Charles Evans Hughes

Responding to newspaper stories run by the New York World, Governor Frank W. Higgins appointed a legislative committee to investigate the state's public utilities in 1905. On the recommendation of a former state judge who had been impressed by Hughes's performance in court, the legislative committee appointed Hughes to lead the investigation. Hughes was reluctant to take on the powerful utility companies, but Senator Frederick C. Stevens, the leader of the committee, convinced Hughes to accept the position. Hughes decided to center his investigation on Consolidated Gas, which controlled the production and sale of gas in New York City.[14] Though few expected the committee to have any impact on public corruption, Hughes was able to show that Consolidated Gas had engaged in a pattern of tax evasion and fraudulent bookkeeping. To eliminate or mitigate those abuses, Hughes drafted and convinced the state legislature to pass bills that established a commission to regulate public utilities and lowered gas prices.[15]

Hughes's success made him a popular public figure in New York, and he was appointed counsel to the Armstrong Insurance Commission, which investigated the major life insurance companies headquartered in New York.[16] His examination of the insurance industry uncovered payments made to journalists and lobbyists as well as payments and other forms of compensation directed to legislators serving throughout the country. His investigation also showed that many top insurance executives had various conflicts of interest and had received huge raises at the same time that dividends to policyholders had fallen. Seeking to remove Hughes from the investigation, Republican leaders nominated him as the party's candidate for Mayor of New York City, but Hughes refused the nomination. His efforts ultimately resulted in the resignation or firing of the most of the top-ranking officials in the three major life insurance companies in the United States.[17] Following the investigation, Hughes convinced the state legislature to bar insurance companies from owning corporate stock, underwriting securities, or engaging in other banking practices.[16]

Hughes's governorship focused largely on reforming the government and addressing political corruption. He expanded the number of civil service positions, increased the power of the public utility regulatory commissions, and won passage of laws that placed limits on political donations by corporations and required political candidates to track campaign receipts and expenditures.[21] He also signed laws that barred younger workers from several dangerous occupations and established a maximum 48-hour workweek for manufacturing workers under the age of 16. To enforce those laws, Hughes reorganized the New York State Department of Labor. Hughes's labor policies were influenced by economist Richard T. Ely, who sought to improve working conditions for laborers, but rejected the more far-reaching reforms favored by union leaders like Samuel Gompers.[22]

The busy governor found time to get involved in religious matters. A lifelong Northern Baptist, Hughes participated in the creation of the Northern Baptist Convention in May 1907. Hughes served the convention as its first president, beginning the task of unifying the thousands of independent Baptist churches across the North into one denomination. Previously, northern Baptists had only connected between local churches through mission societies and benevolent causes. The Northern Baptist Convention went on to become the historically-important American Baptist Churches USA, which made this aspect of Hughes's life during his governorship a key part of his historical influence.[23][24]

However, Hughes's political role was changing. He had previously been close with Roosevelt, but relations between Hughes and the president cooled after a dispute over a minor federal appointment.[25] Roosevelt chose not to seek re-election in 1908, instead endorsing Secretary of War William Howard Taft as his preferred successor. Taft won the Republican presidential nomination and asked Hughes to serve as his running mate, but Hughes declined the offer. Hughes also considered retiring from the governorship, but Taft and Roosevelt convinced him to seek a second term. Despite having little support among some of the more conservative leaders of the state party, Hughes won re-election in the 1908 election. Hughes's second term proved to be less successful than his first. His highest priority was a direct primary law, and it repeatedly failed to pass. He did obtain increased regulation over telephone and telegraph companies and won passage of the first workers' compensation bill in U.S. history.[26][27]

After the election, Hughes turned down offers from larger organizations and returned to his small law firm, now known as Hughes, Rounds, Schurman & Dwight.[43] In March 1917, Hughes joined with many other Republican leaders in demanding that Wilson declare war on the Central Powers after Germany sank several American merchant ships. The next month, Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war, and the United States entered World War I.[44] Hughes supported Wilson's military policies, including the imposition of the draft, and he served as chairman of New York City's draft appeals board. He also investigated the aircraft industry on behalf of the Wilson administration, exposing numerous inefficiencies.[45] He once again returned to private practice after the war, serving a wide array of clients, including five Socialists who had been expelled from the New York legislature for their political beliefs.[46] He sought to broker a compromise between President Wilson and Senate Republicans regarding US entrance into Wilson's proposed League of Nations, but the Senate rejected the League and the Treaty of Versailles.[47]

