The following day, kitchen workers joined the strike, forcing the prison staff to take over the kitchen. The inmates who continued their protest were fed only bread and water. Most of the prison population returned to work after only a few days on the reduced diet, but a handful continued to stand their ground. As the strike continued, a group of six inmates who had refused to take a full meal after nearly five days on bread and water were taken the hospital and force-fed with a tube. This was a traumatic experience, and all of the men eventually returned to work.
Over the years, there were a vast multitude of other strikes and protests, generally all taking aim at the prison regulations and strict confinement practices. When protests occurred inside the cellhouse, the inmates would throw toilet paper or anything else at hand into the cellblock corridors. The inmates would thud their steel-framed bunks onto the floor, drag their tin cups across the bars, and yell at the top of their lungs, thus creating a thunderous and resonating surge of sound. Former Correctional Officer Louis Nelson (nicknamed “Red” by fellow officers),who would later become the Warden of San Quentin, described the noise:
It didn’t happen too often, but when it did, it was fierce. It sounded similar to standing inside a stadium with the crowd yelling and stomping their feet. The first time I experienced it; I admit that it was a little intimidating. When new inmates would arrive, the rest of the population would let off a little steam and put a little fear into the new fish. It haunted the new inmates for at least a few days.
On average there would be six to ten small-scale riots in the Mess Hall per year, whenever the food quality waned. Phil Bergen recalled that on some occasions the stewards would fail to budget properly and toward the end of the month, they would be forced to serve the same type of meal for days on end. This would provoke the inmates into protests in which they would violently overturn the tables, and pitch food all over the floor. These outbreaks would often cause the officer on the Mess Hall catwalk to punch out windowpanes and take aim at the inmates. The prisoners would then file back to their cells without any further disturbance. In the prison’s entire history there were only eighteen major strikes, aside from those incidents that occurred in the Mess Hall.
Famous Inmates
The concept of using Alcatraz as a maximum-security penitentiary was developed in the 1930’s as a response to gangster violence.
When Alcatraz opened as a Federal penitentiary in 1934, the operating premise was to gather the nation’s worst offending criminals under one roof, in a strict minimum privilege / maximum security setting, under the securest possible circumstances. One important principle of this plan was to punish notorious convicts by never allowing them to see their names in print again, and thus deglamorize the gangster mystique. The famous inmates who inhabited Alcatraz during its tenure as a Federal penitentiary included Al Capone, George “Machine Gun” Kelly, and Robert Stroud, the much-publicized “ Birdman of Alcatraz,” who has been characterized in a number of classic books and films. These men and others like them contributed to the mythology of the famous prison, which eventually became an icon of the struggle between the forces of crime and the rule of law in the United States during one of the country’s most troubled eras.
Alphonse “Scarface” Capone
Alphonse “Scarface” Capone
Al Capone’s Alcatraz mug shot photographs. The shot on the bottom left was from Eastern State Penitentiary. The top photo was taken the day of this arrival.
Al “Scarface” Capone, the overlord of the underworld and considered as America’s Ace Enemy, is a name which remains indelibly linked with the lore of Alcatraz. This infamous gangster lived to become the best-known symbol of organized crime during the Prohibition Era. In a biography written by Warden James Johnston in 1949, he reminisced about the intensity of public interest surrounding Capone’s imprisonment, stating he was continually barraged with letters and questions about “Big Al.” Each day newspaper reporters and press agents flooded his office with phone calls, wanting to know every detail, from how Capone liked the weather to what job assignment he was currently working. Al Capone was considered the most powerful criminal figure of the era of gangsters and prohibition. But even with his wide-ranging influence and networks of hit men and corrupt politicians, he couldn’t budge the strict regimen of the Rock.
Alphonse Capone was born on January 17, 1899 in Brooklyn, New York, to Gabriele and Teresina Capone. His parents had arrived only five years earlier at Ellis Island from a small village in southern Italy. They had crossed the Atlantic seeking a life of promise, hoping to raise their children in a value-driven society. But America was struggling through hard times, and instead the couple found themselves financially destitute. Al would be the third of five children. His father Gabriele was a well-liked barber in Brooklyn and his mother Teresina was a devoutly religious homemaker. Life was rough for the Capone family. Struggling to get by on Gabriele’s meager salary, they were considered a proud family, but poor by most standards; living with no running water and few furnishings in their small apartment situated above the family’s barbershop in Brooklyn.
In the early 1900’s the streets of downtown Brooklyn were filled with crime and young Al was exposed to the harsh realities of violence and corruption. He father died when he was only fourteen years of age, and he would drop out of school to join a tough youth gang. One of his early mentors during this period was Johnny Torrio, a prominent New York crime mogul.
Johnny Torrio
Torrio was an important role model for Al during his youth. The young Capone frequently ran errands for Torrio, and in turn, he was compensated generously. In Lawrence Bergreen’s exceptional biography of Capone, the author describes Torrio’s influence and mentorship:
Torrio was above all, a peacemaker; he had no bodyguard, carried no weapon, and always spoke in soft, measured tones. He considered himself a businessman, not a gang leader, and he conducted his rackets in a businesslike way... From Torrio he [Capone] learned the importance of leading an outwardly respectable life, to segregate his career from his home life, as if maintaining a peaceful, conventional domestic setting somehow excused or legitimized the venality of working in the rackets... It was a form of hypocrisy that was second nature to Johnny Torrio and that he taught Capone to honor.
But despite his early links to organized crime circles, Capone was extremely popular with almost everyone who knew him. He was considered a respectful man, a capable leader and guardian of the families in his neighborhood. He was not a typical ruffian. In the early years, he helped support his family by taking on legitimate employment; once working in a bookbinding factory as well as a pinsetter in a bowling alley.
A Capone “family” gathering in Chicago Heights in 1926. Pictured top, left to right: Jack “Machine Gun” McGurn, Frank “The Enforcer” Nitti, Charley Fischetti, Ralph “Bottles” Capone, Rocco Fischetti. Bottom left to right: Frank La Porte, Capone’s Goddaughter Vera Emery, Al Capone, Sam “Golf Bag” Hunt, and Jim Emery.