What many of them had in common was adherence to a political tradition in the Seventh District, often called “Dorsey-land” due to the tribe in local politics named for the late Judge Phillip H. Dorsey, and later led by his son, long-time St. Mary’s County States Attorney Walter B. Dorsey. Judge Dorsey had his allies and they were the Baileys, Bo, Eddie, Bernard and many more. Others who were influential in the Dorsey Machine, as the liberals who had their own machine liked to call it, were “lieutenants” of the political organization – one of whom was Charlie Hall.
To simply report that Charlie Hall just kicked the bucket is to do the man a great injustice, without describing the important role he played in the politics and life of one county of three-thousand in America.
Charlie rose from being a lieutenant to being a standard-bearer in that in 1974 he mounted a credible campaign for County Commissioner and lost the Democratic Primary to John Knight Parlett, the scion of a gas empire on the east coast.
