[1] He attended public schools before going on to earn his law degree at the University of Tennessee.

He served as city attorney of Memphis 1928-1934; delegate to the Democratic National Conventions in 1940 and 1944; elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-fourth, Seventy-fifth, and Seventy-sixth Congresses and served from January 3, 1935, until his resignation on January 2, 1940, having been elected mayor of Memphis; reelected mayor in 1943 and served until September 1, 1946; resumed the practice of law; temporary president, Tennessee constitutional convention, in 1953; mayor of Memphis in 1955 for unexpired term A member of the Tennessee General Assembly, Chandler served in the Tennessee state house of representatives in 1917.

He served as a captain in the One Hundred and Fourteenth Field Artillery, Thirtieth Division, American Expeditionary Forces, from July 25, 1917, to April 19, 1919, during World War I. and then was a member of Tennessee state senate from 1921 to 1923.

He filed the original suit in Baker v. Carr, the U.S. Supreme Court case that argued against Tennessee's status quo of seldom changing the boundaries of congressional districts, even though population growth in urban areas far outstripped the growth in rural areas.

[3] He died in the same year his son, future mayor Wyeth Chandler, was elected to the first Memphis City Council.