Mabel Walker Willebrandt
Encyclopedia
United States Assistant Attorney General
Many of the divisions and offices of the United States Department of Justice are headed by an Assistant Attorney General.The President of the United States appoints individuals to the position of Assistant Attorney General with the advice and consent of the Senate...
from 1921 to 1929, handling cases concerning violations of the Volstead Act
Volstead Act
The National Prohibition Act, known informally as the Volstead Act, was the enabling legislation for the Eighteenth Amendment which established prohibition in the United States...
, federal taxation, and the Bureau of Federal Prisons during the Prohibition
Prohibition
Prohibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, is the practice of prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the...
Era.
Early life and career
Willebrandt was born Mabel Elizabeth Walker in Woodsdale, KansasWoodsdale, Kansas
Woodsdale is a ghost town in Stevens County, Kansas, United States. It was involved in a county seat war with Hugoton.-History:Samuel Newitt Wood and I. C. Price developed the town and it was named for Col. Wood. Its post office was established November 11, 1886, and the town incorporated April...
on May 23, 1889. Her father, David W. Walker, edited a local newspaper. She graduated from Tempe Normal School, later Arizona State University
Arizona State University
Arizona State University is a public research university located in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area of the State of Arizona...
, in 1911. In 1910 she married A.F. Willebrandt. They moved to California where she taught and studied law at night. She received her law degree from the University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
in 1916 and a master's degree a year later. The couple divorced about 1920.
She worked as an assistant public defender without pay, the first public defender of women. She handled more than 2,000 cases of prostitution. her efforts changed court to permit the testimony of both men and women. She also campaigned successfully for the enactment of a revised community property statute at the state level.
During World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, Willebrandt served as head of the Legal Advisory Board for draft cases in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. Senator Hiram Johnson
Hiram Johnson
Hiram Warren Johnson was a leading American progressive and later isolationist politician from California; he served as the 23rd Governor from 1911 to 1917, and as a United States Senator from 1917 to 1945.-Early life:...
and all the judges in southern California recommended her for the post of Assistant Attorney General
United States Assistant Attorney General
Many of the divisions and offices of the United States Department of Justice are headed by an Assistant Attorney General.The President of the United States appoints individuals to the position of Assistant Attorney General with the advice and consent of the Senate...
in the Warren G. Harding
Warren G. Harding
Warren Gamaliel Harding was the 29th President of the United States . A Republican from Ohio, Harding was an influential self-made newspaper publisher. He served in the Ohio Senate , as the 28th Lieutenant Governor of Ohio and as a U.S. Senator...
administration.
Prohibition
The second woman to receive an appointment to Assistant Attorney GeneralUnited States Assistant Attorney General
Many of the divisions and offices of the United States Department of Justice are headed by an Assistant Attorney General.The President of the United States appoints individuals to the position of Assistant Attorney General with the advice and consent of the Senate...
as well as the first to serve an extended term, Willebrandt was officially appointed to the position on September 27, 1921. Among her duties, Willebrandt headed the division in the Justice Department dealing with federal taxation, federal prisons and matters relating to the enforcement of the Volstead Act. Under her administration Alderson federal prison, the first facility of its kind for women, was established at Alderson, West Virginia
Alderson, West Virginia
Alderson, a town in the US State of West Virginia, is split geographically by the Greenbrier River, with portions in both Greenbrier and Monroe Counties. Although split physically by the river, the town functions as one entity, including that of town government...
. Although a known opponent of Prohibition, Willebrandt aggressively upheld the Volstead Act and criticized the federal government's efforts to enforce the law in her book The Inside of Prohibition, describing political interference, incompetent public officials, and public indifference.
Willebrandt's insistence to other federal agencies to prosecute bootleggers, specifically the Prohibition Bureau and law enforcement agencies, were initially hampered by the skepticism of senior officials in the Justice
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
and United States Treasury Departments who overlooked advice from the 32-year old woman.
