The l. A. Times, covering the trial for king, and then the o. J. Simpson case. I was dazzled by his writing, he was able to take complex events in a courtroom, and summarize it concisely and clearly. He always wrote amazing speed and great delegates. I got to know him, in another capacity in the late 1990s when he was covering, i was then sharing the elected commission in los angeles, to revise the charter. I saw them that he had this he was amazingly a talented, but also had lots of integrity. At one point the Los Angeles Times was not nearly showing enough tension to try to reform, but according to los angeles weekly, he quit his position at the los angeles time, to protest over this. He put his job on the line, because he believed in the importance of the story. He is then law, and because of that the Los Angeles Times decided to change its approach. Id like to believe that the charter approach, succeeded because of his actions. He was planning some taking some time off from the l. A. Times, and thought it was a great idea, and then i had a chance to read the book, and without doubt its the best biography ive had read. I am thrilled that he is here today, and asked you to join me in welcoming him. I thank you, and especially irwin, thank you for coming today for sharing your burrito with me. I would also like to thank you for, welcoming not just me but my family and friends. My son, jack newton is here today, and my wife. To who the book is dedicated. And our friends are here christopher, and elizabeth and sarah are here. I thank you for welcoming them as well. Im here today to discuss a great lawyer, a good man and a good father, who presided over a lovely family. A man who understood his obligation to society, and to fulfill them to the best of his ability. Im speaking of course about irwin. Who help me so much with this book. And will he allowed me to be here today. As iran mentioned, ive known him for more than 15 years. Ive turned him for wisdom on more subjects than i can count. Whether it is writing the city charter or the cases ive covered law for the patriot act for the war on terror. I know that no person who is more fluent on subjects, for more generous and grateful with his time and knowledge. In los angeles, we consider a great act, but we have shared irwin with you. And i think you intern for sharing him with a nation. Rick i am enormously proud, that he is my friend. So with that, let me talk about another person earl warren. With many respects, i think he is misunderstood. Sometimes by those who dont know better, and sometimes by those who should, or do or at least should know better. In his day, earl warren was accused, and in fact he was a rate enraged by crime. His father had been murdered in 1938 the assailant was never found. He was accused in the day of his sympathy towards communism. He was a veteran of world war i, and who prosecuted communist in his days as a returnee. In his days as an attorney. He was a practical man. One shaped by his experiences, more than any ideology. His life offers powerful evidence, that a persons upbringing, can shape his life and a life can shape history. In one case he was formed, by early 20th century california, and came to embody its values. He exported those values to the nation, and those values helped shape our lies today. If you will bear with me for a few minutes, i would like to talk about who he really was, and in the process paint a more accurate picture of this controversial man. He was born in 1891 in los angeles, in those days it was a scrappy Little AmericanMexican American village. Although, his family left los angeles when he was still quite young, there were two memories of his youth, that will be with him for that his life. And we helped form the man he was about to become. The first was his recollection of a young neighbor, who was crying in pain she died from a disease. Probably polio or meningitis. He wrote in his memoirs, for her anguished cries, and for her passing, it made a lasting impression of death. He was similarly affected, by the mob in 1894, and the American Railway union, against. His father missiles was a railroad man, killed and one night, the members of that union gathered, outside of union station. The main strain station in los angeles. And they hung a man in effigy. And warren had watch this in terror. The experience he recalled, years later gave me a horror of mob action that remains with me to this day. As a young boy, he moved to bakersfield, which was his home for the rest of his youth. Bakersfield at the turn of the century, it was not quite the ok corral but it was not so different there. It was distinctly a western town, of a california variety. Quorums father had been working for the southern pacific in los angeles they were so desperate for workers in the interior of california that they accepted him and bakersfield. Bakersfield was a sharply divided by class and race. Though its Racial Divisions, its fundamental Racial Division was not so much between black and white residents as much as its white residents and chinese population. It was a bustling center of gambling and prostitution but they thick dash of lawlessness. Its a place where a shoot out on main street with some occasional occurrence warrants childhood for the most part was pleasant enough. The family was not rich but he and his sister were well taken care of. There was food to eat, they had presence on holidays and he earned extra pay. But there was also the palpable impact of the life on the frontier of this boy. He worked summers for the same company that employed his father. And the dominant economic and Political Force of the time. Warrens job was to work as a cowboy which meant he rounded up train men and delivered them to their trains when the call went out. That meant dragging them out of solutions and horror houses and casinos and at the like. That two left in oppression on him he also bore witness