areas of varying densities in order to assure a voice to sparsely settled localities and minority interests? Because to do so would give some persons more influence than others, Mr. Warren replied with a firm "no." "Legislators represent people, not trees or acres," he wrote. "Legislators are elected by voters, not farms or cities or economic interests." He saw no reason, he added, why "history alone, nor economic or other sorts of group interests" could justify giving "one person a greater voice in government than any other person."
 * Liberties Reinforced **