The arrival of a new attorney general—the first since Homer Cummings’s appointment in 1933—only underscored the need to remain on the president’s side. Just five years Hoover’s senior, former Michigan governor Frank Murphy arrived in office known as something of a civil liberties advocate, the leader who had refused to call in troops on the sit-down strikers. Among his first acts at the Justice Department was the creation of a civil liberties unit based on the principle that “where there is social unrest . . . we ought to be most anxious and vigilant in protecting the civil liberties of a
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