Warden Ragen of Joliet

Citation preview

WARDEN

RAGEN

OF JOLIET

RAGEN WARDEN OF JOLIET BY

Gladys A. Erickson Jr

With an Introduction by JosepH E. RAGEN

and A Foreword by HARRY REUTLINGER

ES

E. P. DUTTON

NEW

T1852

& COMPANY,

YORK,

1957

INC.

Copyright, ©, 1957 by E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S. A. PIRST

EDITION

q§ No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in magazine or mewspaper or broadcasts.

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TABLE Foreword

OF

CONTENTS

by Harry Reutlinger

13

Introduction by Joseph E. Ragen

17

PART

19

CHAPTER CHAPTER CHAPTER CHAPTER CHAPTER CHAPTER CHAPTER cHAPTER cHAPTER CHAPTER CHAPTER CHAPTER cHAPTER CHAPTER CHAPTER PART CHAPTER

ONE — The Five-Hundred-Day Headache 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

TWO

The Twin Prisons The Governor’s Phone Call The Country Club Where To Begin? The Midget The Volcano Blows The Story of the Prison Edward Wheeler’s Picture The Case of the Poisoned Coffee Bernard Roa—Fugitive Isolation and Segregation The Beast of Stateville Warden Ragen Meets Political Pressure Roger Touhy’s Story Roger Touhy Goes Over the Wall — The Warden and the Prison Today

16 — A Prison Tour

21 28 41 50

73 88 102 112 122 128 139 150 155

163 173

CHAPTER 20 — Family Life in Prison CHAPTER 21 — This Man Ragen

173 189 196 204 212 231

Author’s Acknowledgments — Gladys Erickson

247

cHAPTER 17 — The View From Behind Bars cHAPTER

18 — Stateville’s Sky Pilots

CHAPTER 19 — Medicine in Prison

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INTRODUCTION WHEN a writer says, “I'm going to write a book about you,” the victim can’t help feeling a little apprehensive, for he knows his soul is going to be searched, his character probed and every act

of his life examined and evaluated. It’s like facing Judgment Day before one’s turn has come. And while the subject of such a probe can assure himself that he has tried his best through the years, he can’t help wondering what impression the final manuscript will carry. And he can’t help hoping that the good will outweigh the bad, at least by a little.

The warden of a prison occupies a hot spot that 1s always open to criticism. 1 here are dozens of theories among penologists as to how a prison should be run, and every citizen has his own feelings on the matter. Those who agree with the way the warden administers his institution praise him; the rest have harsh words, the degree of harshness depending on how far from the critic’s own theories the warden’s happen to be. To me, the law always has been very specific as to what the warden’s job 1s. He 1s given a prisoner and told to keep him in confinement for the number of years and months specified in the sentence passed by the judge. Thus, according to the law, the security of his prison should be the warden’s first consideration. Because he 1s dealing with human beings, his administration

must be humane and tempered by justice, but he can never lose sight of the prime duty laid upon him. But at the same time, a warden must remember

that more

than 95 percent of the men confined in his prison will return to society some day. It thus becomes his additional duty to do everything in his power to prepare them to be better citizens. Some who are released back to society will return to crime in spite of everything we can do for them. Often, when we see

13

14

INTRODUCTION

a man going out the gate, we know he hasn’t been changed. But when his sentence has been served in full, there 1s no way we can hold him. Others who come to a prison will profit by their stay. They will re-educate themselves and will become good citizens after release. One thing is certain—only a few of us who are in penology seem to hear of the men who make good, in spite of the fact that there are a lot of them. But everyone hears of the failures— and becomes convinced that little good is done in a prison. My greatest hope is that because of this book, citizens all over the county will learn about what goes on behind these great walls and thus gain a greater understanding of the problems facing those of us involved in penology. Such an understanding would go a long way toward making our task easier and more rewarding. Another hope I have is that readers of this book will be encouraged to help fight crime at its source. We must all help the

children of today, who may be the criminals of tomorrow unless

all members of society take an interest in them. We must guide them through those dangerous years by providing better home environments and supervision, as well as religious, academic and vocational training and proper supervision during their leisure hours. Long experience with convicts has taught me that proper discipline in the home and in the school are important. A lack of discipline has permitted more than one boy to start on a career of crime. The decisions of children, due to their immaturity, are not always wise, but with proper guidance, they can choose the road to good citizenship. They should be taught the value of money, the importance of proper behavior and to respect the rights and property of others. There is no one person who can successfully operate an

institution alone. Any success we have had in making JolietStateville a better prison should be attributed not to one but to a number of persons. Had it not been for the complete cooperation and encourage-

INTRODUCTION

15

ment of Governors Henry Horner, John Stelle, Dwight H. Green, Adlai E. Stevenson and William G. Stratton, and Directors A. L. Bowen, Charles Day, Rodney Brandon, T. P. Sullivan, Donald Walsh, Thomas J. O'Donnell, Michael F. Sey-

frit and Joseph D. Bibb, little could have been done. And the same should be said of the loyal employees who have carried the great burden of the work.

Without these people, it would not have been possible for me on in thisinstitution: to institute programs that have been carried the construction of new buildings; the remodeling of old buildings; the laying out of programs designed to attempt to do everything possible in the way of an education for the confined

men; the implementation of an industrial program to offset the tremendous costs imposed on the taxpayers; the installation of sufficient recreational facilities; and last, but far from least, the introduction of religious programs to give the men the things that in all probability were lacking in their early years and could have been the cause of their being in prison. To them all, I give my heartfelt thanks in the name of the people of the State of Illinois, who owe them perhaps more than they realize. And finally, I would like to express my gratitude to my wife Loretta, and to my family for their understanding through the years.

Joserr E. Ragen

FOREWORD by Harry REUTLINGER Managing Editor of the Chicago Amzerican

FIFTEEN YEARS ago I gave a young lady an assignment that sent her speeding out to Stateville prison. Roger Touhy, reputed gangster and rival of Al Capone, had escaped from the peni-

tentiary. With him were notorious Basil (The Owl) Banghart, the Darlak brothers, and other big name convicts. It was a sensational escape and story. Gladys Erickson worked on the case and covered the trial after the capture of the escapees. She did well. She became a permanent member of the Chicago American staff. Miss Erickson’s acute interest in the penal institution was inspired perhaps because of the great ability and courage of one

man, Warden Joseph E. Ragen. Warden Ragen is a penologist of note not only to Miss Erickson but to people throughout this broad land. When he speaks, the people listen. He 1s a man of determination but he treats convicts as you would treat your fellow man. The prison program inaugurated and established by him has been adopted in penal1 institutions In many states. Stateville prison is a great news source. Beyond its walls are

headline names of crime annals; men from Chicago streets and polysyllabic college men; the killer and the stick-up; the con guy and the safe breaker; the bank robber and the politician who went wild; the man who either voluntarily or involuntarily all are now numbered citizens in this big made one Mo house of sorrow. Warden Ragen 1s neither bully nor tyrant. He is a muscular humanitarian. Miss Erickson found that out when she first met

17

18

ForREWORD

him in 1942. Her admiration for Warden Ragen as a prison administrator, she continued wrote a book Leopold, Roger

disciplinarian and humanitarian has grown as to cover the world’s “toughest prison.” So she and in it she has told of men such as Nathan ‘Touhy and Basil Banghart.

More important, Gladys Erickson, now a mature reporter, has tried to reflect the humility of a great man in writing this

first full story of Warden “Joe” Ragen. Her human interest stories in the Chicago American are read by almost everyone in Chicago. Now her book can be read by almost everyone in America. [ know the characters she is writing about and she has done an exceptional job. You will agree with me, I hope, for her story isa compendium of the things she felt, heard and saw while on assignment in Stateville penitentiary.

Part One

THE

FIVE-HUNDRED-DAY

HEADACHE

Chapter One

THE

TWIN

PRISONS

Just outside the city of Joliet, Illinois, stands a great graywalled prison. To the casual motorist approaching from the east on Highway 66A it rises suddenly out of the prairie, a stark mausoleum silhouetted against the sky, and a startling

change in scenery after miles of placid farms and rolling green acres of corn. But it’s more than a change; it’s an incompatibility, a sudden feeling, a creeping coldness that stays with him long after the highway has carried him over the horizon. A long road with a landscaped parkway leads off the busy highway and through the parklike prison grounds to a little red brick house at the main gate. Beside it, trusties in peaked prison caps weed and trim the grass, while a watchful guard in khaki stands nearby. Small but ominous signs posted along the highway warn passing motorists not to pick up hitchhikers in this area. And a sad little knot of people, like mourners after a

funeral, wait at a bus stop a short distance down the highway from the entrance—visitors just come from the prison and still haunted by it. They call it Stateville. Within its massive thirty-two-foot walls, topped by tiny watch towers, are 3200 confined men and sixty-four acres of ground. Restless guards carrying rifles on the wall look down into the strange world on the inside, feeling at times that the activity they oversee is not a part of this planet at all; that they stand on the edges of a strange satellite that is detached from

Earth and only vaguely related to it. Life within a prison is that different. 21

22

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Five-HunbpreED-DAY

HEADACHE

Platoons of prisoners, in columns of two and accompanied by guards, move about the grounds, bound for the shops or the mess hall or the cell houses. Only occasionally is a prisoner seen walking alone, and then he 1s a messenger on special duty who is allowed a specific amount of time to go from one point in the yard to another. He 1s watched throughout his trip, and every

time he passes through a door at which guards are stationed, he 1s frisked. In the vast enclosure below the tower guards are the prison buildings. Five unique circular structures stand in the fore-

ground. Four tiers high and called “panopticans,” these buildings are the only ones of their kind in the world. Four of them half In side

are giant cell houses, and the fifth is the mess hall, where the citizens of this locked-up city can eat at a sitting. the cell houses, all of the cubicles in the four tiers are “outrooms,” if a hotel phrase can be applied to a prison, and

they face in toward a great rotunda. In the center of the rotunda, like a giant windowed mushroom from some fairy tale, stands a guard tower. Guards can enter this tower only through tunnels from the administration building, and from it they have a good view into all of the cells. The idea of the designer was to arrange things so that one guard could watch the entire cell house. With dry humor, the warden points out to visitors that while it is true that the guard in the tower can see every prisoner, it is also true that every prisoner can see the guard—and can see when his back is turned. So, while he uses the towers, he also

places guards at other strategic points in these cell houses. The fifth cell house is a rectangular one, five tiers high. The prison yard surrounding these unusual structures has

been converted into a magnificent formal garden, a stately pat-

tern of brilliant flower beds and green lawns that draws gasps of surprise from unprepared visitors. These gardens, planted with

flowers grown in the prison’s greenhouses, have been awarded many prizes for their beauty, including one from the National Council of State Garden Clubs.

The Twin Prisons

23

The little platoons of gray men in prison denim marching on the walks through these gardens are an incongruous contrast to the brilliant colors of the flowers.

Beyond the gardens and the cell houses are the other prison buildings, housing industries and schools and storage facilities. The stack of the powerhouse rises like the hub of a wheel at the center of the compound. Recreation fields, where for an hour

each day the convicts work off some of their pent-up energy, are at the back of the enclosure. Outside of the walls 1s the honor farm, 2200 acres of rich black farm land in the north-central Illinois corn belt. Here 200 Inmates selected as “trusties” toil to raise most of the food consumed in the prison. Beef cattle fatten in the pastures and

3000 hogs grow sleek and round in the cleanest pens any farmer has ever seen. The prison is the largest “farmer” in the state, and from early spring until December, the modern cannery within the walls works constantly, sometimes on a twenty-four-hour basis, to keep ahead of growing seasons.

Across the river in Joliet, five miles away, is another prison, this one a castellated pile of aged rock hewn from a nearb quarry more than a century ago. From the outside it looks like a formidable medieval fortress, lacking only moat and draw-

bridge. Known as the Old Prison, it was first occupied in 1858, when fifty-three convicts were transferred from the state’s original prison at Alton. Within recent years, the cell houses and other facilities have been modernized. But before that, pairs of prisoners were stuffed into damp stone pigeonholes, and the sanitary facilities consisted of a ditch running through one side of the prison yard, into which slop buckets were dumped each morning. One of the old cells has been preserved as a display. It is a dank windowless room, about four feet wide, seven feet long and seven feet high. A port at the back covered with a slotted iron plate is the only ventilation other than the door. The entire front of the cell consists of a door of heavy iron bars. In the winter the cells were damp and cold. In the summer

24

THE Five-Hunprep-Day Heapacur

they were damp and airless. A double-decked iron bed occupied most of the space in the cell. It had no springs but instead supported its 1 thin mattress by means of an inflexible iron grating. Two stools were provided. Drinking water was kept in a brown earthenware jug that held several quarts. There was a small basin for washing, and a large metal slop bucket with a cover served as a toilet. One of the older prisoners, who first arrived in 1919 and is serving a life term for murder, says that the water container and the washbasin were kept together in the back of the cell next to the slop bucket. “In the morning,” he says, “before the thing

was emptied, it growled at you.” He wonders now how he ever drank water from the jug alongside of it. The smell, both in the cell houses and out in the prison yard, was well-nigh unbearable.

By 1956, the modernization, a gradual process over the years, was completed. The cells are now clean and modern, and there is running water and plumbing in each one. All facilities have been brought up to modern institutional standards. A thousand men live and work within these old walls. The yard is neat, and spotted through it are training and industrial buildings, as in the newer prison. Itis an attractive and utilitarian layout, but it lacks the startling beauty of Stateville’s formal

gardens. Just outside of the walls 1s the original quarry from which the stone for this prison was taken. It 1s still worked by a small gang of convicts to provide whatever crushed stone might be needed for road maintenance around the prison. An air of peaceful industry surrounds the old prison now, but if the venerable stones in walls and buildings had tongues,

they could tell of a time in the past when the prison at Joliet was one of the hellholes of creation.

Together these two institutions comprise the Illinois State Penitentiary at Joliet, one of the world’s largest and toughest penal institutions. In prison terminology, it 1s known as a maximum-security Institution, built to incarcerate the most difficult and dangerous convicts. It is truly the “Big House,”

The Twin Prisons

25

and the last stop for many a man on the long crooked road of crime. Today it 1s considered one of the best-run prisons in the world. But there was a time when it was called a country club for those who lived outside of the law—virtually a vacation spot for princes of felony and their retinues. The conversion from country club to model prison didn’t just happen. It began to take place when a man by the name of

Joseph E. Ragen was appointed warden, in 1935. He undertook the monumental task of instilling order where only chaos existed, and he 1s still warden today. He is now recognized as one of the world’s outstanding penologists, and his twin prisons

at Joliet are classic examples of how a prison should be organized and operated. The casual visitor at the prison is interested in Ragen. Most visitors have heard something of Ragen’s reputation and have wondered what kind of man makes a career out of the wardenship of a prison. Interest in the prison itself 1s high, but right along with this interest is the Shakespearian question, “What manner of man 1s this?” Ragen’s career as a warden started when he was seven years

old, in 1902, for in that year his father was elected sheriff of Clinton County, Illinois, and, among other things, took charge

of the county jail. As a little boy, Joe followed his father whenever he was permitted to do so. Later, after a hitch in the Navy during World War I, Joe returned to Carlyle, the county seat,

and served as his father’s deputy sheriff from 1922 to 1926. In 1926, he married Loretta Heyer and promptly introduced her to life behind bars. They have two children and three grandchildren. Shortly before his marriage, the deputy ran for

sheriff and was elected, serving until 1930. By the time Ragen became sheriff, the automobile had become important in American life and prohibition had been legislated into being. Bootlegging had given crime a big boost, and the

national vocabulary had picked up such words as gangster,

26

Tue

Five-Hunprep-Day

Heabacur

public enemy, and underworld. The moral upheaval affected even such normally peaceful rural areas as Clinton County and greatly complicated the sheriff’s job. Clinton County was close enough to East Saint Louis to be under 1ts influence and to share some of its crime problems. And in a neighboring county, the notorious Shelton brothers operated every known vice in open defiance of the law. Some of this

washed across the county line. This all added up to the fact that the sheriff of Clinton County

could not be the typical car-

toonist’s hayseed with a tin star pinned on his jeans. The Ragens, father and son, faced a man-sized job that covered every possible kind of crime and criminal.

In 1930, Joe Ragen reached out in politics, running for County Treasurer. He was elected and served in this post until

1933. At that time, the post of warden at the Southern Illinois Penitentiary became vacant through a change in administration. Hundreds of letters written to the governor urged that Ragen be appointed, pointing out that his record as a sheriff qualified him for the job. One newspaper report which announced the appointment of Ragen as warden of the S.L.P. at Menard closed with the following bitter paragraph: James A. White, outgoing warden, has held the position for the past three years under the Emmerson administration and was warden some years ago under another Re-

publican regime. Chester (the town near Menard prison) residents look for the usual administration change, which is known here as the “suitcase parade.”

Ragen took hold of the job at Menard like a man who expected to make a lifetime career of it and not like a marcher in

the suitcase parade. To cynical observers he was a strange sight —a political appointee digging in and doing a masterful job at $5000 a year, less a 10 per cent depression pay cut. Visiting newsmen arrived at the prison with hatchets whetted and went away to write stories full of respect.

The Twin Prisons

27

It was this reputation which Ragen established between 1933 and 1935 that prompted Governor Horner to hand him the tough job at Stateville. When Ragen took over at Menard, he was no different from those who had gone before him—a politician and a political appointee. In the intervening years he has gained an international reputation as a penologist. And in the minds of people and press he has succeeded in disassociating himself and his job from politics. He eliminated political influence from all prison jobs. In doing so, he pioneered a phase of penology.

Chapter Two

THE

GOVERNOR'S

PHONE

CALL

The story starts at Menard prison, 330 miles south of Joliet. Until the phone call came from Springfield, the day had been peaceful. Indian summer had invaded the countryside and the rich smell of autumn was in the air. A typical fall haze tempered

the bright sun, and a pleasantly warm breeze stirred across black Illinois farm lands. As Warden Joseph Ragen made his rounds, he found even the bleak Menard prison yard not quite

so cold and forbidding. Like a doctor at the bedside of a patient, he felt the pulse of his institution and found it calm and steady— as befitted such a lovely day. Ragen had made his tour of the prison with a swinging, unhurried stride, stopping occasionally to question an inmate or talk to a guard. He knew most of the prison population by name and could surprise most of them by asking about little bits of their personal lives—and this trick of memory made the prison less of a huge impersonal machine to many a man. He had picked up one discordant note. The prison grapevine, a fantastically efficient telegraph system, was carrying a rumor that Basil (“The Owl”) Banghart was planning a break. But a careful check had failed to produce any concrete evidence, so there was nothing to be done now. Ragen made a note to him-

self to have Banghart transferred to the big prison at Joliet at the earliest opportunity as a precautionary measure, and then went on with his duties. After the inspection, Ragen returned to his desk and the pile of paper work that always waited no matter how methodically 28

The Governor's Phone Call

29

he whittled it down. That was when the phone rang and the operator said, “Springfield 1s calling.” Ragen sat up a little straighter, because Springfield was the state capitol, and calls from there were seldom routine. Then in a moment he heard Governor Henry Horner's

voice. “Joe? How soon can you leave for Springfield?” Ragen thought a minute, then said, “Why, right away, I guess, governor. Is 1t important?” “Yes. Get here as soon as you can.” The connection was broken and, within half an hour, Joe Ragen was on the highway, headed for the state capitol and into one of the most hectic weeks in his life. He wasn’t sure what the governor had to discuss, but it could be anything pertaining to any prison in the state. For, in addition to being warden of the prison at Menard, Ragen carried a spare-time job. He was Superintendent of Prisons for the State of Illinoss. This was 1935, and the depression was on in full force. Like most of its citizens, the state was having considerable trouble with its budget, and the economy-minded governor had given Ragen the second job—at no extra pay—because he thought he was capable of handling both and because he saw a way of keeping costs down. (After his election, Horner had even refused to have new stationery printed. He simply instructed his secretary to cross out the name of the previous governor and type in his own.) The second job required Ragen to make a tour of all prisons in the state every four weeks. He then wrote a comprehensive report on each and sent it to the governor. This conference, therefore, could be about an emergency at any of the state’s prisons. The most pressing problem in the state was, of course, the

big prison—or rather twin prisons—at Joliet. In the ten months he had held the job of Superintendent of Prisons, Ragen had sent a succession of sizzling reports to the governor, indicating what he saw there. It was, in his estimation, only a matter of

time until the big gray volcano that was Joliet blew sky-high.

Tue Frve-Hunprep-Day Heapache

30

A combination of poor administration plus an influx over the years of prohibition-era toughs and gangster princelings had fed fat to the fire. There were politicians involved, too, who found it advisable to maintain a solid pipeline to the underworld and used their influence in the running of the prison. Sunday supplements carried story after story about what they called “The Gangster’s Country Club,” and these stories shocked their readers. But Ragen knew from firsthand experience that the full story of what lay behind those walls was even more shocking.

This was October of 1935. There was a primary election coming up in the fall. elections. to run for

in April of next year, followed by a national election The governor’s chair was to be filled again in these Governor Horner, an able administrator, intended re-election, Ragen knew. And he also knew that the

state of affairs at Joliet could give the governor’s opposition a

great deal of campaign ammunition. If anything were going to be done about Joliet, it would have to be done soon. Within a few minutes after his arrival at Springfield, Ragen was ushered into the governor’s office. Horner, a tall, dignified man with glasses and a friendly smile, stood up to shake hands with him.

“I'm glad you were able to get here so quickly, Joe,” he said.

“This is a pretty important matter. I'm appointing you as warden up at Stateville. Call your wife and tell her you've got to move right away.” The appointment caught Ragen by surprise, in spite of the fact that he knew how bad conditions were at Stateville. He

and Horner had discussed the twin prisons at Joliet often, and twice before the governor had suggested that he ought to go In

as warden. But each time, Ragen had turned down the offer.

He had seen conditions on the inside and he had no desire to try to cope with them. Ragen tried to protest, but the governor wouldn't listen.

“Don’t argue, Joe. I've given this a great deal of thought, and as far as I'm concerned, the appointment is already made.

The Governor's Phone Call

31

You're the only man I know who can handle that place. I'm

giving you a free hand to move in and remake it. Joe Montgomery, your assistant at Menard, can take over down there. Now go and make that phone call to Loretta.” Ragen nodded, shook hands with the governor, and left to find the nearest telephone. This was a promotion, and as such should have made him happy. But he was something less than jubilant, because he had just been appointed to the wardenship of one of the biggest and toughest penitentiaries in the world. And not only that, he had been promoted into a situation that had been boiling for a long time—and smelled like “riot” to him.

The public had been more or less aware of conditions at Joliet for some years, but people remained apathetic. A riot in 1931 had temporarily aroused them from this apathy, but within a few months they had lost interest again. It wasn’t until “Midget” Ferneckes had made his sensational escape the previous August that the public became really aroused. This had kicked off a big investigation and provoked a number of hot editorials. The heat had been on Warden Frank Whipp ever since—and Ferneckes still hadn’t been found. After the telephone operator connected him with his wife,

Ragen said, “Loretta, we're moving.” “I thought so,” she said calmly. “I even guessed where. Just tell me how much time I have to pack.” Her calmness at that moment only further convinced him that she was the ideal wife for the warden of a prison—a job which calls for a rare and special breed of woman. For the rest of that day and part of the next, Ragen scheduled talks with state officials at the capitol with whom he would be dealing in his new post. And then, just as he was preparing to drive up to Joliet, he received another emergency phone call— this one from Joe Montgomery, who had just taken over his old spot as warden at Menard. “Banghart and three others have just escaped,” Montgomery told him. “You better come back quick.”

The grapevine had been right about Banghart!

This was

32

Tue Five-Huxprep-Day HeapacHE

Columbus Day, and Ragen was due at Stateville immediately. But he checked with the governor and received permission to delay his reporting for a few days. Then he got back into his car and headed for Menard at top speed. He was on the scene within a few hours. Basil Banghart, nicknamed “The Owl,” though he was only thirty-five at the time, was a big name in the underworld, having at one time been awarded the “Public Enemy Number One” title by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. His picture had hung in post offices throughout the nation for automobile theft, mail robbery and jail break. He was in Menard this time for his part in the kidnaping, along with Roger (“The Terrible”)

Touhy, of John (“Jake The Barber”) Factor. Warden Ragen had tagged him as the most crimewise in America and the one who would have been most successful in business had he not decided on a career of crime.

This was his third jail break. In 1927 he had escaped from the Federal Prison at Atlanta. In 1932 he had thrown pepper in a guard’s face, seized the guard’s machine gun and shot his way out of a jail in South Bend, Indiana. Ragen learned the story of this break as soon as he arrived. The driver of a big, seven-ton delivery truck, Edward Bartley, had driven up to the cold storage quarters inside the walls. This was the first delivery he had ever made in the prison and he wasn’t too sure of himself. His load consisted of forty cases of oleomargarine, and he clambered into the freight compartment of the truck to begin unloading cases as soon as he was parked. Suddenly, four convicts dashed out of the nearby tailor shop. They were armed with large shears and, jumping into the truck, they attacked Bartley, cutting him somewhat and knocking him unconscious. As they battered him to the floor, a tailor-shop guard, Andrew Carico, attempted to climb over the tail gate of the truck to come to Bartley’s assistance. As he straightened up, one of the convicts hit him, knocking him off the tail gate. It was evident that the break had been planned carefully, for

the convicts worked rapidly and efficiently. Banghart jumped

Warden

Joseph

E. Ragen

Contraband found inside the walls over a period of time

Meetings with Assitant Wardens and C aptains are held daily

The Governor's Phone Call

33

into the driver’s seat. Cletus Stone, who was serving a sentence for armed robbery, got into the front seat beside him. (Stone had two brothers in the same prison at that time.) The two other convicts, Estell Franklin, a murderer, and Earl Spencer,

serving a term for robbery, remained in the back of the truck and slammed the door shut.

