He graduated in June 1912 and returned for Alumni Visitors Day in January 1913, when he gave a talk on Civil War Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

A report from a telephone interview with a Works Progress Administration writer in 1937 noted that he "served in the Army at Vancouver, Washington, where he attended officers training school,"[5] but a 1926 article in the Los Angeles Times said: "Due to injuries resulting from an accident, Mr. Alber was unable to see active service with the army or navy during the World War, but served as a sergeant in the spruce woods.

It was said that Alber's victory was partly due to the voters' making a "clean sweep at the City Hall" of the council members allied with the political boss Kent Kane Parrot.

[1] In his council activity, he was known for introducing a resolution in July 1929 that would have prohibited the rolling down of the shirts of men's bathing suits to the waistline.

"[3] For the Christmas season, 1927, Alber presided over a council meeting wearing a silk hat from Paris, presented to him by Councilman Isaac F.