Alcatraz (88 page)

21
. Before the first prisoners arrived, an article in the
Literary Digest
questioned the “wisdom of concentrating desperate criminals” on Alcatraz Island given the experience of island prisons established by France, Italy, Spain, and England. The writer did note that, unlike Devil’s Island, Alcatraz would be “thoroughly modern, with steam heat, running water, and recreation facilities.” The article concluded that despite the stories of disease, hunger, and brutal conditions at Devil’s Island: “in France, a large section of public opinion is not inclined to sympathize with the hardships of men sent to Devil’s Island.” “America’s Devil’s Island—and Some Others,”
Literary Digest
, October 28, 1933, 34.

22
.
San Francisco News
, October 17, 1933.

23
Chief Quinn’s objections were reported in a memorandum from Joseph B. Keenan, Assistant Attorney General, to the Attorney General, October 25, 1933, file 4–49–0.

24
. Thompson,
The Rock
, 351.

25
. Sanford Bates, memo re Alcatraz to Attorney General, October 26, 1933, file 4–49–0.

26
. Notes on Alcatraz, BOP document, n.a., n.d.

27
. Editorial,
Saturday Evening Post
, December 2, 1933.

28
. John Bender,
Imagining the Penitentiary: Fiction and the Architecture of Mind in Eighteenth-Century England
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 220, 223.

29
. For a description of the invention of the penitentiary in its classic forms at Eastern Penitentiary in Pennsylvania and at Auburn, New York, see David J. Rothman,
The Discovery of the Asylum: Social Order and Disorder in the New Republic
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1971), 79–108; and his
Conscience and Convenience: The Asylum and Its Alternatives in Progressive America
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1980).

30
. Rothman,
Discovery of the Asylum
, 82–83.

31
. Rothman,
Conscience and Convenience
, 117–58 in particular.

32
. Sanford Bates to Attorney General, January 8, 1933.

33
. Bates, memo to Attorney General, October 23, 1933.

34
. Sanford Bates,
Prisons and Beyond
(New York: Macmillan, 1937), 142–43.

35
. Paul W. Garrett and Austin H. MacCormick, eds.,
Handbook of American Prisons and Reformatories
(New York: National Society on Penal Information, 1929), 30. Some of the “barbarous” means of punishment in American prisons were described more than a decade later by two prominent university criminologists, who cited the attorney general’s survey of release procedures for 1944, which reported that twenty-six states used corporal punishment by means of a strap or a lash, with the number of strokes administered varying from one to twenty-five. Other types of punishment included the use of the ball and chain and cold baths at the Colorado State Prison in Canon City, the “sweat box” at Raiford Prison in Florida, and confining prisoners so tightly in a standing position that they could not move at the Jackson, Michigan, and Mansfield, Ohio, prisons. Many prisons, including those in Montana, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, handcuffed inmates to cell doors; at Moundsville in West Virginia troublemakers were subject to cold baths; and at Waupun in Wisconsin gagging was permitted. Harry Elmer Barnes and Negley K. Teeters,
New Horizons in Criminology
(New York: Prentice-Hall, 1945), 589–90.

36
. Kenneth Lamott,
Chronicles of San Quentin: The Biography of a Prison
(London: John Long, 1963), 158–59.

37
. National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement,
Report on Penal Institutions, Probation and Parole
(Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1931).

38
. For the definitive description of how penal policy moved from punishment of the body to punishment of the mind, see Michel Foucault,
Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1977).

39
. After Alcatraz opened, Warden Johnston established an office in San Francisco where he occasionally answered questions from newspaper reporters and where business could be conducted with contractors and purveyors of equipment and various products used on the island.

40
. As work continued, by early 1936 a new guard tower was built on the roof of the Model Shop; three detention rooms for handling mental health cases were constructed in the hospital; glass in the guard towers was replaced by shatterproof glass; to improve air circulation in the cell blocks, vents were installed in skylights, and the dirt-covered recreation yard was paved over. James A. Johnston [Warden, USP Alcatraz], to Director BOP, April 2, 1936, Dept. of Justice file 4–49–3, sub 2.

41
. Johnston to Director Bates, July 19, 1934, file 4–49–0.

