World Jewish leader. Born in Syracuse, New York,  he was a brilliant constitutional lawyer who made his mark in civic and national affairs as a member of a slum investigation committee in New York and as chairman of the Commission of Immigration of the State of New York. A tireless worker for the underprivileged, he took a forthright stand on rights for African Americans and Native Americans. He championed conservation and preservation of wild life. A founder of the American Jewish Committee,  he became its president in 1912.  As chairman of the executive board of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Marshall also spearheaded the work of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. In 1919, he was a member of the U.S. Jewish delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference which followed World War I, and he drew up the resolution for Jewish minority rights in Eastern Europe. These rights were extended to other minorities and incorporated by the Peace Conference into the treaties with a number of European countries. When the enlarged Jewish Agency for Palestine was organized in 1929, Louis Marshall was one of the leading non-Zionists to become a member of its executive body.