The Hughes Court: Justices, Rulings, and Legacy (ABC-CLIO Supreme Court Handbooks)

351 Pages·2002·2.52 MB·English

by  Michael E. Parrish

The Hughes Court
ABC-CLIO SUPREME COURT HANDBOOKS
The Burger Court, Tinsley E. Yarbrough
The Hughes Court,Michael E. Parrish
The Stone Court, Peter G. Renstrom
The Warren Court,Melvin I. Urofsky
Forthcoming:
The Fuller Court,James W. Ely, Jr.
The Jay-Ellsworth Court,Matthew P. Harrington
The Rehnquist Court,Thomas R. Hensley
The Taft Court,Peter G. Renstrom
The Taney Court,Timothy S. Huebner
The Vinson Court,Michal R. Belknap
Peter G. Renstrom, Series Editor
ABC-CLIO SUPREME COURT HANDBOOKS
The Hughes Court
Justices,
Rulings, and
Legacy
Michael E. Parrish
Santa Barbara, California • Denver, Colorado • Oxford, England
Copyright © 2002 by Michael E. Parrish
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval sys-
tem, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without
prior permission in writing from the publishers.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Parrish, Michael E.
The Hughes Court : justices, rulings, and legacy / Michael E. Parrish.
p. cm.—(ABC-CLIO Supreme Court handbooks)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-57607-197-9 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1-57607-737-3 (e-book)
1. United States. Supreme Court—History. 2. Constitutional
history—United States. I. Title. II. Series.
KF8742 .P334 2002
347.73'2634'09—dc21
2002006178
06 05 04 03 02 01 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ABC-CLIO, Inc.
130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911
Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911
This book is printed on acid-free paper I.
Manufactured in the United States of America
For Peggy Strand
Contents
Series Foreword, ix
Preface, xi
PART ONE
Justices, Rulings, and Legacy, 1
1 The Hughes Court and the Period, 3
Appointments, 9
The Court and Its Record, 22
References and Further Reading, 48
2 The Justices,51
Justices of the Progressive Era, 52
Justices of the Harding-Coolidge Era, 73
Mr. Hoover’s Court, 90
Roosevelt’s Justices, 113
References and Further Reading, 124
3 Major Decisions,127
The Scope of Judicial Power, 128
Separation of Powers, 136
Federalism, 142
Government and the Economy, 148
New Directions in Civil Liberties, 160
Righting Civil Wrongs, 170
Crime and Punishment, 171
References and Further Reading, 175
vii
viii
Contents
4 Legacy and Impact,177
References and Further Reading, 187
PART TWO
Reference Materials, 189
Key People, Laws, and Events,191
Chronology, 279
Table of Cases,293
Glossary, 301
Annotated Bibliography, 307
Index, 317
About the Author, 343
Series Foreword
T
here is an extensive literature on the U.S. Supreme Court, but it contains dis-
cussion familiar largely to the academic community and the legal profession.
The ABC-CLIO Supreme Court series is designed to have value to the aca-
demic and legal communities also, but each volume is intended as well for the gen-
eral reader who does not possess an extensive background on the Court or American
constitutional law. The series is intended to effectively represent each of fourteen
periods in the history of the Supreme Court with each of these fourteen eras defined
by the chief justice beginning with John Jay in 1789. Each Court confronted consti-
tutional and statutory questions that were of major importance to and influenced by
the historical period. The Court’s decisions were also influenced by the values of each
of the individual justices sitting at the time. The issues, the historical period, the jus-
tices, and the Supreme Court’s decisions in the most significant cases will be exam-
ined in the volumes of this series.
ABC-CLIO’s Supreme Court series provides scholarly examinations of the Court
as it functioned in different historical periods and with different justices. Each vol-
ume contains information necessary to understand each particular Court and an
interpretative analysis by the author of each Court’s record and legacy. In addition to
representing the major decisions of each Court, institutional linkages are examined
as well—the political connections among the Court, Congress, and the president.
These relationships are important for several reasons. Although the Court retains
some institutional autonomy, all the Court’s justices are selected by a process that
involves the other two branches. Many of the significant decisions of the Court
involve the review of actions of Congress or the president. In addition, the Court fre-
quently depends on the other two branches to secure compliance with its rulings.
The authors of the volumes in the ABC-CLIO series were selected with great care.
Each author has worked extensively with the Court, the period, and the personalities
about which he or she has written. ABC-CLIO wanted each of the volumes to examine
several common themes, and each author agreed to work within certain guidelines.
Each author was free, however, to develop the content of each volume, and many of the
volumes advance new or distinctive conclusions about the Court under examination.
ix
x
Series Foreword
Each volume contains four substantive chapters. The first chapter will intro-
duce the Court and the historical period in which it served. The second chapter will
examine each of the justices who sat on the particular Court. The third chapter will
