- ALBERT LEVITT, 81, CRUSADER, IS DEAD
Battled Connecticut G.O.P., New Deal and Utilities
Special to the New York TImes
NORWALK, Conn., June 18 -- Albert Levitt, the crusading pprofessor of the nineteen-thirties who battles the Connecticut Republican machine, public utilities, and the New Deal with equal zest, died today in Manchester, N. H., at the age of 81. A former resident of Redding, COnn., he had lived recently in Hancock, N. H.
Mr. Levitt, a lawyer and former United States Judge of the Virgin Island Distriact Court, served three terms as a special assistant to the United States Attorney General, in the periods 1923-24, 1933-35, and 1936-37.
He was born in Woodbine, Md., and started his career as an Army private, serving in the Philippines from 1904 to 1907. He attained the rank of sergeant in the Hospital Corps. In 1911 he received a divinity baccalaureate at the Meadville (Pa.) Theological School. He graduated from Columbia University in 1913 and immediately thereafter served there and at Colgate University as a lecturer in and acting professor of philosophy.
Drove Ambulance in France
In 1915, while a student at Harvard University, he went to France as a front-line ambulance driver for the French. Returning to Harvard in 1917, he was named sergeant major of its Reserve Officers Training Corps. Later that year he went back to France as an Army chaplain.
Advancing with the doughboys in the Baccarat, Oise-Aisne, and Meuse-Argonne offensives, the Rev. Mr. Levitt - as he then was - was wounded and gassed.
He returned to Harvard after the war and was graduated from its Law School in 1920. Thereafter he served as an assitant professor of law at George Washington University, professor of law at the University of North Dakota, and lecturer in medical jurisprudence at Johns Hopkins University Medical School. These assignments were followed by his first term with the Attorney General's office.
During Mr. Levitt's first term with the United States Attorney General's office he organized and developed the international law section of the Department of Justice. During subsequent terms he played a major role in the codification of the United States Nationality laws. He had written books on both these subjects.
At Several Universities
Leaving that post he went back to teaching law, this time at Washington and Lee University. He also was with the Brooklyn Law School, and the University of California during this time. His assignment to the Virgin Islands bench was from 1935 to 1936.
Mr. Levitt was well-known during the New Deal era as the chief opponent of the seating of Hugo L. Black on the United States Supreme Court. He asked the court for leave to file a petition questioning the right of former Senator Black to be an associate justice. He argued that no vacancy existed, because Justice Willis Van Devanter retired but did not resign, and argued that a member of Congress was ineligible because the retirement law had increased emoluments of Supreme Court justices.
A Loser with Job
When he finally lost his case in October, 1937, Mr. Levitt quoted the Book of Job:
"Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him; but I will maintain mine own ways before Him."
One of Mr. Levitt's successful battles was against the Connecticut State Public Utilities Commission, in 1930. He got the Supreme Court of Errors to hand down a unanimous decision ordering the Attorney General to act against the commission for failure to make the New Haven Railroad eliminate grade crossings.
Fighting for his own brand of Republicanism, Mr. Levitt caused turmoil in the ranks of the Old Guard in Connecticut on more than one occasion. His attempts to win independent nomination for the Connecticut governorship failed.
Mr. Levitt married Elsie Mary Hill, well-known feminist, in 1921. After a short honeymoon they agreed to separate, bith being busy with political campaigning. They were divorced in 1956.
He leaves his second wife, Mrs. Lilla Grew Levitt, a daughter of the late Joseph C. Grew, American diplomat; a daughter, Mrs. Leslie Latham, of his first marriage, and one grandchild.
The funeral service will be private.
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1887 - 1968 (81 years)
