A career in California government
Warren was born in Los Angeles in 1891. He completed undergraduate study at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1912 and legal training in 1914. After private legal work and wartime army service, he entered local government. He joined the Alameda County district attorney's staff in 1920 and became district attorney in 1925.
He won election as California attorney general in 1938 and governor in 1942, subsequently winning further gubernatorial elections. His state administration dealt with highways, hospitals, prisons and social provision. In 1948 he was Thomas Dewey's Republican vice-presidential running mate. He later sought, but did not obtain, the party's 1952 presidential nomination.
Support for wartime exclusion
After Pearl Harbor, Warren supported removing people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast. As California attorney general, he treated the location of some Japanese American farms near transport facilities as evidence of a possible security threat. The National Park Service's account explains that such suspicions lacked a factual basis and overlooked the earlier history of farmers reclaiming and cultivating the land.
President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 in 1942. The resulting exclusion and incarceration uprooted Japanese American residents, including citizens. Warren helped provide political support for removal; he was not the official who issued the presidential order. His later memoir expressed regret for the policy and his testimony advocating it.
The Supreme Court and a presidential commission
Eisenhower appointed Warren Chief Justice in 1953, and the Senate confirmed him in 1954. In May 1954 he delivered the Court's unanimous opinion in Brown v. Board of Education, rejecting racial segregation in public schools. The Court during his tenure also considered electoral districts, criminal procedure and bans on interracial marriage. Different justices wrote its opinions; these were decisions of a collegial court.
After President Kennedy's assassination, President Johnson established an investigative commission in November 1963 with Warren as chairman. The commission gathered testimony and evidence and submitted its report in 1964, followed by volumes of hearings. Warren left regular Supreme Court service in 1969 and died in 1974.