With Wilson's popularity declining, many Republican leaders believed that their party would win the 1920 presidential election. Hughes remained popular in the party, and many influential Republicans favored him as the party's candidate in 1920. Hughes was struck by personal tragedy when his daughter, Helen, died in 1920 of tuberculosis, and he refused to allow his name to be considered for the presidential nomination at the 1920 Republican National Convention. The party instead nominated a ticket consisting of Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio and Governor Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts.[48] The Republican ticket won in a landslide, taking 61 percent of the popular vote.[49]

Hughes's major initiative in office was preventing an arms race among the three great naval powers of Britain, Japan, and the United States. After Senator William Borah led passage of a resolution calling on the Harding administration to negotiate an arms reduction treaty with Japan and Britain, Hughes convinced those countries as well as Italy and France to attend a naval conference in Washington. Hughes selected an American delegation consisting of himself, former Secretary of State Elihu Root, Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, and Democratic Senator Oscar Underwood. Hughes hoped that the selection of Underwood would ensure bipartisan support for any treaty arising from the conference.

Prior to the conference, Hughes had carefully considered possible treaty terms since each side would seek terms that would provide its respective navy with subtle advantages. He decided to propose an arms reduction formula based on the immediate halting of all naval construction, with future construction limits based on the ship tonnage of each country. The formula would be based on the ship tonnage ratio of 1920, which stood at roughly 5:5:3 for the United States, Britain, and Japan, respectively. Knowing that US and foreign naval leaders would resist his proposal, he anxiously guarded it from the press, but he won the support of Root, Lodge, and Underwood.[58]

The Washington Naval Conference opened in November 1921, attended by five national delegations, and in the gallery by hundreds of reporters and dignitaries such as Chief Justice Taft and William Jennings Bryan. On the first day of the conference, Hughes unveiled his proposal to limit naval armaments. Hughes's ambitious proposal to scrap all US capital ships under construction stunned the delegates, as did his proposals for the Japanese and British Navies.[59] The British delegation, led by Arthur Balfour, supported the proposal, but the Japanese delegation, under the leadership of Katō Tomosaburō, asked for several modifications. Katō asked for the ratio to be adjusted to 10:10:7 and refused to destroy the Mutsu, a dreadnought that many Japanese saw as a symbol of national pride. Katō eventually relented on the naval ratios, but Hughes acquiesced to the retention of the Mutsu, leading to protests from British leaders. Hughes clinched an agreement after convincing Balfour to agree to limit the size of the Admiral-class battlecruisers despite objections from the British Navy. Hughes also won agreement on the Four-Power Treaty, which called for a peaceful resolution of territorial claims in the Pacific Ocean, as well as the Nine-Power Treaty, which guaranteed the territorial integrity of China. News of the success of the conference was warmly received around the world. Franklin D. Roosevelt later wrote that the conference "brought to the world the first important voluntary agreement for limitation and reduction of armament."[60]

Hughes (fourth from right) leads a delegation to Brazil with Carl Theodore Vogelgesang in 1922

In the aftermath of World War I, the German economy struggled from the strain of postwar rebuilding and war reparations owed to the Entente, and the Entente powers in turn owed large war debts to the United States. Though many economists favored cancellation of all European war debts, French leaders were unwilling to cancel the reparations, and Congress refused to consider forgiving the war debts. Hughes helped organize the creation of an international committee of economists to study the possibility of lowering Germany's reparations, and Hughes selected Charles G. Dawes to lead that committee. The resulting Dawes Plan, which provided for annual payments by Germany, was accepted at a 1924 conference held in London.[61]

Hughes favored a closer relationship with the United Kingdom, and sought to coordinate US foreign policy with Great Britain concerning matters in Europe and Asia.[62] Hughes sought better relations with the countries of Latin America, and he favored removing US troops when he believed that doing so was practicable. He formulated plans for the withdrawal of US soldiers from the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua but decided that instability in Haiti required the continued presence of US soldiers. He also settled a border dispute between Panama and Costa Rica by threatening to send soldiers into Panama.[63]

Hughes was the keynote speaker at the 1919 National Conference on Lynching.

