Albert B. Fall

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Portrait of U.S. Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall

Albert Bacon Fall (November 26, 1861–November 30, 1944) was a Senator from New Mexico and the Secretary of the Interior under President Warren G. Harding, notorious for his involvement in the Teapot Dome scandal.

1 Early life and family
2 Albert Jennings Fountain murder case, and his involvement
3 Career
4 Teapot Dome scandal
5 Further reading on the Fountain murder case

[edit] Early life and family

Fall was born in Frankfort, Kentucky in 1861 to William R. and Edmonia Taylor Fall. Fall attended schools as a child in Nashville, Tennessee, but was primarily self-educated. At age eleven Fall was employed in a cotton factory, this early employment is most likely the cause of several respiratory health problems he suffered throughout his life. Due to these illnesses, as a young man Fall headed west looking for better climate. He lived in Oklahoma and in Texas, but eventually settled in Las Cruces in the New Mexico Territory where he practiced law. One of his more famous cases was successfully defending the man who claimed to have shot Pat Garrett.

On May 7, 1883, Fall married Emma Garland Morgan in Clarksville, Texas. The couple had four children: a son, John (Jack) Morgan Fall; and three daughters: Alexina Chase, Caroline Everhart, and Jouett Elliott. Both Jack and his sister Caroline died within a week of each other in 1918 from an influenza epidemic that was sweeping the nation. The family home was the Three Rivers Ranch in the Tularosa Basin of New Mexico. The Falls also maintained a home in El Paso, Texas.

During the Spanish-American War, Fall served as a captain of an infantry troop.

[edit] Albert Jennings Fountain murder case, and his involvement

Oliver M. Lee, a noted New Mexico gunman, rancher, cattle rustler, outlaw, and part-time Deputy US Marshal, as well as his employee's Jim Gilliland and William "Billy" McNew were suspected of the 1896 disappearance and presumed murder of Colonel Albert Jennings Fountain and his young son Henry, dubbed the Albert Jennings Fountain disappearence case. They were pursued in relation to that case by lawman Pat Garrett and a posse, and engaged Garrett and his men in a gun battle near Alamogordo, resulting in the killing of Deputy Sheriff Kurt Kearney. Garrett and his men retreated, and Lee was later captured by other lawmen. He and his friends were defended by Albert Fall, and were acquitted of murder in the Albert Jennings Fountain case. [1]

At face value, it would seem that Fall was simply good at defending his clients. However, Lee's involvement in the murder case, as well as Fall's, did go much deeper than the acquittal would reflect. Due to his land ownings, Fountain was a powerful rival to land owners Lee and Albert Fall. In their employ were smalltime gunmen Billy McNew and Jim Gililland. Fall was well known to have hated Fountain. Fall's association with Oliver Lee began when Fall assisted Lee during a criminal case. In exchange for Fall's continued illegal assistance in legal matters, Lee and his gunmen terrorized local residents on Fall's behalf, both to obtain land, and to intimidate voters into voting for Fall when need-be. By the late 1890s, Lee was rustling cattle from other cattlemen in the area, and then altering the brands to resemble his own. If law enforcement officials closed in, Fall dealt with the legal issues. [2]

Fountain, however, showed little fear of the Fall/Lee faction, and challenged them openly in the courts as well as in the political arena. Many factors indicated that Lee was involved in the disappearance and murder of Fountain, but investigators had to battle the corrupt local court system led by Fall, and the local law enforcement, all of which were controlled to some extent by Fall. The bodies of Fountain and his young son were never found, which hampered prosecution. Albert Fall defended all three of the men who were eventually charged with the crime. They were Oliver Lee, Jim Gililland, and Billy McNew, the main suspects in the case, as investigators never saw another direction the case could have gone. Charges against McNew were dismissed, while Lee and Gililland were acquitted. The end result of their prosecution, more than anything else, hinged on there being no bodies. Following this case, Fall and Lee resumed their land grabbing schemes, without much further interference from law enforcement. [3]

[edit] Career

Between the years of 1879-1881, he was employed as an educator while he studied law. He was admitted to the bar in 1891 and started practice immediately. He was appointed judge of the third judicial district in 1893.

In 1908 he defended the accused killer of former Sherriff Pat Garrett. Garrett was the same lawman who pursued those suspected in the Albert Jennings Fountain killings.

As a member of the Republican Party, Fall was elected as one of the first U.S. Senators from New Mexico in the year 1912. It was widely known that he made a political alliance with Thomas B. Catron, the man who served alongside him, to ensure his own election. This controversy made Fall a target of the local Republican Party, as they believed Fall had not contributed to their efforts to secure New Mexico's statehood, and was not worthy of their nomination. Fall was also severely disliked by Democrats. In 1913, the Governor of New Mexico purposefully forgot to sign the credential papers in an attempt to oust Fall by having a special election, which Fall subsequently won. Despite facing a bitter primary challenge in the election of 1918, Fall came out victorious. He served as chairman of the Committee on Expenditures in the Department of Commerce and Labor, was noted for his support of the suffrage movement and his extreme isolationist tendencies when America entered the First World War. After Catron was beaten in a primary election of 1916, Fall lost his only local political ally. However, since he had been elected, he had become close friends with the people who would later make up the infamous Ohio Gang, which inevitably secured him a cabinet position in March of 1921. While local politicians may have opposed him, his popularity with the residents of New Mexico was reportedly very high.

[edit] Teapot Dome scandal

Fall was appointed to the position of Secretary of the Interior by President Warren G. Harding in March 1921. Soon after his appointment, Harding convinced Edwin C. Denby, the Secretary of the Navy, that Fall should take over responsibility for the Naval Reserves at Elk Hills, California, Buena Vista, California and Teapot Dome, Wyoming. This last setting was used for the namesake of the scandal. Later that year, Fall decided that two of his friends, Harry F. Sinclair (Mammoth Oil Corporation) and Edward L. Doheny (Pan-American Petroleum and Transport Company), should be allowed to lease part of these Naval Reserves.

His failure to have competitive bidding for the reserves resulted in the Teapot Dome scandal. The investigation found Fall guilty of conspiracy and bribery of $385,000 paid to him by Edward L. Doheny. Fall was jailed for one year as a result - the first former cabinet officer sentenced to prison as a result of misconduct in office. It is often joked among historians that Fall was "so crooked they had to screw him into the ground" upon his death.

Mr. Doheny was not only acquitted on the charge of bribing Fall, but Doheny's corporation foreclosed on Fall's home in Tularosa Basin, New Mexico, because of "unpaid loans" which turned out to be that same $100,000 bribe.

He died, November 30, 1944 after a long illness, in El Paso, Texas.

[edit] Further reading on the Fountain murder case

http://www.desertusa.com/mag06/mar/murder.html

Murder on the White Sands: The Disappearance of Albert and Henry Fountain by Corey Recko, 2007, University of North Texas Press

Preceded by: None	United States Senator from New Mexico 1912–1921	Succeeded by: Holm O. Bursom
Preceded by: John B. Payne	United States Secretary of the Interior 1921–1923	Succeeded by: Hubert Work