CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT, 1930-1941

Judicial Statesman,

Charles Evans Hughes assumed the responsibilities of the Supreme Court chief justice at the onset of this nation's worst economic crisis. Little did anyone suspect at the time of his appointment that his varied and extensive experience would become so critical a factor in steering the institution of the Supreme Court through one of its most challenging periods. If anything, the public perception of the chief justice was one that evoked an image of an austere, remote, and humorless man who had once pursued the presidency on a platform remembered for its probusiness and antilabor positions. His name remains linked with the public perception of the early New Deal Court as having been blindly conservative and much out of step with the nation's Depression-era needs and priorities. However conservative Hughes's economic views may have been, he, above all others,...