Banghart threw the truck into gear and roared off. In order to pick up as much speed as possible, he circled the prison yard on what was known

as the Quarry Road. During this run a

guard jumped in front of the truck, attempting to stop it. Banghart didn’t even slow down but hit the guard, knocking him aside like a broken rag doll. Finally he pointed the big truck at the south gate of the prison. With the truck making forty miles an hour, he plowed

through two sets of barred gates as if he had been piloting a battering ram. Bartley’s partner was sitting at the gate, waiting for him to return after unloading the oleomargarine, talking with a convict. Startled by the roar of the engine, the two looked up to see the big truck heading for them. The trucker dived for the side of the road and made it. The convict wasn’t quite so quick, and the truck ran over his foot.

The gates splintered when the truck hit them, and Banghart tore out onto the state highway and turned his machine south. A few minutes later he swung over to Route 150 and continued in a southerly direction with the accelerator pushed to the floor. He was heading for Chester near which, prison officials later learned, he had arranged to make rendezvous with a fast sedan which was to take them to a hide-out in St. Louis.

Inside of the truck, Spencer and Franklin made Bartley take off his overalls and hat. Spencer put on the overalls and Franklin appropriated the hat. A mile north of the town of Rockwood, Illinois, Banghart leaned out of the truck to see if he was being pursued and sideswiped a car as he did so, driving it into a ditch. Back at the prison, within seconds after the truck had plunged through the gates, the alarm was sounded. Guards, armed with

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shotguns and machine guns, piled into a big touring sedan and took off after the fleeing convicts. Since the car was considerably faster than the truck, the guards gradually overtook Banghart. By the time the truck reached Rockwood, Banghart could see the guards coming up on the highway behind him. Near Rockwood, he made a screaming left turn off the high-

way and sped up a dirt road into a hilly, wooded region in hopes of eluding his pursuers. But the impact of the truck against the prison gates had damaged the radiator, so that when the tried to make some of the hills, it overheated. Gradually power and finally, near the top of one hill, it came to Banghart and Stone jumped from the cab and fled into country off the road.

truck it lost a halt. rough

In their haste to get away, they forgot to tell the two convicts in the back of the truck what their intentions were. By the time Franklin and Spencer realized that Banghart and Stone had fled, they were able to sprint only a short distance into the woods before armed guards arrived. Realizing that the odds were heavily against them, they gave themselves up without any show of resistance.

When Ragen arrived on the scene, guards were still searching for the other two men, who had concealed themselves deep in the wilderness. Ragen took over the direction of the search and finally the area in which Banghart was hiding was located. A cordon of guards was thrown around the area and gradually drawn tighter. Finally, Banghart was ordered to surrender or be shot. “Come and get me, screws!” he yelled back defiantly. Certain that he had only the pair of scissors for arms, the guards started into the hiding place. They were ordered to

shoot as soon as they sighted him. Finally one of the guards spotted him and fired. The bullet ripped through the fleshy part of Banghart’s arm, and he surrendered immediately. Stone eluded the net of guards for the rest of that day, and finally the search for him was given up. As the sedan bearing the guards had sped down the highway

The Governor's Phone Call

33

after the fleeing truck, one of the guards in it had noticed another car, with a lone woman driving, behind them. At Rockwood, when the chase took the turn into the hills, the woman continued on south. The guard was sure that the driver was Mae Blalock, Banghart’s wife. Weeks later, Stone was picked up in St. Louis as a robbery suspect. Two women and a man were with him at the time. And one of the women was Mae Blalock.

Ragen stayed at Menard long enough to set his affairs in order and get the prison quieted down

again. Then once more, on

October 15, he was on the highway, this time headed for JolietStateville, 330 miles to the north. The lovely autumn weather held, and the long drive up the state was a pleasant one. Daylight was waning rapidly when Ragen pulled into the

parking lot in front of Stateville. He climbed out of the car and stood for a few moments before the main gate, looking up at the towering thirty-two-foot wall. It suddenly seemed ominous, threatening, challenging. He had seen this wall many times before, both from the inside and outside, and it had always been just a wall, a functional part of the prison. But tonight it was different; it had assumed character and personality. For a fleeting moment, as he stood there in the gathering

shadows, Ragen had the feeling that he was a fighter, just coming out of his corner in the ring; the towering wall, and the five thousand tough convicts it represented, were crouched in the other corner. The battle between them was about to begin. Shaking off an apprehensive feeling, Ragen entered the gatehouse, was passed through, and continued on to the administration building. And as he walked, he searched his soul. He found that while he didn’t cherish the job ahead, at the same time he had no fear of it. And he certainly wasn’t underestimating it. “Warden Frank Whipp, the man he was to replace, was waiting for him in a high-ceilinged, spacious office on the second floor of the administration building. Whipp had served the state for forty years in one capacity or another and had a reputation as an efficient public servant. But he had been unable to tame

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the twin prisons, and Ragen’s reports, blunt and critical, to the governor had indicated this. Newspapers for the past few days had been carrying the story that Whipp had resigned, and he had, but at the governor’s request. He greeted Ragen coolly, for he felt that Ragen’s reports had been responsible for his removal. “Hello, warden, ” he said. ““There’s an execution tonight. It’s your job now.” Then he abruptly departed and Ragen was officially in command. In the hectic week through which he had been living, Ragen

had almost to mind by night, just Thompson

forgotten the execution, but it was brought sharply Whipp’s curt reminder. At one minute after mida few hours away, twenty-five-year-old Gerald was to be electrocuted. Thompson had murdered

Mildred Hallmark, a nineteen-year-old Peoria, Illinois, girl, in a sex-mad crime that had captured the headlines of the nation. The execution was to take place in the Old Prison, since Stateville had no electric chair. The new warden’s first official act was to read the court orders which directed him to carry out the execution. He found the whole affair extremely distasteful, for he did not believe in capital punishment. He felt that people continued to kill in spite of the execution of other killers, that executions had never proved a force in crime prevention. But despite his personal feelings, his duty was to carry out the execution. Next he called the captain in charge of the night guard shift. “What's the inmate count?” he asked. “Haven’t got it yet, warden,” the captain answered. “We're still missing a few.” “Missing a few!” Ragen exploded. He looked at his watch, found that it was now nine-thirty mn the evening. “This 1s a prison,” he said, “not a hotel where they check mn at any hour

they please! From now on that count is to be complete at six o'clock. And right now, get every convict into his cell in fifteen minutes or somebody will be out of a job tomorrow!”

The captain said he would try. Ragen put the phone down and

The Governor's Phone Call

37

shook his head. These were the things he already knew about—

this lack of discipline, this nonchalance of inmates, this weakness of the guards. It was obvious that his first task would be to tighten up discipline all around. But Ragen was a realist and knew that this would take more than firm resolution on his part. He was sitting right on top of an extremely dangerous situation, and there was no sense in trying to deny it. The guard force was weak, ill-trained, and shot through with low morale—unable to cope with the inmates. And the inmates were strong, well-organized and accustomed to having things their own way. They knew that the new warden was coming into the prison with the avowed intention of cleaning it up. They were waiting. Prison-wise people all over the state were watching, too, and betting that Ragen wouldn’t last more than six weeks as warden because the moment he began his cleanup and started tampering with the privileges of the convicts—riot! It was almost as certain as tomorrow’s sunrise. Powerful inmate leaders knew how strong their position was and had no intention of letting Ragen cut them back to size. So, as he sat there behind the warden’s desk on that first eve-

ning, Joe Ragen knew what had to be done. The big question facing him was: how to do 1t? At ten o’clock he called the night guard captain for the count again. “I'm sorry, warden,” the captain said. “We've rounded up some of them. But we still don’t have a final count.” “Are you sure those men are still inside of the walls?” Ragen asked. “How do you know they haven’t escaped?” The captain had no answer for this. Ragen ordered him to report to the warden’s office when he went off duty in the morning. Then he put on his hat and set out for the Old Prison

over in Joliet. On the way, he reviewed the preparations that had to be Then, man. condemned the to say would he made and what getwas traffic that discovered he prison, the as he drew near

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ting thicker. He was still several blocks from the front gate when he found it impossible to drive any farther. The road ahead was jammed with cars, all jockeying for parking places. After struggling for a while, Ragen pulled off the road, left the car, and walked to the main gate. That was where he got his second unpleasant surprise. He couldn’t get within a hundred feet of the gate because a thousand people were jammed around the entrance. They were pushing, shoving, shouting, demanding to be let in. It was a bizarre scene that chilled Ragen. These were all supposedly civilized people, screaming in near hysteria for admission to see another human put to death. These were the depraved citizens of ancient Rome, scrambling for seats in the Coliseum where they could watch Christians being fed to roaring beasts. They had to be, they couldn’ be citizens of the sovereign state of Illinois in the enlightened

year of 1935. Ragen tried to shoulder his way through the crowd but failed. Those he pushed aside turned on him, waved letters of admission under his nose, and then demanded to see his. Finally he gave up the struggle and went back to his car. Turning around, he drove back across the river to Stateville. There, in the warden’s office, he snatched the phone and began to reorganize the situation. First, he called guards at the old prison and ordered them to let no one in until the crowd was dispersed and he himself was able to be at the gate. If that meant a delay in the execution, then let it. An execution, the taking of a man’s life, was difficult enough without turning it into a pagan Circus. Next, he called the state police and asked for help in dispersing the crowd. With assurances that the police would be there shortly, Ragen went back over to the old prison. It was an hour before the crowd could be broken up. They were, for the most part, irate residents of Peoria, determined to see to it personally that the Hallmark murder was avenged by the state. Shouts of “Burn him!” and “You can’t make us go home!”

The Governor's Phone Call

39

rang through the night air as the police went about their work. Shortly after eleven o’clock, only a couple of hundred people remained in the shadow of the main gate, and Ragen was able to enter. He ordered that only uniformed policemen, press representatives, and a jury of twelve citizens, picked at random, were to be allowed to enter. Guards at the gate began their task of sorting out visitors, and eventually a group of seventy-five persons was escorted back to the execution chamber. In spite of the fact that each person entering the prison that night was carefully searched, one newsman managed to smuggle in a small camera by concealing it in the crotch of his trousers, a fact which Ragen learned with a shock the next morning when he saw early editions of one of the Chicago newspapers. Staring at him over his breakfast coffee was a huge picture, occupying a full page, snapped in the execution chamber at the moment the current passed through Thompson’s body. Accompanying this big picture were a series of smaller ones, showing the progressive stages of the execution, from the preparation of the condemned man through the pulling of the switch, ending with a picture of the doctor declaring him dead. The pictures were pure horror, showing Thompson's writhing body, contorted hands and black-hooded head. They were accompanied by several columns of pious copy which proclaimed them to be educational—a deterrent to crime. But the phony educational slant didn’t lessen the horror and bad taste of the pictures and didn’t soothe the anger which rose up in the warden when he saw them. At the first opportunity he told the press precisely how he

felt about such pictures. A rival of the paper which had pub-

lished them quoted him as saying, “Such pictures should never be published.” This was an extremely mild summary of his remarks. At the same meeting he also assured newsmen that as long as he was in charge there would never be a repetition of the mob scene of that might. into go to permit ted was Peoria from visitor special One

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the death chamber. He was John Hallmark, the murdered girl’s father, who insisted on watching the life burn out of the man who had killed his daughter. When it was over, Hallmark said,

“The family is satisfied. We would have accepted nothing less.” Thompson was the ninth man to die in the Joliet electric chair since hanging had been abolished in 1927. Ragen, according to tradition, was supposed to pull the death switch, but this is something he has never been able to do. He has always deputized a guard as temporary warden, and the guard, who receives a hundred dollars from the state for this extra duty, has always completed the execution. In the execution chamber that night Ragen deputized one of the guards, then stood to one side as an official witness while the current surged through Thompson’s body and in less than one hundred seconds left him dead. Then he took care of final

chores and went back to his new quarters at Stateville. He was weary when he went to bed, and arduous day. Sleep did not come dropped off. Then, in what seemed like jolted awake by a chorus of a thousand

for it had been a long easily, but finally he only moments, he was chirping canaries.

Chapter Three

THE

COUNTRY

CLUB

For his first few moments of consciousness, this weird alarm clock seemed to Ragen like the sound track of a nightmare carried over into the wakeful hours. But then gradually he sorted out the fragments of memory, pieced them together, and sanity returned. The strange sound he heard was the chirping of canaries. He had just spent his first night in the warden’s quarters at Stateville, and the canaries filling the prison grounds with their greeting to the dawn were birds raised by the inmates in thelr cells. Ragen recalled now that there were perhaps ten thousand birds in the prison. Some of the convicts raised them as a hobby; others who were more enterprising raised them as a business venture. For prison officials, bird breeding was a headache because it created serious problems of sanitation. A tiny cell in which two men lived with little room to spare had no facilities for twenty or thirty birds, and yet many of the tiny cubicles had that many and more. The smell emanating from these cells, especially during hot weather, was something that, even twenty years later, makes old guards turn pale as they describe it. Wearily, Ragen swung his feet over the side of the bed and

searched for his slippers. In characteristic fashion, Ragen laid right into the difficult task facing him. The inmate count of ne twin dominions, he

discovered when he reached his desk, was 5,675 of the toughest convicts in the world. His first act ok a period he was later to call his “five-hundred-day headache” was to make a thorough inspection of both prisons.

41

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This first official inspection was a tortuously thorough, inchby- -inch survey. The notebook he carried with him that day is still in existence and the following are extracts from his hurriedly penciled memos: Absolutely no discipline among Inmates. Inmates come and go at will inside of the walls. Visit and

talk with each other in and out of cells, regardless

of

whether they belong there or not. Half of the convicts are assigned to the “idle gang” and spend most of their time sitting in the prison yard.

Yard filled with 83 makeshift shacks, built of tar paper, tin and lumber. These are used for “entertainment” and immoral purposes on a grand scale. Bookies operating. There is gambling with dice, cards and homemade roulette wheels. Liquor is sold. Food is sold. Shacks also serve as headquarters for organized prison gangs. Convicts seem to have run and control of the institution, except the wall towers.

Ragen soon discovered that three powerful gangs dominated

the prison. One, composed chiefly of Irishmen, was led by Danny Rooney. Another, captained by Frank Covelli, was for Italians only. And the third, the Powerhouse Outfit, was made up of a motley assortment of desperadoes under the thumbs of Marty Durkin and Rocco Rotunna. There were eight or nine lesser gangs, and all of these warred among themselves—and preyed on the unorganized inmates who were not fortunate enough to have an affiliation. The gangs maintained their power through strong-arm

methods. Knifings, sluggings and assaults were common daily occurrences throughout the prison. Gang members bullied the guards and made no pretence at recognizing any authority among the lesser prison personnel. One guard told Ragen that a few weeks before he had rounded up a working party of ten inmates to do some work in one corner of the prison yard. Forming them into a platoon,

The Country Club

43

he started them marching toward the work site. But one at a time the prisoners dropped out of line, telling him to go to hell as they left. When he finally reached the spot where the repairs had to be made, he found himself with only one man. He had to dismiss him, because the job was too big for the two of them. The only explanation the two assistant wardens who accompanied Ragen on his inspection trip could offer for this gangland rule was that the prisoners were too strong and too well organized. The guards simply didn’t dare to interfere with

them. As an example, they pointed out that trucks manned by guards carrying food from the storehouses to the kitchens were often hijacked in broad daylight in the prison yard. The guards were strong-armed and stripped. And the food later was sold to the inmates at the retail stores doing business in the tar-paper shacks. Ragen learned that when the prison baseball team played an

opponent brought in from outside the walls, the big shots in the gangs set up concession stands where they openly sold prison food to the spectators and pocketed the profits. Lone or unprotected inmates who won money in the gambling shacks seldom made it back to their cells with the new bankroll intact. They were strong-armed and robbed en route. Ragen’s notes continue: There are stills in some of the shacks, where homemade

mash is brewed from potatoes, potato peelings, corn, sugar and other starches—all food stolen from prison stores and from the guards.

Signs prominently displayed on some of the shacks say, “Officers Inmates They sell Several ches. The

not wanted.” have their own gardens out among the shacks. the vegetables they grow there to other inmates. of the gardens actually are cultivated weed patweed grown there is obviously marijuana.

On this walk through the prison yard, Ragen could not help noticing the manner in which he was received by the convicts. They knew who he was without any introduction, and the baf-

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flingly efficient grapevine had already carried the story that he was here to clean up. The attitude of the prison population was that of a cat about to be given a bath. It arched its back and hissed defiantly. When the warden asked questions, the prisoner to whom he spoke either turned his back or snapped a surly reply. In its

own way, the prison was serving notice that it intended to fight him all the way. From the moment he stepped into the yard that morning, the new warden realized that he was in for a pitched battle. And the longer he remained there, the more obvious it became that the odds were weighted in favor of the prisoners. The complete inspection of both institutions took several days. Here are some of the notes the warden took as he went through the cell blocks: Many cells with from one to 200 canaries; others have

cats, dogs and rabbits. Animals and birds are bred and multiplied for sale to other inmates. [ He learned later that they were also for sale outside of the walls. Some persons

had established regular businesses by visiting Joliet periodically and buying canaries from the PATER These were taken back to Chicago, where they were resold to pet shop owners. One woman who came regularly to the prison took away as many as a hundred birds at a time. Many an unsuspecting housewife had a jailbird singing cheerfully in her sunny front window. ] Foodstuffs piled high in some cells. Many cells dolled up with curtains concealing cell doors and more frilly curtains over the barred window. “Big Shots” have curtains plus overstuffed chairs, chests of drawers and dressers in cells. All of this is stolen from the prison furniture factory. Many inmates dressed in civilian clothing. Guards wear no uniform dress. Some are partly in uniform and partly in civvies. Almost impossible to distinguish guards from inmates. Some guards arrive on post drunk.

The Country Club

45

There was chuckling among the older guards as they related the story of a new guard who had arrived recently. He had

been assigned to Cell House C. When he asked a fellow guard

where the cell house was, he was told, “Part of your job is to be able to find your post.” The newly hired guard was forced to ask a convict for directions, and the convict sent him all the way across the prison yard. The neophyte was kept on this merry-go-round for several hours, to the immense amusement of guards and inmates alike. Ragen commented, when he heard the story, that this was an interesting way for a guard to gain the respect of the men he had to watch. His trip through the kitchen caused the new warden to lose his appetite for several days. He found the food unappetizing and badly cooked. The kitchen, refrigerator and storerooms were filthy and overrun with vermin. The floors were in need

of mopping, and the men who prepared the food were in need of baths. There was no apparent supervision by prison officials, and no attempt was made to plan the diet from a nutritional standpoint. Ragen, a fastidious man to begin with, found the kitchen situation inexcusable. And in conversation to this day, he wonders why disease hadn’t decimated the prison population during the years the place had been run in this fashion. The big shots, of course, ate separately and at any hour they chose. They ordered what they pleased, whether it was a choice steak or ham and eggs—and it was cooked to order for them. Often their meals were delivered to their cells. Their diet was considerably better than that of the guards, who subsisted on very meager pay. And considering that these were depression days, it is likely that they ate better than a large percentage of the state’s citizens who paid for their upkeep. There were many escapes, and the warden admits he doesn’t know why there weren’t more—unless the prisoners felt that life on the inside was better than they were willing or able to earn on the outside. The irregularities in the operation of the

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prison were so flagrant that the gates virtually were open to anyone who wanted to walk through them. And those who didn’t care to use this method could ask for transfer to the

prison farm. If they stood high enough in the favor of one of the powerful gang leaders, the request usually was granted. And on the huge farm outside the walls, escape was simply a matter of walking away. Wives and sweethearts were able to visit the so-called trusties on the farm at any time, and facilities for conjugal relationships were arranged on request. Many of the inmates had strong political connections. Whenever a politician wished to confer with one of his incarcerated constituents, he simply arranged in advance to have him transferred to the farm, where visiting was easy and private. Other politicians arranged to send entertainers, male and female, into the prison yard to bring some measure of cheer to favored groups of inmates. This was done mainly on holidays, and the

favored group picked up a tidy profit by selling tickets, to such shows—at prices that would frighten a Chicago ticket scalper. The regulations stated that all inmates were to be locked

in their cells at 6:30 p.M., and that a count was to be taken at that time. The regulation was completely ignored. Inmates roamed about the grounds until they felt ready to retire. Guards had to make a continuous count and seldom knew the where-

abouts of those who were missing. When a man escaped, it often was hours before anyone became aware of it. Usually by midnight things had quieted down and the official count could be completed. Guards worked twelve hours a day for an average pay of

$112.50 a month. The only qualification needed by a man who wanted to be hired was a recommendation from his county or ward committeeman. The jobs were purely political and a part

of the spoils system. Many of the guards were content to collect their money and do as little as possible for it. Others who would have been more conscientious stayed on the job though

they were disgusted and disgruntled, because in the year 1935 no man in his right mind walked out on any paying job.

The Country Club

47

The amount of money, cold solid cash, that circulated in the prison yard was large enough to turn a banker’s head. Most of it tended to gravitate to the gang leaders, of course, but there still was enough to keep a lively commerce going. This large amount of money in the hands of the inmates was one of the reasons, according to Ragen, why the prison was in such a deplorable condition. It doesn’t take much mmagination to visualize the effect of a five-hundred or thousand dollar bribe on a guard accustomed

to bringing $112.50 home every month to his family. The gang leaders had soon found they could purchase just about anything they wanted. The new warden had a close look at a prison sporting event on his first Saturday in office. This was the height of the football season, and on each Saturday an outside team came in to play the prison eleven. Bookies operated openly, quoting odds and taking bets on the outcome of the game from inmates, visitors, guards and even the players. Under the grandstand in which the spectators sat, the warden saw for himself the stalls he had heard about, where food and whiskey were sold. Items manufactured in the cells, such as bracelets and earrings, commanded good prices. Trade was brisk and the cons called this area “Maxwell Street,” after the famous outdoor pushcart district on Chicago’s near-west side. The name was apt. On his second day Ragen was faced with another, albeit less weighty, obstacle to hurdle. His predecessor’s private secretary quit her job in a huff and walked out of the prison offices with the combination to the warden’s main office safe, where many confidential documents were stored. Ragen thought of calling the main gate to head off the departing secretary, but changed his mind. Instead, he ordered guards to bring to him a well-known safe-cracker who was serving a

long stretch. When “Jimmy Valentine” appeared, Ragen asked him to open the safe and then change the combination lock. Ragen recalled that it took the clever con about twenty-five

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Tue Frve-Hunprep-Day HeApAcHE

minutes to get the old lock open, after he sandpapered his fingers to make them more sensitive to the “feel” of the lock. The “safe” man glued his ear to the lock as his fingers revolved silkily around the handle. Suddenly he turned triumphantly to Ragen and said, “It’s open, warden. This was an easy one.” Ragen then had the inmate set the lock at a new combination, which he 1s still using. The safe-cracker was discharged some years later, but Ragen 1s sure that neither he nor any other inmate or ex-inmate will ever get near enough to the safe to pry it open again, without his prior approval.

Inside of three days, Ragen had completed his inspection of the two prisons and the whole vealed in his notes. There was order that it was difficult for tightening up. But one thing

dismal picture was clearly reso little about the place in good him to decide where to begin was apparent immediately—the

remaking of Joliet would be a long-time project. In an optimistic moment, he estimated about 1n two years. Two years, that 1s, control over the prisoners and prevent a changes were being made. This prospect

he might bring order if he could maintain serious riot while the was not bright.

On the second day, Mrs. Ragen arrived from Menard with their personal belongings, accompanied by Jane, then eight, and Bill, who was six. Mrs. Ragen set about the task of getting

settled while Jane and Bill, excited and shining-eyed over the move, explored their new home. The warden’s quarters were a palatial eleven-room apartment on the third floor of the administration building—inside of the walls. Eleven rooms were more than they needed, wanted or ever used, but they were furnished and ready for occupancy, so the Ragens accepted them. The household staff consisted entirely of convicts, who considered duty in the warden’s quarters as the best job to be had in the prison. A friend of the Ragens who spent a week end with them shortly after they moved to Stateville came away impressed with the household staff. On his first evening, as he was un-

The Country Club

49

dressing for bed, a valet came in to fold and hang his clothes. The man was quiet, courteous and performed every duty with such quiet dignity that finally the guest’s curiosity was aroused. The man didn’t measure up to his expectations of a convict. Finally he asked, “Are you an inmate here?” The convict nodded. “Well, would you mind if I asked what you're in here for?” “Not at all,” the convict said as he removed the creases from a necktie. “I used to be the president of a bank.” The next morning, a white-coated barber tapped at his door, inquiring if he was ready for his shave. The guest, just about to shave himself, put his razor away and said, “Yes.” As the barber was stropping his razor and preparing the towels, the guest eyed him a little warily, but finally decided he had nothing to worry about. He settled back and the barber went to work. “What are you in here for?” the guest asked after a minute. “Killed a guy,” the barber said, starting to work on one side of his face with the razor. There was a long moment of silence while the guest digested this information. The barber worked around toward his Adam’s apple and the razor took on an increasingly unpleasant look. Finally the guest worked up enough courage to ask the question. “With a razor?” “Naw,” said the barber. “With a gun.” The guest relaxed and the shave continued.

