Charles Evans Hughes and American Democratic Statesmanship

This is the tenth title in the now well-established Library of American Biographies (launched with Catton's U.S. Grant). The books are to be judged individually, and stand up exceedingly well as concise, pertinent studies. This volume does not compete with Merlo Pusey's definitive two volume biography (1951) of Charles Evans Hughes, but for the average reader it will fill the need. Actually it could be defined neither as a full life nor a eulogy of Hughes, but a sketch of a professional ""wise man"", a type intelligent in the extreme, yet neither imaginative nor audacious. He sees Hughes as glamorless humorless, an embodiment of integrity, as quick to leap in defense of the Socialist enemy or victim of prejudice as he remains steadfast in support of tradition, bound by his sense of duty, meticulous, exacting. Whether investigating offenses in the utility field, or justice -- later Chief Justice- of Supreme Court, Secretary of State, candidate for the Presidency, Hughes emerges less as a personality than an ideal of the conservative, devoted, incorruptible servant of the people. The text seems perhaps stripped bare of the purely human elements; the decisions handed down by Hughes, his continued acts of social progress and shaping of national policies, are the book's blood and bones. Its focus is Hughes' viewpoint, his style, his reasoning. For the legal fraternity and those who relish a glimpse of makers of history.