Joseph Perkins Chamberlain

Background

Joseph Perkins Chamberlain was born on October 1, 1873 in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. He was the son of Robert Linton and Ellen Perkins Chamberlain.

Education

He graduated from Belmont School in California in 1893, studied at Harvard for one year, and then attended the University of California at Berkeley for one year. He graduated from Hastings Law School in San Francisco in 1898 and was admitted to the California bar the same year. He then studied public and private international law for two years at the University of Paris and also in Berlin and Leipzig. Although generally greeted with enthusiasm, his appointment encountered an obstacle in that he had not received the Ph. D. He had, some years earlier, passed his oral examinations on public law subjects, but only to demonstrate to those who knew about the work of the fund that he was knowledgeable in the field.

Career

Subsequently he practiced law for several years in San Francisco with the firm of Pringle and Pringle. From 1907 to 1908 Chamberlain was lecturer in the School of Jurisprudence at the University of California. He went to New York in 1910 and in 1911 joined with Middleton Beaman and Thomas J. Parkinson, later president of the Equitable Life Assurance Society, in establishing the Legislative Drafting Research Fund. Chamberlain's donation to Columbia University provided for the fund's first five years of operation. The purpose of the institution was to improve the quality of legislation and the training of legislative draftsmen. An early administrative board included John Bassett Moore, Harlan Fiske Stone, and Noel T. Dowling, all from the Columbia Law School. The fund was a major focus of Chamberlain's endeavors, and he served as its director from 1918 to 1951. Chamberlain became professor of law in the department of public law and government (later political science) at Columbia University in 1923 and a member of the faculty of law in 1927. In 1917 Chamberlain wrote a monograph, The Regime of International Rivers: Danube and Rhine, for the United States Department of State. The work was prepared for the Versailles Peace Conference and was cited as the authoritative source on the law of international waterways. When it became important that Chamberlain be granted a doctorate, the Department of State removed the "secret" classification of the work and Chamberlain submitted it as his dissertation. Under university regulations, a formal defense of the dissertation was necessary and Chamberlain's friends and colleagues flocked to the examination room to serve as his committee. It is reported that no candidate at Columbia ever had a larger examination committee, which had not come to examine him but to congratulate him and the university on his joining the faculty. It was thereupon reported that the "defense" had been successful. At Columbia, Chamberlain spent about equal time teaching, directing the Legislative Drafting Research Fund, and working in the field of international organization. His involvement in international affairs was both intense and varied. Already a leading authority on international rivers, he also became an authority on the control of narcotics. Following Aristide Briand's proposal in 1927 that the United States and France renounce war as an instrument of national policy, Chamberlain and James T. Shotwell prepared a draft treaty that became an important step in transforming Briand's proposal into the Kellogg-Briand Pact. Having served in the 1920's as a member of the committee on slavery and forced labor of the International Labor Office, Chamberlain became interested in 1933 in the refugee problem and in that year was made a member of the high commission for refugees coming from Germany. Earlier he had advised a variety of organizations on questions of international law, especially the International Missionary Council and the Federal Council of Churches of Christ of America. He also worked extensively with the Foreign Policy Association and was a member of the Committee on Codification of International Law. His experience at home and his observations abroad had convinced him that the future of law lay in its legislative development and that educational institutions had a responsibility to provide instruction in the preparation and interpretation of statutes. The fund, using both professional and student research assistants, operated as a laboratory to provide training in legislation and constitutional law; it has since its foundation rendered drafting and legislative research services to federal, state, and municipal governmental agencies and to private organizations. In 1916 Chamberlain dispatched a task force to the United States Congress to furnish drafting aid (for two years) to congressional committees, principally the House committees on the merchant marine, fisheries, and ways and means. This work led to the establishment of offices of counsel for the House and the Senate. Beaman became the first House legislative counsel, while Parkinson was the first head of the legislative drafting service for the Senate. Chamberlain himself served as chairman of a special committee appointed by the Senate and House in 1925 to work on the proposed codification of the statute laws of the United States. From 1935 to 1936 he served as counsel and draftsman to the New York Charter Revision Commission. Chamberlain served as George Eastman Professor at Oxford University from 1939 to 1940. He wrote many articles on subjects of international law, public administration, and legislation. His major works include a textbook, Legislative Process--National and State (1936), which is still regarded as a classic, and The Judicial Function in Federal Administrative Agencies (1942), written with Noel T. Dowling and Paul R. Hays. He retired from teaching in 1950 but continued with his work at the Legislative Drafting Research Fund until his death at his home in New York City.

Achievements

• He was named chairman of the American Council of Voluntary Agencies for Foreign Service, which helped to settle thousands of homeless, displaced persons who had immigrated to the United States. Chamberlain's work at the Legislative Drafting Research Fund made him a leader in the movement to improve American statute law. Hhe was a special assistant to the attorney general of Alabama in the litigation on the constitutionality of unemployment compensation under the Federal Social Security Act. He served as adviser to the secretary of the treasury in implementing foreign funds control to deal with the problem of blocked funds of nationals of enemy countries.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Regime of the International Rivers: Danube and Rhine

    ( The Making of Modern Law: Foreign, Comparative and Inte...)

  • The Danube: In Five Parts

    (This work has been selected by scholars as being cultural...)

  • Texts Of The Roumanian "peace": (with Maps)...

    ( This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923....)

  • Property Rights Under The New Mexican Constitution ......

    ( This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923....)

Politics

Although a lifelong Republican, Chamberlain associated with and befriended reformers of every kind and worked with them as a meticulous legislative technician.

Membership

Committee on Codification of International Law

Personality

A kind and gentle man who was shy almost to the point of diffidence, Chamberlain was personally secure, strong-willed, and confident in his intellectual powers. One of his associates called him a Jeffersonian, combining aristocratic inclinations with a boundless tolerance and respect for points of view at variance with his own.

Connections

In 1905 Chamberlain married Elisabeth Stillman of San Francisco. He had met her in Germany, where she was studying music; they had no children.

Father:

Robert Linton Chamberlain

Mother:

Ellen Perkins Chamberlain

Spouse:

Elisabeth Stillman