Charles Evans Hughes Jr. (November 30, 1889 – January 21, 1950) was the
United States Solicitor General
The solicitor general of the United States is the fourth-highest-ranking official in the United States Department of Justice. Elizabeth Prelogar has been serving in the role since October 28, 2021.
The United States solicitor general represent ...
from 1929 to 1930. He was the son of Supreme Court chief justice
Charles Evans Hughes
Charles Evans Hughes Sr. (April 11, 1862 – August 27, 1948) was an American statesman, politician and jurist who served as the 11th Chief Justice of the United States from 1930 to 1941. A member of the Republican Party, he previously was the ...
.
Early life
Hughes was born in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
on November 30, 1889. He was a son of Antoinette Ellen Carter Hughes (1864–1945) and
Charles Evans Hughes
Charles Evans Hughes Sr. (April 11, 1862 – August 27, 1948) was an American statesman, politician and jurist who served as the 11th Chief Justice of the United States from 1930 to 1941. A member of the Republican Party, he previously was the ...
, the former governor of New York who served as
Chief Justice of the United States and 1916 Republican presidential nominee.
He was an honor graduate of
Brown University where he was a member of
Delta Upsilon
Delta Upsilon (), commonly known as DU, is a collegiate men's fraternity founded on November 4, 1834 at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It is the sixth-oldest, all-male, college Greek Letter Organizations#Greek letters, Greek-let ...
fraternity. After Brown he attended the
Harvard Law School, serving as the editor of the ''
Harvard Law Review'' during his third and final year there. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1912.
Career
Admitted to the
bar in 1913, Hughes was secretary to
New York Judge (and future
Supreme Court of the United States Justice)
Benjamin N. Cardozo
Benjamin Nathan Cardozo (May 24, 1870 – July 9, 1938) was an American lawyer and jurist who served on the New York Court of Appeals from 1914 to 1932 and as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1932 until his deat ...
from 1914 to 1916.
After practicing corporate law briefly, Hughes joined the
United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...
as a private shortly after U.S. entry into
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. Serving in
field artillery, he was eventually commissioned a
second lieutenant on July 12, 1918. He served as an instructor at the artillery school at Saumur and was assigned to the intelligence section of the AEF headquarters in February 1919. He was then assigned to the
77th Division as an aide-de-camp to Brigadier General
Pelham D. Glassford. He returned to the United States on April 29 and was discharged on May 9, 1919.
Upon returning from the war, Hughes resumed the practice of primarily corporate law. Hughes practiced in the firm founded by his father,
Charles Evans Hughes Sr., then known as Carter, Hughes & Cravath (now known as
Hughes Hubbard & Reed
Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP ( a.k.a. "Hughes Hubbard" or "HHR") is a multinational law firm headquartered in New York City with offices in the United States, France, and Japan.
The firm's history dates back to the late 19th century, when it co ...
).
Solicitor General
Appointed Solicitor General by
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was an American politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 and a member of the Republican Party, holding office during the onset of the Gr ...
,
Hughes was compelled to resign when Hoover nominated Hughes's father to be
Chief Justice of the United States, in order to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.
Hughes re-joined Carter, Hughes & Cravath.
He also served on the
board of directors of
New York Life Insurance Company
New York Life Insurance Company (NYLIC) is the third-largest life insurance company in the United States, the largest mutual life insurance company in the United States and is ranked #67 on the 2021 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States ...
from 1930 to 1934.
Judge
Learned Hand
Billings Learned Hand ( ; January 27, 1872 – August 18, 1961) was an American jurist, lawyer, and judicial philosopher. He served as a federal trial judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York from 1909 to 1924 a ...
once observed that Charles Evans Hughes Sr. was the greatest lawyer he had ever known, "except that his son was even greater."
Personal life
On June 18, 1914, Hughes was married to Marjory Bruce Stuart in the little Chapel of St. Saviour, in the
Cathedral of St. John the Divine in
Morningside Heights, Manhattan.
Marjory, then a senior at
Vassar College
Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely foll ...
(her roommate was the groom's sister, Helen Hughes), was a daughter of Henry Clarence Stuart.
Together, they were the parents of two sons and two daughters:
*
Charles Evans Hughes III (1915–1985), an
architect
An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...
.
[Goldberger, Paul]
"CHARLES E. HUGHES 3D DEAD; LEADER IN BANK ARCHITECTURE"
''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', January 10, 1985. Accessed May 4, 2008. "Mr. Hughes, who lived in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, was the grandson of Charles Evans Hughes, the former Chief Justice of the United States."
*
H. Stuart Hughes (1916–1999), a noted
historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...
and
activist
* Helen Hughes, who was named after Hughes' sister Helen Hughes, who died at age 28 in 1920.
* Marjory Bruce Hughes (1929–2014),
who married William Lee Johnson in 1952,
the former general counsel of
Otis Elevator Company
Otis Worldwide Corporation ( branded as the Otis Elevator Company, its former legal name) is an American company that develops, manufactures and markets elevators, escalators, moving walkways, and related equipment.
Based in Farmington, Connec ...
.
He died of a brain tumor on January 21, 1950, and was buried at
Woodlawn Cemetery in Bronx, New York.
References
External links
Biographyat USDOJ
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hughes, Charles Evans Jr.
United States Army personnel of World War I
United States Army officers
1889 births
1950 deaths
Brown University alumni
Harvard Law School alumni
United States Solicitors General
New York (state) Republicans
Lawyers from New York City
Military personnel from New York City
Deaths from brain cancer in the United States
20th-century American lawyers
Charles Evans Hughes family