CRIME: God-Awful Silence

Plucked from Alcatraz Island Prison in San Francisco Bay by the deportation order with which President Roosevelt purged Federal prisons of 151 aliens last month (TIME, Aug. 5) was one William Henry Ambrose, onetime Chicago drug peddler. Before he was shipped back to his native England last week Convict Ambrose gave newshawks a first-hand picture of life inside the great, grey fortress-prison reserved for the most dangerous Federal criminals in the land. Excerpts:

“Not a word can be spoken by the convicts in line, at the table or at work in their cells. We got to talk once a week, on Saturday afternoon from 1 to 3:30 o’clock when we were allowed in the yard. Of course, we’d try whispering out of the corner of our mouths and we’d use a signal system, but everyone who’s caught is punished.

“No radios. Not a single newspaper. You can buy magazines, but they come to you with pages and articles torn out. Any article about crime or prison is torn out. No detective stories are allowed. Your letters come to you censored and retyped. Can’t get the originals. Out of a three-page letter you get maybe six or seven lines.

“If you leave bits of food on your plate you lose one meal. If you take a frankfurter and leave the skins because they’re too tough, you lose one meal the next day. If you leave something on your plate at three meals in a row, then you don’t get any meals next day.

“Al Capone is burning up at the restrictions. He’s been in the hole [solitary confinement] several times for talking. But whoever the convict was that said Al was losing his mind over it was absolutely wrong. He’s not cracking up. He worked first in the dry cleaning shop and then, I think, in the shoe shop. Now he’s been promoted to the library.

“Alcatraz is the nearest to escape-proof that it can be made,” concluded Convict Ambrose, who once tunneled his way out of Leavenworth Prison. “It’s the toughest pen I’ve ever seen. The hopelessness of it gets you. Capone feels it. Everybody does. You know you’ll never get a parole. There’s no chance there for anybody — only that God-awful silence that gets on your nerves.”