As Warden Ragen watched Jane and Bill romping through the apartment, popping their heads into each room and gaily chattering, he felt more than just a touch of trepidation. Twenty years before, the wife of the warden of the Old Prison had been murdered in her bed and it was difficult to erase this memory completely. And he had to remember that, in the eyes of the convicts, his most vulnerable spot was his family. Watching them gave him even more reasons for wanting to bring the prison under control.

Chapter Four

WHERE

TO

BEGIN?

The big question was—where to begin? During the first few days, the warden spent the daylight hours in completing his inspection. During the evenings he pondered his notes, attempting to formulate a program that would set the Institution on an even keel. It was already obvious to him that a vast, sweeping reform carried out through a series of executive orders was out of the question. He didn’t have personnel trained to enforce such orders—and this was the certain path to a bloody and destructive riot. His campaign would have to be carefully planned and he spent long hours mulling over it. As a first step, he worked out a ten-point plan of action on which his administration was to be based: 1. Eliminate politics from the hiring of guards and prison personnel. 2. Build an efficient guard force through careful selection— and set up training facilities for new guards. 3. Keep the inmates working. Allow no idle gangs, where trouble develops.

4. Keep close regulation on all movements of all prisoners. 5. may for 6.

Enforce tight restrictions on the things which an inmate possess. Allow no money in the prison yard at any time, any reason. Give every prisoner equal treatment, regardless of name

or crime, as long as he cooperates with the prison authorities. 7. Place first emphasis on security, secondary emphasis on rehabilitation. 8. Permit no prison bargaining groups or other intercession50

Where To Begin?

51

aries. Each prisoner shall be allowed to approach the warden directly with requests and complaints. At no time should inmates be allowed any organizations of any kind.

9. Anticipate trouble and, when possible, deal with it beforehand. If trouble occurs, deal with it in quick, direct measures and no show of weakness. At no time, even during a time of trouble, allow inmates to have a voice in the operation of the prison. 10. Operate the prison with a maximum of cleanliness and neatness—both as a matter of health and as an essential part of security.

The more the warden reviewed his notes, and the more he observed on his trips through the prison, the more obvious it became that he couldn’t hope to accomplish anything until he did something about his staff of prison officers. Alone he could do nothing; with the staff he had mherited, he could do very little better. Therefore, staff house cleaning had to come first.

Of the guard force of 400, Ragen had a speaking acquaintance with about six. He knew nothing of the remainder, other than that they were on the payroll. The employment records told him nothing of their backgrounds—except the name of the politician who had recommended each for his job. There was nothing to indicate whether the man was qualified for his job, and so far as Ragen could ascertain, new men weren’t even questioned as to whether or not they had criminal records. As long as the political recommendation was right, nothing else mattered. Once the warden made up his mind that this was the place to start, he picked up the phone and called the governor. “I'm going to start by reorganizing the guard force, governor,” he said. “I'm going to fire the incompetents and look around for men who can do this job right.” “That's fine, Joe,” the governor said. “If I can be of any help, just say so.” through out word the “Send replied. Ragen help,” can “You don’t I political. longer no are jobs these that the organization recoma with here job a for applying man another want to see

52

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mendation from his county committeeman. The inmates don’t seem to care whether a guard 1s a Democrat or a Republican.” This was an election year and political patronage, as everyone knows, 1s especially important in such a year. Every job holder is presumed to control not only his own vote but also those of his family and friends. Thus, the more jobs available to the party, the more votes that could be precounted. Ragen’s proposed up-

heaval of the prison personnel would eliminate 400 jobs from the political status and could mean a sizable number of votes to the gOVEINor at a Very sensitive time. The governor had assured him, before he had reported to

Stateville, that he would have a free hand to do whatever he felt necessary to remake the twin prisons. And he had also assured him that politics would not be a factor. This phone call was a real test of the governor’s sincerity, for if he refused the request, the warden’s hands were tied. And if he agreed, he would lay himself open to serious criticism from the practical politicians

in the Democratic party. Governor Horner paused for only a few seconds before an-

swering. Then he said, “It’s done, Joe. No more political jobs are available at Joliet. Now get on with your work.” Turning from the phone with more happiness than he had felt in several days, the warden called a meeting of prison

personnel for that night. Two

hundred employees of the day

shift gathered in the chapel of the Old Prison to hear what their new boss had to say. The night shift had to remain on their posts, but would get the word as soon as the meeting broke up. Ragen stood before his staff and noted the strong feeling of expectancy in the air. Like the prisoners, they knew he was there to clean up and were waiting for him to fire the first salvo. This looked like it. Slowly and carefully he read a set of rules from notes he had made. Up to that time, no book of rules had ever been issued— another reason why discipline was lax. After reading each one,

he made it plain that he expected the rule to be enforced just exactly as he outlined it. And

any officer who

neglected

to

Where To Begin?

53

follow these instructions to the letter—no matter how minor the matter seemed—would be dismissed on the spot.

The guards listened in silence, but Ragen could read their thoughts from the cynical smiles he spotted here and there among them. Each was considering the power of his political “clout” and wondering how Ragen expected to get away with any wholesale firing, especially in an election year. When he put away his notes Ragen then outlined his telephone conversation with the governor and the cynical smiles

began to fade. The guards became a little more attentive. “Many of you,” the warden continued, “have established close friendships with some of the inmates in your charge. Because of these friendships, or for other reasons, you have been showing favoritism. As of now, the first guard to appear on

friendly terms with an inmate will be fired. And any display of favoritism will get the same result.” It was tough talk, but it left no doubt in the minds of the men about Ragen’s firmness of purpose. He closed the meeting with one last bombshell. The prison doctor was directed to begin making physical examinations of all guards in the morning, to determine their fitness for duty. At

the same time, all personnel were to be fingerprinted for the records. Any man found to have a criminal record would be dismissed. Twenty resignations were on the warden’s desk when he arrived for work in the morning. After reading through them, Ragen issued two more orders. As soon as each man passed his

physical examination, he was to equip himself with a complete blue uniform and wear it at all times when on duty. And any man found drunk, on or off duty, was to be fired. These were strong methods, but they served several purposes. In a matter of a few days, a large number of men unfit for prison work were eliminated from the staff. And in those same few days, the morale of the whole guard force picked up tremendously. The men worked onde clear-cut, well-defined orders

and they felt the strength of firm authority backing them up.

54

THE Frve-HuNprep-Day HEADACHE

The task of reorganizing the guard force was, of course, not just a matter of a few days. It was a long time before the staff began to measure up to the warden’s idea of what a prison guard

force should be like. But the start made in those few days was important because it set the tone of the warden’s regime. Out in the prison yard, the inmates quickly learned of the warden’s talk through the grapevine and immediately noticed the stiffened attitude of the guards. A lot of fine friendships suddenly evaporated and some rules, like the six-thirty cell muster, began to mean something. There was much talk in the idle gang and a low rumble of dissatisfaction came from the tar-paper shacks. The gang bosses held surreptitious conferences and an air of tension spread through the compound. On his daily trips through the prison yard, the warden often

walked alone and always unarmed. To make sure that every inmate knew he carried no gun, he went out on his tours in his shirtsleeves when the days were warm enough. The obvious

message got across to the convicts—the new warden wasn’t afraid. This was an important psychological point that Ragen had to make.

The average convict only understood rule by fear. The gangland mobs with which he was familiar were ruled that way. The toughest guy in the mob was the leader and the rest were afraid of him. The world, in the con’s way of thinking, divided itself nto two classes of people: those who feared and those who did not. All power stemmed from the ability of a leader to inspire fear. The warden’s unarmed strolls through the prison set him apart in the eyes of the inmates and generated a certain amount of respect. The tension mounted in the yard by the hour as it became more and more apparent that Ragen meant business. The organized gangs—totaling perhaps a dozen if the minor ones were counted—seethed with rebellion. The power and the privileges

they had enjoyed were being seriously threatened, and there was even the likelihood that she warden’ might try to break them

Where 1o Begin?

55

up, although this didn’t seem possible, considering the situation. The inmates who were not members of the organized gangs watched the proceedings cautiously, silently pulling for Ragen. The gang rule of the prison had meant nothing but grief for them, and if the new program meant the loss of some of their privileges, it also meant that their lives would be a good deal safer. But it was wiser for them to keep their feelings to themselves at this point, because the odds were against the warden. And if he failed and was replaced, those inmates who had spoken out in favor of him prematurely were as good as dead. Every time Ragen walked into the big compound at Stateville and saw those eighty-three tar-paper shacks, he shuddered; not only because they were eyesores, but because they represented the power of the prison gangs. And once he had his reorganization of the guards well under way, these became his next target. The orders he gave were terse and direct. Work parties were to be assembled to tear down the shacks, and all of them were to be down within three days. The work parties, armed with crow bars and sledge hammers,

started at their task, and the air in the prison yard became as heavy and unnatural as that in the calm before a hurricane. For the first time, the word “riot” appeared on the grapevine. The time for the showdown between the warden and the gang leaders had come. One old convict, serving a life sentence, who watched the struggle from the sidelines because he was one of the “unorgan1zed ones,” describes what happened in these words: “He went into the yard where the biggest hoods stood in clusters, bemoaning the loss of their shanties. His attitude was neither friendly nor hostile—the attitude of a doubtfully domesticated tiger. He was, as always, alone and in his shirt sleeves, obviously unarmed. “In his deep voice, he purred to the obvious leader of each clique, “You seem to have considerable influence here, and I'd

56

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like to have your name and number.” The big shots brightened and gave their names and numbers. As he walked away from the last clique, he was heard to purr, “I'omorrow, nobody will have influence around here but me.’ “And at four o’clock in the morning, the place suddenly lit up like a Christmas tree. The heads of influence were awakened and told to pack their belongings—and the reign of the big shots was at an end. Six of them were shipped to the Menard Branch,

the rest from Stateville to Joliet. But in all cases, the cliques were broken and the halcyon days of hoodlum rule came to an end n

the Joliet-Stateville prison system.” (This description was written at my request by the inmate and was not seen by the warden or any prison official until it had been incorporated in the manuscript. It has been reproduced here just as he wrote it—without editing. This man entered prison nearly forty years ago and has received most of bis education there.) The day following the warden’s midnight raid on the cell houses, the destruction of the tar-paper shacks continued, but the tension in the prison yard was relieved. By dispersing the gang leaders, Ragen definitely established himself as the man in command. The taming of Stateville was by no means completed, but the immediate threat of riot was dissipated, and the warden

could feel free to get on with his job. The next matter for attention on the warden’s list was the money in circulation among the inmates. Next to the activities in the infamous shanties, he considered it to be the biggest source of potential trouble. As long as the convicts had money there

would be bribery

and conniving, and a bundle of bills in the

hands of a prisoner was as dangerous as a gun. To straighten this out, he diced a new order and had 1t posted on all prison bulletin boards. Inmates were notified that they had exactly ten days in which to turn over to the prison authorities all cash in their possession. From this point forward, no form of money was to be allowed in the prison. As each man turned in his cash, he would be credited on the books for the

Where 10 Begin?

57

amount surrendered, and in the future would be allowed to make purchases against this credit in the prison store in amounts up to three dollars per week. Any money sent to a prisoner or earned by him would also be deposited in this account. If any

inmate wished to save his money against the day of his release, he could do so and he would be handed his savings as he went through the gate. This order was not only aimed at getting rid of cash in the yard, but it also helped to carry out another of the warden’s aims—the equalization of all prisoners. If no inmate could spend more than three dollars a week in the prison store, it made little difference whether he was wealthy or not. And also, no inmate could buy enough from his account to use the goods he purchased for barter or exchange—which, in the long run, could

be as effective as money for purposes of bribery. This orderwas about as popular asa tom catat a dog show, and

for the first few days nothing happened. No money was surrendered—and all of it that had been circulating in the yard suddenly disappeared. Finally, however, the money began to trickle in and by the end of the ten-day period, a total of $9,000 had been collected. Ragen was too realistic to believe that this was all of the money the inmates possessed, but he felt that he had made a sizable dent in the prison’s monetary system. It took the better part of a year to dig out all of the hidden currency in the two prisons—and eventually the amount re-

covered amounted to over $15,000. A good many of the inmates had to be impressed with the fact that the possesion of money was a serious offense, punished accordingly, before they would part with it. The lesson was slow to sink in, but after it did, an inmate finding a penny in the dust of the yard would turn 1t over to the nearest guard rather than run the risk of being penalized some of his good time for having it. The daily newspapers by this time were full of stories about the tightening up of Stateville but the stories all had a tongue-

in-cheek attitude. Few editors were convinced that Ragen could do the job. And they all absolutely disbelieved the statement

Tue Five-Hunbrep-Day HEADACHE

58

that politics had been divorced from the prison system. True cynics of long standing, most news men were certain these were election year pyrotechnics. As one hard-bitten police reporter put it, “Everbody cleans up everything mn an election year.” When the new warden made his first tour of the cell houses, he was startled by the amazing collections of junk and curios 1n most of the cells. Convicts are notorious pack rats, gathering up anything they feel might be of value and hurrying off to hide it —usually to figure out a way either to trade it or to use it in an escape attempt. Apparently in the years before Ragen arrived, the cells had seldom if ever been “shaken down,” and as a result most of them rivaled any metropolitan junk shop. One guard related how he was standing the night duty in one cell house just after he was hired and in the night stillness heard the clink of metal on the concrete floor. He rushed to investigate

and found a 3/16-inch drill bit on the floor outside of one cell.

The prisoner who had dropped it was standing at the door of the cell, completely unconcerned. The guard made out a report slip and turned it in. The next night when he reported for duty, he was surprised to find the inmate still in the same cell. A quick check of the log book showed that no disciplinary action had been taken during the day. This disturbed the guard, who was still new enough on his job to be conscientious about the rules. Later when he made his first round of the cell house, the prisoner called to him. “You reported me last night,” he said matter-of-factly. “Why?

bal

“You had a drill bit,” the guard said.

“Hell,” the prisoner replied, “I got a dozen more in here. Look.” The guard went into the cell and saw the collection of bits —and also a small workbench with a vise attached to it on which

the inmate had been working.

“That bitI dropped was no good anyway,” the inmate said.

Where 10 Begin?

59

That was the end of the conversation. The guard went on with his round, puzzled and chagrined. This was his first lesson in the way Stateville was run. A year or so later, Ragen assumed the duties of warden and listened to this story and a dozen like

it with a feeling of utter exasperation. It was incredible that any prison should be operated wouldn’t have believed the clutter in the cells himself. As soon as the majority been cleared away and the

in this fashion, and he probably stories if he hadn’t seen the rat-nest of the trash in the prison yard had “hobo city” look had disappeared,

Ragen called a meeting of his captains to discuss the first real shakedown of the cells. This wasn’t an operation that could be pulled off suddenly, because it was too big a job. A thorough search of one cell might take an hour or more, and the house cleaning of all the cell houses would take two weeks. Within an hour after this meeting, the word was on the grapevine that a big shakedown was planned. None of the prison officers was particularly concerned about the fact that the plan had leaked out, because the search was to be so thorough that no

matter how well the convicts hid their prize possessions, they would be uncovered. They overlooked the matter of prison grudges. All the guards were aware of the fact that most of the prisoners had weapons—and had had for a long time. Some of these were concealed in the cells and some they carried around with them, for offensive or defensive purposes. A shakedown meant that most if not all of these weapons—mostly homemade

knives and straight-edge razors—would be confiscated. The

day before the shakedown

was to take place, a large

group of inmates gathered near the entrance to a tunnel leading to Cell House C. To onlooking guards, it seemed like a normal gathering at first, then it suddenly scemed to break out into one huge fight. Prison men have learned to break up fights fast, because they have a way of spreading like measles in an epidemic year and can grow Into riots. The guards started for the area on the double, but before they

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arrived, the crowd melted away as suddenly as it had gathered —leaving only the body of one prisoner lying in the dust of the yard. Someone had slipped a knife into his ribs as the brawl reached its height. The dead man was William Neil, a thirtysix-year-old convict who was serving a thirty-year sentence for a holdup-murder in Chicago. Ragen was notified immediately and began an investigation, but a murder investigation within the confines of a prison can be difficult and complicated. Not much cooperation can be expected from the inmates usually, but sometimes a grudge will cause one to turn in information he has. When one does pass along information, his identity has to be carefully protected— or he may end up as a victim a few days later. After directing a search of the prison grounds, the warden found the bloody knife which had been used in the slaying in the gymnasium. Hours of questioning eventually produced the story of why Neil was killed. It seemed that he had placed a bet some time before with the gambling syndicate operated by Frank Covelli’s prison gang. He welched on this bet and became a marked man. His murder, the information indicated, had been planned for some time but was precipitated when the mmates learned that the shakedown was coming—since they feared the loss of weapons might make the killing difficult. Eventually one witness to the killing was found, and for the press he was identified only as “Inmate Blank.” Blank named Frank Piazzi, the twenty-one-year-old killer of a Chicago

policeman, and Joseph Williams, twenty-six, who was serving a term for robbery, as the killers. Piazzi was known as an active member of Covelli’s gambling group. These two men were indicted for the killing. The day after the Neil killing, the convicts were marched back to their cells after breakfast and locked up. Then the shakedown was started.

In the following two weeks, 250 truck loads of contraband were hauled out of the five cell houses! There was one barrel of long and short knives; boxes of brass knuckles, saws, butcher

Where To Begin?

61

knives and straight razors. There were tools of every type and description, some of which could serve as deadly weapons, and some of which could be used to manufacture such weapons. The parts of dozens of homemade guns were uncovered, some of them all ready for assembly when needed. After looking over the guns, Ragen directed his men to hunt carefully for bullets or shotgun shells which might be intended for use in these guns, but none were found. In addition to weapons and tools, the cells yielded thousands of pounds of old newspapers and magazines—which in some cells were stacked to the ceilings. Because such stacks, and the

general clutter in the cells made a perfect breeding ground for vermin, a part of the house cleaning included fumigation of each cell. While the general house cleaning was in progress, all the upholstered furniture and frilly curtains were taken from the cells. By the time the huge task was finished, each of the cells had been returned to the stripped-down condition the designers of the cell houses had intended. The inmates grumbled constantly during the shakedowns, and the biggest complaint centered around their straight razors.

About 125 of these had been found, and the inmates who possessed them insisted they needed them for shaving. And many of them said that they had been issued the razors by prison authorities so they could shave in their cells. After everything

else he had seen, the warden didn’t doubt this last startling bit of information at all. Ragen ruled that no more straight-edged razors could remain in the cells, and safety razors would have to be used for shaving.

At this time, no barbering facilities existed in the prison.

The

men shaved honsilves and bought haircuts from a few inmates who had set up private barbering practices. As soon as possible,

Ragen set up the prison barber shop and eliminated the private practices. Now all men are shaved once a week in the big prison barber shop. Experience has taught the warden that there is less chance for trouble when every possible source of it—even blades

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HEADACHE

for safety razors—is kept from the inmates. This 1s what he means by anticipating trouble and dealing with it before it happens. Part of the big house cleaning was another notice posted on

prison bulletin boards that increased the grumbling in the cell houses. Ragen notified the inmates that they had just two weeks

in which to ship home, or anywhere else, the wide assortment of

pets harbored in their cells. As far as the warden was concerned, the largest pet shop in Illinois was going out of business.

Just about this time, toward “Midget” Ferneckes, hoe

the end of October,

1935,

escape in August had been the last

straw on the governor’s back, was recaptured.

Chapter Five

THE

MIDGET

Henry “Midget” Ferneckes escaped from the Old Prison at

Joliet around noon on August 3, 1935, and the newspapers picked up the story immediately. Just how he managed to escape

was a mystery, and editorials hinted at bribery and corruption within the prison. When Ragen took up the warden’s reins, he began a continuing study of the escape so as to prevent any other inmate from taking the same route. And at the same time,

he carefully studied Ferneckes’ life history, as outlined in his prison jacket, hoping to find a clue which might lead to his capture. At the time of his escape, the Midget was serving a term of ten years to life for his part in the robbery of a Chicago west side bank, which had netted him and his accomplice, a woman,

$4,000 in cash. But the crime dossier included in his prison jacket showed him to be responsible for at least three murders and thirty-six robberies, including eight or more banks.

The Chicago bank job had been pulled in August of 1924, and Ferneckes and his accomplice escaped with their loot. But police officers identified him, and several months later they carefully moved in on him as he sat at a table in the John Crerar Library in downtown Chicago. Piled high around him were

books pertaining to high explosives and chemicals. He was so absorbed in his studies that he didn’t notice the approach of the police officers until it was too late. If he had seen them sooner, a battle might have disturbed the library’s customary quiet, for

he was carrying two fully loaded .45 caliber revolvers.

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His accomplice in the robbery, Mrs. Anne Beauchamp, was also picked up. However, she swallowed poison while awaiting trial. Ferneckes was sentenced three months later and com-

mitted to Stateville in August, 1925. He was then twenty-eight years old. The prison records told Ragen that Ferneckes had been a

difficult inmate during his first four years. He had been punished for possession of contraband articles in his cell, for carrying a homemade knife and for destroying property. In May of 1929 he was accused of plotting an escape, along with a number of

other prisoners, and when his cell was searched, a bar spreader was found in it. The records carried a note put in after this affair that said, “He must at all times be under supervision.” Just about this time, however, a new side of Ferneckes’character suddenly appeared, for he turned inventor. His brother wrote to the warden, asking for permission to handle a possible

patent for the Midget. There was no record of what his mvention was, but in 1931, after a change in prison administration, Peineckes enlisted the help of the new warden on his inventions. The warden agreed to transmit drawings and specifications for an aerosonic torpedo and a robot torpedo to Washington authorities. The descriptions of these devices make it sound as though Ferneckes was fifteen years ahead of his time—for weapons like them began to appear on engineering drawing boards in the middle a World War II. The warden sent the drawings to Congressman Richard Yates, Illinois, with a note that he was doing this “in the interest of the nation.” Yates forwarded Ferneckes’ plans to Captain E.G. Oberlin of the Navy for appraisal. When the Midget heard that the warden had channeled his invention to the Navy, his hopes rose and he wrote a note to the warden, suggesting that in the event of a sale of his inventions, the warden might keep some of the

money for himself. The warden, however, rejected Ferneckes’ offer, and put a memo to that effect in the record. A few weeks later, Ferneckes” high hopes were dashed when

A

modern

cell

at

Stateville

The spotless kitchen at Stateville

——

SR

a

A

a

Students filing into the high school for classes

Feeding beef cattle on the Stateville farm today

2 3

i

The Midget Captain letter:

Oberlin

rejected

the

invention

65 with

the

following

I am of the opinion that the attached ideas are entirely impracticable. The use of sonic control, on which the success of the idea depends, is not as simple as is assumed by the inventor, and will not function as described. Jet propulsion has been the subject of much investigation here and abroad, but can be considered as yet in the experimental stage.

During the same period, Ferneckes, called Midget because

he was only five feet four inches tall and weighed 134 pounds, kept at his new career and completed drawings and specifications for a new lock. The warden sent these, at Ferneckes’ request, to the Diebold Safe and Lock Company in the East. Diebold 1s a large manufacturer of safes, and it is quite possible that Ferneckes, during his eight or so bank robberies, had come in contact with some of its equipment. At any rate, the Diebold people must have been a little startled to find a lock designed by a bank robber submitted to them. They didn’t answer the letter. For several years, during this inventing spree, Ferneckes had been a fairly easy prisoner to handle, and the record showed that he had no infractions charged to him. But the double disappointment of having his inventions rejected and his dream

of making a fortune blown up, affected him seriously. The record showed that after this he became sullen and morose, un-

friendly to both fellow inmates and guards. By 1932, prison psychiatrists indicated that his mental condition had reached a dangerous level.

During psychiatric interviews at this time, Ferneckes said that he had finished two years of high school work and had

attended John Marshall Law School in Chicago for two months. He quit law school because of lack of funds, but he had his sights set on being a lawyer and worked as a clerk in a law office for two years. He quit the clerk’s job to become a welder at the

66

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HEADACHE

Western Electric Company in Cicero, where he stayed for three ears.

: After being cooperative to this point, Ferneckes refused to answer more direct questions about his life. He admitted he had worked for two years as a railroad fireman and said he had done

five more years as an electrician, installing wiring in private homes—but would give no details. And he exploded violently when asked about his marital life. He finally said he felt he was the victim of a psychological war. He had been assigned for some time as a clerk in the assistant warden’s office. As he became more morose and difficult to deal

with, he had been transferred to another post. He told psychiatrists that this transfer was a part of this psychological war. And

he told them that officials in New York were trying to pin a double murder charge on him—another phase in this war.

Actually, extradition warrants were waiting in the prison which would take Ferneckes back to New York to face a charge of murdering two bank clerks in the holdup of a Pearl River, N.Y., bank on December 21, 1921. Prosecutors of Rockland

County, N.Y.,stated that they had an “absolutely copper-fastened” case against Ferneckes. The psychiatrists, after this interview, recommended that Ferneckes be transferred back to his old clerical job to readjust himself. The report closed with the statement that he was not sick enough for transfer to the hospital for the criminally insane at Chester. However, the report of the doctors was ignored, and

instead, Ferneckes was sent to the Old Prison in April, 1932. Ragen noted that for the next two years, Ferneckes’ dossier showed only one major entry—that he had received some money

after his mother’s death, apparently the remains of a burial insurance policy. But the warden’s eyes popped at the entries

that began in July, 1934. For these showed that Ferneckes had suddenly become a financier.