1
. [Sanford Bates,] Director, to Warden Zerbst, Leavenworth, October 17, 1933, file 4–49–3-46.

2
. Henry Hill, Warden, USP Lewisburg, to Director, July 6, 1934, ibid.

3
. Director to Warden Zerbst, Leavenworth, October 17, 1933, ibid.

4
. [Edwin Swope,] Warden, USP McNeil Island, to Director, BOP, July 12, 1934, ibid.

5
. Ibid.

6
. Warden, Atlanta, to Director, BOP, July 12, 1934.

7
. Warden, Leavenworth, to Director, BOP, July 14, 1934.

8
. Assistant Director Hammack to Director Bates, July 12, 1934, file 4–49–3-46. Hammack reported that the warden at Leavenworth was of the opinion that too much concern was being expressed about the transfer and was of the opinion that five or six guards could accomplish the task without any difficulty but, “of course, that was only boloney
[sic]
, and he would probably want the U.S. Army to help him if he were responsible for it.”

9
. Ibid.

10
. Confidential instructions concerning prisoner movement, Sanford Bates, Director, August 1934, ibid.

11
. Warden Zerbst to Director, August 5, 1934, ibid.

12
. Warden Zerbst to Director, August 7, 1934, ibid.

13
. Ruey Eaton [AZ-61],
In Prison
. . .
and Out
(n.p., n.d.), 65–66.

14
. James A. Johnston to Sanford Bates, August 22, 1934, file 4–49–3-46.

15
. “Bringing Sinister Cargo Here: Prison Train at Devil’s Island,”
San Francisco Examiner
, and “Rush Capone and Enemy to Alcatraz ‘Devil’s Isle,’ ”
San Francisco Call-Bulletin
, August 22, 1934.

16
. Johnston press release, August 23, 1934.

17
. “Ex-Mogul of Underworld Cracks at Island Bastille,”
San Francisco Chronicle
, August 23, 1934.

18
. Eaton,
In Prison
.

19
. Robert Baker, interview with the author, September 3, 1980. Baker was sent to McNeil Island penitentiary for training, including the use of weapons and judo. He returned to Alcatraz on May 1 to be briefed by army personnel about all “the nooks and crannies, all the hiding places, on the island.”

20
. The lesser stature of prisoners in this group was indicated by their transfer by regular coach from Washington, D.C., to Ogden, Utah, at which point they were placed in one of the Southern Pacific Railway prison cars; this car was detached at the passenger depot in Oakland and shunted over on a side track to a pier where the prison launch from Alcatraz picked up the prisoners and transported them to the island.

21
. Conditions on the Leavenworth prison train turned out to be particularly uncomfortable, as described by Warden Johnston himself: “When they left Leavenworth the weather was broiling hot and it was hot all the way across the country. The car doors were closed; the windows were closed tight; the men could not move freely; they were anything but comfortable . . . as I received them. . . . They were hot, dirty, weary, unshaved, depressed, desperate, showing plainly that they felt they were at the end of the trail.” James A. Johnston,
Alcatraz Island Prison, and the Men Who Live There
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1949), 24.

22
. Upon his release from Leavenworth in June 1943, this former Alcatraz inmate sought to enlist in the army. His parole officer wrote to the parole executive supporting this request, arguing, “this man tells us that he has been convicted for shooting a Jap. Perhaps, if you allow him to be inducted, this time we can give him a medal.”

23
. Inmate no. 8, letter to the president, June 29, 1935. Five months later this man was transferred to McNeil Island.

24
. These transfers came only after Director Bates—one year after the arrival of the convicts from Leavenworth and Atlanta—advised Warden Johnston to start sending out the military prisoners and “to rectify any [other] mistakes in classification.” Bates to Johnston, September 16, 1935.

25
. Warden Robert Hudspeth, Annex, Ft. Leavenworth, to James A. Johnston, September 19, 1934, file 4–49–3-46.

26
. Warden Hudspeth to BOP, July 14, 1934.

27
. John Carroll Alcatraz file.

28
. Ibid.

29
. Ibid.

30
. Post Office Inspectors R. G. Rowan and W. O. Baumgartner to Post Inspector in Charge, Chicago, Illinois, September 24, 1928.