represent the most significant decisions rendered by the particular Court. Among
other things, the impact of the historical period and the value orientations of the indi-
vidual justices will be developed. A fourth and final chapter will address the impact
of each particular Court on American constitutional law—its doctrinal legacy.
Each volume contains several features designed to make the volume more valu-
able to those whose previous exposure to the Supreme Court and American constitu-
tional law is limited. Each volume will have a reference section that will contain brief
entries on some of the people, statutes, events, and concepts introduced in the four
substantive chapters. Entries in this section are arranged alphabetically. Each volume
will also contain a glossary of selected legal terms used in the text. Following each of
the four chapters, a list of sources used in the chapter and suggestions for further read-
ing will appear. Each volume will also have a comprehensive annotated bibliography.
A listing of Internet sources is presented at the end of the bibliography. Finally, there
will be a comprehensive subject index and a list of cases (with citation numbers) dis-
cussed in each volume. ABC-CLIO is delighted with the quality of scholarship repre-
sented in each volume and is proud to offer this series to the reading public.
Permit me to conclude with a personal note. This project has been an extraor-
dinarily rewarding undertaking for me as series editor. Misgivings about serving in
this capacity were plentiful at the outset of the project. After tending to some admin-
istrative business pertaining to the series, securing authors for each volume was the
first major task. I developed a list of possible authors after reviewing previous work
and obtaining valuable counsel from several recognized experts in American consti-
tutional history. In virtually every instance, the first person on my list agreed to par-
ticipate in the project. The high quality of the series was assured and enhanced as
each author signed on. I could not have been more pleased. My interactions with each
author have been most pleasant, and the excellence of their work will be immediately
apparent to the reader. I sincerely thank each author.
Finally, a word about ABC-CLIO and its staff. ABC-CLIO was enthusiastic about
the project from the beginning and has done everything necessary to make this series
successful. I am very appreciative of the level of support I have received from ABC-
CLIO. Alicia Merritt, senior acquisitions editor, deserves special recognition. She has
held my hand throughout the project. She has facilitated making this project a reality
in every conceivable way. She has encouraged me from the beginning, provided
invaluable counsel, and given me latitude to operate as I wished while keeping me on
track at the same time. This project would not have gotten off the ground without Ali-
cia, and I cannot thank her enough.
—Peter G. Renstrom
Preface
I
n 1930, the year Charles Evans Hughes became chief justice of the United States,
more than 1,000 American banks closed their doors, unable to pay their deposi-
tors. The first federal census of unemployment reported that 3 million Americans
could not find work. The slang term “Hoover blanket,” a description of the newspa-
pers that covered those who slept on park benches, entered our vocabulary. The
nation’s economy, social relations, and political system appeared to be unraveling.
But in that same year, a Detroit radio station launched a new program called “The
Lone Ranger,” which began with the William Tell overture and the voice of an
announcer who introduced the hero astride “A fiery horse with the speed of light, a
cloud of dust, and a hearty ‘Hi-yo Silver.’” That year, too, saw the introduction of
Twinkies, Snickers, Wonder sliced bread, French’s Worcestershire sauce, and the
founding of four airlines that would soon knit the nation together in new ways—Bran-
iff, TWA, United, and American.
In 1941, the year Hughes stepped down as chief justice, his Court sustained the
New Deal’s Fair Labor Standards Act, which mandated uniform national standards
for minimum wages, maximum hours, and the abolition of child labor (United States
v. Darby Lumber Co.), and the justices also upheld the authority of Congress to reg-
ulate state primary elections when they were an integral part of the process of choos-
ing candidates for national office (United States v. Classic). That fateful year,
climaxed by the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, saw the introduction of Spam, the
first use of shopping carts at American supermarkets, and the first franchising of
hotels and restaurants by Howard Johnson.
Hughes’s tenure as chief justice, corresponding to the worst economic collapse
in American history—the Great Depression—began in a year of acute domestic crisis
and ended a decade later in an equally catastrophic international one, with Nazi Ger-
many astride most of Western Europe, her troops slicing through the Soviet Ukraine
and the United States on a collision course with Japan in the Pacific. The experience
of World War II, lasting four years, would soon make the United States one nation as
never before, subjecting her people to a common discipline and sacrifice hardly imag-
inable in 1930—price controls, forced savings, rationing, and conscription, a process
xi