During the month of July, he sent eight letters to the investment firm of James E. Bennett Company, of Chicago. Included

The Midget

67

in one of these letters was a check for $349.70 and directions for the company to purchase for him fifty shares of Marshall

Field and Company stock. He also directed the company to send a $325 check to the Wells-Fargo Express Company in San Francisco, to open an account in the name of Henry Ferneckes.

He gave his address as 19oo Collins Street, Joliet, which was the official address of the Old Prison. A short time later, he sent instructions to the Wells-Fargo people to open a savings account for his two sons, Donald and Robert, who at that time were living in Chicago. From that time

until August, 1935, the Midget kept up a steady stream of business correspondence with the Wells-Fargo

people. In April,

1935, he directed them to send $40 to him at the prison. A month later, he made out his will, had it notarized, then requested the warden to send it to his sons by registered mail. To anyone studying the records, it would have been obvious that Ferneckes was preparing for something. And in prison about the only thing there is to prepare for is release or escape.

In July, Wells-Fargo notified Ferneckes that he had a balance of $138 in his account. At this time, the Midget was assigned to work in the chair shop, located in a building at the northwest corner of the prison

yard. Ragen’s investigation indicated that for several weeks prior to his escape, Ferneckes had spent a great deal of time near a southeast window of the chair shop. From here it was

possible for him to observe the movements

of guards and

Visitors. He noticed the time when the guards changed shifts, and he noticed how visitors were handled while being admitted to the prison visiting room. It was necessary for a guard at the gate to admit visitors to the yard, and then to direct them to the visiting room, which was fifty feet north of the administration building. Thus the visitors had to walk alone to the visiting room, and most of the time the gate guard returned to his duties without watching to see that they reached their destination.

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Ferneckes’ observation post was about 200 feet beyond the the visiting room, giving him an ample view of all that went on between 1t and the gate. Ragen learned that Ferneckes had stolensome bleach fromthe prison’s textile plant. Then, probably at night, he bleached a

regulation prison hickory shirt and a pair of blue denim trousers.

When

both were white, he concealed them by rolling them

into a tight wad and stuffing them into the ends of fire hose in a nearby fire department building. If there had been a fire in the prison during this time, the prison fire department would have

been surprised at what shot out of its hose. About two weeks before he escaped, Ferneckes appeared at the hospital with a scratch on his upper lip. He asked if he could have some adhesive placed over the wound to keep it clean. The guard at the hospital examined the scratch and then directed that the adhesive tape be put in place. On the third of August, Ferneckes assumed his post in the chair factory in the morning. Then just before noon he retrieved his bleached clothing from the fire department’s hose and put it on. Somehow he had acquired a pair of sun glasses, which he put on. And he pulled the adhesive tape from his upper lip to reveal a neat little mustache growing there. Prisoners were not allowed to grow mustaches or beards, and they were not allowed to possess sun glasses. Shortly after noon, Midget walked into the visiting room. He approached the guard there and asked about an inmate he wanted to visit. The guard looked up the inmate in the record and discovered that he was at Stateville. Ferneckes had planned his escape for this time of the day, when this particular guard was on duty in the visitor’s room, because he had noticed that he was quite old and not very observing. Now the old man gave Ferneckes directions on how to get to Stateville, and then pushed a buzzer which indicated to the guard at the north gate of the administration building that a visitor was departing. Ferneckes walked from the visiting room to the gate carry-

The Midget

69

ing some papers under his arm. The guard, having been notified that a visit had been terminated and the visitor on the way out, paid little attention to the small, white-suited man. He opened the gate which admitted Ferneckes to the guard hall. Here, a third guard had a look at Ferneckes without recognizing him. He opened the last gate, and the Midget walked out onto the street, a free man. It was some time before his absence was noted inside of the prison, and by that time no one had any idea where he could have gone. In fact, it was several months before Ragen could reconstruct the manner in which Ferneckes escaped, so slick had the operation been. Since the state of New York had been waiting for fourteen years to bring Ferneckes back, police who searched for him

after he escaped from Joliet were certain he would not leave Illinois. If he were caught in Illinois, he would be sent back to

Joliet; if caught in another state, he would be claimed by New York and perhaps have to go back and face trial on the double murder charge. But even though they knew this much about Ferneckes,

three months went by and no one spotted him. It was assumed that he had lost himself somewhere in Chicago—but no one saw him. Then one day he wrote a letter to the Wells-Fargo Express

Company, asking them to send his balance of $138 to 2225 W. Erie, in care of Louis A. Kuklinski. Since the prison record had

shown his deposit at Wells-Fargo, the express company had been requested to notify the police in the event that Ferneckes communicated with it. Thus, the police learned of the location of Ferneckes’ hideout. Checking carefully, they discovered that he had rented a room from Kuklinski while he worked in a nearby factory as an electrician. Police watched for him, followed him from the house, and finally forced his old car to the curb a short distance away. Ferneckes gave himself up without a struggle and police were

amazed to discover that he was unarmed. The Midget was taken to the lockup, to be held until he could be returned to his cell at

Tue Five-Hunprep-Day HEADACHE

70

Joliet, and the headlines blossomed

with big fat type. But

the editions immediately following these which announced Ferneckes’ capture carried even bigger headlines. On the way to the lockup, the Midget had bragged that they’d never get him into prison again. As soon as he was in his cell in the lockup, he ripped out one cuff of his trousers, took a capsule of poison from it, and committed suicide. The lockup keeper discovered him writhing on the floor of the cell and called for an ambulance. He died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.

Warden

Ragen, checking over the registration of his twin

hotels for the month of October, 1935, discovered that among

his 5600 guests he had expert and not-so-expert practitioners of sixty-four types of crime. Fifty-five of his charges were in prison for the fifth time, while about one-fourth of the total enrollment had been there more than once. The roster included 737 murderers and one horse thief. More

than 2200 of the men were in for robbery, 249 were charged

with manslaughter, and thirty were kidnapers. One man was there for disinterring a body. Stretches for larceny were being served by 626, while 610 burglars were doing time. There were 106 confidence men in at the time, and thirtysix embezzlers. Three extortionists lived side-by-side with eleven bigamists. Three others had made false statements to

bank examiners, whereas eight were in for writing fictitious checks and sixty-two for forgery. With the big task of cell cleaning out of the way, the warden

turned his attention to the employment of his mixed group of citizens. A small percentage of the men were working in the

prison offices, the hospital, the warden’s quarters and those few industries then in operation. But the great majority were assigned to the “idle gang,” which meant simply that they had nothing to do all day except sit in the prison yard. Keeping in sight that old saw about idle hands and the Devil’s workshop, the

The Midget

71

warden decided that, in some fashion, the men in the 1dle gang had to be put to work. As a starter, Ragen decreed military drill every morning for

every prisoner not employed. This occupied some time and gave the idle men some much-needed exercise. But this order was hardly enough.

The sixty-four acres within the walls at Stateville, now that the shanties had been torn down, looked like a desolate and shaggy plain. The ground wasn’t level, and after a rain, water settled in some areas and kept them muddy for weeks. Sections of the yard which might be useful as athletic fields could be used only part of the time. Ragen walked through the area and it struck him that there was no time like right now to begin his remodeling. The first thing to be done was a leveling of the low spots by filling them with black dirt dug in higher areas. The holes were then filled with cinders from the powerhouse. Using wheel barrows, the inmates could have done the job in a few days. And using one-gallon tin buckets in which to carry dirt across the

yard, it might take months. So the next morning, 600 men of the idle gang were assembled in the yard and each was issued a one-gallon can. Then a bucket brigade began the job of filling all the low spots in the sixtyfour acres. Newspaper reporters, hearing of the new project, hurried

to Joliet to have a look, and that evening the papers carried articles about the new “boondoggling” going on at the prison. Most of the articles were written in humorous fashion. Few of them realized the importance of such boondoggling in the revamping of the prison. The men who worked had little time to foment trouble, ate better, slept better and were healthier. One newspaper of the day, following the lead of the WPA and other alphabetical organizations within the government, tagged Warden Ragen’s new project as the FPWG—Fill Pail With Gravel. This boondoggling project was the first step toward the re-

"3

Tue Five-Hunprep-Day HEADACHE

making of the prison grounds into the gorgeous park that exists within the walls today. The ground was leveled that fall. In

the spring, half the population was issued twenty-four inch

square bread pans and set to work moving more top soil around the yard. Naturally, it would have been easier to use earthmoving equipment and trucks to move the soil to the proposed lawn and garden sites—but speed wasn’t what the warden had in mind. He took another beating in the press, and many mates took it all as one big joke. Two men were assigned to carry each pan of soil, and guards complained to the warden that some of these teams put only a spoonful of dirt in their pans. Ragen pointed out that the landscape builders were working seven hours a day, and that they had to walk about a mile on each round trip from the mining area to the garden site. Whether they carried a full pan of earth or only a spoonful, they were good and tired when the day was finished—with little energy

left to brew trouble or hatch plots to upset prison routine. After that, the guards let inmates chuckle about the project all they liked—just so long as they kept on walking.

The landscaping project had another desired effect which the warden hadn’t planned but which he was glad to see. Everybody worked, whether just another con or an ex-big shot. The “shots” didn’t take kindly to the menial task of carrying trays of soil, but they finally got into the Spirit of the thing rather than face the prospect of loneliness in an isolation cell. As they

“leveled oft” and fell into step with the rest of the prisoners, the whole population realized that the day of the big shot was truly at an end. The areas which were shorn of their top soil were filled with

cinders and converted into play areas for baseball, football, handball and other outdoor games. After the project had been going for a while, most of the inmates began to enjoy the work. They had been locked in their cells most of the winter, and exercise out in the open made them all feel better. And even though the work was slow,

The Midget

”3

they began to see the yard taking on shape and saw some sense in their work. Guards reported to the warden that the men were beginning to put some zeal into their efforts.

One incident which happened in January, 1936, remains a mystery around Stateville even to the present time. The warden, looking back on it, shrugs his shoulders and says, “I don’t know.” A man entered the main-gate guard house, gave his name as Joseph Smith, and told the guard on duty, Joseph Hutton, that he wished to see Warden Ragen. Hutton searched Smith as he did all visitors—including the governor—and made him leave everything at the desk which was considered contraband. One of the items in his pocket was a small, cylindrical metal affair. “What's this?” Hutton asked. “Oh, just a tire gauge,” Smith replied. “Surely it doesn’t make any difference if I take that in?” Hutton examined the gauge. Nobody had ever written into the rules a decision as to whether a tire gauge was contraband or not. But to be on the safe side, Hutton told him he would have to leave it in the guard house. “You can pick it up again on your way out,” Hutton told him. Smith reluctantly handed the tire gauge over to the guard and was passed into the administration building. When he arrived there, the receptionist told him that the warden was not at his desk at the time. She told him he could wait, but Mr. Smith decided not to. He went back to the gatehouse, signed out, and drove away. Hutton forgot to remind him of his tire gauge, and Smith apparently forgot to ask for it. A little later, guards examined the tire gauge and found it to

to be actually a small .22 caliber pistol, with a single tiny bullet in the chamber.

It appeared

to have

been

made

in a home

machine shop and looked pretty much like the tire gauge Smith claimed enough fired by pen clip

it was. It was a little over four inches long, small to be concealed in the palm of a man’s hand, and was a small springlike lever, which looked like a fountainon its side.

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An investigation failed to turn up any information on Smith or what he intended to do with his homemade pistol. The papers called it a possible attempt on the warden’s life. Ragen just shakes his head and says, “I don’t know.” During the midwinter snows, the warden heard shooting outside of the walls one day and went rushing out to see what was going on. When he arrived at the scene, just outside the south gate, he found guards marching six convicts back to the prison. He recognized the men as six trusties, assigned to work in a tool house, just outside the gate. The warden asked what had happened. One of the inmates told him he had made a bobsled, about a week before. He and

the other men waited for trucks to come out of the south gate and then hitched their sled to them. They rode behind the trucks for a block or so and then cast loose and returned to their tool house. “But this time, warden,” the con explained, “something happened. We hitched on as usual, but the rope got stuck. We couldn’t cut loose. We swung past the guard house at the main road, and a screw spotted us and started yelling. “Before we could explain what happened, he started shooting. Well, the driver stopped and we got off. But the screw wouldn’t listen and made out we were trying to escape. Them screws take the wrong attitude about everything.” Ragen told the guards to march the men back to their cells and later decided to replace the six trusties with six other inmates. They were a bit too inventive to be allowed outside of the walls—and the next time the truck driver might not stop until the sled was a long way from the prison. Ragen kept hard at the tightening up process, and by the first of the year felt as though some progress was being made. The newspapers, by this time, had decided that he was sincere and were beginning to take a real interest in his work, That was when Dickie Loeb was killed and the whole pot boiled over.

Chapter Six

THE VOLCANO BLOWS A prison is deceptive, treacherous—like some great sleeping beast. It must be watched constantly against that moment when it will spring suddenly from its somnolence in a burst of wild lashing fury. The fury may be supplied by a thousand men—or just one—the warden never knows. But he lives in an atmosphere charged with ominous possibilities, waiting to find out.

The morning of January 28, 1936, was bright, pleasant and crisp. A blanket of newly fallen snow had soundproofed the big yard at Stateville, and the brilliant winter sun picked up sparkling highlights on white drifts. Even the scarred ground where the mephistophelean tar-paper dens had stood four months before looked chaste and virginal. Warden Ragen made his regular morning round of the yards and buildings, pleased with the progress in his little world. Like an artist who has completed his sketches and turns to face his canvas with brush in hand and oils on his palette, he felt a sense of accomplishment. His work was far from finished—in fact, hardly begun—yet the twin institutions were already taking shape. He had paused for a few moments before leaving the office to look at a square of cardboard that had been given to him a month before—as a Christmas present. On the card, hand printed in block letters, was a poem that he liked. Aesthetically, 1t wasn’t

likely to take any Pulitzer prizes, nor were children likely to memorize it for school recitals. But the warden liked it in spite of all its flaws, because it was a good measure of the progress he was making.

Dated December 26, 1935, the card had no decorations except the lettering. The first line declared it to be a song poem,

dedicated to Warden J. E. Ragen. 75

AN

UNDERSTANDING

HEART

There’s a Man in charge at Stateville

Who has changed things all around, From a madhouse to a prison Wherein Hope and Cheer abound!

He has made our lives more peaceful By his thoughtful, humane deeds—

Which portray transcendent knowledge Of our most important needs!

And we've learned from him, it’s better To rebuild than to destroy; And to sow the way in passing— Only seeds that blossom joy! If it was not for his wisdom That re-lit our lamp of Hope, The forces of Temptation Would have free and ample scope!

"Tis because his heart is noble And because his creed is—“‘Good” That he plays upon our heartstrings— As the others never could! There are many fine possessions In the realm of nature’s art But the one that is the rarest is, —An Understanding Heart! L’Envoi—

And we hope that Warden Ragen Is assured that we are glad— He is reigning o’er this prison The best Warden we have had!

Sincerely, The Prison Inmates

E.JLC.

‘df240-E

The Volcano Blows

7%

Ragen could not help smiling when he read the lines. He suffered no illusions about his convicts, and this little poetic tribute didn’t mean that they had been converted to docile lambs. Nor did he take the lavish praise too seriously, because he was well aware of his own shortcomings. The significant message for him was that the prison was changing and everyone in it knew 1it—and some even liked it. In a pleasant mood he completed his rounds, returned to his office, and then went up to the apartment to have lunch. That was when the sleeping beast leaped to life with a snarl. The Ragen family had just been seated when the inter-prison telephone beside the table rang. When the warden picked it up, he heard an excited guard saying, “A bad stabbing, warden. The victim is Richard Loeb. It’s over near the dining room.”

Ragen checked his watch, noted that it was 12:30, and then went to the scene on the double. A stabbing might mean no more than a fight between two inmates—to be followed by some quick discipline. Or it might mean death, with an investigation and a murder charge to follow. Or, it could be the beginning of a spreading fight that might develop into a full riot. In any event, quick action was necessary. T'wo minutes later he was on the scene. The yard was quiet and there seemed to be no sign of any spreading trouble. Several guards had brought a mobile stretcher from the hospital and were just placing the injured Loeb on it. Guards were holding

James

Day,

who

appeared

dazed,

and whose

clothes were

covered with blood. The warden accompanied them to the hospital. The doctor in charge made a quick examination and shook his head. Loeb was covered from head to foot by gashes,

fifty-seven of them, made with a straight razor. The warden

ordered that several specialists be called from

Joliet to help out, then went over to the captain’s oflice to find out what had happened. Loeb was then thirty years old and had been in prison for

eleven and a half years. He had been sentenced to serve ninetynine years and a life sentence concurrently for the part he had

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played in the brutal murder of fourteen-year-old Bobby Franks in Chicago. The trial of Loeb and Nathan Leopold, both brilliant college students and the sons of wealthy parents, had been a national sensation. Thestate demanded the death sentence and set out to prove that the slaying had been done in cold blood, for a thrill. Clarence Darrow brought his legal pyrotechnics to the court in Chicago to defend them, and after listening to his persuasive arguments, the judge found the pair guilty—but spared them the death sentence. Loeb had been assigned, along with twenty-one other inmates, including Leopold, to the prison schoolroom to work on an expansion of a series of correspondence courses for inmates.

Ragen learned that this group had gone to dinner at 11:15 and were back at their jobs by 11:45. Loeb had then decided to take a shower in a combination shower-toilet room which adjoined the classroom. The door to the shower room opened into the dining room rotunda. A group of sixty men assigned to the business office in the administration building to do stenographic and clerical work,

including James Day, was marched to the dining room at noon by an officer. Much later the warden was to find out that Day had slipped to the end of the line, where he was handed a straight-edge razor by another convict, George Bliss. Bliss was a clerk in the Protestant chaplain’s office, located near the line of march between the administration building and the dining room. He was serving a term for a robbery committed

in Chicago and was Day’s cell mate. Two years after the crime, he admitted he had borrowed the razor months earlier. He had neither returned it nor turned it in when the cells were shaken down. Instead, he had concealed it in a desk in the chaplain’s office. Day took the contraband razor from Bliss and concealed it in his shirt, then continued on with his platoon to the dining

room. At about 12:25, the sixty-man detail finished dinner and left the dining room for the march back to the administration

The Volcano Blows

79

building. Once again, Day managed to get to the rear end of the line. The group was accompanied by one guard who walked beside the double-column of inmates at the center of the line,

as he was supposed to. As the line passed the area in which the shower rooms were located, Day slipped out of formation unnoticed. Reaching into his shirt for the razor, he made a dash for the shower room, apparently aware of the fact that Loeb was in i. Without any provocation, Day began slashing at Loeb with the razor.

The officer marched his platoon to the gate of the administration building, which took two or three minutes, before he discovered that Day was missing. Joined by other guards, he quickly went back toward the dining room. The guards found Day standing in a dazed condition in the dining room rotunda, covered with blood and still holding the open razor. Loeb was on the floor of the shower unconscious. Day, who had been fully clothed, was disarmed and taken to the hospital along with Loeb for an examination. The doctor found him unharmed. As soon as the guards took the razor from his hands Day recovered from his dazed condition and immediately began to cry that he had been lured to the shower room by Loeb for immoral purposes; that Loeb had threatened him with a razor

unless he submitted. When he refused, a fight ensued and during it he managed to get the razor from Loeb and turn on him with it. While the warden was in the captain’s office, word came from the hospital that Loeb had died. He had never regained CONSCIOUSNESS.

Loeb, who weighed 160 pounds and was almost 5 feet 9 inches tall, was an athletic type, playing a great deal of handball especially. Day, who was then twenty-three, weighed about 145 pounds and was 5 feet 6 1/2 inches tall. He had been sentenced orginally to Pontiac prison to serve a one to ten year

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HEADACHE

sentence for robbery of a gasoline station mn Berwyn, Illinois. He had been received at Pontiac in February, 1932, and trans-

ferred to Stateville in August, 1934. By the time he reached Pontiac in 1932, Day was already a veteran of the criminal world. His record had on it two terms in the St. Charles School for Boys, one stretch m the Cook County jail, and a probationary period—all for thefts. When Ragen took over at Stateville, Loeb and Day were cell mates in Cell House C. Loeb had been receiving an allowance of fifty dollars a month from his family. Since Day had no income, Loeb supplied him with such luxuries as cigarettes, candy and food. They had had several arguments over the division of Loeb’s “groceries” after Loeb had shared his supplies with a number of other inmates who had no cash. Loeb was one of those hit hardest when Ragen took all money out of circulation and decreed that each inmate could spend a maximum of three dollars (later raised to five) a week in the prison commissary. This rule left Loeb with barely enough buying power to supply his own needs, and the squabbles between the two increased until Ragen moved Day out of Loeb’s cell. This had taken place about six weeks before the fatal stabbing. After the murder, Ragen’s inquiry indicated that Day had continued to demand his ration of cigarettes and other luxuries from Loeb, but Loeb had refused. Their last known argument had taken place two weeks before the killing. Apparently, Day had borrowed the razor to take revenge on Loeb for this refusal. The warden went over the prison records of the two men and saw that Day was marked as a potentially dangerous inmate, with a long punishment record. Loeb, on the other hand, had a clean record; he had been placed in Grade A, the top rating that can be given, six months after his arrival in prison, and had remained in that grade through the years. Loeb had been assigned a variety of prison jobs during his stay, including posts in the chair factory and in the greenhouse.

In July, 1932, he had asked to be relieved of the greenhouse job

The Volcano Blows

81

and was assigned to outline a correspondence course to be supplied to prisoners who were interested in acquiring more education. The record showed that by December of that year he had completed the first phase of this work and had been commended by the warden. One side light Ragen noted in Loeb’s jacket was a romance he carried on by mail with a young lady. Ragen could find no mention of how it started, but a note in the previous warden’s handwriting indicated that it had been stopped abruptly when the girl’s parents had written to him, objecting strenuously. The story of the Loeb killing broke in newspapers around the world like the boom of a rolling breaker against a rocky shore. Reporters had rushed to the prison from Chicago that afternoon, and telegraph and telephone wires hummed as story after story was filed. The story was big because Loeb was one of Stateville’s most publicized inmates—and because the prison was hot copy itself at that ume. The Ferneckes escape had finally awakened the public to the festering wound in their midst. After the change of wardens, there had been a great deal of copy printed about the changes being made—and whether they thought Ragen was sincere in his attempt to change the prison, or whether they thought he was making a grandstand play in an election year, made little difference. The spotlight had been kept on the twin prisons. From that moment at the lunch table when his phone rang, the warden carried a big burden on his broad shoulders. He had to conduct an vestigation to get the facts of the killing. In addition to this, the state’s attorney of Will County, in which the prison 1s located, also had to make an investigation, since the prison was within his jurisdiction. And the press descended

upon Ragen. One reporter of the London Evening Standard even called him by trans-Atlantic phone and carried out a long interview, which was published the following day mn England.

What few moments he had to spend scanning the daily papers were sad and disturbed periods. The editorial pages and lettersto-the-editors columns were blunt and at times vicious, and he

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realized for the first time how few persons realized that he had

made any changes at all. The Loeb killing was called the latest scandal from the prison, the final straw, the last outrage that should be permitted in that cesspool at Joliet. The Ferneckes escape, and now this! The entire staff of the prison should be fired forthwith and replaced with disciplinarians. Column after column rehashed the story of gang rule in the

prison, completely ignoring the fact that it no longer existed. There was much open speculation on “the real reason” for Loeb’s murder, and every reporter who wrote a story had his

own Inside source of information and his own pet theory of what happened. The warden went over the facts as he knew them dozens of times at press conferences, but this made little difference. Headlines charged that Loeb was pampered and allowed special privileges—that the bathroom in which he was killed was for his own use—that the razor with which he was killed was his own, and that he alone of all prisoners was permitted to shave himself. It was even suggested that he had free run of the prison grounds and had been permitted to go to Chicago for visits whenever he pleased. There were editorials which blamed the whole mess on the fact that the prison was ridden by politics. Ex-guards were interviewed. Most of these had worked in the prison during its “country club” days and they freely described the gang rule, and told of favoritism, bribery and lack of discipline. One of

them called it “one gigantic playhouse.” Most newspapers picked up these stories and gave them as reasons back of the murder. There were belligerent stories about the “so-called reform”

instituted by Warden Ragen. Then articles began to appear which demanded a new warden—they even went nominate the man to replace Ragen. The prison, and the warden were the subjects of hot debate nation. Part of this hue and cry was based on honest

so far as to the murder, all over the

indignation.

The Volcano Blows

83

The public hadn’t yet learned that Ragen was sincere in his attempt to do a good job and was getting fed up with the longparade of evil-smelling scandals which had issued from the prison. To most, four and a half months had seemed like ample time for the mess to be completely cleaned up—and the Loeb affair simply meant that Ragen had failed to do what he promised. Another part of the clamor was caused by the biased voices of politicians, for the prison had already been raised as an election-year issue. The murder was committed just three months prior to the primary election, just when speeches were beginning to fill the air. The warden, as he plowed through the volumes of press copy, readily admitted that in part the stories were right. In a way, Loeb had been the vicum of the old gang rule era, for the smuggled razor had been hidden during the time when prisoners had been permitted to have such implements and had not been uncovered 1n the shakedowns that followed; and the basic reason for the fight between Loeb and Day had been that Loeb had so much money to spend under old rules.

