Louis Marshall (December 14, 1856 – September 11, 1929) was an American corporate, constitutional and civil rights lawyer as well as a mediator and Jewish community leader who worked to secure religious, political, and cultural freedom for all minority 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).

Early life and education

Louis Marshall was born on December 14, 1856, in Syracuse, New York, to two Jewish immigrants, recently arrived from Germany.Adler, pp. 21–22. Founded just eight years earlier, in 1847, Syracuse was a booming transportation, financial, and manufacturing hub on the Erie Canal, as the United States expanded West. On the brink of the American Civil War, the city was also a well-known stop on the Underground Railroad.

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 linguist. 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 children] in German, Schiller, Scott and 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.

Career Lawyer After completing his legal studies on January 1, 1878, Marshall joined the law firm of William C. Ruger in Syracuse. A few years later, in 1885, he became a member of the New York State Bar Association.Handlin, p. xii According to Adler, "the day he was admitted to the Bar, Marshall became a partner in Ruger's firm". Later, when Ruger was appointed chief justice of the New York State Court of Appeals,Glover, p. 9 "the law firm became Jenny, Brooks & Marshall."Adler, p. 25 During this period, Marshall rose to prominence not only in New York, but nationally: "In 1891 he was part of a national delegation that asked President Benjamin Harrison to intervene on behalf of persecuted Russian Jews." Before the age of 40, Marshall had argued over 150 cases before the Court of Appeals.

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 Issue: Louis Marshall and American Jewish Leadership], 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 "argue[d] 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

Jewish leader In 1905, Marshall was promoted to chairman of the board of directors of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Conservative Judaism's rabbinical school.Handlin, p. xix After serving as an officer for several years at Congregation Emanu-El of the City of New York, a Reform congregation, he became its president in 1916. (Marshall was related by marriage to Emanu-El's spiritual leader, Rabbi Judah L. Magnes, whose wife, Beatrice Lowenstein, was Marshall's sister-in-law.)Handlin, p. xxiv Despite the implicit contradiction, to Marshall there was only one Judaism.

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 literacy test] while a 'great proportion' [of the people] 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 American Jewish Relief Committee,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-Semitic propaganda."America's Jewish Enigma - Louis Marshall", 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.

Public servant