Portrait of Hughes as Chief Justice

On February 3, 1930, President Hoover nominated Hughes to succeed Chief Justice Taft, who was gravely ill. Though many had expected Hoover to elevate his close friend, Associate Justice Harlan Stone, Hughes was the top choice of Taft and Attorney General William D. Mitchell.[67][68] Though Hughes had compiled a progressive record during his tenure as an Associate Justice, by 1930 Taft believed that Hughes would be a consistent conservative on the court.[69] The nomination faced resistance from progressive Republicans such as senators George W. Norris and William E. Borah, who were concerned that Hughes would be overly friendly to big business after working as a corporate lawyer.[70][71] Many of those progressives, as well some Southern states' rights advocates, were outraged by the Taft Court's tendency to strike down state and federal legislation on the basis of the doctrine of substantive due process and feared that a Hughes Court would emulate the Taft Court.[72] Adherents of the substantive due process doctrine held that economic regulations such as restrictions on child labor and minimum wages violated freedom of contract, which, they argued, could not be abridged by federal and state laws because of the Fifth Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment.[73]

The Senate Judiciary Committee held no hearings, and voted to favorably report on Hughes's nomination by a 10–2 vote on February 10, 1930.[74] On February 13, 1930, the Senate voted 31–49 against sending his nomination back to committee.[74][75] After a brief but bitter confirmation battle, Hughes was confirmed by the Senate on February 13, 1930 in a 52–26 vote,[74][76] and he took his judicial oath of office on February 24, 1930.[1] Hughes's son, Charles Jr., was subsequently forced to resign as Solicitor General after his father took office as Chief Justice.[77] Hughes quickly emerged as a leader of the Court, earning the admiration of his fellow justices for his intelligence, energy, and strong understanding of the law.[78] Shortly after Hughes was confirmed, Hoover nominated federal judge John J. Parker to succeed deceased Associate Justice Edward Terry Sanford. The Senate rejected Parker, whose earlier rulings had alienated labor unions and the NAACP, but confirmed Hoover's second nominee, Owen Roberts.[79] In early 1932, the other justices asked Hughes to request the resignation of Oliver Wendell Holmes, whose health had declined as he entered his nineties. Hughes privately asked his old friend to retire, and Holmes immediately sent a letter of resignation to President Hoover. To replace Holmes, Hoover nominated Benjamin N. Cardozo, who quickly won confirmation.[80]

The early Hughes Court was divided between the conservative "Four Horsemen" and the liberal "Three Musketeers".[lower-alpha 1][82] The primary difference between these two blocs was that the Four Horsemen embraced the substantive due process doctrine, but the liberals, including Louis Brandeis, advocated for judicial restraint, or deference to legislative bodies.[83] Hughes and Roberts were the swing justices between the two blocs for much of the 1930s.[84]

In one of the first major cases of his tenure, Hughes joined with Roberts and the Three Musketeers to strike down a piece of state legislation in the 1931 landmark case of Near v. Minnesota. In his majority opinion, Hughes held that the First Amendment barred states from violating freedom of the press. Hughes also wrote the majority opinion in Stromberg v. California, which represented the first time the Supreme Court struck down a state law on the basis of the incorporation of the Bill of Rights.[lower-alpha 2][82] In another early case, O'Gorman & Young, Inc. v. Hartford Fire Insurance Co., Hughes and Roberts joined with the liberal bloc in upholding a state regulation that limited commissions for the sale of fire insurance.[85]

During Hoover's presidency, the country plunged into the Great Depression.[86] As the country faced an ongoing economic calamity, Franklin D. Roosevelt decisively defeated Hoover in the 1932 presidential election.[87] Responding to the Great Depression, Roosevelt passed a bevy of domestic legislation as part of his New Deal domestic program, and the response to the New Deal became one of the key issues facing the Hughes Court. In the Gold Clause Cases, a series of cases that presented some of the first major tests of New Deal laws, the Hughes Court upheld the voiding of the "gold clauses" in private and public contracts that was favored by the Roosevelt administration.[88] Roosevelt, who had expected the Supreme Court to rule adversely to his administration's position, was elated by the outcome, writing that "as a lawyer it seems to me that the Supreme Court has at last definitely put human values ahead of the 'pound of flesh' called for by a contract."[89] The Hughes Court also continued to adjudicate major cases concerning the states. In the 1934 case of Home Building & Loan Ass'n v. Blaisdell, Hughes and Roberts joined the Three Musketeers in upholding a Minnesota law that established a moratorium on mortgage payments.[88] Hughes's majority opinion in that case stated that "while an emergency does not create power, an emergency may furnish the occasion for the exercise of power."[90]

