Alcatraz (21 page)

Alvin Karpis had associated with so many of the era’s notorious outlaws that his arrival on Alcatraz on August 7, 1936, was in many ways a reunion with old friends. He would need these friendships because he was destined to spend twenty-five years on the Rock.

One of the best-known outlaws of the day, Karpis’s criminal exploits were highlighted in
chapter 1
. More biographical background is useful here because unlike the other Alcatraz big shots—Capone and Kelly—Karpis actively participated in some of the organized resistance to be chronicled in subsequent chapters.
⁴⁷

Karpis was a Canadian citizen whose early criminal conduct earned him a ten-year sentence for burglary at the Kansas State Reformatory. After a successful escape, he was captured one year later and was sent to the state prison at Lansing. Following his release, he began a series of armed robberies of banks, corporate payrolls, and even the Erie mail train. He was accompanied during various heists by Dock Barker, Fred Barker, Harvey Bailey, Frank Nash, Thomas Holden, Fred Hunter, Harry Campbell, and other confederates, most of whom would also end up on Alcatraz.

Karpis was most widely known for two sensationalized kidnappings described in
chapter 1
: the $100,000 ransom kidnapping of William Hamm in St. Paul, Minnesota, in June 1933, and the January 1934 kidnapping of St. Paul banker Edward Bremer for a $200,000 ransom. Branded Public Enemy no. 1, his criminal career received national attention when FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover claimed to have personally arrested him in New Orleans. Karpis’s version was that Hoover “didn’t lead the attack on me. He hid until I was safely covered by many guns. He waited until he was told the coast was clear. Then he came out to reap the glory. . . . I made Hoover’s reputation as a fearless lawman. It’s a reputation he doesn’t deserve.”
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After his arrest on May 1, 1936, Karpis was flown to St. Paul, where for five days he was kept in handcuffs and leg shackles locked to a radiator. Following his aggressive interrogation by FBI agents, Karpis pleaded guilty to kidnapping charges; several weeks later, on July 27, he was sentenced to a life term. The next day he was taken to Leavenworth by train but there was no question that as Hoover’s prize catch he would be moving on to the Rock. The Leavenworth staff recommended his transfer because he was “a notorious prisoner . . . agitator, and possible escape risk.”
⁴⁹

Floyd Hamilton and Ted Walters became part of the Alcatraz population in June 1940—well after the other prisoners described above but in plenty of time for each to be involved in an escape attempt as well as to be eyewitnesses to the most spectacular event in the island prison’s history—the battle of Alcatraz in May 1946.

Both men grew up in poor, working-class families in West Dallas. In 1938 they began a string of robberies, burglaries, and automobile thefts. On one occasion they were arrested but broke out of a county jail by cutting the cell bars and outwitting the jailer. Two weeks later they stole a car and robbed the bank of Bradley, Texas, obtaining the modest sum of
$685. More auto thefts and grocery store robberies followed, as state and federal agents tried to track them down (they had been identified as the perpetrators of the bank robbery by a third man who had accompanied them and was subsequently arrested). Through these efforts Hamilton and Walters earned the titles of the state’s Public Enemies nos. 1 and 2.

After three more automobile thefts in Indiana and Arkansas, they robbed the payroll of a Coca Cola plant in Nashville. While making their getaway they were confronted by Arkansas highway patrol officers; a gun battle ensued, but Walters and Hamilton succeeded in running from their vehicle and escaping in some nearby woods. Ten days later when they returned to their old haunts, they were captured by Dallas police officers. Five weeks later each received a twenty-five-year term to be served in the Texas prison system for robbery by assault. Hamilton received another five years for theft and Walters was sentenced to ninety-nine years for violation of the Texas Habitual Criminal Act. Texas authorities, however, turned them over to federal agents, who took them to Arkansas to face federal motor vehicle theft and bank robbery charges. Walters pleaded guilty, received a thirty-year federal prison term to go with his multiple state sentences, and was transported to Leavenworth where Hamilton arrived soon after.
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Personnel at Leavenworth took one look at their records and immediately asked Bureau of Prisons headquarters to authorize their transfers to Alcatraz. The report on Walters concluded:

Subject’s criminal record indicates that he is an habitual criminal, a hardened and dangerous offender and a menace to society. . . . May be expected to present some problem as to custody and also present some problem as to discipline of a serious nature. His behavior is entirely unpredictable. . . . Recommendation: Transfer Alcatraz Island [for the] benefit of inmate population at large. A confirmed and vicious criminal and a definite custodial risk.
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While awaiting a response to the transfer request, the Leavenworth staff asked that Hamilton be sent to the Atlanta Penitentiary, due to the inadvisability of confining in the same prison two such dangerous co-defendants. Bureau headquarters, however, decided that Walters and Hamilton should be given a trial period of six months to determine if they could “adjust.” Within a few weeks, however, an inmate reported to the deputy warden that Walters and Hamilton had approached him because of his knowledge of chemistry. They had wanted to know about materials, such as sulfur and saltpeter, that could be used to construct
bombs and shotgun shells. According to the inmate, Walters and Hamilton intended to construct a shotgun in the machine shop and they wanted him to make the shells as well as sixteen bombs that would be used to blow their way out the front gate and to destroy the guard tower in the front of the prison.

When further information was received in the warden’s office that Walters and Hamilton were also casing the truck entrance to the prison, where they were planning another attempt to break out in which they would conceal themselves in a truck carrying sawdust out of the prison, the Leavenworth staff again appealed to Bureau headquarters for permission to transfer both men to Alcatraz. This time their request was approved.

