The Daily Alaska empire., 1944-12-01

Bacon Fall, 83, Secretary of In- terior in the Warren G. Harding Administration and one of the central figures in the Teapot Dome oil scandal, is dead in hospital here, passing away in his sleep, according to Dr. John Morrison, the only person at the bedside when the end came.
 Albert B. Fall tumbled from heights of honor in the public service to the lowly position of a felon.
 The turbulence of politics led him through the years into the United States Senate and thence to the Secretaryship of the Interior. Leases to public oil lands executed by him in the Harding administra- tion resulted in his being branded a "faithless public officer" by the United States Supreme Court.
 That was in 1927. The leases had been made to Harry F. Sinclair and Edward L. Doheny in 1922. They resulted in numerous oil trials but Fall was the only person convicted on criminal charges.
 Found Guilty
 Six years after he quit his cabi- net post he sat in a Washington courtroom and wept as a jury fore man rose and said he had been found guilty of taking bribe from Doheny, his wealthy friend of pros pecting days in the west.
 Fall was fined $10O,OO0 and sen- tenced to one year in jail
 That October day in 1929 was the elimination of Falls swift des- fcent from a place of emineilce co the position of man disgraced and broken in health and fortune.
 Blows aimed at the series of transactions which resulted in the lease of Naval oil reserves fell lldIutSt OIl lllIIl.
 D0heny Acquitted
 Four months after Falls con- viction, Doheny went on trial charged with giving him the $100,- 900 bribe. The courtroom was the same; the same judge presided and the same attorneys argued the case.
 Doheny too wept at the verdict but his tears were those of joy. He was acquitted.
 Protestin ginnocence, Fall went back to New Mexico, which had sent him to the Federal Senate, and resumed living at the big house on his ranch at Three Rivers. Later he left this refuge for a home owned by Mrs. Fall in Fl Paso, Texas. The ranch went to Doheny on foreclosure.
 Attorneys in whose hands Fall left his case appealed his convic- ton but in April, 1881, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals af- firmed the verdict in the lower court.
 Fall, feeble and weary and suf- fering from an illness which de- veloped into chronic pleurisy with congestion in one lung, was unwil- ling to continue the fight.
 Sick And PennIless
 T am an old man and for the last eight years have known little but trouble" he said when the idea of appealing to the United States Supreme Court was broach- ed. T am a poor man, and have no money for further legal de- fense."
 Nevertheless, the case went be- fore the highest tribunal. On June l, 1881, the court refused to review Falls conviction.
 The long fight ended July IS of that year, when the enfeebled culprit was placed in a motor am- bulance at Fl Paso and started for the New Mexico State Penitentiary at Sanea Fe. The journey was halted for a day at the Three Rivers ranch, then resumed and on July 20, Fall reached the prison where he was placed in the hospi- tai.
 He served nine months and 19 days, ill virtually all of the time and emerging on a stretcher May 9, 1882. Again there was tire some trip in motor ambulance, ending at the Three Rivers ranch, for Doheny, having acquired title to the property through foreclos- ure, did not attempt to oust his old friend.
 Oil Magnate Dies
 The oil magnate's health also failed about this time and after three years of illness he died in September, 1885. Thereafter Falls troubles multiplied again. The Pe- troleum Securities Company.