31
. Charles Cleaver Alcatraz file December 6, 1935.

32
. Joseph Urbaytis Alcatraz file, September 23, 1930.

33
. C. R. F. Beall, MD, Atlanta, April 1931, Urbaytis file.

34
. Urbaytis file. Another escape attempt came to light with the discovery on August 16, 1934, that Urbaytis had cut the bars to his cell and stuck them back in position with laundry soap. He had planned to escape with two others through the roof of the cell house.

35
. Special summary at Atlanta, October 10, 1934, Urbaytis file.

36
. John Paul Chase, admission summary, Alcatraz.

37
. See Clifford James Walker,
One Eye Closed, The Other Red: The California Bootlegging Days
(Barstow, CA: Backdoor Publishing, 1991), 340–72.

38
. This account is based on an FB I report by V. W. Peterson, Chicago, Illinois, March 29, 1935, file 26–5685, pp. 2–4. For a more detailed description of this event, see Bryan Burrough,
Public Enemies
(New York: Penguin Press, 2004), 474–83. On the Nelson and Chase relationship and their activities see Steven Nickel and William J. Helmer,
Baby Face Nelson: Portrait of a Public Enemy
(Nashville: Cumberland House, 2002).

39
. This account is adapted from a history of the case by J. L. Fallon, FBI, July 4, 1935, file 7–39, pp. 1–4. Waley described these events in detail to the author during a daylong interview at his home on September 23, 1980.

40
. Harmon Waley Alcatraz file.

41
. Warden’s notebook no. 477. These notebooks maintained by the four wardens of Alcatraz listed basic information about every inmate.

42
. J. A. Johnston to W. F. Dorrington re report in case of Arthur Barker no. 268-AZ, n.d., Barker Alcatraz file.

43
. See Burrough,
Public Enemies
, for a detailed description of Barker, his notorious family, and his criminal career.

44
. Volney Davis, admission summary, Leavenworth, Kansas, July 10, 1935, p. 3.

45
. E. A. Tamm, memorandum to the Director, FBI, February 8, 1935, file 7–576–4598.

46
. F. G. Zerbst, Warden, Leavenworth, to Director, BOP, April 20, 1935.

47
. Alvin Karpis was born Alvin Karpowicz, but he was always identified in Alcatraz records as “Karpavicz.” Much of what has been written about Karpis and the Karpis-Barker mob overdramatizes Karpis’s exploits, as authorized by
J. Edgar Hoover. Karpis’s own book about his criminal career offers an alternative perspective. See Alvin Karpis, with Bill Trent,
The Alvin Karpis Story
(New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1971) and Burrough’s
Public Enemies
.

48
. Ibid., 256.

49
. Warden’s notebook no. 325.

50
. W. F. Whitely, report on Huron Ted Walters, January 7, 1939, FBI file 91–136.

51
. Admission special progress report, Leavenworth, Kansas, January 24, 1940, Walters Alcatraz file.

1
. This statement was formalized in the institution’s first rule book, which was not issued to inmates until 1956, “Rules and Regulations, USP Alcatraz.” During the gangster era inmates were provided a copy of “Rules and Regulations for the Government and Discipline of the United States Penal and Correctional Institutions,” May 1, 1930, and two mimeographed sheets listing the “daily routine of work and counts . . . regulations concerning mail and a list of approved magazines . . . additional information was provided verbally to new arrivals by the officer in charge of the cellhouse.” J. A. Johnston to Director, December 14, 1937, file 4–49–3-14.

2
. Robert Baker’s comments for this chapter are taken from his lengthy interview with the author in 1980.

3
. Letter to Assistant Director Hammack from James A. Johnston, July 9, 1934.

4
. Ibid.

5
. Johnston described this and other routines for Bureau headquarters. In regard to food he wrote, “What they take we require them to eat. We do not permit any waste of food. We do not allow prisoners to crumble and destroy food, spread it on the tables, or leave it on their trays. . . . Prisoners who attempt to waste food in any manner are reported.” James A. Johnston to Director, August 21, 1935, file 4–49–3-57, p. 4.

6
. Floyd Harrell, description and commentary tape recorded for the author July 10, 1983. All subsequent quotes attributed to Harrell in this chapter are from this source.