The painful part was that in the first week none of the papers took the time to distinguish these facts from gyrations of fancy. In the midst of all of this was the loud demand for an investigation, a major and unbiased investigation which would unmask the prison once and for all. Assoon as the demand was made, the warden told those writers who reported to Stateville every day to pick up the latest information that he would welcome such an investigation and hoped one would be made. Finally, on the fifth of February, Governor Horner wrote letters to sixteen prominent men in Illinois and other states, asking them to become part of a committee to conduct an impartial investigation. Included in the list of invitations were Warden Lewis E. Lawes of Sing Sing Prison in New York and

Roy Best, Warden of the Colorado State prison at Canyon City. Best was able to accept, but Lawes could not. From this group a committee of ten was formed and met at

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the prison for the first time on February 16. They elected Bishop

J. H. Schlarman, of the Catholic Diocese of Peoria, as their chairman. Other members were Robert Kern, a young newspaper editor from Belleville; Emmett Moynihan, representing

the state’s attorney of Cook County; Circuit Judge John F. Prystalski of Chicago; Thomas Sinnett, Democratic state repre-

sentative from Rock Island; James J. Barbour, Republican state senator of Evanston; Col. Henry Barrett Chamberlain, Director

of the Chicago Cite Commission; Dr. Preston Bradley, pastor of the Peoples’ Church of Chicago; Charles H. Schweppe, president of St. Luke’s Hospital, Chicago; and Warden Best. The committee went on a tour of the two prisons and then settled down to its work. It was a tremendous task but committee members were conscientious. They interviewed prisoners, prison officials and employees; they sought opinions

from prison experts and penologists all over the country; they examined and re-examined all phases of the prison. In spite of the pressure brought to bear on them by an excited press, they refused to be forced into doing a quick, slipshod inquiry. A year passed before they were ready with their report. During that time the election came and went. Determined to keep the investigation free of politics, the committee released no information which could have been used as campaign material—and by the time they were ready to make their recommendations, any possibility of electioneering was past. Govenor Horner was re-elected in spite of the bad press at

the time of the Loeb murder, partly because after the first wave of stormy news stories from the prison had swept past, more sober and realistic reports began to appear. These appraised conditions in the prison with some degree of accuracy and credited Warden Ragen with important advances in its administration. The newspaper reader was able to see, after reading these reports, that while Stateville and the Old Prison were far from model institutions, real progress had been and was being made.

When the committee finally issued its report, it had a 7oo-

The Volcano Blows

85

page book to hand to the governor. The report outlined the conditions which had existed, commended Warden Ragen for the work he had done, and then went on to make a number of specific recommendations as to how the state’s penal system could be changed. Among the recommendations were that the old prison at

Joliet be abandoned and in its place prisons of lesser security be built, with inmates housed in dormitories to hold not more than sixty men. No walls would be built around such institutions and inmates would be allowed as much freedom as possible. These medium and minimum-security prisons would house those lawbreakers who were deemed as “reclaimable for society” and who did not need a maximum-security incarceration. Modern penologists, including Warden Ragen, heartily endorse this idea, but the suggestion was never Follawed because of the expense. Instead, over the next twenty years, money was

appropriated to renovate the Old Prison. The committee found, as the warden had when he reported for duty, a lack of uniformity of rules, poorly trained guards, political influence in the hiring of personnel, and serious leaks in security. And they pointed out that the biggest source of trouble was the enforced idleness of too many inmates. The report recommended full employment and gave the impetus needed to start the development of prison industries. The chief effect of the report, so far as Warden Ragen was

concerned, was that as time passed he found the state legislature much more willing to appropriate funds for needed improvements and additional facilities. And, too, the press discovered that the warden at Stateville was sincere in his attempts to improve prison conditions. Stories appearing began to be more sympathetic. “They used to send someone down every day,” the warden says. “Now they just phone, because they know I tell ’em the truth.”

James Day was charged with the murder of Richard Loeb and brought to trial in a Will County court in June, 1936. There

Tue

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were no witnesses to the attack itself, but Day had mobilized half a dozen inmates who appeared as “character” witnesses in his behalf. Several of them told stories of how Loeb had bewildered Day and a number of others by describing in lavish detail the baths of ancient Greece and Rome. These luried vocal tours ended, according to the witnesses, with propositions for immoral activity.

Day told the court that he had been invited into the shower by Loeb.

When

Loeb

made

indecent

proposals

to him,

he

resisted. Loeb pulled out the razor, which Day took away from him after a struggle. He said that Loeb was slashed during the struggle and in self-defense. His lawyers assured the jury that Loeb had wielded unlimited influence over fellow-inmates for a long period of time and also told it that if it found Day guilty the jury would be “rebuilding the walls of Sodom and Gomorrah.”

Warden Ragen was called to the stand and asked only three questions: his name; how long he had been warden; and whether or not he had seen the actual attack. Then the jury retired and eventually returned with a verdict of “not guilty.” This verdict astounded Ragen, prison officers, and even inmates. While no one held Loeb up as an angel, most believed

that Day’s defense had been fabricated, that he had planned the attack on Loeb, and that revenge had been his motive. However, at the time of the trial there was no evidence to show or to prove that Day had had the razor in his possession prior to the killing.

It wasn’t until two years after the murder that Ragen was able to get Bliss, who had been Day’s cell mate at the time of the killing, to admit that he had passed him the razor half an hour before the slaying. When Day was returned to the prison after the acquittal, the warden recommended to the Director of the Department of Public Safety that all the good time he had to his credit be forfeited, on the grounds that he had been in possession of a contraband item and also for other violations already in his

jacket. Day

would

have been

eligible, under his ten-year

The Volcano Blows

87

sentence, for discharge after serving a minimum of six years and three months. With his good time canceled, he would have to serve out the entire ten years. The directors accepted the warden’s recommendation and erased Day’s good time. Day sued to have it restored, carrying the case to the Illinois Supreme Court, but the ruling went against him and he served out the full time, after which he was released. Throughout the furor caused by the Loeb murder and subsequent investigation, life went on in the prison. The warden continued to work at his program of tightening up. In the first

year and a half, Ragen made 311 changes in regulations—most of this number being new regulations which he found necessary.

By April, 1937, just after the investigating committee issued its report, newspapers were carrying feature stories headlined, “ ‘Crooks Paradise’ Becomes a Prison,” and “New Stateville

Warden Does a Big job.” In looking back, the warden agrees that this period marked

the end of his “500-day headache.” By this time he had stripped away all of the objectionable features of the old rule and had established real security. He had taken control of the prison out of the hands of the inmates and had set up regulations which were operating satisfactorily. He had reached the point that a man does when remodelingo his house, after he has torn out the old walls and plumbing and has carried out the broken plaster. The real work of construction was about to start.

Chapter Seven

THE

STORY

OF THE

PRISON

As he set about the task of rebuilding his prisons, Warden

Ragen was aware that the problem he faced was not new. The prison system in Illinois had had trouble from the very beginning. Citizens of the new state of Illinois had scarcely begun to enjoy the privileges of statehood when they learned that some heavy responsibilities went along with the new status. The state treasurer found himself absorbed with the enormous prob-

lem of paying the new state’s bills. And legislators discovered that to establish law and order in the state, they not only had

to provide enforcement officers and law courts but also a prison in which to punish convicted criminals.

Thus, in 1827, the legislature passed an act which established the first prison in Illinois. An already overburdened budget had to be stretched to provide for acquiring land and building the prison buildings. Part of this problem was unexpectedly solved when a citizen of Alton, a town on the Mississippi River twenty-five miles north of St. Louis, offered to donate the necessary land. The lawmakers snatched at the opportunity,

glad to be able to save the price of a few acres of land. Later on, they had reason to regret their move. The donated site proved to be located on the side of a bluff overlooking the river. When construction men arrived to begin work on the prison, they complained bitterly. But they had orders to build a prison, and build one they did. By modern standards, it wasn’t much of a prison, its total enclosure being hardly larger than the area of the present dining room at Stateville. It was made

88

The Story of the Prison

89

of native stone, crudely carved from the ground and thrown up into a kind of stone stockade. The first spring rains started the difficulties which were to continue for as long as the prison was maintained at Alton. Since it was built on a slope, the rains washed down and undermined walls and buildings. For the next thirty years, the legislators had large repair bills presented to them every year and over the years probably paid a good deal more for repairs than they would have spent for a proper site in the first place. There are records which show that once or twice the lawmakers balked at the bills. Each time, the officials of the prison pointed out that if the repairs weren’t made, and made promptly, Illinois’ prisoners would be set free by virtue of the fact that there would be no walls to hold them. Then the money was usually appropriated rapidly. he first prisoner of record to inhabit the new prison was a sixteen-year old burglar named Hess from Greene County, and

he arrived in 1833. During the first four years of its operation, the biggest difficulty facing the warden was the fact that there was not enough money to operate the prison. When establishing the prison, the legislature had envisioned a self-supporting institution, and empowered the penitentiary inspectors to lease the prison and its inmate labor to the highest bidder. For this reason, the legislators saw no reason to appropriate money to keep the prison going. However, since the lease offered to prospective bidders was only for two years, during which time the laboring inmates could scarcely be taught a trade, there were few people interested in hiring the prison. Also, the scarcity of prison laborers was a factor.

Between the years

1833 and

1837, about sixty men were

sentenced to serve time in this prison. But some stayed only briefly like one Franklin County man, who was sentenced to

serve “fifteen minutes at hard labor” for manslaughter (which

is recorded in the musty prison annals as having been done). Some

were

pardoned

shortly after their arrival. And

others

were completely unfit to labor for anyone. One such as this

QO

Tue Five-Hunprep-Day HeapacHE

was William Taylor, who was so old that he probably had seen George Washington in the flesh. He was described in the records as “seventy-seven years old and a soldier in the Revolution.” In 1837, the post of prison superintendent was created. When John R. Woods, who was appointed as the state’s first prison superintendent, arrived to take over his post at Alton, he found

himself in charge of eleven convicts. After surveying his new domain, he sent off a report on its condition to the legislature: I found everything connected with the penitentiary very unfavorable state. The warden’s house and yard, prison cells and the prisoners’ clothes—were unfit for The greater part of the quarrying tools were claimed

in a the use. and

taken away by other individuals, as were the cooper’s tools. The prisoners’ kitchen was almost destitute of the neces-

sary utensils for cooking. Five of the eleven convicts were on the sick list.

Two of the eleven convicts escaped during Woods’ first month at Alton. In the following year, more prisoners were shipped in and more escaped. Six fled in one group a few weeks

before Christmas of 1838 by tunneling out of new cells which were being added to the original twenty-four. One of these six fugitives had been sentenced as a horse thief, and during this escape added indignity to injury by fleeing on the superintendent’s horse. Most of this group were eventually recaptured, but the escape stirred the people of Alton, who were alarmed at the escape rate. In response to their pleas, a special legislative committee journeyed fromthestate capitolat Vandalia toinvestigate matters at the prison. Testifying before them, Superintendent Woods said, ““I'he surprising thing is that more have not gotten away,” since the walls were open at places for weeks at a time (due both to new construction and also to rain-water damage). He noted also that there was no adequate guard force, and that in fact, one of the inmates often had to serve as lock-up man.

The Story of the Prison

OI

As a result of this investigation, the prison was leased to a man who was virtually to own it, its convicts and their labor for the next twenty-five years. Under his hard-driving rule, the lot of early Illinois transgressors was hard indeed. They worked from dawn to dusk, and then were locked, two to the cell, in tiny, damp, unheated stone cubicles. Flogging was standard punishment for a violation of the rules, one of which required absolute silence at all times. Most of the prisoners wore an eight-foot chain shackled to waist and ankle, while one side of the head was shaved to make identification easier in the event of an escape. The earliest punishment report now in existence lists some fifteen floggings of from five to twenty-five lashes each, along with a group of fifteen men who received forty-five lashes for having taken part in a mutiny. Dorothea Lynde Dix, a noted New England reformer, visited

the prison in 1846, and then delivered a 10,000 word address to the Illinois Assembly, telling the lawmakers what was wrong with their prison. Later, legislators visiting the prison found everything she had said to be true. She recommended that the place be sold as soon as possible, and the proceeds be used to construct a new prison. Nothing was done, of course. The following year, a legislative committee reported that “they felt pained to witness the convicts taking their meals standing after having labored through the day, without sitting down to rest from the time they leave their cells at daylight in the morning until they are taken back to be locked up for the night. Some are old and infirm, whilst others are burthened with a heavy chain....” The leaseholder, after this report, was obliged to install seats in the “eating hall,” but beyond that, the prison at Alton continued to be run in the same manner as before. But as the years passed, it became more crowded and by 1853 had 475 mates. A report at this time said, “The limits of the present prison are

entirely too small to allow the economical working of the present number of convicts. If the present rate of increase con-

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tinues, the next report will show near 700 convicts in prison, more than double the number there 1s room to work.” It should be noted that the report is worried about the number of convicts that can be worked economically. There 1s no mention of the fact that there was even less room in which the men could live. There was no room in which to expand the prison. The original donation had included ten acres of land. However, through the years, land outside of the walls had been sold, so that by this time the only land available was inside the walls. Another fact was becoming apparent. Chicago had grown tremendously, from a any village to a thriving metropolis,

during the life of the prison. Most of the inmates by 1850 were coming from Chicago, which meant large transportation fees down the length of the state.

Because it was close to Chicago, Joliet was selected as the site for a new prison. Eighty acres were purchased in 1850 for the new building. Plans called for a walled square, &oo feet to a side, enclosing fifteen acres. The walls were to be twenty-fivefeet high, with sixty-foot turrets at each corner, the whole to be executed in a “Castellated Gothic” style. Two cell blocks connected by a five-story warden’s house were to form the

south wall; the east wing was to contain goo cells and the west wing 500. The corridors were to be lighted with gas and the cells warmed with steam “after the most approved method of free circulation through steam pipes, and each cell is to be supplied with water and other conveniences.” While the exterior features of this plan are evident today, the conveniences described in these recommendations were slow in being realized. As a matter of fact, it took ninety years for their installation. The architect’s design also called for a women’s division. A prison for women in the state had been a matter cf concern for

a number of years. A report from the early 1840’s says that “two female convicts that have to be kept in a cook house in the day

The Story of the Prison

93

time and in a cellar at night” were complicating matters at Alton. At one point the operators of the prison appealed to the legislature for mstructions concerning “female prisoners who come into the prison pregnant.... The convict and her offspring are an encumbrance on the andan, The child cannot be separated from its mother and yet it has no proper place there.” Unul this time, expectant mothers received executive clemency, but the prison inspectors did not encourage this policy, fearing “that this only led the woman to commit a second crime to escape the penalty for the first.” With such problems as these in mind, the legislature had

directed the Joliet architects to include in their plans a separate prison of one hundred cells for women. The building housing these cells was built across the street from the walled enclosure. However, as the deadline on which the prisoners had to be moved from Alton approached, the walled enclosure was far from complete. The women’s prison was more nearly finished. As a result, the first prisoners brought up were housed in the

women’s prison. This expedient kept the women out of their own cell house for nearly forty years; for even after the first and second cell houses in the walled enclosure were completed, it was impossible to vacate the women’s

prison. The

convict

population in the state was growing as fast or faster than cells were being provided. Women were confined to the top floor of the warden’ s house until just before the Spanish-American War. One commissioner compassionately reports that “their feet never touched earth from year to year.”

As the Civil War began there were about 650 prisoners at Joliet, eight of them women. Through the years which followed, the leasing of convict labor as a means of supporting the prison

continued, but was beset with difficulties. The propriety of leasing a convict’s labor was questioned. During depression years, the citizens complained that prisoners were stealing jobs

from more deserving men who could not find

Te

04

Tue Five-Hunprep-Day HEADACHE

The records of 1872 show that all but 150 of the 1255 inmates were gainfully employed in one of the four principal industries. These were the stone quarry, and the shoe, tobacco and barrelmaking departments, and in them the labor of each convict brought from fifty-five to seventy cents a day. That year the commissioners

reported

that they

had banked

$36,000,

even

after making improvements valued at nearly $190,000. Thus, the prisoner of the 1870s represented an annual asset to the state of about $200—as contrasted with the yearly liability of more than $800.00 that he is today.

As labor unions developed, the right of the state to lease out

convict labor was challenged more often and more strongly. In 1885, a number of Joliet prison contractors were boycotted, forcing the commissioners to take lower prices for convict labor than formerly. In 1886 a referendum on the subject was put to the citizens of Illinois, and they voted a constitutional amendment which called a categorical halt to the contract-labor system. No more contracts were to be let when the existing ones expired. But in the early nineties, when these agreements ran out, and 450 inmates were released to idleness, the commissioners deemed it best to relieve that 1dleness—which they did in new contracts carrying trick clauses acknowedging that the agreements might be outlawed at any time by the legislature.

One of the first acts of an 1894 legislation was tc return the prison’s labor force wholly to state account. A new power plant was Installed in the prison to increase the output of the stone crushers, which prepared gravel for state and county roads. But six years later, another administration went back to the contract method, claiming that the state account system caused more actual injury to labor than could have been done by any other plan. Lobbyists for both sides continued to apply pressure, and in

1904 the assembly passed a measure limiting the scale of all prison-made goods to state institutions and subdivisions. Com-

plaining that this left half of the prisoners idle, the commission-

The Story of the Prison

95

ers sought and obtained a change in the law—after which 4o per cent of the inmate body was employed in contract labor. The

commissioners claimed that, using only 30 per cent of the inmates, they had been able to return a profit of $100,000 to the

state treasury. Contract labor continued to exist sporadically until the late 1920's, when federal statutes were passed which prohibited the further distribution of prison-made goods in interstate commerce. The lash was outlawed as a means of punishment in 1867. But in the place of the rawhide “cat,” prison guards carried canes which could serve out a good beating when properly applied. The chief means of punishment was the ringbolt. This was an iron ring bolted to the wall high enough so that the prisoner was obliged to raise his arms to be shackled to it. There he was left, more or less suspended by the arms, for such a period as his offense was thought to merit. As the prison grew in population, it housed far more inmates than its designers ever intended. By 1878, the number had risen to 1900. In that year, the Southern Illinois Penitentiary at Chester was opened, and 200 of this total were shipped down to it. Prison commissioners were continually asking that a new

prison be built to accommodate the overflow. The first formal request was made in 1886, and thereafter, the request was repeated in each biennial report. Finally in 1907, the legislature passed a bill authorizing a new prison, to be located five miles from Joliet. The first appropriations for the new prison were made in 913. The work actually began in 1917. Edmund Allen, who was warden at the time, objected to the six-million dollar fortress, to be called

Stateville, when he saw the plans. He felt that such a prison could not be completed in time to answer the state’s needs, and

that a more humanitarian and up-to-date prison could be built

for a much smaller outlay of money. However,

Allen’s

plan,

which

included

a stockade-and-

cottage prison, ran into a double tragedy, one personal and the

Ture Five-Hunprep-Day HeapacHE

96

other the larger, more universal one of the First World War.

Early one June morning in 1915, while Allen was absent, guards assigned to his Joliet prison residence discovered smoke issuing from his wife’s quarters. Upon breaking in they found Mrs. Allen in her partly burned bed, dead of a fractured skull.

A former stock-company soubrette and a comic opera favorite, the thirty-four-year old Odette Allen was known to the local

feature writers as “The Little Mother of the Stir,” and “Angel of Joliet.”

After an vestigation, “Chicken Joe” Campbell, an imate who had been serving as one of Allen’s house servants, was tried for the murder. He was convicted on evidence w pich was circumstantial and sentenced to death. Governor Dunne later commuted the Negro’s sentence to life imprisonment. Allen

resigned a few months after his wife’s death. Campbell is still in prison.

In 1917, work began on the first of the panopticans to be built at Stateville, with 125 mates being transported daily from

Joliet to the site. This was Cell House D, which was completed in 1920. After it was finished, work was begun on units E and F. During this construction period, since the men were working in the open with no walls around them, there were a large number of escapes—some 200 before the huge wall, the largest prison enclosure in the United States, was completed in 1921. Stateville was officially opened to receive prisoners on March

9, 1925, and the first citizens of the new prison arrived two days later. Construction work continued within the walls. Cell House C was the last of the panopticans to be built. More were planned, but the prison population had continued to increase, now due to the bootlegging and gangster era, and so the original plans had to be modified. Cell House B was changed into a long straight blockhouse to house 1100 prisoners, and was

finally completed in 1932.

Strong currents of unrest were set in motion in the prison in 1927 and 1928. In 1927, the Illinois legislature enacted a law which sentenced a man convicted of robbery to ten years-to-

The Story of the Prison

97

life. But it was ruled that the men who were already serving such sentences were still required to serve out their minimum of six years and three months before being entitled to a parole hearing. The following year, the state’s attorney general ruled

that by law these men were not entitled to the benefits of “good time” and therefore had to serve the full ten calendar years before being granted a parole hearing.

Hundreds of men in the twin prisons were affected by these rulings, and felt that they had been twice discriminated against. The unrest was at work, then, when the depression hit. This new influence from the outside affected the men on the inside—

and helped to swell the prison population even more. In 1931, the state legislature killed the last of the prison contracts, and

the superintendent of prisons commented that “unemployment of inmates 1s a great problem.”

The

prisons were seething. Then,

on February

22, 1931,

three prisoners made an attempt to scale the wall. The report later indicated that prison officials had known for three weeks that such an attempt was likely, and an extra guard was maintained to prevent such an escape. All three were shot and killed by guards stationed outside of the wall. The manner in which the officials handled this affair was another grievance for the prisoners. They felt that, as long as it was known that a break was to be attempted, it should have

been stopped long before the men reached the wall. The incident became known among the inmates as “The Washington Birthday Massacre.” Then, on March 14, three weeks later, the prisoners at Joliet suddenly arose from their seats during the noonday meal and began hurling plates and other items about. A guard captain known to have been a part of the wall shooting was assaulted. He escaped with only a broken arm. One convict was shot to death and another fatally wounded before the rioters were driven to their cells by armed guards. Damage was confined to the dining room and kitchen.

Four days later the inmates at Stateville set off a larger and

Tue Five-Huxprep-Day HeapAacHE

08

more serious rebellion. They began by trying to burn the furni-

ture shop. Failing there, they did ignite boxes and other flamma-

ble materials in the shoe wrecked. Father Eligius distinguished himself by mounting an improvised

shop and its machinery was completely Weir, O.F.M., the Catholic Chaplain, hurrying unattended to the riot scene, pulpit, and speaking to the rioters. But

they were so inflamed that he was unable to stop them. Later, two columns of guards and state militia converged on them, one coming from the administration building entrance

and the other from the south gate. Before evening, the rioters were driven to the cell houses and into their cells. When the

smoke cleared away, there had been but one fatality—one prisoner attempting to get into his cell with a pilfered loaf of bread was hit by a ricocheting bullet. Two other inmates were

injured. But the damage to prison property amounted to nearly half a million dollars.

The prison at Joilet has been the scene of some bright spots in prison history also. On July 4, 1875, inmates were given the freedom of their cell houses for several hours. This was the first

time in Joliet’s history, and most likely the first time in the history of any prison, that this was done. The warden reported that the men talked, laughed, and sang; engaged in athletic

sports and improvised minstrel performances. The same affair was held the following year. A record of

these events is found in modern texts on criminology, wherein they are rated as significant steps away from the “solitary confinement” theories which were then dominating much of U.S.

penology. Another progressive step of the period was the enactment of

the “good time” law, which took effect in 1872. By its terms, inmates earned one month off for good behavior for the first year served, two for the second, three for the third, and so on until five years were served. After that, one-half of each year was commuted. This provision, with modifications, remains in effect today. An inmate can now earn one-third of his time on all sentences over eight years.

The Story of the Prison

99

The state’s first parole law was enacted in 18935. At the same time, legislation was approved which authorized the courts to pass indeterminate sentences, and which set up a rough classification system of prisoners. The classification system in use

today was put into effect under Governor Horner in 1933. Back in the 1840s, when Miss Dix called the legislature’s attention to their sadly neglected institution, she also pointed out that the inmates lacked a library and religious instruction. The legislature then voted enough money to buy a Bible for each cell—taking care of both reading and religion with one appropriation.

After the Civil War, Joliet was opened to sightseers. Each of the visitors paid a small fee to tour the prison, and thus collected went into a fund used to stock a furnish elementary school supplies such as slates, textbooks. A chaplain in charge of both library

the money library and chalk, and and school

during the eighties (when the first classes were held for illiterates, after working hours), mentions receiving $2000 from this fund in one year for book purchases. Later, he reports some 12,000 volumes on hand which, in his opinion, gave the institution the largest and best prison library in the country at the time.

A law of the 1870’ required that the state supply each discharged prisoner with a suit and ten dollars—and this re-

mained

the prisoner’s grubstake for a new

life until

1952.

Now he receives a new suit and as much as fifty dollars, plus anything he might have been able to save. In the eighties, sixty

bathtubs were installed in Joliet, and although the men were obliged to bathe two to the tub for years thereafter (presumably to conserve both time and water), it was obvious that some effort was being made to provide the inmates with the rudiments of decency and cleanliness—matters that had been largely ignored or Teft to chance under older regimes.