to the indignities of labor in those days he saw men squander their salaries. Some were pinched in between trains and operated on in rudimentary fashion which meant to be put on the saw bench and amputated. Warren had a distaste for advice and a distrust of big business. Those traits that were visible as a teenager would be part of him for his entire career. He went to berkeley for college and law school. He was not much of a student im sad to report but he was a brilliant maker of friends and joiner of fraternities. It was there at berkeley that he came of age just as california bulldozed its way into a new kind of politics in state history. The Political Movement that warren was witness to was importantly, from his perspective, led by a trial lawyer. Even as a somewhat shy young boy, warren had dreamed of practicing law in the courtroom and as a College Student he had an opportunity to watch a close one of the most arresting travelers of his generation. Herman johnson was a young killer in San Francisco who is called upon to take over a Corruption Case against the citys mayor and some coconspirators and bribery scandal. He took over the case the first year when the lead prosecutor was shot in the head in court by a dismissed juror. Law students take note. Johnson made his name in that case and went on to serve as governor of california and to spearhead a singular Political Movement in the States History which was the rise of the california progressives. The progressives were, by todays definitions, a bit of a hybrid and they are sometimes misunderstood. They were importantly not populist. They were largely middle class men many ran small businesses. Their principal target of their Reform Efforts was the southern pacific whose political influence they deplored and which shut them out of business. They loath corruption and advice. They were quite bourgeois and moderate in their ideological politics. They managed to, sort of, simultaneously deployed to kind of icons of social and political culture at the time. The smoke filled room and disillusion. The smoke filled room symbolized corporate domination of the state while the solutions stood for the working class. Warren was in many respects the most successful progressive in california history. Once he was elected governor in 1942, he hung just one portrait and his office. Progressivism was responsible for many good things in california it fought corruption and champion better working conditions. It brought the state, initiative and they recall. Progressivism also had quite notable draw backs. One was that its founders were conspicuously unsympathetic of the problems of racial minorities. Californias working class in the early decades of the 20th century was suspicious of immigrant labor which it saw is pretty much as a threat. Particularly Asian Railroad workers Railroad Workers and farmers. The progressives forged their Political Alliance with labor. Warren accepted without much thought the indifference of the progressive towards minorities. That was most tragically apparent as im sure some of you know in 1942 when warren, who was then the attorney general of california, enthusiastically champion internment of california japanese and japanese americans. There safety as attorney general with his responsibility. Their incarceration was the nations shame as well as warrants. With his blessing and approval, the federal government incarcerated thousands of people who had committed no crime. Warren never found the words to apologize for that acts in his lifetime. He championed universal health insurance. Governor schwarzenegger put forward a bill not unlike one warren tried push forward in the forties. Throughout his tenure he flocked the government to accept waves of migrants. From the decibel to the end of the Second World War, california was on the receiving end of the largest peaceful migration in human history. There is no way to know for sure how many people arrived in california in that period but warren liked to say that it was his responsibility to provide for 10,000 new people every monday morning. Among those who returned after the Second World War was california japanese. Warren, who had encouraged their banishment, also welcomed the return and sought to it that they were protected as they returned to their lives. He signed the brown act which gave california its open medians laws. He signed a bill that ended legal racial segregation in california schools. I will return to that in just a minute. He was, through all of that, a gigantically dominant figure in californian politics. He was elected three times in 1942, 1946 and 1950. Each a race of some historic importance. He is, by the way, the only person ever elected three times to governor in california. In 1942, he beat an incumbent democrat despite fdrs popularity nationally and within the state. Despite the fact that the state in country were at war. In 1950, his last election, what he beaten out he beat fdrs son, jimmy roosevelt. He did so by more than 1 million votes. In 1946, he achieved the remarkable feat of not only winning the Republican Party nomination for governor but the democratic Party Nomination as well. Yeah, give that a moment thought. Hes the only person ever nominated by both parties to govern california. It was a 1953 that Dwight Eisenhower who tapped warren to become chief justice of the United States. And another hard to imagine turn of events, warren accepted that as a recess appointment and served from october 1953 until march of, 1954 without senate confirmation. He left california on a saturday and was sworn in as chief justice of the United States on monday morning. The new chief justice had been forged very much by california. He was a progressive republican. He liked electoral politics and was good at it. He was angered by corruption and infuriated by vice. He understood crime as a prosecutor and as a victim. He was all too familiar