Hall Ousted

Federal District Attorneys, appointed by the President for four-year terms, are usually reappointed if they discharge their duties satisfactorily. Last week, in California, two district attorneys' terms expired and both were replaced. One was San Francisco's Henry H. McPike for whose job the President nominated a San Francisco Democratic leader, Frank J. Hennessy. The other was Los Angeles' Pierson M. Hall, for whose job the President named San Bernardino's Benjamin Harrison. The San Francisco appointment, which had been more or less expected, caused no comment. The Los Angeles appointment caused a political uproar and a tragedy.

Three years ago, a 29-year-old member of Lawyer Hall's staff named Jack Irwin successfully prosecuted two Los Angeles doctors for violation of Federal antinarcotic legislation. The doctors were convicted. Their lawyer, R. Dean Warner, was cited for contempt of court. Dean Warner is a member of the Los Angeles firm of McAdoo, Neblett & Warner, whose senior partner is California's Senator William Gibbs McAdoo. Last week, Attorney Hall claimed that his ousting as U. S. District Attorney had been prompted by Senator McAdoo's political pique. He said that at the time of his appointment Senator McAdoo had advised him pointedly to "get along with Neblett," requested him, after the narcotics case, to fire his assistant Irwin, who last week quit with his boss.

The Hall ousting last week chanced to fall on the day preceding the birthday of Attorney Hall's 71-year-old mother, who, to celebrate the anniversary, had invited her three sons to dine with her. At Mrs. Hall's home last week, her sons waited in vain for her to appear. Next morning they found her body in the morgue, where it had been taken by police after she dropped dead on a busy street. Cause of her death was heart failure--attributable, doctors said, to the shock caused by news of her son's ousting headlined in extra editions of the evening papers.

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