Active Attorney

Mabel Walker Wiliebrandt is a Mrs. She is also an Assistant Attorney General in the Department oi Justice. Sometimes she has been called "the inevitable Mrs. Wilie-brandt" because she speaks at so many conventions of women's organizations. But it is not her own love of speechmaking and prominence which brings her so often to the plat- form. She is invited there because she is one of the few women who occupies a public position of impor-tance-and occupies it capably.

Her job is to handle cases of jurisdiction concerning prisoners, cases rising out of the prohibition and internal revenue laws and minor cases belonging to several other categories. Lately, in regard to the enforcement of the prohibition laws, she has been making quite a stir. At one time or another she has taken shots at some 45 Federal District Attorneys and other Federal officers whom she believed to be lax. Since Attorney General Stone came to office-came from the law school instead of the school of politics-her attacks are beginning to be backed up by dismissals. In Boston, one attorney was summarily removed; and it looks as if her lightning might next strike in New Jersey, where there is at present a furor over enforcement. The new Senator from Massachusetts, William M. Butler, has been looking for a man to fill the Willebrandt-made vacancy.

Strangely enough, there is very little resentment of her activities. She came to Washington from Los Angeles, where she had been a prac- ticing attorney. She is young-still in her thirties-of pleasant disposition, rather attractive in appearance, without a belief that she has a divine commission as a reformer or that she is doing the most important work in the world. Inevitably she gets on well with most of those with whom she comes in contact, from officials to reporters.

The able correspondent Clinton W. Gilbert explained rather suggestively how she happens to be in charge of prohibition cases: "Now, do you suppose any man having, as all men have, excellent prospects of being later in his career Senator, Cabinet member, President or, at least,Vice-President, would handle those cases? Either the wets or the drys would surely be alienated, and then what would become of his political future? It was inevitably a woman's job."

The inevitable Mrs. Willebrandt!