Alcatraz

by David Ward

  Grove’s condition in the hospital ward was described by a consulting psychiatrist:

  attempted suicide by striking head on bars of cell—immediately placed in bed put in restraining sheet—necessary to use arm and leg cuffs. . . . I saw him in a maniacal state, yelling and screaming at the top of his voice and throwing himself about the bed in which he was restrained. . . . I regard him as extremely dangerous both to himself and others.4

  A year after his transfer to Alcatraz, Grove again became hysterical when a guard attendant was taking his temperature. He broke the thermometer into three pieces, threw his hands about, calling out, “Mother, mother.” The chief medical officer requested that a psychiatric evaluation board be appointed, which was expected to approve Grove’s transfer to the Springfield Medical Center; instead he was returned to Leavenworth in October 1935 as a “mental patient.” At Leavenworth, Grove wrote poignantly to Attorney General Cummings about his experience at Alcatraz:

  It’s worst than hell out there Sir, with the sea gulls and fog horns, and wind blowing fifty miles an hour and nothing but silence. . . . I can’t begin to try to picture that place for you. Your own prison for humans—why out there Sir, we are all living dead men, just living life that means nothing.

  He went on to write of his lack of hope for his future:

  I am not asking you for anything. . . . I just want to be where I can forget a lot of things. . . . You can never realize what hell is like until you live through it. . . . So I will live through the rest of my life a wreck, and try to believe that some day it will all end as God wills it.

  And at the end of the letter, Grove alluded to racial discrimination as a reason for his wanting to commit suicide: “I wanted to die out there, and tried to make it so. But not because I was a coward. But because it was just too much hell for me and my face was black. I remain your prisoner of Devil’s Island.”5

  Grove was transferred to the Springfield Medical Center about a year later, where the prognosis of his condition was bleak and unsympathetic: “Segregation is recommended. Not that it will help this individual inmate in any manner but that others may be protected from his depravations and evil influence.”6 He was returned to Leavenworth in February 1938, where he attacked and seriously injured another prisoner.

  Grove requested a transfer to another prison, “even if it be Alcatraz.” The Leavenworth staff agreed, noting that he was not likely to get along in any prison but “the close confinement and supervision available at Alcatraz appears necessary as a most effective solution of the behavior problem subject presents.” However, they admitted, “He will probably be unable to make a satisfactory adjustment at Alcatraz.”7

  Several months later, in July 1939, James Grove was back on the Rock, where the prediction that he would not “adjust” proved to be correct. Six transfers in ten years shows the difficulty Bureau officials had in finding the appropriate setting for an inmate with Grove’s combination of violent outbursts, suicide attempts, bizarre conduct, and problematic behavior, but no official diagnosis of psychosis. Over the next twenty years James Grove accumulated thirty-four misconduct reports. Many of his infractions were serious, and his troubles continued even after he was placed in D block; thirteen involved fights with other inmates and he twice assaulted officers. For these actions, Grove spent years in disciplinary segregation and isolation cells.

  In June 1943, given an opportunity to shave in D block, he slashed his elbows and both legs with a safety razor. He forcibly resisted being taken to the hospital, and once there, his hands had to be restrained to the sides of the bed to prevent him from tampering with the wounds. But, as in previous evaluations, the medical report concluded, “I do not consider him psychotic but he is subject to deep emotional fluctuations.”8

  During the battle of Alcatraz in May 1946, Grove was wounded by a bullet in the arm that other convicts claimed was fired from a gun held by fellow convict Joseph Cretzer. Grove did not share this view. Two months later he wrote to the NAACP complaining that he was a victim of discriminatory treatment. His letter noted that although he had “the privilege of reading The Crisis, Negro Digest, and the Ebony magazines” and “enjoyed the right of reading about the great work my people are doing for the more unfortunate of this world,” he felt he was the victim of job discrimination on the island. He also complained that during the May 1946 fire fight, he was “deliberately shot in the arm while confined in a cell with the door locked. I was the only person so badly shot out of 265 innocent inmates during the escape attempt of three insane men.” Grove claimed that he received poor medical care, insufficient pain relief, and that Dr. Roucek held to “that old hatred prejudice and . . . discrimination of the negro.”9

  Several months later Grove sent a letter to the secretary of war complaining that the food served in D block was “not fit for human consumption,” that military prisoners had been beaten for protesting this treatment, and that a deliberate attempt had been made on his life by a staff member during the 1946 battle: “I escaped with my life only because of poor marksmanship.” He asked to be transferred and called for an investigation of Alcatraz by the inspector general.10

  Grove’s next misconduct was his most serious. During a quarrel with other inmates on March 20, 1946, he stabbed fellow inmate Ben McMiller in the abdomen with a seven-inch kitchen knife, and McMiller later died from the wound (as recounted in chapter 10). Grove was tried and convicted on a charge of second-degree murder, for which he received a fifteen-year sentence to be served following his current forty-year term. He was returned to D block, where he spent the next four years in and out of solitary confinement. He spent some of his time writing special purpose letters, sending nine during 1951 to “courts, attorneys, Father Divine, and a senator.”11

