Charles Evans Hughes

Charles Evans Hughes was born on April 11, 1862, and died on August 27, 1948, and served as the 11th chief justice of the United States from 1930 to 1941 after earlier serving as an associate justice from 1910 to 1916. Between his two periods on the Court he was governor of New York, the Republican presidential nominee who narrowly lost the 1916 election to Woodrow Wilson, and U.S. secretary of state under presidents Harding and Coolidge, negotiating the Washington Naval Treaty limiting naval arms among the United States, Britain and Japan. As chief justice he became a pivotal swing vote between the Courts liberal and conservative blocs during the New Deal era; after the Hughes Court struck down several early New Deal programs, 1937 marked a turning point when Hughes joined the liberal bloc to uphold the Wagner Act and a state minimum wage law, a shift that coincided with the defeat of Franklin Roosevelts plan to expand the size of the Court.