with racism and head indeed succumbed to it though he had also taken some steps to make amends. Warren, as he took over the Supreme Court of the United States, singularly a product of his upbringing. A man very much forged by his experience. Its sometimes im often asked whether warren had some sort of about phase but before becoming chief justice and im pretty sure the answer to that is no. I think the right way to think of warren going through this period is a period of steadily expanding horizons. He started as a prosecutor in element a county with a limited geographical focus and a professional focus solely on enforcement. He then became attorney general of california broadening his geographic focus but remaining devoted to law enforcement. Then as governor of course he had to tackle the full range of social issues. Now as chief justice he had his first opportunity to express his ideology and upbringing on a national scale. The effect is a immediately apparent in his first major opinion, brown versus the board of education. Prior to warrens arrival, its impossible to know we precisely how the court would have ruled under warrants predecessor. But notes from the conference under his predecessor suggest that, at best, the court would have struck down 63. There wouldve been heartened emboldened segregationist defined support for their institutions in the Supreme Court. The job for warren in his first term was nothing less than a defining test of american race relations. As warren took over brown, i think it mattered that he came from either north or south. He was a westerner and, as such, somewhat less invested in the institutions that were being challenged and defended. Although this was a little recognized and reported on at the time, warren had played an Important Role in dismantling segregated schools in california. In 1945 a group of parents in Orange County just outside los angeles filed a suit against, what was then referred to as california mexican schools, where racial alignments were barely less odious than those of the south. In westminster in Orange County, there was two schools that educated elementary aged children. The Westminster School had 628 angle students and just 14 of latino heritage while the Hoover School just a few blocks away i had 150 to students, all of them latino. The suit was filed preet brown and thus in an era where it was still sanctioned. Nevertheless, a very brave District Court judge in los angeles struck down the mexican schools on the argument that they did violate the equal protection clause. He was upheld on much narrower grounds by the night circuit. That couldve ended the matter but the night circuits ruling did not force the state to address other aspects of discrimination in its schools. As a result, if it had settled there, the state Education Code would still have included language that permitted with separate schools for chinese and other asian students. Instead, in june of 1947, warren signed the legislation that struck that language and ended all foremost aggregations racial segregation, in california schools. So the warren who came in 1953 new racism and schools. Most importantly, he understood politics. His management of the court threw the brown case would earn him a position of greatness in american legal history. Warren made it clear in his first conference in 53 that he would vote with those prepared to abolish school segregation. That meant the justices had obviously sounded each other out over the several months previous. That meant the majority had assembled behind the naacp position. He also said in that first conference that he believed the only alternative to upholding that position was for the court to make a finding that blacks warrant for your to whites. That had the effect of very much raising the stakes of this conversation for those justices who are inclined, for whatever reason, not to support that position. They now stood the likelihood of being accused of doing so on quite naked leap racial terms. If that was warrens substantive position, his tactical approach was also terribly important. He could have asked for a vote. Its in fact traditional after each justice articulate their position, to vote. He asked they not record about at that conference. He was concerned that doing so would begin to solidify positions and he was there to talk about it. Instead, he brought the potential dissenters along slowly and gently. He declined to blame the south for its adoption of jim crow and he promised justice clark, for instance, that he would not push too hard in the decree of striking school segregation. He argued to limit the rule not only to schools when he couldve argued for a more sweeping condemnation of segregation in public institutions. He quite painstakingly address the fears of the courts and advocates of the judicial restrain. But emphasizing that the court could fund support for its decision and involves president precedent. Stanley reid, he went to read and persuaded him there was no point in. This was no small achievement reed had originally refused to attend the Supreme Court christmas party, if black faces were going to appear in the party. But warren went to him, as deliberations were nearing in, and said stand you are by yourself now. You have to decide whether its the best thing for the country. Faced with a choice between his patriotism, and his sigar day segregated society opinion, he folded. It was also the work of a governor who had welcomed the japanese back to the state and help and segregation in california schools. It was won by an experienced politician. It was, the first evidence of warrens life, in informing his judicial philosophy, but it wasnt his last. Let me skip ahead for a moment, and say that warren prepared to leave the court in 1969. He was asked, which of his roles he considered most important. Naturally people you know thought he would pick brown, which they thought it