Product Code Database
Louis Marshall (December 14, 1856 – September 11, 1929) was an American corporation, constitutional and civil rights lawyer as well as a Mediation and Jewish community leader who worked to secure religious, political, and cultural freedom for all minority group groups. Among the founders of the American Jewish Committee (AJC), he defended Jewish and minority rights. He was also a conservationist, and the force behind re-establishing the New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse University, which evolved into today's State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF).
Marshall's father, Jacob Marshall, had arrived in New York City at 19 years of age on September 1, 1849, from Neidenstein, Bavaria, in Germany; his mother arrived from Württemberg, Germany, in 1853.Marshall, Louis, Letter to Charles H. Sedgwick, April 13, 1914. In Reznikoff, p. 4.Marshall, Louis, Letter to William Prescott Greenlaw, July 6, 1926. In Reznikoff, p. 7. According to Louis Marshall, the family name had been spelled "Marschall", with a "c", in "Rhenish Bavaria ... near the French boundary".Marshall, Louis. April 24, 1929. Letter to Edward G. Friton. In Reznikoff, p. 6. Marshall's friend and colleague, Cyrus Adler noted in his remembrances of Marshall that the latter's "father migrated to the United states in 1849, the year which marked the beginning of migration from Germany following the failure of the revolutionary movements of 1848."Adler, Cyrus, "Louis Marshall: A Biographical Sketch", ''American Jewish Year Book, 1930–31, p. 21 From New York City, Jacob Marshall had "worked his way up the Erie Canal to Syracuse, where he opened a hide, fur, and leather business. It was marginally profitable."Glover, pp. 7–9.
Louis was the eldest of six children. He had one brother, Benjamin, two years younger, and four sisters: Marie, Bertha, Clara, and Ida; 13 years separated Louis and his youngest sister, Ida.US Census Records, 1880, Syracuse, NY. The family resided at 222 Cedar Street, "in the old Seventh Ward of Syracuse", an area today approximately where the Onondaga County Justice Center (county jail) is located.Young, James C. (December 12, 1926). "Marshall Looks Back Over 70 Years". The New York Times Magazine. pp. 9, 18. Quoted in Reznikoff, p. 3
From childhood, Marshall was both a scholar and a Linguistics. His first language was German: "I spoke German before I knew a word of English, and so long as my mother lived (she died in 1910) I never spoke to her otherwise than in German."Letter to Charles Schwager, December 17, 1928. In Reznikoff, p. 5. Louis' mother, Zilli (or Zella), was "well educated for her times ... reading to her in German, Schiller, Walter Scott and Victor Hugo, the standard literature of mid-century."Handlin, Oscar. "Introduction". In Louis Marshall: Champion of Liberty, ed. Charles Reznikoff, p. xi.
Marshall attended "the Seventh Ward Public school"Adler, p. 22 and later Syracuse High School, from which he graduated in 1874, one of eight males in a graduating class of 22.Kohler, Max J. "Louis Marshall". Dictionary of American Biography. Vol. XII, pp. 326–328. Quoted in Reznikoff, p. 3.Smith, Edward. 1893. A History of the Schools of Syracuse from its Early Settlement to January 1, 1893. Syracuse: C.W. Bardeen, p. 330. In addition he attended German and Hebrew schools along with his sisters. In his various school settings, Marshall applied himself to studying French, German, Latin, Greek and Hebrew. The latter he also learned from his father.Handlin, p. xi Later in life, Marshall taught himself Yiddish.Marshall, Jonathan. 2009. Dateline History: The Life of Journalist Jonathan Marshall. Phoenix: Acacia Publishing, p. 9.
Upon high school graduation, Marshall "began the study of law, in accordance with the fashion of that day, in a lawyer's office, that of Nathaniel B. Smith", where he served a two-year apprenticeship. This under his belt, his next step towards a career in law was to "enroll in Columbia University's law school (then Dwight Law School)".Glover, pp. 8–9. According to Marshall, "I really do not know if I am considered an alumnus of the Law School at Columbia University or not. If I am, then it is very peculiar that it has not been until I arrived at the mature age of seventy-two that I should have received a letter which is addressed to me as a 'Dear Fellow Alumnus'. I attended the Law School from September, 1876, to June, 1877. ... I never received a degree because two years actual attendance was required."Letter to Harold R. Medina, March 9, 1929. In Reznikoff, p. 8.
Marshall was recruited by Samuel Untermyer, a classmate at Columbia, to join the law firm of Guggenheimer and Untermyer in New York City. Moving there in February 1894, he became heavily involved in Jewish religious and political affairs. He also was involved in alternative dispute resolution (ADR), acting with Louis BrandeisRaider, Mark A. 2008. "Introduction" Special, American Jewish History 94(1-2), p. x. as the mediator in a strike of 60,000 to 70,000 cloakmakers in New York City in 1910,Handlin, p. xxi and in 1919 was the arbitrator in a clothing-workers' strike.
