Martin Wiley Littleton was an American attorney and politician. He served as a member of the U. S. House of Representatives from New York's 1st district from 1911 to 1913.
Background
Martin Wiley Littleton was born on January 12, 1872 near Kingston, Tennessee, United States. He was the eighth son and ninth child of Thomas Jefferson and Hannah (Ingram) Littleton, and a descendant of William Littleton, an emigrant from England to North Carolina in the eighteenth century. His mother died when he was two years old. A visit with his father to the county courthouse when he was five first gave him the idea that he would like to be a lawyer. He learned to read at home, where there was only the Bible, a hymnbook, an almanac, and some newspapers pasted on the walls. He was persistent in searching out the meanings of words. In 1881 his father moved with his family to government land near Weatherford, Texas, but did not prosper there. Martin, even into his middle teens, seldom had shoes to wear. He devoured everything he could find to read, especially a book on elocution. His father returned to Tennessee when Martin was not yet fifteen, but the latter and his elder brothers remained in Texas.
Career
Martin started to work as a water-boy with railroad construction gangs, then at mending roads, as a farm laborer, a section hand, in a bakery, as a printer, and as an assistant hotel clerk. At the hotel, with the aid of a dictionary, he pored over a one-volume Shakespeare left behind by a guest until he had memorized long passages. At sixteen he had begun conning a borrowed Blackstone. He was not yet eighteen when he began studying law a part of the time in the office of an attorney at Weatherford, who presently procured for him the position of deputy county clerk. Young Littleton obtained permission to sleep in a vacant room of the courthouse and would steal down to the dark courtroom at night to plead in behalf of imaginary clients.
At nineteen, after a severe test, he was admitted to the bar, though special proceedings had to be taken because of his minority. Within a few weeks he was appointed assistant county attorney, and before he was twenty he was prosecuting cases. At twenty-one (1893) he removed to Dallas, where in a short time he became assistant county attorney, but he had determined to build a metropolitan career.
He found work in a law office in Brooklyn at ten dollars a week. The county judge there was persuaded to give him some charitable briefs as counsel to indigent persons, and he handled these cases with remarkable success. Winning several negligence suits against the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, he was invited to join the legal staff of that company at a substantial salary. In 1900 he was appointed assistant district attorney of the county, and in 1902, at the age of thirty, he was presiding officer at the New York State Democratic Convention. In 1903 he ran for the presidency of the Borough of Brooklyn, and although, because of his independence and his denunciation of graft, he was deserted by the Democratic committee which had nominated him, he made a lone fight and was elected by a large majority. In 1904 he made the nominating speech for the chosen candidate for the presidency, Alton B. Parker, at the Democratic convention at St. Louis; and the brilliant yet suave and seemingly effortless eloquence which he had developed, with no trace of dialect, brought him nationwide notice. But he continued independent in his service as prosecutor in Brooklyn and was retired at the end of one term. His only public service thereafter consisted of one term in the national House of Representatives, 1911-1913. He died of a heart attack in Mineola, New York.
Achievements
Littleton was well known criminal lawyer. He was noted for his involvement in a number of high-profile trials during the early 1900s. He successfully defended Harry K. Thaw in his second trial for the murder of Stanford White, Harry Sinclair against the charge of conspiracy to defraud the United States Government, and Colonel William d'Alton Mann, notorious publisher of Town Topics, on a blackmailing charge. Senator Truman H. Newberry had been convicted of corrupt practice in obtaining his seat in Congress, but Littleton succeeded in having the judgment reversed in the higher courts. He was one of the most famous after-dinner speakers of his time.
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
"There was no public office to which Martin Littleton, with his powers of oratory and his personal magnetism, might not have aspired. "
Connections
On December 1, 1896, Littleton was married to Maud Elizabeth Wilson. He had two sons, Martin W. Littleton, Jr. and Douglas Littleton. Douglas died in France during the First World War.
