William A. Chanler

William Astor Chanler ( born June 11, 1867 in Newport, Rhode Iceland, † March 4, 1934 in Menton, France) was an American explorer and politician. Between 1899 and 1901 he represented the State of New York in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Career

William Chanler was a son of John Winthrop Chanler Congressman ( 1826-1877 ). He belonged to both the famous Dudley - Winthrop Family and maternal of the Astor family. Chanler attended St. John 's School in Ossining, New York and the Phillips Academy in New Hampshire. He then studied for two years at Harvard University. He was a member of the Royal Geographical Society in London. Since 1889 he was intermittently as a researcher in Africa go. Between 1889 and 1890 he reached the Kilimanjaro. From 1892 to 1894 he toured together with Ludwig von Höhnel East Africa in what is now the State Kenya. At home, he was first a member of the Republican Party. In 1896 he took part in the regional party congress for the state of New York as a delegate. A year later he was a deputy in the New York State Assembly. Between May and August 1898, he participated as a captain of a cavalry unit in the Spanish-American War. He was involved in the Battle of Santiago. Politically, he had fallen in with the Democratic Party.

In the congressional elections of 1898 Chanler in the 14th electoral district of New York in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington DC chosen, where he became the successor of the Republican Lemuel E. Quigg on March 4, 1899. Since he resigned in 1900 to another candidacy, he was able to complete only one term in Congress until March 3, 1901.

After the end of his time in the U.S. House of Representatives William Chanler worked among others in the horse racing business. He possessed in the United States and in France several racing stables. Since 1902 he was the owner of some copper mines in Cuba. He also acquired two quarries in southern France. Together with Alfred Vanderbilt he owned the Vanderbilt Hotel in New York City, the whole fell to Chanler after Vanderbilt's death in the sinking of the RMS Lusitania in 1915. Politically, he was inspired by the idea of ​​freedom of movement. Therefore, he supported uprisings and rebellions in countries such as Cuba, Libya, Somalia, Turkey, Venezuela and China. In December 1913, he lost in a mysterious accident in France, whose exact origins were never solved, his right leg. Since 1920, Chanler was living in Paris. In the following years he became a writer in appearance. In his works, his anti-Semitism came to the fore. He believed in a Jewish world conspiracy and other conspiracy theories relating to Jews, which he saw as a threat among other things for the United States. William Chanler died on March 4, 1934 in Menton and was buried in New York City.

Works

• William A. Chanler: Through Jungle and Desert: Travels in Eastern Africa. MacMillan and Company, 1896 ( limited preview on Google Book Search ).