Harrison Genealogy Repository

Notes

Walter Marion Chandler spent his early youth in working on a farm in summer and attending an old log schoolhouse in winter, until, when fifteen years of age, he entered the University of Mississippi, at Oxford. Being forced to relinquish his studies after the first year on account of the implacable combinations of poverty and ill-health, he sought employment as a teacher and before he was seventeen he received a first-grade certificate to teach in the State of Mississippi. Two years later he resumed his university education, and made a specialty of the study of Latin, Green, French and German at Tulane University. After some additional years spent in teaching, he traveled in Scotland, England, Belgium and Holland, and took a special course in history and jurisprudence at the University of Berlin and Heidelberg. He began the study of law at the University of Virginia in 1894, continued it at the University of Michigan and in 1897 was admitted to the bar and located at Dallas, Texas, where he soon received the appointment of first assistant state's attorney of Dallas County. In this capacity he rendered excellent service for two years, prosecuting and backing up the prosecution of some of the most famous murder cases and notorious criminals in the state without fear, favor or thought of personal advancement. Then in 1900, feeling the need for a wider horizon for his talents, he moved to New York and entered the practice of his profession with a persistence and skill that has carried him above the heads of most of his compeers and given him a legal reputation second to none. As a lecturer on the subject of "The Trial of Jesus from a Lawyer's Point of View," he holds the undivided attention of his listeners for as long a time as he chooses to speak, and as an after-dinner speaker, few can claim equality. In 1908 he published two volumes, "The Trial of Jesus from a Lawyer's Standpoint and was lauded as the most comprehensive historian of the trial of the Savior, and the first to treat the event from an unbiased, systematic, legal viewpoint. Of this work the "Literary Digest" said: "It would seem probably that nothing more exhaustive upon this topic will ever be produced, since it evidently covers all the material available. The amount of erudition disclosed in this treatment is surprising, and the capacity to reduce it all to an argument so clear that the ordinary reader can grasp it easily, should give the book a very wide general reading,: and the "Christian Herald" characterized it as "the strongest, the fullest and the most satisfactory presentation of the whole subject," and a book that "deserves to be ranked among the notable contributions to historical and legal literature." This was followed by "The Jew; a tribute by a Gentile" (1910), in which he seeks to show that, in proportion to population, the Jew has produced more eminently intellectual and spiritual men than any other race of mankind. Mr. Chandler was elected as a Progressive to the Sixty-third, Sixty-fourth, and Sixty-fifth Congresses (March 4, 1913 to March 3, 1919); unsuccessful candidate fo reelection in 1922 to the Sixty-eighth Congress and also unsuccessfully contested the election of Sol Bloom to fill a vacancy in the Sixty-eighth Congress; unsuccessful candidate for election in 1924 to the Sixty-ninth Congress; member of the faculty and lecturer at the American Expeditionary Forces University at Beaune, France, during the First World War. He was a member of the Republican and West Side Republican clubs of New York City, as well as of the Pliades and Playgoers. After the war he resumed the practice of law in New York City, traveled extensively and engaged in lecturing and writing. The following item appeared in the The New York Times on Sunday, March 17, 1935. "Walter Chandler, lawyer, heart attack and intestinal malady at Post Graduate Hospital after an illness of four day. Mr. Chandler was born in Yazoo County, Mississippi on December 8, 1867, the son of King David Chandler and Mary Frances (Harrison) Chandler. His home in latter years has been the San Francescan Hotel, Albuquerque, New Mexico. In New York City, his home was the Hotel New Yorker." "While in Texas, he was a cowboy and school teacher for several years and served as first Assistant States Attorney, Dallas County. He was a lecturer for the Texas-Colorado Chautauqua for the summer of 1900. He authored "The Trial of Jesus from a Lawyer's Standpoint" in 1908 and "The Jew - A Tribute by a Gentile" Mr. Chandler was a Progressive Republican and a member of the West Side Republican Club of New York City."