As his life became stable and more organized he acquired a circle of intimate friends. It was his habit to have lunch and relax at Monch's Restaurant with a group of lawyers during the work-week, where they would debate each other, with Loewenstein, the waiter, serving as Judge and jury.Handlin XVIII, line 12
During the years 1910 and 1911, while William Howard Taft was president, two openings occurred on the United States Supreme Court. Several of Taft's prominent friends urged him to appoint Marshall, who had the reputation of an outstanding Constitutional lawyer and public citizen. A justice of the Supreme Court was the only elected or appointed office Marshall had ever wanted or sought; Taft eventually chose two other men for the positions.Alpert, p.37
In 1914, he was part of the legal team representing Leo Frank, a Jewish pencil factory manager convicted of raping and murdering a 13-year-old employee named Mary Phagan. Marshall initiated an ultimately unsuccessful appeal of the case to the United States Supreme Court.
Marshall was active in protecting the human and civil rights of Jews and on behalf of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (of which he was a director),Reznikoff, p. 1177 and fought major legal battles on behalf of all minorities. By the end of his legal career, Marshall had "argued more cases before the U.S. Supreme Court than any other private lawyer of his generation."Raider, p. ix.
The Syracuse Post-Standard's editorial on Marshall, written upon his death in 1929, portrayed his motivation as: "Always, it was justice ... Justice to all who were in need of justice ... justice to the people who, like himself, were of Jewish origin. ... His was an intense Americanism. ... He was a man who helped humanity ... unafraid, a man whose hand was ready to lift a load ... necessary for the lessening of misfortune or oppression, a worker in our common life who because he was a worker, became a leader, a man who crowded his years with service for the benefit of those about him—altogether an eminent American citizen whom a multitude will hold in grateful remembrance."Alpert
In 1906, with Jacob Schiff and Cyrus Adler,Handlin, p. xxvi Marshall helped found the American Jewish Committee (AJC) as a means for keeping watch over legislation and diplomacy relevant to American Jews, and to convey requests, information, and political threats to US government officials. Marshall eventually became the AJC's primary strategist and lobbyist. After being elected its president in 1912,Alder, p. 33 he held the post until his death. In this position, he opposed Congressional bills that would prevent many illiterate Jews from entering the US. Despite a Presidential veto, one of the bills was enacted in 1917, after a Congressional override.
Marshall was a strong advocate of abolishing the literacy test and said, "We are practically the only ones who are fighting the while a 'great proportion' of is 'indifferent to what is done'". Marshall was also the leader of the movement that led to the abrogation, in 1911, of the US-Russian Commercial Treaty of 1832.
At the end of World War I, Marshall attended the Paris Peace Conference at Versailles, France, in 1919, as President of the American Jewish Committee and Vice-President of the American Jewish Congress. There, he helped formulate clauses for the "full and equal civil, religious, political, and national rights" of Jews in the constitutions of the newly created states of eastern Europe.Marshall, Louis. 1919. Passport application, January 8. These provisions Marshall believed to be "the most important contribution to human liberty in modern history."Handlin, p. xxxiv
He fought a proposal to have the US Census Bureau enumerate Jews as a race. Although he had some differences with political Zionists, Marshall contributed to efforts that led to the establishment of Israel as a Jewish homeland in Palestine. He was instrumental in organizing the Jewish Agency,Adler, p. 35 which brought together Zionists and non-Zionists for the management of Jewish colonization efforts.
In 1920, Marshall also attempted to stop a newspaper owned by Henry Ford, The Dearborn Independent, from spreading Anti-Semitism propaganda., The Dearborn Independent, issue of November 26, 1921, reprinted in The International Jew, Volume 4, Chapter 76 at Wikisource Marshall and Untermyer entered the fight against the alleged libelous attacks featured in the paper, which led to a 1927 lawsuit against the automaker in federal court.
In 1902, Marshall was appointed chairman of a commission investigating the slum conditions on New York City's Lower East Side, where many Jewish immigrants had settled. In 1908, he was appointed chairman of the New York State Immigration Commission.
In 1910, Marshall was appointed a trustee of Syracuse University. In 1911, he became president of the board of trustees of the New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse University (now the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry), a post he kept until his death in 1929.