In the mid-nineties, electricity came to Joliet. Warden R. L. Allen reported that the new electric lights “added immensely to the pleasure and comfort of the prisoners. The terrible heat

100

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Five-Hunbprep-DAy

HEADACHE

generated by goo gas jets in the cell house during hot weather has been done aw ay with and a better light provided. n

Warden Allen also reports codfish balls into the prisoners’ then, had been a never-changing made of ground barley. Stewed

introducing liver, stew, and breakfast menu which, until meal of hash, bread, and coffee prunes, pressed meat and fried

potatoes were added to the supper diet, formerly an unvarying round of bread, coffee, and molasses on six evenings each week

—with no supper at all served on Sunday evenings. Perh: aps a look at a menu served in the prison dining rooms at

the present time would be interesting, as a comparison: Breakfast:

Rolled oats Milk and sugar Stewed apples Apple jelly Bread and butterine Coffee

Dinner, served at noon: Potted noodles with diced beef Radishes Lettuce salad Mixed fruit Graham crackers Bread and tea Supper:

Hamburger steak in brown sauce Boiled potatoes Boiled lima beans Green onions Cole slaw Rice pudding Bread and butterine Tea

The Story of the Prison

101

This menu 1s varied daily, and only a typical one was selected to show here. The prison gangs, which Ragen had to break up when he arrived at Stateville, actually came into existence during the period when Stateville was being built. Inmates used as straw bosses on the construction gangs began to wield a considerable amount of power and influence. To this, the influence of minor big shots, who were brought to prison during the bootlegging era, was added. In addition, the spoils system for hiring guards and other prison personnel was in full swing, assuring the penitentiary of a weak force of guards. The gangland rule of the prison began to be serious toward

the end of the 1920's, and swung into full bloom with the turn of the decade. When Ragen reached Stateville in 1935, gangland power in the prison was at its zenith.

With the arrival of Ragen as warden, as we have seen, Joliet and Stateville entered into a new era.

Chapter Eight

EDWARD

WHEELER'S PICTURE

The story of Edward Wheeler emphasizes for the benefit of new example of what can happen as the ingly harmless infraction of prison Wheeler’s picture hangs on the

is one that Warden Ragen guards because it 1s a good result of a small and seemrules. wall in the guards’ dining

rooms at Stateville and Joilet where each guard sees it every day. Normally, a man’s picture 1s hung in a public place in tribute to something he has done, but Wheeler's is on the wall for a different reason. The inscription under it reads: “T'his man was a guard at Pontiac Prison. He started in a small

way to trade and trafhic with an inmate. First it was cigarettes and tobacco. Then letters to be carried in and out, and finally he was persuaded to carry in a gun, which resulted not cnly in the death of an inmate but also 1n the death of a fellow officer.”

Wheeler died in prison in 1956, while serving a life sentence for his offense—one of the few men in prison history to inhabit the place both as an officer and as an inmate.

He was a printer by trade, and in December of 1918 he applied for work as a prison guard at Pontiac. He was accepted

and assigned to guard duty in the print shop where he could use his talents. In the course of the first few months he made the

acquaintance of inmate John Frederico, and when Frederico complained

about the quality of the tobacco supplied in the

prison, brought him some from the outside. In a short time this became an established habit. Next Frederico prevailed on him to take letters outside to mail so that they would not be subject to the prison censor, and before long Wheeler was playing the part of postman almost daily, taking out letters and bringing in the replies. Even though he was fully aware of the rules against these practices, Wheeler ignored them—either because he saw no particular harm in them or because he was bribed. 102

Edward Wheeler's Picture

103

Finally, in the summer of 1919, Fredericoapproached Wheeler with a plan for escape, and proposed that Wheeler could bring him the guns and other things he needed to carry out the plan. This was a big jump from smuggling in tobacco and mail, and Wheeler balked; but he was caught in an ancient trap that has been set for prison guards through the centuries. Frederico nagged at him constantly, pointing out that Wheeler had already broken a number of rules. If Frederico told the warden what had happened, Wheeler's job was lost. The convict continued to apply pressure for a while, and finally sweetened the deal by offering Wheeler $500 dollars immedi-

ately, to be followed by a second payment of $500 after the escape was complete. Frederico’s cell mates, John Kelly and Edward Byrnes, were to be in on the escape too, and helped to apply the pressure to Wheeler. The guard finally agreed to go through with the plan when the money was offered to him. Frederico sent a letter via Wheeler to a Frank Frederico on the outside, and a short time later Wheeler received three letters, allegedly from Frank

Frederico, each containing a part of the payment. He concealed these in the basement of his home. Then John Frederico handed him $105 in cash one day in the prison print shop. This was to be used for the purchase of supplies. Along with the cash he gave him a warlike shopping list.

Frederico wanted two Colt .38 pistols and one Smith and Wesson automatic; four boxes of ammunition and two hacksaws with extra blades. Wheeler took time from his prison work to do his shopping. He bought the automatic from a pawnbroker, and at the same time bought three extra clips of ammunition

for it. Then, at a sporting goods store, he purchased an Army Special Colt .38 for $25, along with extra cartridges. Next he bought a hacksaw, with twelve extra blades. The day after he made the purchase, Wheeler dismantled the guns in the basement of his home. Then he took them to the

prison piece by piece on the following days, leaving the pieces in convenient places around the print shop where Frederico

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could find them. Frederico, in turn, carried the pieces to his cell and secreted them until all the parts had been delivered. He then assembled his arsenal and was ready to proceed with his plan. On Sunday, September 7, one of the guards on duty in the cell house heard a commotion near one section of cells. When he investigated, he found that two bars of a cell had been sawed through, and immediately notified his superior officer, Carl Hancock. Hancock summoned Charles Kruger, who was 1m charge of the institution that day, and the three men went to the cell occupied by Frederico and Kelly. They unlocked the cell door and as the locking lever turned, inmate Kelly jumped from his cot and rushed to the door. Before any of the guards noticed that he held a gun in his hand, Kelly pushed the door open and shot Kruger in the forehead, killing him instantly. Frederico, also carrying a gun, followed Kelly to the door and shot Hancock in the head. Hancock collapsed mn the doorway, unconscious—though he later recovered from his wound. The two prisoners took the third guard captive and forced him to go to the cell of Edward Byrnes to release him. The cell house formed the east wall of the prison and the three convicts started sawing on the bars in a window to reach the outside. But it was slow work and they decided they could never get enough of the bars sawed before other guards arrived on the scene. After a short conference, they went into the yard and tried to scale a wall adjoining the prison hospital. However, the alarm had been sounded through the prison and a number of guards and citizens had been mobilized. They now advanced on the three convicts and a pitched battle ensued. One hundred and fifty shots were fired by both sides, and later it was ascertained that Kelly shot forty of them. During the battle, the convicts were driven away from the wall and back

into the cell house. During the retreat, John Frederico was shot down. Kelly, stll firing, barricaded himself in the cell house and continued to fight until a bullet fired by one of the guards dropped him. Byrnes was recaptured, returned to his cell and

105

Edward Wheeler's Picture

locked in. John Frederico was taken to the prison hospital, where he died the following day. While the battle at the prison was going on, Wheeler was attending a ballgame a mile and a half from the prison. After the game was over, he went back to the prison. When he was told what had happened, he feigned surprise and asked a great number of questions. Along with other officers from the prison, Wheeler attended the funeral of Charles Kruger. Discussion in the prison centered about the way in which the three convicts had acquired their guns. At a meeting the officers decided to hire a detective to attempt to find the answer to this question. A collection was taken to pay for the detectives services, and Wheeler contributed freely.

The detective went to work and after a great deal of patient effort

traced

the guns

to the shops

where

they

had

been

purchased. The purchaser had given a name which proved to be fictitious when traced. He had listed as his reason for buying the guns that he wanted to engage in target practice. The owner of the sporting goods store and the pawn broker were brought to the prison, where all of the guards were paraded before them in a showup. Without hesitation, each of them identified Wheeler as the man who had purchased the guns. Wheeler was arrested on the

spot and immediately made a full confession. His wife turned over $490 of the money he had been given for his part in the plot, and explained that $10 had been spent on household ex-

penses. A few days later, Wheeler was indicted for murder as an accessory before the fact by supplying the guns for a price, causing a riot and endangering fellow officers. At the trial, Wheeler’s lawyer tried to get the sentence

reduced, but the judge in the case lectured him, saying, “There is no longer any vengeance in the law. Yet the protection due to society should never be forgotten. Sympathy for a man’s family should not swerve duty.”

us from the performance

of legal

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Wheeler claimed from the witness stand that he had refused Frederico’s request at first, and continued to refuse for some time. But Frederico nagged at him day after day, sometimes threatening him with exposure for the smuggling he had already done and sometimes cajoling him, until eventually he agreed to go through with the deal. He denied knowing that Frederico planned an escape attempt, but said that the convict told him he wanted the guns “to scare the guards!” At the same time he admitted knowing that the inmates involved were notorious Chicago gunmen. Wheeler was sentenced for the crime of manslaughter and

given one year-to-life. He was sent to Joliet in May of 1920, and was then thirty-five years old. Until 1943, he was lodged in the old prison, and in that year was transferred to Stateville.

When Ragen accepted the warden’s chair at Joliet, he found the guard contingent there virtually a disorganized rabble. They lacked

discipline,

uniforms,

morale

and

few

had

even

the

minimum qualifications for the jobs they held. As rapidly as possible, Ragen revised the guard setup, for it was obvious that unless he had a group of trained, efficient officers, neither of the

prisons at Joliet could be made to operate as they should. After establishing a definite set of rules and directing his officers to enforce them to the letter, the warden set out to create a semi-military organization. The men had to be physical-

ly qualified for the job, and had to appear in a standard uniform whenever on duty. Eventually, all jobs in the prison were brought under civil service, and all higher posts right up to the assistant wardens are filled from the ranks. A training program was established for new men, and regular target practice sessions were scheduled to bring up the level of marksmanship of all officers. As soon as he could convince Governor Horner that it was necessary, the ‘warden had the hours served by guards reduced from twelve per day to eight. This, of course, meant three shifts and so more guards had to be

hired. It happened that the hiring was done in an election year and several large papers in the state who still hadn’t learned how

Edward Wheeler's Picture

107

sincere Ragen was, screamed 1n their headlines that the Democrats were padding the payrolls again. Ragen, knowing that this move would help a great deal in raising the efficiency and morale of his present guards and help to attract higher caliber men in the future, ignored the noisy press notices and continued to hire until he had a full complement. He also set out to raise the pay of prison officers as a part of his plan to improve his staff. This has been a long slow fight which sull continues. Ragen feels today that, considering their responsibilities, his men are underpaid. There are five ranks among prison officers. The lowest is

guard, for which the pay is $290 a month, plus meals while on duty, uniforms and bus transportation. Since most industries pay higher wages for jobs which carry less risk and responsibility, there is a considerable turnover in this rank. The warden has found it increasingly difficult to get good men to take the civil service examination for guard. In fact, ever since the early

days of World War II, he has found his employment problems multiplying. In order to help the guards with their housing problems, the

prison maintains a trailer park for guards who find it difficult to pay rent for suitable housing in Joliet. Ragen feels that this 1s only a stopgap measure, and that guards should be paid salaries high enough to permit them to raise their families in better surroundings.

Sergeants are paid $316 a month, lieutenants receive $350, and captains receive $414, plus a home and food. There are three assistant wardens each of whom 1s paid $500 plus a home and full maintenance. Lester Acord, who joined the staff in 1919, lives in the old prison and administers it. Joseph A. Dort, who was hired a year or so before Ragen became warden, and Frank Pate, a young man who has come up through the prison’s ranks since the end of World War II, are assigned to Stateville. Ragen places a great deal of trust and confidence in these men, and is extremely proud of the fine work they do. In spite of the difficulty he has in replacing men, the warden

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ns io at ic if al qu to as th bo s, rd da an st gh hi his g in in ta in insists on ma ts in po He . ing hir er aft es rul the to e nc re he ad to as d an for hiring te, ora eri det to ns gi be p ou gr a as l ne on rs pe r ice off out that if the . ish van l wil ed sh li mp co ac en be has h ic wh rk wo all of the good Convicts, sensitive to the slightest change in prison regime, would sense this deterioration, and the foundation for trouble would be laid.

In order to maintain the quality of his men, Ragen keeps a

close eye on them, nearly as close as he does on the inmates. All violations of the regulations governing guards are dealt with

immediately, and such serious offenses as arriving for duty under the influence of alcohol result in immediate

dismissal.

The policing of a guard force and prison staff totaling nearly six hundred is a big job, but a very necessary one if the weak links in the chain are to be eliminated before they snap.

Occasionally problems of an unusual nature crop up. One day

the warden

was

informed

that one of the

guards

had

reported for duty driving a brand-new Cadillac. Ragen knew most of the circumstances surrounding the guards—he seems able to do this for guards and inmates alike—and was aware that

the guard was single and living in a rooming house in Joliet. His salary was hardly enough to permit him to own such a car, and

this raised the suspicion, quite naturally, that the guard had an outside income which might possibly be from bribery. The warden doubted this, but investigated just the same. He learned that the man had not inherited money, and he had no

job other than his position as prison guard which might supply the cash which had purchased the car. But the warden knew and liked the man, and felt certain that he would never be guilty of accepting money from an inmate. The whole episode was puzzling. After a quiet investigation, the story behind the big gleaming car was finally assembled. The guard had had a lifelong ambition to own a Cadillac. It was something he had dreamed about on the long nights when he was overseas during the war. Then,

Edward Wheeler's Picture

109

after he returned, he determined that he was going to fulfill his ambition and began to save his money. He was a quiet, abstemious man whose life was simple and living expenses light. By very careful saving, he found in a few years that he had enough savings accumulated to buy his muchwanted car. After taking possession of the car, the guard changed his living habits only slightly. He didn’t turn playboy, as might have been expected of someone under these circumstances, but instead, continued to live as simply as before. Only now his recreation consisted of driving his new car; just short little trips

around the Joliet area gave him a tremendousamountof pleasure. And too, instead of taking the bus to work, he now had his own transportation, even though it was a bit strange for a guard to arrive In front of Stateville in such a car. When Warden Ragen’s daughter was married, he volunteered his car, with himself as chauffeur, to carry the wedding party in proper style to the church. Eventually he found the upkeep of his dream car was much too high for his salary, and had to dispose of it. But for a while, he was a man living in a dream world become reality. And for a while, at the beginning, he had the warden worried. Thanks to the careful training and selection now given, most prison officers are of a high caliber, and not likely to get into trouble. However, back in the early days of Ragen’s regime, a number of guards made the headlines. In February of 1936, while Warden Ragen was carrying on the investigation into the killing of Dickie Loeb, struggling with a large group of newsmen who set up a twenty-four-hour watch at the prison, and anticipating an investigation by the governor’s blue ribbon panel, one guard added to Ragen’s gray

hair by going on a binge in Chicago with one of the inmates. Since the prison was in the spotlight already, this juicy story hit the headlines with a big splash, and was cited as another example of the terrible laxity in the management of Stateville. The true story of what happened in this case has never been

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satisfactorily put together, since after they sobered up, both the

inmate and the guard told several versions and few of the facts

agreed. The inmate was a trusty with only a short time of his sentence left to serve. The guard served as prison plumber as well as a guard. On the day in question, the two of them were assigned to check the plumbing in the buildings on the prison farm, and also in the nearby officers’ homes. They drove around the area in the guard’s car. Somehow they stopped in a tavern near the prison for a drink. The inmate later said the guard suggested it. The guard told the warden that the inmate threatened him with a long razor

and forced him to do it. Whichever is the true version, the drinks they had at this stop put the two of them in a gay mood, and they headed for the bright lights of Chicago. The guard let the convict out of the car somewhere on Kedzie Avenue, and then returned to the prison to report the prisoner’s escape. He was intoxicated when he made his report, and he neglected to mention that he had driven the inmate to Chicago, saying that the inmate had stolen his car and driven off. Later, he revised this story to the one about the long razor.

The inmate was picked up a short time later in Chicago, thoroughly mebriated, and returned to Stateville. Even after a thorough check, the warden found it impossible to get the true story together, and as a result, the guard’s only punishment was a discharge from the staff. The inmate lost his chance to appear

before the parole board, and thus served extra time for his part in the bender. Another incident that occurred in the carly days reads like the plot of a mystery story. One afternoon a prisong guard visited

Chicago’s Loop on a shopping trip and spotted another guard in the throng of shoppers. He was noticed that he was escorting a a second glance told him that he of Stateville’s “hot” inmates, hot

just about to hail him when he very pretty young lady. Then young lady was the wife of one because he was a troublemaker

and suspected of hatching an escape plot. The guard reported what he saw to the warden when he re-

Edward Wheeler's Picture

LILI

turned. Ragen called for the list of visitors and found that the inmate in question received a visit from his wife regularly every two weeks. He noted, also, that the wife always arrived at three

in the afternoon, and always spent an hour in the visiting room. Ragen assigned a guard to “tail” her after her next visit. She

arrived on the scheduled day, spent the usual hour chatting with her husband. Meanwhile, it had been noted that the suspected guard always left his post at three o’clock on the days when the inmate’s wife came to visit. And this day was no exception. He left the prison and apparently went home to change his clothes. The hoodlum’s wife signed out of the prison at four and went to the nearby bus stop to board a Chicago-bound bus. The guard tailing her got on the same bus, while two other guards in an automobile trailed behind. After the bus pulled away from the prison, the guards in the car behind spotted the suspected guard in his own car, also trailing the bus. About five miles from the prison, at a stop appropriately named Romeoville, the woman got off the bus and got into the guard’s car. They drove ito Chicago’s Loop and parked the car in a garage. Then arm in arm, they walked to a Loop hotel, where they registered as man and wife. A short time later the hotel room was raided and the two were put under arrest. That night the guard was permitted to return to his home. There he told his wife the full story of his romance with the inmate’s wife. Then he went up to his bedroom and shot himself. In the investigation that followed, evidence indicated that the inmate was planning to escape, and part of his plan was to blackmail the guard into helping him. The love affair between the guard and the convict’s wife had been carefully planned to provide a basis for the blackmail.

Stories like these are pretty much past history at Stateville now. Warden Ragen is proud of his officers and doesn’t hesitate to say so. He admits readily that such things could happen again, and vigilance is never relaxed, but he can point to a long period without any serious difficulties to prove that the prison officers at Stateville today are a different breed from those of the past.

Chapter Nine

THE

CASE

OF

THE

POISONED

COFFEE

“Every man in here,” Warden Ragen says candidly, “wants to get out. That's only natural.” He believes that most inmates occupy their spare time by dreaming of ways and means of getting out. Some of them plan legal action, and a few actually get themselves “sprung” in this manner. Many more plan escapes. A few are bold enough to put their escape plans into action. Very few ever succeed. The most exciting stories to come out of any prison, it seems, are those about escapes. But to those living near a prison, and to the personnel, an escape is a good deal more than just an exciting story. Very often death and destruction ride with an escape for a man desperate enough to engineer an escape plot will stop at nothing to gain his feoedom. Once he 1s on the outside, he becomes the quarry in a vicious game of hound and fox, and he lives by the law of kill or be killed. A spectacular escape was attempted atStateville on September

14, 1939. For two weeks prior to this date, the prison grapevine —sometimes reliable and sometimes a bit hysterical—carried a rumor that a big escape was being planned. The rumors didn’t include details as to who intended to go over the wall or how the

plan was to work. Guards picked up fragments of the story, then checked and rechecked security measures in an effort to plug any holes. Then, just as lunch was being served to the guards on the wall

on the morning of September prison

compound

carrying

14, three men appeared in the

a long ladder.

They

came

from

behind the chapel building and proceeded in a northwesterly direction and arrived at a point in the center of the north wall, near Tower Two. I12

The Case of the Poisoned Coffee

113

Meanwhile, up in Tower Two, guard Albert Lenzen was having some trouble. His lunch had been passed up to him in a

basket on a rope, as usual by an inmate from the kitchen who stood at the base of the wall. Lenzen had opened the basket, taken a sip of his coffee, then decided that he didn’t want it after all. He passed it back to the inmate below, who drank it and passed out.

Lenzen across the As they demanded

himself was feeling pretty groggy when he looked compound and spotted the three men with the ladder. approached Tower Two, he challenged them and to know what they were doing.

Patrick Joyce, one of the inmates, replied that they were on their way to fix a light. “You have to have a white cap with you to do that,” Lenzen said. (A white cap is a captain or lieutenant of the guards, who wears a white cap to signify his rank.) The little group of inmates hesitated, but then picked up their ladder and continued their march down the wall. It seemed to Lenzen that they were heading for Tower One, on the northeast corner of the wall. Struggling with the fog that seemed to be settling over his brain, Lenzen picked up his phone to call Tower One, but could get no response. Then he called another officer in Tower Nine but again got no response. Perturbed by now, Lenzen called the captain’s office and notified Captain William Ryan. Ryan immediately sent out a warning alarm and then raced with other guards to Tower One, where he found the three convicts in the act of throwing the ladder against the wall. The three were taken into custody immediately and returned to their cells, and later were sent to solitary confinement. A quick check of all the towers on the wall indicated that every one of the guards in them had been knocked unconscious except Lenzen. If he had decided to drink his coffee instead of passing it to the inmate below, the wall would have been completely unmanned—and the attempted escape would have been successful.

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The full story of how the escape plot came into being was unfolded during the next few days. Actually, four inmates were

involved. The leader was Patrick Joyce, who had killed a Chicago policeman in 1929 and was serving a life sentence for murder. While reading a book several years before, Joyce had learned about a drug called hyacine, which paralyzes the nerves and is sometimes used as a “truth serum” and to induce twilight sleep. 13 some manner, which the warden was never able to dis-

cover, Joyce was able to get hold of about 100 grains of the drug. Apparently the hyacine was dispensed in very small amounts to

an inmate by the drug department of the hospital over a nine month period prior to the attempted escape. Joyce then acquired itand kept it hidden in his cell. Meanwhile he made contact with the others who were to participate in the escape and perfected the plan. Joseph Jazorak was his first associate. Jazorak worked in the prison gymnasium, where his job was to repair the athletic equipment and to assist in delivering it to the various fields for use. While there, he collected lumber for the ladder and secreted it in a restricted area near the chapel. In some manner, he had gathered fourlengthsof twoby six-inch lumber, fifteen feet long, plus fifteen pieces of one by four-inch lumber, fifteen inches

long. In addition he managed to secrete nails, bolts and iron hooks with which to complete the ladder. His requests for this material were granted, since he said it was needed in his repair work. The finished ladder was twenty-nine feet, six inches long, made by bolting the long pieces together.

Jazorak had been sent to Stateville from Iroquois County, Illinois, in 1931 as a bank robber. During the First World War he had been injured in the upper left arm, and had suffered shell shock. Though his occupation was listed as salesman, he had a long record of post-office robberies. Towns included in his hit parade had been Homewood, 1ll.; Plano, Ill; Sycamore, Ill; Lombard, Ill; Garden City, New York; Oconomowoc, Wis.; and two places in Georgia.

The Case of the Poisoned Coffee

11§

On July 17, 1931, he was caught after holding up the Buckley State Bank at Buckley, Illinois. With two accomplices, he roared away from the bank carrying $4000 in loot. Two miles north of the town the car turned over. In some fashion the two accomplices managed to get out of the wreck and commandeer a car

in which they escaped. Jazorak stayed near the car, concealing himself in a ditch as law enforcement officers approached. In the battle that followed, he shot and killed a deputy sheriff,

Henry Emmens. He was paroled from Stateville in 195 3, only to be picked up immediately by federal authorities, who wanted him for post-office robberies in Atlanta, Georgia, and Barnesville, Georgia. In prison he had been known as “Little Polish

Joe.” Peter Balculis, who helped in the construction of the ladder, killed a meat market owner mn Chicago in 1932 and was sentenced to serve ninety-nine years for his crime.

It seems that

Joyce invited him to participate in the escape because at least three men would be needed to carry the heavy ladder. He was also assigned to the gymnasium. The fourth and most essential man in the plot was Moy King

Hong, a Chinaman who had been received at Stateville in 1932 to serve a life sentence for committing murder while under the influence of oprum. Hong was assigned to the officers’ kitchen, where his duties consisted of running errands. He brought supplies from general stores and carried food to the hospital and the solitary section.

As the plan progressed, Joyce passed the 100 grains of hyacine to Hong. Food baskets were made up in the officers’ kitchen and were passed up to the towers at noon. Hong watched for his chance. Hewasable to putsome of the drug inthe coffeeincluded in each basket, and then signaled the other three inmates who were waiting behind the chapel. As soon as the inmate delivering

the lunches to the towers passed them, Joyce gave the signal and the three started out carrying their ladder. It has never benefit to expected Chinaman the how just clear made been

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from his part of the plot, since he did not join the other three on their way to the wall. The object of poisoning the coffee was to knock out all of the tower guards, to gain time to go over the wall. Once they were over the wall, the plan became a bit hazy. Apparently it was to be a game of every man for himself. They couldn’t have counted on having much time to get away from the environs of Stateville, for the fact that all of the tower guards were unconscious would have been uncovered quickly and an immediate search started.

Joyce originally had planned to scale the wall near Tower Two. When Guard Lenzen challenged the trio, Joyce changed his plans and directed his team toward Tower One, where he could see that the guard was down. Except for Lenzen’s challenge, they made the base of the wall near Tower One without interference, threw the ladder into position, and began to climb. Before the first man reached the top, Captain Ryan arrived to spoil the escape. Two important changes in prison routine developed out of this affair. All guards henceforth were forbidden to eat while on duty in the wall towers. All meals had to be eaten before or after tower duty. And regulations on the administering of drugs to inmates were tightened to make it impossible for an inmate to accumulate any medicine in his cell. Warden Ragen smiles when asked if he now has established absolute security in his prisons. “I hope so,” he says, and then points out that every citizen of his metropolis devotes a good deal of his spare time to hatching ways and means of getting out. The majority of the plots never get to be anything more than daydreams, but if there are any weak spots in the security system, the concentrated thinking will uncover them. The prison officials do everything in their power to think ahead of

the convicts, and close up the weak spots. But, as in the poisoned coffee instance, it isn’t always possible.

