Earl Warren (1891 – 1974)
30th Governor of California (1943–1953) and 14th Chief Justice of the United States (1953–1969).
Many people consider the things which government does for them to be social progress, but they consider the things government does for others as socialism.
To summarize, we hold that, when an individual is taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom by the authorities in any significant way and is subjected to questioning, the privilege against self-incrimination is jeopardized. Procedural safeguards must be employed to protect the privilege, and unless other fully effective means are adopted to notify the person of his right of silence and to assure that the exercise of the right will be scrupulously honored, the following measures are required. He must be warned prior to any questioning that he has the right to remain silent, that anything he says can be used against him in a court of law, that he has the right to the presence of an attorney, and that, if he cannot afford an attorney one will be appointed for him prior to any questioning if he so desires.
Warren has been accused of giving aid and comfort to the Communist Party on frequent occassions. He is guilty of promoting and inciting riot, disorder and anarchy in Little Rock and elsewhere in the south through his attempts to impose judicial tyranny on white southerners. He has illegally transformed the Supreme Court into a Soviet-type Politburo with power over the congress and various state governments.
Marge: Do you want your son to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, or a sleazy male stripper?
Many people consider the things government does for them to be social progress but they regard the things government does for others as socialism.
The man of character, sensitive to the meaning of what he is doing, will know how to discover the ethical paths in the maze of possible behavior.
Everything I did in my life that was worthwhile, I caught hell for.
A society, in the process of moving forward, often appears to be tearing itself apart. Certainly, an age of rapid change, such as ours, produces many paradoxes. But perhaps the most tragic paradox of our time is to be found in the failure of nation-states to recognize the imperatives of internationalism.
Liberty, not communism, is the most contagious force in the world.
The censor's sword pierces deeply into the heart of free expression.
If it is a mistake of the head and not the heart don't worry about it, that's the way we learn.
To summarize: Americans have one of the greatest legal systems, but not a monopoly of the sense of justice, which is universal; nor have we a permanent copyright on the means of securing justice, for it is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.
The fantastic advances in the field of electronic communication constitute a greater danger to the privacy of the individual.
Warren is considered a dangerous and subversive character. He is an apparent sympathizer with the Communist Party and has rendered numerous decisions favorable to it. ... Warren is a rabid agitator for compulsory racial mongrelization and has handed down various decisions compelling whites to mix with negroes in the schools, in public housing, in restaurants and in public bathing facilities. He is known to work closely with the N.A.A.C.P. and favors the use of force and coercion to compel white school children to mingle intimately with negroes.
I always turn to the sports pages first, which records people's accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man's failures.
I believe the preservation of our civil liberties to be the most fundamental and important of all our governmental problems, because it always has been with us and always will be with us and if we ever permit those liberties to be destroyed, there will be nothing left in our system worthy of preservation. They constitute the soul of democracy. I believe that there is grave danger in this country of losing our civil liberties as they have been lost in other countries. There are things transpiring in this country today that are definitely menacing our future; among which are the activities of Mayor Hague and other little Hagues throughout the country. These activities are so basically wrong and so menacing to our institutions that every citizen and particularly every public official should oppose them to the limit of their strength.
The abhorrence of society to the use of involuntary confessions does not turn alone on their inherent untrustworthiness. It also turns on the deep-rooted feeling that the police must obey the law while enforcing the law; that, in the end, life and liberty can be as much endangered from illegal methods used to convict those thought to be criminals as from the actual criminals themselves.
I am unalterably opposed to any species of vigilantes or to any other extra-legal means of a majority exercising its will over a minority ... I believe that if majorities are entitled to have their civil rights protected they should be willing to fight for the same rights to minorities no matter how violently they disagree with their views. Further, I am convinced that this is the only way they can be preserved.
I believe that the American concept of civil rights should include not only an observance of our Constitutional Bill of Rights, but also absence of arbitrary action by government in every field.
We may not know the whole story in our lifetime.
The biggest damned-fool mistake I ever made.