Before the great federal interstate highway system, the only
way to drive from Atlanta to visit relatives in Alabama or Florida was by
two-lane roads where passing an old slow truck was a life threatening maneuver,
and billboards and hand-made signs proclaimed “Burma Shave,” “See Rock City,”
and “Impeach Earl Warren.”
Republican Earl Warren was the Chief Justice of the U.S.
Supreme Court and reviled symbol of all things unpopular in the shallow end of
the gene pool. Republican President
Dwight D. Eisenhower named Warren Chief Justice but later said the appointment
was “the worse damned fool thing I ever did.”
While he was Chief Justice, the Warren Court ended
state-sponsored racial segregation in the schools, established the Miranda
warning (“you have the right to remain silent”) and the principle of
one-man-one-vote in elections, and outlawed prayer in public schools.
Warren, a Republican, was elected Governor
of California three times. Ronald Reagan,
a Republican, was elected California Governor twice. Richard Nixon could not get elected Governor
of California once. The only other
California Governor elected three times is the current Governor, Democrat Jerry
Brown.
"Whenever I thought of the innocent little children who were torn from home, school friends, and congenial surroundings, I was conscience-stricken," he said, and he was "wrong to react so impulsively, without positive evidence of disloyalty.”
Something must have made me think of Earl Warren recently, I guess. Maybe something made John Roberts think of Earl Warren, too.
1 comment:
I well remember those signs....also there was one painted on a rock in the N. Georgia mountains that said HELL IS JUST AROUND THE BEND.
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