Many more men imprisoned on Alcatraz during the period when lawbreakers were called “public enemies” and James Johnston ruled as warden had notable criminal or prison records. Including biographical sketches of all of them here would fill the remaining pages of this book. Once they were locked up together on the island in the San Francisco Bay, big questions faced Attorney General Homer Cummings, Bureau of Prisons Director Sanford Bates, and Warden James Johnston. How would this unique collection of prisoners react to a regime designed to tightly control them? How would these prisoners get along with each other? How would Alcatraz achieve the level of punishment for serious offenders that the public was demanding?

Since Alcatraz opened to the public in 1973 as an attraction managed by the National Park Service, millions of visitors have walked through the cell house, looked into the small cells for a few moments, and viewed the mess hall and yard, all the while trying to imagine the experience of doing time on the Rock. Visiting the prison is one way to obtain some insight into what it was like to be an Alcatraz prisoner; another is to read the words of former Alcatraz inmates and guards as they describe life on the island. Although nearly all the inmates and employees from the gangster years are now deceased, transcripts of the author’s interviews with some of these men provide first-person accounts. These commentaries, along with prison records, are the basis for the following description of daily life under one of the most restrictive regimes in American penal history.

On arrival at Alcatraz, inmates were told, “you are entitled to food, clothing, shelter, and medical attention. Anything else that you get is a privilege.”
¹
This statement meant that an inmate’s basic needs would be met, and if he obeyed the simple rules, he could leave his cell to eat, work, and spend a few hours in the yard or attend chapel on weekends. He was allowed to write and receive a few letters and have one visit a month from his wife or blood relatives. Through it all he could try to establish a record of conduct good enough to earn a transfer back to Leavenworth or Atlanta or McNeil Island. In those prisons the comparative abundance of privileges and activities, and the openness of daily life, made transferees feel as if they were returning to the free world. At Alcatraz inmates were expected to “go along with the program”—that is, to obey all rules and refrain from making any trouble for the staff.

The strict regimen when the prison opened and throughout the 1930s was described by guard Robert Baker:

We fed the inmates cafeteria style. They’d go in and put their food on a tray—you have to eat what you take, if you leave any, you don’t eat the next meal. It’s that simple. Then you go and sit ten to a table, five facing
five. The blacks sat together. They had about twenty minutes to eat. A guard stood at the end of every table. When the inmates got up the guard counted the silverware—a knife, fork, and spoon for every man and then they all went out. The officers ate the same food.

The yard was just dirt, later on we put in concrete steps where the inmates could sit. They played chess, handball, horseshoes, and bridge. They played bridge with dominoes because we wouldn’t give them cards.

We were very very strict at first—their collars had to be buttoned up. At the beginning it was absolute silence and don’t give them a thing—no cigarettes, no chocolate, no candy, no hot water, no radio, no nothing. We had nothing to do with them. There was no school and there was nothing after 5
P.M
. It was utter silence. If they refused to work you put them in the hole [disciplinary segregation].
²

The regime at Alcatraz was designed to prevent anything unusual or unexpected from happening. Daily life, therefore, was routinized, controlled, and monotonous. Each day began with a wake-up call at 6:30
A.M
. By 6:50 inmates were to have cleaned up their cells, to have washed, dressed, and to be ready for count; at 6:55 they proceeded to the dining hall. The process by which inmates were to make their way to the dining hall was scripted in fine detail:

Prisoners will stand by door facing out and remain there until whistle signal, during which time lieutenants and cellhouse men of both shifts will make count. When count is found correct, lieutenant will order unlock of doors. Whistle signal will be given by Deputy Warden or Lieutenant. All inmates will step out of cell, stand erect facing mess hall. Upon second whistle signal all inmates on each tier will close up single file upon the head man.

Whistle signal. Lower right tier of Block #3 and lower left tier of Block #2 will move forward to the mess hall, each line followed in turn by their second and third tiers, then by the lower tier on the opposite side of their block, followed by the second and third tiers from that side. Block #3 line will move into the mess hall, keeping to the left side of the center of the mess hall; Block #2 line will go forward at the same time, keeping to the right side of the center of the mess hall; both lines proceed to the serving table, right line served from the right and will occupy tables on the right, left line served from the left side and will occupy tables on the left side of the mess hall.
³

In the dining hall, every aspect of the eating process was prescribed, from start time to posture:

As each man is served he will sit erect with hands at his side until the whistle signal will be given for the first detail to begin eating. Succeeding details will follow the same procedure except that the signal to start eating will be given by the detail guard as soon as the last man in his detail is seated.

Twenty minutes will be allowed for eating. Guards will remain in their designated positions until their details have finished eating. When prisoners have finished eating, they will place knives, forks, and spoons on their trays, knife on top of and at the left, fork in the center, and spoon on the right side of tray. They will then sit erect with hands down at side. After all in detail have finished eating, guard will walk to each table and see that all utensils are in proper place. He will then return to his position.
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Prisoners picked up a tray and walked by food containers, directing inmate servers as to what they wanted. There was no limit on the amount of food the men could take, but they were required to eat everything they took or risk losing the next meal.
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By 7:30
A.M
. breakfast was over, and inside work crews proceeded to their assignments, while industry details lined up in the yard according to shop assignment. For a few minutes, workers could talk or smoke (roll your own cigarettes) until a whistle sounded, at which time they marched out through the yard gate in two ranks and proceeded down the steps to the shop areas. At 9:30
A.M
. a rest period of eight minutes began during which inmates could smoke and go “one at a time” to toilets.