From every escape attempt Ragen learns something, and takes

The Case of the Poisoned Coffee

117

steps to see that no similar attempt can ever be made. For exthe of e edg the ng alo ced pla are s post te cre con of line a ample, se The . gate th sou or port y sall the m fro s lead ch whi y roadwa posts permit trucks which enter at the sally port to drive to all shops and buildings in the yard, but are so arranged that 1t 1s impossible for a truck to go beyond them and drive to the base of the wall. When asked about them, the warden says, “Remember how

Banghart broke out of Menard back mn 1935? He grabbed that truck at the tailor shop and drove through the gates. Then again

in 1942, when he and Touhy made their break, they used a truck to get to the wall. In 1944, Jenkot and Price commandeered a truck and ran for the wall. Well, no one will do it again, because those concrete posts will be in the way. Any truck that hits them will be wrecked before it reaches either the wall or any ate.” F So the warden uses as much foresight as possible in maintaining his security, and when foresight fails, he employs hindsight. Between the two, security at Stateville has been made tighter than at any other prison in the world. Another escape which Ragen remembers occurred early in

January of 1936. This incident doesn’t stick in his mind because of any violence attached to it, or because it made any big headlines. At thetime, for some reason, the papersgave this story only

a few inches of space deep in the back pages. Harry Schwartz was sentenced from Cook County in1918 to serve a life term for murder. He had shot a grocer on Chicago’s Maxwell Street during a holdup in which he and a companion netted eight dollars. He served his time the easy way, and in

1932 was transferred to the farm, where he served as a truck driver. He was scheduled to go before the parole board in 1938, and when he failed to show up for the roll call on the farm one

night, everyone was surprised. Not only had he been a good prisoner, but with eighteen years already behind him and only two to go before a parole, to escape didn’t make sense. The alarm was flashed that he had escaped and for the next

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two days, police officers all over the state looked for him. Then an officer 1n a police station in Chicago was startled to look up from the police blotter in which he was writing and see a man who resembled the pictures of the missing convict. “I'm Harry Schwartz,” the man said, “and I'm ready to go back to prison now.”

Schwartz was sent back to Stateville, where he explained to the warden that he had heard, on the day before he walked away from the farm, that an aunt whom he loved dearly was critically ill in Chicago. This news had preyed on his mind untl he finally decided to visit her. When he arrived at her home in

Chicago, he discovered that she had died that very morning. He stayed long enough to attend her funeral, then went to the precinct station to give himself up. Later, when he went before the parole board, Schwartz was listed as having escaped once. Normally this would have canceled out all of his good time. However, because he had re-

turned of his own accord, the parole board gave him special consideration. Whenever the warden tells a visitor that every inmate is planning to escape, he pauses and amends his statement. “Well,

almost every one,” he says, and thinks back to Henry Lange. The time was a few days before Christmas in 1935, and Lange

was one of seventy-three inmates just granted parole in time for the holiday season. He was a quiet little man of fifty-five who had just finished serving five years for a statutory crime. Most of his time behind bars had been employed in the tailor shop.

Row, on the day he was to leave, Lange was fidgety. All the other inmates going out with him were jubilant and ready for the trip ahead of time. But Lange fussed. His new shoes were

squeaky, he said, and he went back to be fitted for another pair. He poked along as he went about his preparations, head down and 1n silence. When the warden went to the group to shake hands and wish them well, Lange complained that he would never be able

The Case of the Poisoned Coffee

119

to do tailoring work on the outside without the scissors to which he had become accustomed. Ragen sent the other seventy-two

on their way, and granted Lange permission to keep his favorite scissors. “They were old and just about ready for the scrap heap, anyway, Ragen explains. “And if they’d help get him a job, it was a worthwhile investment.” A guard was sent to get them. But even with his old scissors Lange remained downcast and moody. Instead of going straight through the gate, he stopped in at the warden’s office. As he stood in front of the desk, Ragen

could see that he was utterly miserable and that he was having difficulty in speaking. “What’s the trouble, Lange?” he asked. “Something else I can do for you.” The unhappy convict nodded. “I don’t want to go out, warden,” he said. “Here it is Christmas, and I have no place to go; no family, no home. Look, I'll donate my going-out money to buy toys for some kids. Can’t I stay, warden?” Ragen felt sorry for the man, and told him he could stay. “But we can’t keep you after New Year’s Day,” he told him. “The law is just as specific about putting you out as it is about keeping you in.” So on Christmas Day, Henry Lange joined 200 other inmates

on the honor farm in enjoying a chicken dinner, followed by a bright red apple and a big cigar. It is difficult to picture Christmas dinner in a prison being diffused with the warmth and pleasant glow of Christmas. There’s a difference between the gray denim the prisoners wear and Santa’s red suit. And all the galety and laughter that is the Yuletide season would sound strange in the circular cell houses. Yet to Henry Lange, Christmas at Stateville was all of these things—a warm gay holiday, with good food and pleasant companions. To most people, Christmas like this would be a nightmare. Not all of the inmates who spend their spare time hatching

ways of getting out are planning violent escapes. A good many of them think they can do it legally. The prison library, which

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has over 15,000 volumes of fiction and nonfiction, is the place where most of this type of plotting begins and the book which

starts it all is Chadman’s Cyclopedia of Law, by Charles E. Chadman. The librarian reports that, while the inmates average five withdrawls from the library per month per man, this book is far and away the most popular.

The warden says that inside the walls at Joliet he has the largest collection of lawyers ever assembled in one place at one time. Virtually every inmate who can read immerses himself in the study of law, and soon becomes something of an expert in the law which pertains to his own case. Discussions between these self-made lawyers are apt to sound more involved than a Supreme Court debate. These homemade lawyers are permitted to purchase and keep in their cells a maximum of eight law books. Nearly a thousand of them have availed themselves of this privilege. Four hundred own typewriters for the purpose of writing writs, and those who don’t own such machines borrow them, after receiving special permission to do so.

As a result of all this study of law, more than 3000 writs and petitions are prepared in the prison each year. As each inmate

finishes his latest, he turns it over to prison officials who forward

it to the proper court. Each paper is neatly typed in the correct legal form and employs the same language you would expect to find in a writ prepared by an attorney. Some of these papers have even been directed to the United States Supreme Court. Few of these petitions ever achieve any results, but the cons never stop trying.

At one time, there were degrees of cell house lawyers and several had ing writs. preparing services of

reputations for really having know-how in preparThese specialists developed thriving businesses in writs for fellow inmates. However, because the a few were in such high demand that they received

special treatment from the other inmates—a form of trafficking— Ragen had to put a stop to this practice. Now serve as his own lawyer.

each man must

The Case of the Poisoned Coffee

121

The most successful cell-house lawyer ever to hang out his shingle in Stateville was Maurice Meyer, who is serving a ninety year sentence for murder. Meyer never saw a law book before

enrolling at Joliet, yet he wrote a treatise on jurisprudence entitled “Exhaustion of State Court Remedies,” which was used as a basis of a lecture one Chicago lawyer delivered before the Yale University Law School. During the course of his legal career, Meyer prepared one case that was taken to the United States Supreme Court and won the release of four men who were serving life terms for murder. After that, an inmate who could get Meyer to prepare his writ wouldnt have traded his attorney for Clarence Darrow. An-

other time, Meyer was able to prepare a petition that resulted in the release of a man imprisoned for life on a conviction of rape. Ragen stopped Meyer and he has retired from active practice, but the rest of the cell-house lawyers are hard at it. The odds are decidedly against them, but every once in awhile someone hits the jackpot, and that is all the encouragement needed.

Chapter 1en

BERNARD

ROA-FUGITIVE

The story of Bernard Roa deserves special attention, because it, above everything else, indicates Warden Ragen’s feeling for justice. The 1dea of justice and fairness has been a cornerstone in the Ragen philosophy from the very beginning, and the inmates learned about it shortly after he took over his post at

Joliet. Within a short time, every man in the prison was equal, and every man received exactly the same treatment and privileges. The psychological effect of this display of justice has been important. Many convicts who had been regarded as troublemakers calmed down when they found themselves being given a square shake, and the authorities learned that inmates’ misbehavior was primarily a protest against what they believed to be unfair treatment. Others have been encouraged to make an effort to help in their rehabilitation after having learned what justice really meant; often, men who had come from slum areas and had tangled with the police before they saw the inside of a schoolroom, got their very first view of justice from a cell at Stateville. A number of riots which have broken out in prisons around the country were staged in protest to unfavorable conditions inside of the walls, and quite often one complaint was favoritism and a lack of fair treatment. Ragen works hard to see that no such complaint could ever be leveled at Stateville. In addition to requiring absolute equality of all prisoners,

Ragen feels that every convict has to understand that justice must be done on the outside, too. Out of this strong conviction arises the story of Bernard Roa, which begins long before Ragen

ever thought of being warden at Joliet. Back in 1923, Bernard Roa crossed the border from Mexico

and illegally entered the United States through Laredo, Texas. 122

Bernard Roa—Fugitive

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At the time, an arrest warrant charging him with being an alien wasissued by the Immigration Department. He was then twentythree years old, and managed to find work as a chauffeur without being detected by the immigration authorities. But the job wasn’t netting him enough, and he attempted to hold up the ticket agent in the Twenty-ninth Street elevated station in Chi-

cago. During the holdup, he shot and killed the agent, Charles L. Johnson. For this crime he was sentenced to life imprisonment at Joliet. On May 5, 1926, Roa and six other inmates, including James D. Price, armed with knives and daggers, broke out of the cell house at Stateville and stormed into the office of Deputy Warden Peter Klein. Taking him prisoner and threatening him with their weapons, the inmates demanded that he give orders to have them passed out of the prison through the gate normally used by delivery wagons. Klein refused and they stabbed him to death. Then they invaded the prison yard, found another guard and made the same demand. This guard agreed to do as he was told, and the seven men were free. Within two days, Roa and five of those who went out with him were captured and taken to the Will County jail, where they were held on the charge of murdering the deputy warden. The only man not retaken was James D. Price. The trial was held and all six convicts were sentenced to hang for their crime. However, on March 12, 1927, Roa and two killers from Michigan managed to escape from the jail. Just how they managed the break has never been discovered. rehad he that repor ted jail, the at guard a Kirin cich, John ceived a call that his partner had been injured in an accident. he wher e accid ent, the of scene the to went and jail He left the two the and Roa foun d he retur ned, he Whe n made a report.

hands , their up hold to them orde red He yard. killers in the jail

car. polic e near by a into him force d and but they rushed him

they car, the drive to him forci ng Holding him as a hostage, and

began their run for freedom.

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In Indiana Harbor, they ran through a red light and were stopped by a police officer. As the officer approached the car, Roa, sitting beside Kirincich, jabbed his gun harder in the jailer’s ribs. Kirincich looked the officer straight in the eye, told him he was sorry he had gone through the light, but that he hadn’t noticed it. The officer excused him and then walked away. After the officer left Kirincich couldn’t get the car started again. Roa finally got out and flagged a taxi cab, into which the four men climbed. The driver was directed to take them to South Chicago, a few miles away. As they arrived at Ninety-

fifth Street and Ewing Avenue in South Chicago, a squad car pulled along side and ordered them to stop. Roa grabbed Kirincich by the shoulder, opened the door of the cab, pushed him out, and then started shooting. There were

three police officers in the squad—John Klaske, Leo Grant and William Frost—and all three of them were wounded in the gun battle that followed. Grant was hurt seriously and died a short time later, while the other two recovered. The two men with Roa were Robert Torrez and Gregorio Rizo, both of whom were captured during this flight. Torrez was later executed for his part in the affair. Rizo was shot and killed when he once again attempted to escape from the Will County jail, where he was being held in the death cell. Roa escaped as these two were being taken prisoner, and was never apprehended. In fact, following this, he disappeared although an intense man hunt was conducted and “wanted” notices were posted all over the nation. Three other men, Walter Stalesky, Charles Shader and Charles Duschowski, were executed for the Klein killing.

Shortly after he became warden in 1935, Ragen saw tremendous importance in the case of Bernard Roa. Although the crime had been committed a long time before, 1t had been committed in a penal institution, which made it important that Roa be brought back for the effect on the other men incarcerated at Joliet. Ragen wants his inmates to realize that Illinois will track

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down fugitives, no matter how long it takes or how far they have gone. He believes that if men who commit such crimes are not returned, it will only give confidence to others to make

similar attempts. For these reasons, Ragen vowed in 1935 that he would do everything in his power to bring Bernard Roa back. He began a series of inquiries to learn Roa’s whereabouts. A short time later he learned from Fred Frahm, Detroit, Michigan, chief of detectives, that Roa had a job as a police sergeant in Mexico City. Since it proved to be impossible to establish this fact, nothing could be done at the time and the case remained

static. Then, in October of 1939, the warden received a telegram from the police chief at Pachuca, in the state of Hidalgo, Mexico, reporting that Roa was hiding out there. This time action was possible, and a true bill naming Roa as the murderer of Leo Grant was returned that same month. However, when Illinois authorities tried to bring Roa back to answer to this charge, the whole case became entwined in Mexican red tape. In the end, Roa remained in Mexico. Ragen continued to work on the case. At every opportunity he talked with everyone who might be able to help, from State Department officials to policemen, in the hope that something might be done. Meanwhile, Roa had disappeared again and it became necessary to locate him once more. Ragen eventually

discovered that Roa was in jail in Mexico, and in 1943 started an extradition action. But again the red tape wound and out of the case, and Roa remained in Mexico.

itself in

In 1948, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported that Roa was still in a Mexican jail. They had been given to understand by the Mexican government that if Roa were not extradited, he would get a sentence on a narcotics charge under Mexican law, with a maximum imprisonment of twelve years. But if the extradition as requested by the United States was allowed, he would be required to serve only a short dope sentence before being turned over to the U.S. authorities. In this same year, Ernest A. Gross, legal advisor in the State

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Department, notified Governor Green of Illinois that authenticated extradition papers had been sent to the Mexican embassy, and that a Presidential warrant appointing Roy Doerfler, a Will County, Illinois, deputy sheriff, as agent to receive the surrender of the fugitive had been approved and issued. All of this sounded encouraging. But nothing happened. In 1950, the FBI notified Illinois that Roa had completed his sentence at Juana Juato, Mexico, and was enjoying provisional liberty pending the outcome of the hearing on the U.S. extradition request which had been started by Warden Ragen seven years before.

In 1953, the FBI informed the warden that the Mexican government refused to extradite Roa, in spite of the fact that he had been involved in three murders, claiming that under provisions of a treaty between Mexico and the United States, they are not permitted to grant extradition of this man to the United States. In other words, more red tape, this time of a higher caliber. Thirty-two years have passed since Roa’s crime, and he is now fifty-seven years old. A good many people have forgotten that the man existed. But Ragen 1s still on his trail, and continues to pester federal officials concerning the case. He admits that he has not much hope of achieving his end, but he has no intention of giving up. The man’s crimes were too atrocious, and their meaning to the men behind the walls at Stateville too important.

If Roa is ever returned, he will be taken to the Will County jail to be executed for the murder of Klein. In 1927, Illinois adopted execution by electrocution, but Roa was sentenced before this new law was put into effect and will be executed in the manner prescribed in his original sentence. As far as Warden Ragen knows, Roa is the only man alive who can be legally hung mn Illinois. At the same time that the warden began his search for Roa,

he also instituted a hunt for James Price, the only one of Roa’s accomplices still alive. The

others either had been hung for

Bernard Roa—Fugitive

X27

their part in the prison break in which Peter Klein had been stabbed, or had been killed during attempted jail breaks prior to the execution. But Price, like Roa, had disappeared. However, after a few months, Ragen’s hunt bore fruit when Price was discovered in the Clinton State Prison at Dannemora, New York, serving a ten-year stretch under the alias of Frank Meadows.

In January of 1936, Price completed his sentence at Dannemora and Ragen dispatched two officers to bring him back

to Joliet to finish out his original sentence. The warden and James E. Burke, State’s Attorney of Will County talked with Price about the Klein killing. Price admitted his participation in the escape but denied any knowledge of the Klein killing. He claimed he just went along with the gang when they left the institution.

Ragen says, “We were at a loss to obtain evidence to convict him, because by that time there were no living witnesses. But we finally persuaded Price to plead guilty and accept a life sentence. In that way we felt we were seeing that justice was well served, because all of the information we had indicated that Price was as much involved as anyone else in the murder and escape.

“We presented our case to Judge Hunter, who was sitting in the Will County court at the time, informing him that there were no living witnesses and that Price had consented to plead guilty on the understanding that we would recommend a life sentence. Of course, the judge didn’t make any promises and

‘we expected none. “Then, on the day of the trial, Price signed the jury waiver and pled guilty. But, instead of following our recommendation,

the judge sentenced him to 150 years. “Mr. Burke and I had promised Price that if he would plead guilty, we would recommend a life sentence—and we had done

so. We, of course, could not guarantee that the judge would

follow our line of thought. But I have always been dissatisfied with this sentence. Price is still doing time.”

Chapter Eleven

ISOLATION

AND

SEGREGATION

For centuries, prisoners the world over have been punished for infractions ol the penitentiary’ s rules by being thrown into “the hole” for a certain number of days on a diet of bread and water. And the hole customarily has been a dank black windowless cell located down in the bowels of the prison, where prisoners slept on the damp stone floor and were chained to the walls when they weren't sleeping. In Illinois prisons, for

example, iron rings were mounted on the walls of the solitary cells, high enough so that a prisoner chained to them had his arms stretched over his head and had to stand on his toes. Thus, he was virtually hung by his wrists. Men were often chained in this position twelve hours at a time.

The cat-o’-nine once was standard prison equipment, and punishment by flogging was the accepted practice. The number of lashes to be delivered across the offender’s back was determined

by the seriousness of his crime, and five to twenty-five lashes were common. A hundred were laid on for something as serious as striking an officer, and frequently men died before the “cat” had cut its hundred furrows. “I'he hole,” the chains and the whips were not medieval practices; they were in existence in prisons in the United States

through the first fifty years of the twentieth century. Although the more gruesome disappearing, there ment routines that All brutality has

practices, such as flogging, are gradually are still many prisons with solitary confinesmack of medieval tortures. been eliminated from the disciplinary sys-

tem at Joliet, first because Warden Ragen is a humanitarian and secondly, because he believes that shore are other, more effec128

PE

CL

i PP 2

A

.

7

7%,

Model of Stateville made by an inmate in the vocational school

The prison yard at Stateville in the old days, before 1935 Q

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tive means of enforcing the prison regulations. Privileges such as attending the movies, listening to the radio in their cells, buying at the commissary and holding a prison shop job which pays a small salary are important to the inmates, so important that most of them fear the loss of them even for a short time. Therefore, this 1s the first means of discipline. Minor infractions are punished by the removal of privileges for a period of time. For more serious offenses, they are punished by confinement in isolation, but the isolation cells bear no resemblance to the infamous hole. They have solid doors, with a slot for observance by the guard on duty, but at the back of each cell is a large window, providing good light. Because inmates being punished are often rebellious and will break up anything in sight, the cells are stripped down but have running water, toilet and sink. Each cell will hold up to four men, who sleep on the floor in blankets. The maximum time a man can spend in isolation at one stretch 1s fifteen days. During this time they are served only one meal a day, the same meal that is served in the dining room at noon, which 1s the main meal. The average stay im isolation is three days. In addition to confinement in isolation for serious misconduct, violators can lose some of their “good time” credits. There are two types of sentences imposed by the courts in Illinois. “Flat time” sentences are levied for murder, kidnaping and rape. Prisoners serving these sentences are given one month off for good behavior the first year. “Good time” credit increases for longer terms until it amounts to one-third of the sentence. Thus a man serving a flat-time sentence becomes eligible for parole after serving one-third of his sentence, if he earns all of his good time. An indeterminate sentence, when imposed by the court, stipulates the minimum time which the offender must serve, such as one-year-to-life. Under such a sentence, the convict must after time any at paroled be may and time minimum the serve that. A progressive merit system is used to rate prisoners serving either type of sentence. In it, there are five grades: A, B, C,

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D and E. When a man is admitted to the prison, he 1s automatically assigned to Grade C, in which good time 1s neither won nor lost. If his behavior is satisfactory for the first three months, he is advanced to Grade B, in which he can earn five days of good time each month. Afier three months in this grade,

he can pass on to Grade A, in which he can earn ten days a

a month.

If guilty of misconduct, a prisoner can be demoted. In Grade D, he loses five days a month, and in Grade E he loses ten. In order to be eligible for parole under an indeterminate sentence

a prisoner must have been in Grade A for at least three months and must have served his minimum

sentence, less credit for

good time. Under a flat-time sentence, he must have served onethird of his time and have been in Grade A for three months before he can see the parole board. As you stand in the center of the giant panoptican cell houses, or walk along the line of cells in Cell House B, your eye is caught by colored placards mounted over the Woot of each cell. Each card has a prisoner’s name and number on it. The warden tells you these are for purposes of identification. A red card over a cell indicates that the inmate occupying that cell whose name appears on the card is known to have attempted to escape, or is considered an escape risk. The red card calls the cell house officers’ special attention to this man. Prisoners who have been demoted to Grades D or FE have blue cards, while men in the upper three grades show white cards. Dryly, the warden says, “Known homosexuals used to have yellow cards, but we had to stop that. We found out that they enjoyed the advertising.” In addition to the isolation cells, Ragen has established a segregation section in the same building. Segregation cells have cots and the same plumbing facilities as the regular cells, and are reserved for prisoners who will not submit to prison fish pline. “Real troublemakers,” the warden calls them, men who constantly cause trouble when living with others oh! have to be separated from them. The time that they may spend in segre-

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gation depends upon themselves, for they remain there until they promise to abide by the prison rules.

The number of men at Joliet requiring segregation generally averages around twenty- -five or less, a surprisingly small number considering the prison’s total population. Two men spent eleven years apiece in segregation, by far the longest period in modern times. Both of them absolutely refused, during this time, to submit to authority of any kind or to comply with any regulations. When permitted to live with the other inmates, they immediately caused trouble. The first of these was Major Price, who was received at

Stateville in June of 1933, at the age of twenty, to serve a life sentence for murder and another life sentence as an habitual criminal. If he had served his time properly, he would have

appeared before the parole board in June of 1955, after serving

the minimum of twenty years. However, he didn’t qualify for this hearing, for he was in his segregation cell at the time.

Finally, in April of 1956, he was transferred to the psychiatric division Price Chicago sixteen

at Menard. was born in Prentiss, Mississippi, and was brought to when he was a year old. He left school at the age of after finishing the seventh grade, and became an auto

mechanic at $23 a week. In his statements to the prison psy-

chiatrists, he boasted that at one time, on this salary, he had

managed to save $372. His first arrest at the age of eighteen was for robbery, for which he served eleven months at Joliet before being paroled. A year later he killed the owner of a delicatessen during a robbery. He fled the scene of the murder, but was apprehended the following morning. He was, by this time, a “two-time loser.” In Illinoss, the habitual enntal law 1s in effect, under which a man convicted of felonious acts twice can be given a life sentence as an habitual criminal, hence the tag two-time loser. According to prison records, Price was an unruly prisoner but not unmanagable for the first four years of the sentence.

Then in 1939 he was blamed for an escape plot, in which he

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and several others planned to kidnap the warden and a guard and the chaplain. They intended to use them as shields while

they forced their way through the front gate. The plot was uncovered before it was put into action, and Price was given solitary confinement for his part in the affair. The sentence was passed at a court held in the prison, and during the trial the officers noticed that he was secreting something in his mouth. They had been looking for a piece of paper, which the grapevine said Price had, on which was written instructions for obtaining twelve guns. This was to be passed to

someone on the outside, and directed that the guns be frozen in ice and thrown over the wall in the ice cake. A battle ensued between Price and the guards as they tried to take the paper from his mouth.

He managed

to get it out

and throw it over the wall, but during the fight to subdue him, he was hit twice over the head and knocked unconscious. His

deep-seated bitterness stems from this fight. Between 1939 and 1944 he was the central figure in over one hundred prison incidents, and was assigned to isolation thirty-eight different times. Prison psychiatrists have examined him and report that he has a borderline mtelligence. They say that there is no effective way of restraining him other than keeping him constantly under lock and key. He had been branded as an escape risk and ordered not to be considered for any other environment except where he 1s, 1n segregation.

In 1943, Price and another inmate took twelve-pound hammers and some chisels from a tool box and attacked four guards in solitary. The guards were severely beaten and put out of action. Price ders: scaled the wall around the solitary section and accosted the cell house keeper, trying to get him to hand over the keys to the door which would get him out into the prison

yard. As these two were battling, other officers arrived to overpower Price and put him back in confinement.

In 1944, he was part of an attempted escape, during which a prison guard was killed. After the attempt was put down,

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133

Price said that he was not in on the planning of the escape, but that after the action started and he saw what was happening he joined in, hoping to get over the wall with the others.