Beginning with the 1935 case of Railroad Retirement Board v. Alton Railroad Co., Roberts started siding with the Four Horsemen, creating a majority bloc that struck down New Deal laws.[91] The court held that Congress had, in passing an act that provided a mandatory retirement and pension system for railroad industry workers, violated due process and exceeded the regulatory powers granted to it by the Commerce Clause.[92] Hughes strongly criticized Roberts's majority opinion in his dissent, writing that "the power committed to Congress to govern interstate commerce does not require that its government should be wise, much less that it be perfect. The power implies a broad discretion."[91] Nonetheless, in May 1935, the Supreme Court unanimously struck down three New Deal laws. Writing the majority opinion in A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, Hughes held that Roosevelt's National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 was doubly unconstitutional, falling afoul of both the Commerce Clause and the nondelegation doctrine.[91]

In the 1936 case of United States v. Butler, Hughes surprised many observers by joining with Roberts and the Four Horsemen in striking down the Agricultural Adjustment Act.[93] In doing so, the court dismantled the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, the major New Deal agricultural program.[94] In another 1936 case, Carter v. Carter Coal Co., the Supreme Court struck down the Guffey Coal Act, which regulated the bituminous coal industry. Hughes wrote a concurring opinion in Carter in which he agreed with the majority's holding that Congress could not use its Commerce Clause powers to "regulate activities and relations within the states which affect interstate commerce only indirectly." In the final case of the 1936 term, Morehead v. New York ex rel. Tipaldo, Roberts joined with the Four Horsemen in striking down New York's minimum wage law.[95] President Roosevelt had held up the New York minimum wage law as a model for other states to follow, and many Republicans as well as Democrats attacked the decision for interfering with the states.[96] In December 1936, the court handed down its near-unanimous opinion in United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., upholding a law that granted the president the power to place an arms embargo on Bolivia and Paraguay. Justice Sutherland's majority opinion, which Hughes joined, explained that the Constitution had granted the president broad powers to conduct foreign policy.[97]

The Hughes Court in 1937, photographed by Erich Salomon

Roosevelt won re-election in a landslide in the 1936 presidential election, and congressional Democrats grew their majorities in both houses of Congress.[98] As the Supreme Court had already struck down both the National Industrial Recovery Act and the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the president feared that the court would next strike down other key New Deal laws, including the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (also known as the Wagner Act) and the Social Security Act.[99] In early 1937, Roosevelt proposed to increase the number of Supreme Court seats through the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937 (also known as the "court-packing plan"). Roosevelt argued that the bill was necessary because Supreme Court justices were unable to meet their case load. With large Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, Roosevelt's bill had a strong chance of passage in early 1937.[100] However, the bill was poorly received by the public, as many saw the bill as power grab or as an attack on a sacrosanct institution.[101] Hughes worked behind the scenes to defeat the effort, rushing important New Deal legislation through the Supreme Court in an effort to quickly uphold the constitutionality of the laws.[102] He also sent a letter to Senator Burton K. Wheeler, asserting that the Supreme Court was fully capable of handling its case load. Hughes's letter had a powerful impact in discrediting Roosevelt's argument about the practical need for more Supreme Court justices.[103]