At the New York State Constitutional Convention of 1915, Marshall again served as a delegate, this time being elected to an at-large position." Delegates to State Constitutional Convention, 1915". The Political Graveyard. Accessed November 15, 2009. According to Adler, Marshall "was the only man who sat in three New constitutional conventions ..."Adler, p. 31
In 1923, Marshall was honored with an appointment as a director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In that post, "he fought against racial segregation in housing and against the disenfranchisement of the white primary. ... Defending the rights of Negro voters, he secured a ruling of the Supreme Court in the case of Nixon v. Herndon that the Texas white primary law was unconstitutional."Handlin, p. xl
Louis Marshall was a framer of Article 14, the "Forever Wild" clause, in the New York State constitutional Amendment to the New York State Constitution, which went into effect on January 1, 1895.Angus, Christopher. 2002. The Extraordinary Adirondack Journey of Clarence Petty: Wilderness Guide, Pilot, and Conservationist. Syracuse University Press. . p.15.New York State Conservationist "Golden Anniversary" issue, August 1995, pp. 22–25; Reprinted from the New York State Conservationist, December 1965.
The devastating forest fires of 1899, in the Adirondack Forest Preserve, which burned provoked Colonel William F. Fox, Superintendent of New York's state-owned forests, to urge replacing fire wardens with a cadre of professional forest rangers. However, it took more than a decade, the terrible forest fires of 1903 and 1908, and the help of Louis Marshall before the present New York State Forest Ranger system was finally established in 1912.Angus, p.120 Marshall was also a driving force behind the establishment of the New York State Ranger School in Wanakena, New York, which was founded in 1912,Marshall, Louis. Letter to the Forest, Fish and Game Commissioner of NY and copy to Governor Hughes, September 25, 1908. Subject: Adirondack Fire Emergency ... Replacing lax, ad hoc Fire Wardens. In Reznikoff, pp. 1014–1018. and a similar school was established at Paul Smith's College.
Later, "an ardent conservationist, he fought earnestly every effort to encroach upon the ... Preserve he had helped create. The efforts of highway builders to slash roads through the woods, of power interests to divert the rivers to their own use, and of hunters and fishermen to act without restraint all met his unqualified opposition."Handlin, p. xlii A trustee of the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks,Graham, Frank Jr. 1978. The Adirondack Park: A Political History, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, p. 147." 100 Years of Wilderness Stewardship". Protect the Adirondacks. Accessed March 23, 2010. he led a floor fight in 1915, successfully protecting the Forever Wild clause of the New York State Constitution.
Marshall's interest in conservation extended to the national stage. In an intervention at the US Supreme Court, he had a key influence on a landmark case underscoring the right and responsibility of the Federal government for environmental protection and conservation. In a friend of the court brief on The State of Missouri v. Ray V. Holland, US Game Warden on behalf of the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks, Marshall successfully persuaded the Court to uphold the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, between the US and Canada.Adler, p. 27 As characterized by Adler, Marshall argued that "the United States did have the power to create such legislation; that Congress was well within its rights; and that the Act was constitutional"; and further that, "If Congress possessed plenary powers to legislate for the protection of the public domain, then it had to take into account all possibility for such protection",Adler, pp. 27–28 including protection of migratory birds, "these natural guardians" against "hostile insects, which, if not held in check ... would result in the inevitable destruction" of "both prairie and forest lands".Marshall, as quoted in Adler, p. 27 According to Handlin, Marshall's intervention "was a major factor in the decision.".Handlin, p. xviii "It is not only a sin to kill a mockingbird, it is also a crime,’ Judge Valerie Caproni wrote in a forceful decision.".
In an address at the University of the State of New York at Albany on October 21, 1921, Marshall argued passionately that "the people of this State have for a century been guilty of criminal recklessness in the manner in which they have permitted their magnificent forests to be destroyed. The entire country is beginning to perceive a glimmer of the calamity that confronts it if a policy of forestation is not carried into execution speedily. Our water courses will dry up. Our most fertile agricultural lands will become arid. The wild life of the forest, the fishes that were once abundant in our streams are threatened with extermination unless there is a speedy remedy ..."Quoted in Reznikoff, p. 1080
At a more personal level, Marshall took a keen interest in the natural environment. Marshall became a member of the Adirondack Mountain Club after its founding in 1922.
Since the Marshall family never owned a car, they would travel by rail ... to Saranac Lake Village. From there it was a mile and a half ride by rowboat across the lake, or a four-mile surrey ride around the lake. ... The walls were decorated with an assortment of moose antlers, prize fish mounted on plaques, and the heavily antlered head of an elk ... If the elk could have seen with its glass eyes, it ... never would have seen the water, for Louis Marshall would not allow any of the trees blocking the view to be cut.Glover, p. 20.