  By 1952 his misconduct had cost him all his good time credits—4,378 days, the equivalent of twelve years—but a report in February of that year noted that he was “a heavy reader of both fiction and nonfiction . . . maintains no social ties by correspondence or visiting [but shows] some emotional maturity, appears less inclined to explode over minor frustrations and heeds staff counseling to remain free of the involvements prevalent among the members of the colored cliques.”12 The positive change in his behavior resulted in the restoration of 365 days of good time, but nine months later he committed another serious violation of the rules by attacking two officers in the prison dining room. Lt. Isaac Faulk reported:

  Grove walked into the dining room at the end of the line, picked up a heavy serving spoon as if to serve himself. Instead, he swung the spoon with all of his strength at Officer Burlingame’s head. This vicious blow struck [the officer] just in front of his right ear inflicting a serious cut and a large bruised area. Grove then assaulted me by hurling a stack of nested serving trays which struck me in the chest. He then threw trays of potatoes savagely at me and other officers until finally overpowered. It was necessary to carry him bodily from the dining room so furious was his resistance to lawful restraint.

  In no location in any penitentiary does violence call for more serious punishment than when it occurs in the mess hall where a large number of prisoners are together. When mess hall violence was directed at a staff member, the level of seriousness increased. Grove’s response to the charges brought against him was to tell the good time forfeiture board that Officer Burlingame “would not leave him alone . . . that he had killed before, was all washed up and had no fear of any consequences.” According to a November 27, 1953, special progress report, Burlingame had incurred Grove’s wrath by reporting him “for giving home brew to one of his homosexual friends.” Grove lost 1,365 days of good time and was locked up in “a dark [closed front] cell in D block” for an “extended period” on “a restricted diet.” It was noted in his file that he was “considered an extremely dangerous individual with aggressive homicidal and homosexual tendencies.”13

  For the next three years Grove continued to accumulate misconduct reports for offenses such as shouting and beati
ng on his cell bars, using abusive language, and possessing and passing contraband items. In June 1953 he sent another letter to the NAACP complaining about conditions in Alcatraz as they related to “colored inmates”:

  Dear Sir:

  This is not an appeal to secure my release but rather a letter explaining existing conditions in Alcatraz as they relate to colored inmates. . . . From May 1st to 13th I was subject to the most inhuman, brutal treatment ever thought up by prison officials. I had no bed, shoes, the windows were kept open, the heat turned off, and what food I had was not fit for a dog. . . . At this date I am still treated worse than any inmate, I do not have sheets for my bed . . . books or magazines to read, no smoking tobacco, for seven months I have had no sun or fresh air. . . . Congress approved these things, even for a colored man.

  In regard to his attack on the officers in the mess hall, Grove wrote in the letter: “There is always two sides to every story. . . . I was out of my head at the time, and have felt mighty sorry about it sense [sic] (But being colored perhaps you understand).” He closed the letter by pleading with the NAACP to investigate the treatment he was receiving and to help him.14

  By the end of 1953 James Grove had the dubious distinction of having the lowest number in the convict population, meaning he had been on the island longer than any other prisoner. He had received no letters, and during two decades on the island he had only one visitor—an attorney who came once in 1951. His activities in the D block unit were limited to reading; his earnings from prison labor up to that time amounted to $1.25. A special progress report in 1954 noted that although the officers regarded him as helpful and hardworking, they considered his motives devious:

  One of the most accomplished connivers in the institution. His ability to steal, hide and transport food from the food cart to restricted inmates in the Treatment Unit is efficient and effective beyond belief. On the other hand, he likes to work . . . so that he is, aside from his conniving, a valuable man as orderly in the unit . . . he helps the officers and in turn gains opportunities to assist inmates in illicit activities.15

  After his return to general population, Grove spent his time quietly playing handball and reading a variety of magazines including Argosy, Ebony, True Life, and Saturday Evening Post. Due to his improved conduct, 295 days of good time were restored. His military sentences were considered completed by the Department of the Army and because “his emotional conflicts had become less with age and his adjustment to close custody and environment seem to have made progress,” he was recommended for transfer.16

  In April 1959, after almost twenty-one years on the Rock, Grove was moved to Leavenworth. He became eligible for parole on his civilian sentence in July 1960 and began an effort to hasten his conditional release by appealing for restoration of the last forfeited good time. In June 1961 he won back five hundred days of good time, his conditional release date was moved up to August 1962, and planning for his release got under way. With no living relatives to assist him, a place to live and a job in San Francisco were to be arranged with the help of a former Alcatraz Catholic chaplain. His release after almost forty years of military and federal imprisonment was finally in sight, but James Grove did not live to return to the free world.

