As governor of California and chief justice of the United States, Earl Warren defied political categorization, confounding his supporters and critics alike. Although he proved to be a notoriously “liberal” judge, he had been head of the Republican Party in California and had won the vice presidential nomination on the Republican ticket in 1948. Prominent in California politics during the reformist Progressive Era, Warren pursued an agenda as district attorney and later as governor that included elimination of corruption within law enforcement, cracking down on gambling rings, and prison reform. Under his leadership as chief justice, the Supreme Court issued several landmark rulings, among them, decisions on religious freedom, criminal law procedure, civil rights and equal protection under the law, and freedom of speech and obscenity. With a long career spanning the years of the Progressive Era, the Great Depression, World War II, the cold war, and the civil rights movement, Warren epitomizes the American struggle to answer many of the moral questions of the twentieth century.