Despite the unpopularity of the law among both the general population and within the government, the underfunding of the Prohibition Bureau, and widespread bribery of enforcement agents, Willebrandt focused on reviewing prosecutions for violations of the Volstead Act, rating the work of U.S. Attorneys from inefficient to obstructionist. Willebrandt actions earned her criticism among American attorneys throughout the United States dismissing several prosecutors, under U.S. Attorney General Harlan Stone, hostile towards the prosecution of Volstead Act related cases.
During the early years of her administration, Willebrandt was successful in some of the biggest prosecutions during Prohibition, including the 1923 prosecution of the Big Four of Savannah, reportedly the largest bootlegging ring in the U.S., as well as the bootlegging operations of Cincinnati bootlegger George Remus
George Remus
George Remus was a famous Cincinnati lawyer and bootlegger during the Prohibition era. It has been claimed that he was the inspiration for the title character Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald....
. According to the annual report of the U.S. Attorney General, Willebrandt's office had prosecuted 48,734 Prohibition-related cases from June 1924 to June 1925, of which 39,072 resulted in convictions. In addition, Willebrandt submitted 278 cases of certiorari
Certiorari
Certiorari is a type of writ seeking judicial review, recognized in U.S., Roman, English, Philippine, and other law. Certiorari is the present passive infinitive of the Latin certiorare...
to the Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
regarding the defense, clarification and enforcement of the Prohibition Amendment and the Volstead Act. She also argued more than 40 cases before the Supreme Court, a number few others have attained, and won several victories in cases regarding the control of liquor sales on both American and foreign vessels.
Her extensive writing and speech-making in support of Prohibition won praise from President Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...
. During the 1928 presidential campaign, Democratic candidate and Prohibition opponent Al Smith
Al Smith
Alfred Emanuel Smith. , known in private and public life as Al Smith, was an American statesman who was elected the 42nd Governor of New York three times, and was the Democratic U.S. presidential candidate in 1928...
called her "Prohibition Portia." She also argued for the federal prosecution of major bootleggers, saying that prosecuting speakeasies was "...like trying to dry up the Atlantic Ocean with a blotter."
Among her efforts to enforce Prohibition, Willebrandt proposed the reallocation of federal judges to create more flexibility regarding prosecutions against Prohibition violations, the transfer of enforcement from the Treasury to Justice Department, better articulation and training for law enforcement personnel, and longer sentencing for Prohibition violations; she also recommended J. Edgar Hoover
J. Edgar Hoover
John Edgar Hoover was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972...
to head the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
.
Later years
Resigning her post in 1929 after failing to be appointed Attorney General by Herbert Hoover, for whom she had campaigned heavily in the 1928 election, she worked as an attorney and had offices in Washington and Los Angeles. In 1950, she served as counsel to the Screen Directors Guild during a labor hearing. She also became a counsel of California Fruit Industries, a major producer of grape concentrate (Vine-Glo) that was commonly transformed into a serviceable table wine.She was the first woman to chair a committee of the American Bar Association
American Bar Association
The American Bar Association , founded August 21, 1878, is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. The ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of academic standards for law schools, and the formulation...
, heading its committee on aeronautical law. She held several honorary doctorates.
Willebrandt later converted to the Roman Catholic faith.
She died in Riverside, California, on April 6, 1963.
In Popular Culture
The 2010 HBO television series Boardwalk Empire features U.S. Assistant Attorney General Esther Randolph, a character based on and styled after Willebrandt, portrayed by Julianne NicholsonJulianne Nicholson
Julianne Nicholson is an American actress. She is known for having played Det. Megan Wheeler on Law & Order: Criminal Intent.-Early life:...
.
Sources
- Brown, Dorothy M., Mabel Walker Willebrandt: A Study of Power, Loyalty, and Law, Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1984
- Kelly, Robert J., Encyclopedia of Organized Crime in the United States Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000
- Phillips, Charles and Alan Axelrod, Cops, Crooks, and Criminologists: An International Biographical Dictionary of Law Enforcement, updated edition, NY: Checkmark Books, 2000
- Willebrandt, Mabel Walker, The Inside of Prohibition, Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1929