Upon Florence Lowenstein Marshall's death of cancer on May 27, 1916, at age 43, daughter Ruth became surrogate mother for her younger siblings.Glover, p. 24 Marshall found respite in nature:
There was scarcely a day, in New York, when he did not walk through Central Park; and he treasured the periods he could spend at Knollwood. The silence of the forest paths brought a "healing to the soul." Feasting his eyes upon the hemlocks and the birches, often he felt as if his lost wife were at his side, and that made of Knollwood "one of the sacred places of the earth."
Drawing deeply from their childhood experiences in the Adirondacks, the younger boys, Bob and George, became noted conservationists. The sprawling Bob Marshall Wilderness, comprising over a million acres (4000 km2) of pristine wilderness straddling the continental divide in northwestern Montana, is named after Bob, who was director of the Forestry Division of the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, head of the U.S. Forest Service Division of Recreation and Lands, and co-founder of The Wilderness Society. George was involved with The Wilderness Society for more than 50 years, and served on the board of directors of the Sierra Club, as well.
James Marshall's son Jonathan Marshall owned and published the Scottsdale Daily Progress newspaper. Jonathan ran unsuccessfully for United States Senate against Barry Goldwater in 1974.
True to the values and principles by which he led his life, in his last will and testament, he tithed ten percent of his personal net worth to the "Jewish Theological Seminary of America and to twelve other educational and charitable institutions". American Jewish Year Book, 1930–31, p. 151.
The Syracuse Post-Standards editorial, written upon Marshall's death in 1929, depicts his motivation as: "Always, it was justice. ... justice to all who were in need of justice. ... justice to the people who, like himself, were of Jewish origin. ... His was an intense Americanism. ... He was a man who helped humanity. ... unafraid, a man whose hand was ready to lift a load ... necessary for the lessening of misfortune or oppression, a worker in our common life who because he was a worker, became a leader, a man who crowded his years with service for the benefit of those about him- altogether an eminent American citizen whom a multitude will hold in grateful remembrance." Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: Louis Marshall: 1856–1929
Marshall, his wife, daughter Ruth, and son Bob are buried in the Salem Fields Cemetery, in Brooklyn, New York.
The University of Pennsylvania's first Jewish student organization (that served as a dormitory, kosher dining room and a social center for the university's Jewish students), which was organized in 1924 and initially generically named the Jewish Students’ Association at Penn, after the death of Louis Marshall was renamed after him as the Louis Marshall Society (until January 1, 1944, when it merged with Hillel and took on the Hillel name).
According to Adler, in January 1930, as a tribute to Louis Marshall, New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, "recommended an appropriation of $600,000 for a new building at Syracuse University to house the College of Forestry"; he recommended further that new building be named after Louis Marshall, "in memory of his splendid services to the State".Adler, pp. 54–55 Three years later, February 23, 1933, Louis Marshall Memorial Hall, the second building erected at the New York State College of Forestry, was dedicated in Marshall's honor.Alpert, Herbert. (February 22, 2001). Syracuse Jewish Observer. A full portrait of Louis Marshall hangs to this day in the college's Board Room, in Bray Hall.
On January 19, 2001, Marshall Hall was rededicated to Marshall and his son, Bob, by SUNY-ESF President Cornelius B. Murphy, Jr. According to Murphy, "Louis Marshall is largely the reason that everyone from the college is here today. Louis Marshall was recruited by Chancellor Day in 1910 to make the concept of the 'forestry college' at Syracuse University a reality. Louis was tenacious, prodding both the Governor and the Legislature to take action. Louis Marshall ... lobbied for the $250,000 appropriation to make a building a reality. I think that it is safe to say that Louis Marshall was our father, our first leader and our first forester. Today we rededicate this building to his memory and accomplishments." The rededication included unveiling matching bronze plaques honoring Marshall and his son, ESF alumnus, Bob Marshall.
Marshall Street, the anchor street of the business district immediately adjacent to Syracuse University, is named in his honor. Just off of that street is the indoor mini-mall known as Marshall Square, also named after him, as is elementary school P.S. 276, in Brooklyn, New York.
There is a Louis Marshall Street in Tel Aviv Louis Marshall Street visible on map of Tel Aviv from Google Maps
The Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) hosts an annual, "Louis Marshall Award Dinner". The Louis Marshall Award is presented to individuals who demonstrate the exemplary ethics and philanthropic commitment embodied by Louis Marshall, an esteemed constitutional lawyer and former board chair of JTS. Founded in 1886 as a rabbinical school, the Jewish Theological Seminary today is the academic and spiritual center of Conservative Judaism worldwide, encompassing a world-class library and five schools." JTS to Honor Visionary Leader Gershon Kekst at Louis B. Marshall Award Dinner ". JTS. Accessed March 23, 2010." JTS to Honor Robert S. Kaplan at Louis Marshall Award Dinner ". JTS. March 23, 2010.
|
|