  On the morning of August 11, 1961, Officer C. J. Mitchell found Grove dead in his cell. In a letter addressed to James V. Bennett, the warden, and a lieutenant, Grove described the reasons for his action:

  Gentlemen: My life cannot continue under the pressure and strain now placed upon me. I have nothing but (my) life to take, my years in prison have taken any hope for a free clean life outside the Walls. I have no kinfolks, no one will cry over me but a few sincere inmate friends. . . . I have nothing to leave, only regrets that I am one colored man who will not shine a guards shoe. Rather than do that as I am being forced to do, I take my own life. It was not hard to smile, keep a civil tongue, and even take care of the officer’s dirty and clean clothes. But the shine one damn pair shoes (No) Not Jimmy Groves. And the only way I can win is to taking my life. . . . My friends who know (but don’t believe my sincerity) tell me how foolish I am not to take a couple officer’s life along with mine. I even had several wanting to help me after they found out how I was being forced to shine shoes. And these were (white) folks. But no! I won’t hurt any-one but myself: Even though they are right. Lt. Concannon said, “Why Jim colored people always shine shoes. Colored people always like to shine shoes.” Very nice thinking on his part. I am sure he will find the colored man who likes to shine shoes.

  Given the limited options he believed were available to him, James Grove employed suicide as the ultimate form of individual resistance. There were moral considerations in this choice, such as his decision not to take the lives of one or more employees along with his own, and the need to take a stand that other black prisoners would avoid. Grove’s final act of protest was driven by what sociologist John Irwin has described as the prisoner’s need to maintain his “integrity”—to stand up and make a statement or take a position the prisoner believes is right, despite the cost. James Grove had been paying the costs of resisting in prison for thirty-seven years before he decided not to bend any longer to government authority.

  Harmon Waley

  Harmon Metz Waley spent twenty-two years at Alcatraz, the longest continuous period of incarceration on the island among all Alcatraz prisoners. (Alvin Karpis spent a total of twenty-five years, but his time on the Rock was broken by a transfer to and return from Leavenworth.) Waley’s crime—the ransom kidnapping of the seven-year-old son of a wealthy lumber baron—provided a perfect match between the federal government’s war on the “gangster element” and Alcatraz, the highly publicized repository for such offenders. Tried, convicted, and sentenced to forty-five years on June 21, 1935, Waley was sent to McNeil Island Penitentiary on the same day he was sentenced—but he did not stay for long. Less than four weeks later he was personally escorted to Alcatraz by E. B. Swope, then McNeil’s warden. By the time he returned to McNeil Island more than two decades later, in February 1957, Waley’s forty misconduct reports covered every means of resistance and protest save one—he did not try to escape.

  For his first six months, Waley quietly did his time, encouraged, he said, by Swope to believe that if he “kept his nose clean” he would soon be returned to McNeil Island. When it became apparent that no such transfer was forthcoming, Waley began to direct his anger at Alcatraz and Bureau officials. “I told them ‘you are a dirty bunch of sadists,’ ” he said. “I wrote a five-page letter to James V. Bennett and I told him ‘You got us out here and you don’t even want to give us any candy bars because you are afraid we will jump over the walls from the added energy. You sent us out here to get some publicity for yourselves.’ ”17

  Another reason for the deterioration in Waley’s behavior was the hostile reception he received from other prisoners because he had kidnapped a child. In the view of the staff, Waley’s misconduct stemmed also from his inherent criminal nature. Captain Philip Bergen recalled,

  Waley was crazy as a bedbug. Too bad they didn’t shoot him when they arrested him . . . he was not psychotic he was just an advanced criminal sociopath. He was always in trouble and he had a big mouth and illusions of grandeur. The inmates didn’t like him because they knew he was the one that put his wife into the penitentiary on that Weyerhaeuser kidnap rap. They used to throw it up to him, “No good son of a bitch.” She almost had a pass on that thing until he included her in. He didn’t want somebody else having intercourse with her while he was doing time. Of course you’re not supposed to do that. Your girlfriend in the criminal echelon is supposed to be out there making money for you while you are in prison. So he was looked down upon by the others.18

  A prison doctor described him as “the loneliest man on Alcatraz.”19

  In order to gain some respect from other convicts, Waley joined striking kitchen workers, for which he was locked up in open solitary, A block. This was the first of a long series of confin
ements in disciplinary segregation that extended over the next fifteen years. Two weeks after his return to the general population he demanded admission to the hospital, complained that the doctor didn’t know anything and that he was “getting tired of this god damn shit around here.” He was promptly locked up in an isolation cell. A few months later he fought with another prisoner but after both agreed they were at fault and held no “ill feelings against the other,” they received only reprimands.

  Although it was never noted in prison records, Waley next got into a fight with Al Capone:

  I was fooling around with a saxophone down in the music room and he’s got a mandolin in a case and somebody hits me in the back and it’s him. He hit me with his mandolin case. He said, “You son of a bitch. I’ve been looking for you for a long time.” I stood up and thought about hitting him with the saxophone but I didn’t want to hurt the sax. . . . I said, “Well I’m here” and he walked on off.

  Waley solicited the help of convicts McDonald and Conroy to get back at Capone, who he knew would be constantly guarded by at least “two or three spaghetti benders.” The next time Capone came into the band room, Waley said,

  I walked over to him and said, “Okay Capone you got me.” I knocked him on the jaw and knocked him a little silly. He grabbed me by the hair; first he tried to bite me. He’s trying to pull me down and lifting his knee trying to get me. I got a good sock in his stomach. Conroy grabbed a spaghetti bender by the name of Delbano, but he let him get away and he ran across the band room and hit me on the jaw.