Professional Career
Harrison was born in Philadelphia, the son of grocer Joseph Layland Harrison and stock-company actress Anna MacMullen. He earned his A.B from University of Pennsylvania as a valedictorian in 1920, and his LLB from the same university's law school in 1923. He practiced law at the firm of Saul, Ewing, Remick, and Saul from 1923 to 1945.
Harrison served in the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, first as Director of Alien Registration in the United States Department of Justice for six months from July 1940 to January 1941. He was the United States Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization from 1942 to 1944. During his tenure, the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service experienced significant reform and restructuring following its transfer from the Department of Labor to the Department of Justice. President Roosevelt appointed him to the U.S. representative on the Intergovernmental Commission on Refugees on March 15, 1945. He served until 1946.
At the end of World War II, Harrison conducted an inspection tour of former Nazi concentration camps. Subsequently, he issued a report on his investigation, and offered his forthright recommendation to President Truman that the displaced persons who then occupied those camps be permitted to resettle in Palestine if they so chose. Harrison's report has been credited by some historians as a crucial step in the development of United States support for the State of Israel.
Harrison was dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School from 1945 to 1948, resigning when Harold Stassen was appointed as university president, a post for which Harrison had been considered a candidate. He joined the law firm of Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis in 1948 as a name partner, where he worked until his death in 1955.
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