While the debate over the court-packing plan continued, the Supreme Court upheld, in a 5–4 vote, the state of Washington's minimum wage law in the case of West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish. Joined by the Three Musketeers and Roberts, Hughes wrote the majority opinion,[104] which overturned the 1923 case of Adkins v. Children's Hospital.[105] In his majority opinion, Hughes wrote that the "Constitution does not speak of freedom of contract", and further held that the Washington legislature "was entitled to adopt measures to reduce the evils of the 'sweating system,' the exploiting of workers at wages so low as to be insufficient to meet the bare cost of living."[106] Because Roberts had previously sided with the four conservative justices in Tipaldo, a similar case, it was widely perceived that Roberts agreed to uphold the constitutionality of minimum wage as a result of the pressure that was put on the Supreme Court by the court-packing plan (a theory referred to as "the switch in time that saved nine").[107] However, Hughes and Roberts both later indicated that Roberts had committed to changing his judicial stance on state minimum wage law months before Roosevelt announced his court-packing plan.[108] Roberts had voted to grant certiorari to hear the Parrish case even before the 1936 presidential election, and oral arguments for the case had taken place in late 1936.[109] In an initial conference vote held on December 19, 1936, Roberts had voted to uphold the law.[110] Scholars continue to debate why Roberts essentially switched his vote with regards to state minimum wage laws, but Hughes may have played an important role in influencing Roberts to uphold the law.[111]

Weeks after the court handed down its decision in Parrish, Hughes wrote for the majority again in NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. Joined by Roberts and the Three Musketeers, Hughes upheld the constitutionality of the Wagner Act. The Wagner Act case marked a turning point for the Supreme Court, as the court began a pattern of upholding New Deal laws.[112] Later in 1937, the court upheld both the old age benefits and the taxation system established by the Social Security Act. Meanwhile, conservative Associate Justice Willis Van Devanter announced his retirement, undercutting Roosevelt's arguments for the necessity of the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937.[113] By the end of the year, the court-packing plan had died in the Senate, and Roosevelt had been dealt a serious political wound that emboldened the conservative coalition of Southern Democrats and Republicans.[114] However, throughout 1937, Hughes had presided over a massive shift in jurisprudence that marked the end of the Lochner era, a period during which the Supreme Court had frequently struck down state and federal economic regulations.[105] Hugo Black, Roosevelt's nominee to succeed Van Devanter, was confirmed by the Senate in August 1937.[115] He was joined by Stanley Forman Reed, who succeeded Sutherland, the following year, leaving pro-New Deal liberals with a majority on the Supreme Court.[116][lower-alpha 3]

Associate Justice William O. Douglas served alongside Hughes on the Supreme Court

After 1937, the Hughes Court continued to uphold economic regulations, with McReynolds and Butler often being the lone dissenters.[118] The liberal bloc was strengthened even further in 1940, when Butler was succeeded by another Roosevelt appointee, Frank Murphy.[119] In the case of United States v. Carolene Products Co., Justice Stone's majority opinion articulated a broad theory of deference to economic regulations. Carolene Products established that the Supreme Court would conduct a "rational basis review" of economic regulations, meaning that the Court would only strike down a regulation if legislators lacked a "rational basis" for passing the regulation. The Supreme Court showed that it would defer to state legislators in the cases of Madden v. Kentucky and Olsen v. Nebraska.[120] Hughes joined the majority in another case, United States v. Darby Lumber Co., which upheld the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.[121]

The Hughes Court also faced several civil rights cases. Hughes wrote the majority opinion in Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, which required the state of Missouri to either integrate its law school or establish a separate law school for African-Americans.[122] He joined and helped arrange unanimous support for Black's majority opinion in Chambers v. Florida, which overturned the conviction of a defendant who had been coerced into confessing a crime.[123] In the 1940 case of Minersville School District v. Gobitis, Hughes joined the majority decision, which held that public schools could require students to salute the American flag despite the students' religious objections to these practices.[124]

Hughes began to consider retiring in 1940, partly due to the declining health of his wife. In June 1941, he informed Roosevelt of his impending retirement.[125] Hughes suggested that Roosevelt elevate Stone to the position of Chief Justice, a suggestion that Roosevelt accepted.[126] Hughes retired in 1941, and Stone was confirmed as the new Chief Justice, beginning the Stone Court.

• Hughes, Charles Evans. Addresses and papers of Charles Evans Hughes, governor of New York, 1906-1908 (GP Putnam's Sons, 1908) online
• Hughes, Charles Evans. Addresses of Charles Evans Hughes, 1906-1916 (GP Putnam's sons, 1916) online.
• Hughes, Charles Evans (1973). The Autobiographical Notes of Charles Evans Hughes. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0674053250.