In August of 1945, Price dropped a cigarette as he was going from the dining room to Cell House B. A guard saw it fall,

picked 1t up, broke it open been replaced rolled up. On tiny letters:

and noticed that it seemed unusually firm. He and discovered that the tobacco at the center had by half a dozen tiny sheets of cigarette paper, all the cigarette papers, a message was penciled in

I killed to get in. I'll kill to get out. I need four men who won't back out. My plan is to get Ragen, or the white caps together at solitary and hold them as hostages. It’s worth a chance. Life isn’t worth living without freedom. I need foot-long knives.

While in prison, Price has composed a number of songs and sent them to a newspaper. The paper has called them beautiful and artistic, although none of them have been published as yet. He completed a course of thirty-five lessons in radio engineer-

ing in which he received a grade of 67. In addition, in the correspondence school, he has studied salesmanship and physics, and has studied to be an electrician and an airplane mechanic. His record shows that he has also studied geometry, plumbing, sheet metal work, metal fabricating, hand weaving, bookkeeping, traffic management, poultry husbandry and business management. He now states that he 1s an out-and-out communist, and 1n the last four years he has written four books about revolutions. A prison diagnostic report shows that he has a well-defined paranoid projection which 1s sublimated through his interest in communism, and this interest is described as being on the level of religious fanaticism.

In August of 1953, Price wrote a letter to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, asking for an exit visa to become an Egyp-

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tian citizen. In the letter he stated that he had written to Mohammed Naguib, the president of Egypt, requesting him to sponsor his parole. Needless to say, there were no replies to either of these letters. He spends most of his time in his cell in segregation writing books. In addition to the four on revolutions, he has also penned a number of volumes on the birth of civilization. The manuscripts are all stacked in his cell and the pile is several feet high. No one has read them yet. In addition to these books, he says that he also has formulated a plan for irrigating the arid areas of the world. The other inmate who lived in segregation for more than

eleven years was Paul Jenkot, who was first received at the Pontiac Reformatory in 1929, at the age of sixteen, to serve a one-year-to-life sentence for burglary. He had burglarized a

home and taken $300 worth of goods and clothing. The diagnostic report shows that he has a superior intelligence, but that he suffered from a culture conflict at home which disorganized his personality. His mother died when he was fourteen and he turned to crime about a year later. He completed the eighth grade in school before going to work as a sponger in a tailor shop. His father owned a six-flat building and apparently the income from this had provided the majority of the family’s income. He says that he began stealing in the beginning because it gave him a thrill; then later, he continued to do it to get money

for luxuries and parties with girls. After his parole in 1935 he held two jobs in quick succession, then returned to his life of crime. In the early part of 1936, Jenkot and three associates held up a motorist and two friends who were parked on the northwest

side of Chicago. They stole the car, which was sighted twenty days later by two officers cruising in a squad car. Jenkot and two friends were in the car at the time, and a chase followed.

The police and the fleeing bandits exchanged shots, and during this running gun fight Officer James McCauley was killed.

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135

Jenkot and his associates succeeded in getting away from the police at this time, but a few days later the wife of one of his friends tipped off the police that he was seeing a movie. She named the theater, and he was taken into custody there, along with one of his confederates. The other two were caught within the next few days, and the four were charged with at least

forty armed robberies, mostly of poultry and tea stores and small factories on Chicago’s northwest side.

Jenkot said that during these robberies he acted as the wheelman and lookout, and that the quartet’s biggest haul was $300. Jenkot was carrying $700 when was was arrested. Later he ad-

mitted that during his short life on the outside of prison walls,

he had participated in 300 burglaries and robberies! When Jenkot was apprehended in the theater, he denied any knowledge of the shooting of Officer McCauley, and claimed that on the night in question he had played cards until dawn. This alibi could not be substantiated. But a check of his work record showed that he had been absent from his job for three days prior to the shooting. His employers had been concerned about this. Before this incident, he had established a reputation as a reliable employee and his work record had been consistently good. The four were brought to trial in the Criminal Court building in Chicago, and on the second day of the trial, Jenkot suddenly attacked one of the guards as they were taking him from the court to the “bull pen,” where prisoners are kept while awaiting appearance in court. This was a signal to the others, who also jumped their guards. They had stolen pieces of steel from prison mops while they were being held in the county jail awaiting trial, and had fashioned knives from them. Putting the sharp points of these knives on the chests of the guards, they forced them to remove the handcuffs. The gang split up, and individually took off through the Criminal Court building. Within a few minutes, guards in the jail and police stationed in the building had been notified of

the escape, and the building swarmed with the law. Jenkot was

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cornered on the fifth floor and returned to his cell. The others

were caught on the lawn outside the building. The

diagnostic report shows

that although Jenkot has a

superior intelligence, rated at 118 on tests, he 1s unable to see

that he is responsible through his actions for being where he 1s. He told one psychiatrist, “All those clippings you have and all those records try to show I'm a bad man, but I'm not.” The

fact that he has admitted to participating in 300 robberies and burglaries doesn’t, in his peculiar way of thinking, qualify him for the title of bad man.

Regularly, through the eleven years in which Jenkot was in segregation, Warden Ragen talked with him, discussing the possibility of removing him from confinement and placing him on regular work assignments. In return for this, he was asked to promise to behave himself, to submit to prison authority and to obey the regulations.

Jenkot invariably answered with slurs, and refused to make

any promises. But Ragen kept on talking. Jenkot was kept in the old prison until 1939, and was then transferred to Stateville. The reports in his record show that his early adjustment to prison life was satisfactory and although he was something of a troublemaker, he didn’t get completely

out of hand until 1944. At that time a shakedown of his cell uncovered contraband articles concealed in a ventilator behind the cell. He denied that these belonged to him, and said that he was unjustly accused. He pointed out that others had access to his cell and could have put the articles there. Then, in November of the same year, he participated in an

escape attempt, along with nine other convicts. This was the same attempt that Major Price joined when he saw an opportunity to escape, even though he had not been in on the original

planning. During this attempt a guard was killed. Jenkot bitterly resented being locked in segregation, yet would make no promises to the warden in order to get out. At one time he applied to the federal courts, requesting that they

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force his removal from segregation. In his petition he stated that

his sentence called for hard labor, and as long as he was kept in segregation, he was being sentence. In one letter he wrote:

confined

in violation

of this

Being locked up is the cause of my being nervous, having hemorrhoids, and my failing eyesight. I feel I should be compensated for this. My sentence is for hard labor. The warden changed this to solitary confinement without hard labor. I'd be willing to do hard labor. That’s my sentence.

It seemed impossible to convince him that he was in segregation because of his own actions, just as he couldn’t be made to understand that he was m prison for the same reason. No matter how often the warden approached him, he would not accept responsibility for his own actions, and felt that he was being punished unjustly. After sitting in segregation for a number of years, with plenty of time to think, Jenkot figured out a swindle he could work through the mail from his cell-he thought. In the obituary columns of the newspapers he read of the death of Edwin T. Maynard, of Winnetka, Illinois. Maynard was a former president of the Chicago Board of Trade, and the death notice gave complete details of his family history. Jenkot then wrote a letter, addressed to him, demanding a

payment of $395 for services performed for Maynard between the years of 1925 and 1927. If this were true, Jenkot would have been fourteen at the time. In the letter, Jenkot said that he had lost the record of this service, and continued: If my

memory

serves

me

correctly,

1 charged

the

amount of $395. Please consult your records as a reminder. I believe you kept a list of my charges for services in your favorite notebook. After you send your check, you may use this letter in lieu of a receipt, as a record of payment

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Tue Five-Hunprep-Day HEADACHE in full. I sincerely hope that you, your wife Betty, and

your son James are enjoying health and happiness, which you so richly deserve. May God bless you and keep you.

Then he signed his name. The letter, of course, was intercepted before being sent from

the prison. When Jenkot was questioned, he insisted that he had performed the services mentioned, even though it was pointed out that he would have been rather young to be earning this much money for his services in the period mentioned. Later in the same month he wrote another letter, this one to

a Chicago woman. In it he stated that he needed $325 for the transcription of a case, and that she owed him this amount in back wages. He signed the letter, “Your loving cousin and favorite employee.” The woman was questioned by prison officers, who found she owned a tavern. She denied that she cwed

Jenkot any money and, in fact, denied that she had ever known him. Jenkot tried his mail scheme just once more, toward the end of July, 1953, when he attempted to mail another letter demanding $395 that was owed to him. This one was addressed to a Robert Brown of Winnetka, and never left the prison, either. After this third failure, Jenkot decided that his scheme wasn’t working and gave it up. Finally in November of 1955, Jenkot gave his long-sought promise to Warden Ragen and was assigned to the general population. Ragen’s persistence had paid off. A year later he was reported as behaving well. At some point during these talks with the warden—or during his long periods of meditation after them—he decided that if he were ever to live again among his fellow men, he would have to learn to be governed. Even something as serious as solitary confinement sometimes has its lighter sides. One morning an inmate walked into the Captain’s Court and asked to be heard. He reported that he had not been living a good life and wanted to be locked up in isolation for ten days “to cleanse his soul!”

Chapter Twelve

THE

BEAST

OF

STATEVILLE

When Warden Ragen is asked, “Why do you keep trying with incorrigibles like Jankot and Price; why aren’t they simply marked as completely incapable of rehabilitation and just forgotten?” he just shakes his head and smiles. “You never know with these guys,” he says in his slow manner. “Any one of them might change over night—in spite of what the psychiatrists’ reports say about them. We've had some pretty bad ones do just that.” And then he remembers an inmate whom we shall call Tom Smith, and who was known in his day as “The Beast of Stateville.” Ragen shakes his head and says, “They don’t come much tougher than he was, and few guys have given us as much trouble. But look what happened to him.”

Smith arrived at Joliet in May of 1929 to serve four concurrent sentences: life; one to fourteen years; one to twenty years; and one year to life. He had been tried for murder, armed robbery, assault to kill and larceny of a car. He was then thirty years old, and prior to this time had served only one term in the House of Correction in Chicago. He had been educated through the eighth grade, and had left school at the age of sixteen to take jobs first as a plumber and later as manager of a restaurant. At the time he was arrested, Smith was managing a restaurant

for his stepfather, and earning a salary of $50 a week. In court it was proved that he was one of three a soft drink parlor in West Van Buren ordered the owner to put up his hands. night watchman in the place, hesitated and was immediately shot and killed.

men who had entered Street, Chicago, and Morris Younglove, a in obeying the order,

The arrest took place in September of 1928, and at that time,

Smith was identified by three witnesses as a participant in this killing. He was also identified by seven other persons as the man who had robbed them. 130

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Smith was a difficult prisoner from the moment at Joliet. In 1931, he was one of the main leaders in tive riot which took place in the Old Prison, an topped oft two years of trouble making. He became

he arrived a destrucact which so difficult

to handle that in April of 1931, he was transferred to the prison at Menard, in the hope that he might adjust better in new surroundings. But things were no different at Menard than they had been

at Joliet. From June of 1931 until December of 1936, his jacket shows that he spent a total of 200 days in solitary confinement

for twenty-one different offenses. In 1938, he was transferred back to Joliet. Prior to his arrest, Smith, unlike most criminals, had been in excellent financial circumstances. His account in a west side bank often had as much as $1800 in it. His parents owned a number of lots in the northern suburb of Winnetka, where real estate has a high value. He had been married, but two

years before his arrest he and his wife had separated, simply deciding that the marriage was not a success. They had no children. The violations listed in his jacket include just about everything an inmate can do against regulations in a prison: attempted escape; insolence; being an agitator; attacking an officer; possession of whiskey; refusal to work; possession of a knife; possession of state-owned goods, such as canned peaches; and having a stolen sledge hammer in his possession. This latter item had been acquired while he was working on the quarry gang in

1935. As the gang left the quarry he concealed the sledge in the leg of his trousers and marched back to his cell with it. The sledge was confiscated before he was able to put it to use.

In 1934, Ragen was warden at Menard and talked with Smith on several occasions in attempts to make him promise to obey the prison rules for a period of thirty days. Smith was in solitary confinement at the time, and if he had agreed, he would have been returned to his cell. But he refused. When he wasn’t fomenting trouble of some kind or spend-

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ing time 1n a solitary cell, Smith had other ways of giving the prison officials headaches. A psychiatric report dated 1939 states that at the time he was feigning insanity. He had assumed a stupid, listless look and had lapsed mto a depressive and indifferent mood. But during the periods of depression he would suddenly snap to life and set up a clamor, demanding that his civilian clothes be brought to him and he be given a parole. The doctors were convinced that he was malingering, but at the same time, noted that he should be guarded from trying to harm himself during these fits of depression. Smith was a dangerous, difficult and unpredictable mate

for a period of thirteen years, up until 1944; and if during that time, any other inmate had been asked to quote odds on his chances of reforming or of ever getting a parole, he would have laughed. Smith, in the opinion of most, was completely and eternally incorrigible. Hence his nickname.

Only one spot in his record shows to his credit. In 1942, he was assigned as lockman in Cell House F. A fire, evidently due to defective wiring, broke out in the motor which operates the locking mechanism. Smith helped to fight the fire in an heroic manner and was overcome by smoke during the fight. Eventually, Warden Ragen had him transferred to his own quarters. “When he reported for work,” the warden says, “he was anything but well adjusted, and felt that no one would take an interest in him.” The warden talked to him many times, telling him that despite what he believed, people were mterested in him. And that he would help him, if possible, but first he would have to help himself.

Then, during the first few days of January,

1944, Smith

received a report that his mother was dying. One thing that psychiatrists had noted in his character was a great love for his mother, and the report was a serious blow to him. He replied by sending the following telegram to his stepfather: If conscious, give her all my love. Thank her for all she has given me in the past. Kiss her for me.

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Then, on January 6, he was notified that his mother had died. The warden called him to his office and personally delivered the message. The warden consoled him, and told him he knew how he must feel, because he had just recently lost his own father. They had a long, serious talk and Ragen again assured him that if he was willing to help himself, he would receive all the help he could use. Later Smith told Mrs. Ragen that it was in the middle of this conversation with the warden that he realized that people were concerned about him. The warden’s sympathy cut through the hard outer shell that he had built up, and by the time he left the office that day, in spite of his grief, he felt like a different man. The warden says, “He then began to level off, and found that people did take an interest if he met them halfway. He was assigned to my quarters for a total of six years. After this turning point in his life, I never had better help, nor saw anyone who adjusted better. I still hear from him regularly.”

Five years after hismother’s death, in 1949, Smith was paroled. His sponsor was a wealthy Chicago coffee importer who had sold coffee to Smith’s stepfather for years. Smith went to work

for him in the shipping room of his company at $40 a week, and stayed on this job until he had served his parole period. Then he opened his own restaurant in Chicago’s loop. The reports on his progress indicate that he works from

five o’clock in the morning until six in the eveningin this business. He has become a hard-working, industrious citizen and is vastly changed from the difficult, dangerous man known a few years ago as The Beast of Stateville. He draws only a small salary from his business, and the rest of the profits, about $130 a month, are put back in as an investment.

One evening when Warden Ragen was dining in a restaurant on Chicago’s west side, a hand dropped on his shoulder. He turned around to look into Smith’s smiling face. After a few minutes of friendly conversation, Smith proudly invited the

warden to attend his wedding, which was to take place in a few

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weeks. The warden went to the wedding, happy to attend a ceremony which was so highly symbolic of the new life which Smith was fabricating for himself. Hundreds of men have reformed as completely as Smith did

after doing a stretch at Joliet. But few of them have had to undergo as complete a change as Smith did, and few of them accomplished it as quickly as he did—virtually in one day. Thus when he 1s asked about the matter of rehabilitation, the warden remembers Tom Smith. Then he shakes his head, smiles a little and says, “You never know about these guys.” He points out that there 1s always a key that will unlock a man, that will open some hidden door deep inside of him. When that key 1s found, rehabilitation takes place. Ragen spends a good deal of time searching for these keys. Sometimes he 1s successful, as with Tom Smith, sometimes he is not. But he says that through the years he has learned one thing: that he never knows where the key will be; that it is always in the most unexpected place. No two men are alike, and that which will turn one man’s thoughts toward changing his way of life may irretrievably antagonize another inmate. The warden recalls another inmate who made an about-face

in response to the right key. Early in the summer of 1936, less than a year after he assumed the responsibilities of the wardenship, Ragen was busy carrying out one of the major planks in his reform platform—abolishing the idle gang and finding employment for every man in the prison. The most practical answer had been a vast landscaping program, during which twenty-eight barren acres were transformed into lovely gardens and pretty green lawns. The sum-

mer of 1936 was occupied mostly in mining black soil in fertile areas of the prison grounds and spreading this soil over the areas any Like effort s. horti cultu for ral out mapp ed been had which garden in the making, the prison yard wasn’t very pretty at this time, with piles of dirt here and there, hundreds of men at work and nothing growing. On a tour through the yard one day during this period, the

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warden stopped suddenly and stared—for, growing in solitary splendor amidst the piles of dirt near one of the walls, was a red rose. The sight would have brought a tear to the eye of a flower fancier, but Ragen is the warden of a prison. His first thought was not, How beautiful! but How did it get there? The flower was not native to the yard, and it hadn’t been there before. And no one had requested permission either to bring in a rosebush or plant one. Therefore, the rose had been smuggled into the prison; and if the rose had been smuggled in without detection, narcotics, weapons and other contraband

might be brought in through the same channels. So the beauty of the rose was lost on the warden, but its significance to the security of his prison was not. He questioned the guards assigned to the area, but none could offer any explanations. He had the flower watched carefully, to see what inmates might be taking a more-than-ordinary interest in it, but this developed nothing. Days passed and the warden fretted and inquired, but the lonely rose remained a mystery. Then one day a guard reported that one of the inmates had asked if he could water and care for the plant. A quick investigation proved to the warden’s satisfaction, however, that the inmate had nothing to do with bringing the plant into the prison. He simply liked flowers and was afraid that the rose, the prison’s first plant, would die if it weren't cared for. The mystery of the rose was never solved, but through it, Ragen’s attention was directed to Herbert Spring, the inmate who had asked to care for the plant. He studied the man’s jacket

carefully, and learned that he had been sent to prison in 1907

at the age of twenty, sentenced to serve a life sentence for shooting a woman he never knew after a drinking spree in Freeport, Illinois. Early prison records were not very complete, but there was enough to outline Spring’s life in prison and prior to it. While in his teens, Spring had become an excessive drinker. The record showed that twice before being indicted for murder he

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had served terms in jails for being drunk and disorderly, once in Milwaukee and once in St. Joseph, Mo. He was a small man, less than an inch over five feet in height. His record showed that he had spent only two terms in solitary confinement in his years in the prison. It also showed that three times during his twenty-seven years, he had been transferred to the Chester State Hospital for mentally unbalanced criminals. His stays at Chester lasted nine months, eighteen months

and four years, and each time he was returned to Joliet. The warden noted that he had escaped twice while at Chester. The first time he was caught after three days; the second time he was returned the next day.

The jacket indicated that he had worked in the broom factory, the hospital, the chair factory, the quarry, the yard and the stone pile. But the item which particularly caught the warden’s eye was the psychiatric report. It stated that Spring complained that he had been assigned to the 1dle gang for sixteen, years; that through these years he had often asked for other assignments but never got them. He told the psychiatrist that he would like to keep occupied, and that he would like to work in the yard, park or terrace. Another report dated 1919 noted, “Said he likes to paint or draw, but would prefer landscape work. Brightened up when talking about it.” The doctor closed this report by recommending that Spring be given an opportunity at landscape work to arouse his interest. Apparently this doctor’s report and recommendations had been overlooked in the years which followed, during which time Spring had been on the idle gang. Checking with guards who had been in closer contact with Spring, the warden learned that he was a surly, crabby, aloof prisoner who shunned contact with fellow inmates and guards. He was no troublemaker, but at the same time he was making

little progress. And his early lack of mental stability had to be considered, return.

since hours

of sour brooding

might

cause it to

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About the time the warden was checking into Spring’s background, an important change was taking place in the prison. The inmates, who had been at first rebellious and later full of scorn over the landscaping program which kept them working all day, now began to take an interest in their work. As the carpet of black dirt was laid down and the yard’s eyesores disappeared, the men could see the result of their labors, and to their own consternation, they liked what they saw. And as he watched the solitary rose near the wall, Ragen observed that many inmates during the day would wander over to the bloom, touch it gently or inhale its fragrance, and then return to their labors, putting a little more vigor into them, he thought, than before. On his strolls through the yard, inmates began asking questions about when they were going to plant grass seed, and how long before they’d put in some flowers. This awakening interest of the inmates caused the warden to do some further thinking. Until this time, the landscaping had been primarily a means of providing work. Now he saw it as a morale builder of importance and decided that the planting program which had been planned ought to be accelerated. Accordingly, he set up a small gardening detail of prisoners, and started it in a small way. A small area near the intersection of the two walks that carried the heaviest traffic between cell houses, workshops, and schoolrooms was designated as the first spot for a garden. This

crossroads inside of the walls had a street sign posted above it which read “State and Madison,” after the busy intersection in Chicago’s Loop which has often been called the world’s busiest corner. If the small plot of grass was to have the desired effect, the busiest corner in the prison was the best place for it. When it came time to select the inmates for the garden de-

tail, Ragen made Spring one of its members. Then later, after green shoots had started to show in the garden, he stopped to talk to Spring. “How's it coming,” he asked. Spring jumped off his knees and stood at attention.

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“Fine, warden, fine,” he replied. “How do you feel these days?” “Well, warden, now that I'm detailed to the garden, I'm happier than I was,” he answered. And the warden noticed that his eyes brightened and a new look came over his face. Mentioning the change to one of the guards later, Ragen said, “For a moment there Spring looked like a saint.” Certain after this display that he had found another of the keys he was constantly searching for, Ragen watched Spring carefully, and in a short time gave him his own plot of land near one section of the big wall. His assignment was to cultivate a garden, and within a few weeks the little spot was full of flowers. Spring had not only a green thumb, he had ten green fingers, and everything grew for him. He was patient and tender with his flowers, like a mother caring for her children, and the plants responded beautifully. Herbert Spring became the dean of the prison horticulturists. He called his plot the Garden of Hope. During the winter months, when he couldn’t work in it, he spent his time fashioning small concrete figurines and as soon as spring arrived, he put them in strategic places among the flowers. Only one complication arose as a result of this garden. Even the toughest of Stateville’s inmates would soften as they passed the place, and occasionally one would pick a flower or tamper with a plant. Then Spring blew sky high. He even spent several days in isolation for getting into fights with inmates who molested his garden. For though his anger was perhaps justified, the prison rules had to be observed, and fighting was a serious offense. During the third year of the landscaping project, Spring caused some consternation among the inmates and officers alike by requesting a considerable quantity of paint. Ragen granted his request and Spring spent the winter months mixing and intermixing his colors. He told the other inmates nothing about his intentions, and there was a great deal of speculation about his project.

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Finally, when the air began to warm in the spring, the prisoners marching past State and Madison had their questions answered. Spring was painting murals on the big wall in back of his garden. The pictures were miniature pastoral and woodland scenes, showing a little boy fishing and a little girl picking flowers. As the murals developed, the passers could see that Spring was an expert with the brush.

Visitors, who often included newspaper

people, saw the

murals and asked about the artist. Soon stories and photographs of Spring’s garden, his statues and his paintings began to appear, and the little convict achieved a national reputation as an artistgardener. It was through a magazine article that Ross E. Kimball, a contractor in Fairbanks, Alaska, became aware of him. Kimball wrote a letter, offering to help Spring in any way he could. Later Kimball appeared at Spring’s parole hearing and guaranteed to provide a job for him with his firm, Kimball and Miller, in Fairbanks. On this basis, Spring was paroled in

February of 1954. Kimball provided him with airline tickets for the trip to Fairbanks. Thus, at the age of sixty-seven after forty-seven and a half years behind bars, Herbert Spring re-entered the world. He was driven to the airport in a new automobile, and commented that roads and cars had changed quite a bit since he entered the

prison in 1907. During the ride, he was fascinated particularly by the intersections of major highways. “Look how that road cuts into ours,” he said repeatedly. And when he arrived at the airport to board the eighty-threepassenger airliner for his trip, he said, “Everybody was talking about the Wright Brothers and their flying machine when I first went to prison.” Before he went aboard he had some statements to make for the press. “I feel sorry that a lot of the good friends I left behind can’t get out, too. There's a lot of boys who made one mistake, and you can see how sorry they are every day.”

Then he became very serious, as he said, “Please use me as an illustration of how to ruin your life and the life of someone else.

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Drink did it. I've thought about how I killed a woman on the street—a woman I had never seen—when I was dead drunk. Tell all the boys and girls to keep away from liquor. It will be their downfall and there’s nothing for them in prison.” He shook hands all around then and started toward the plane. Then he came back for another moment. “Tell the young folks,” he said, “to believe in God. I didn’t follow a formal religion, but all the years I was in prison I was getting to know the power of God. I couldn’ have gotten through the years there by myself.” Then he mounted the steps leading to the plane’s cabin, a little man of sixty-seven years, with a new suit on his back and fifty dollars in his pocket, about to start out on a new life. Everyone who saw him go agreed that the happiness on his face had taken years off his age. Before he left, Warden Ragen presented him with a color photograph of the gardens at Stateville. Spring accepted it, looked at it, then shook his head a little and handed 1t back. “Thanks, warden,” he said, “but you keep it. I just want to forget all those years.”

Spring was employed in Alaska at $1.50 an hour as a gardener. Kimball, in accepting responsibility for Spring, said, “Agricultural possibilities in Alaska are undreamed of. We are in need

of good men, and he can go far, even at his age.” After Spring’s arrival, Kimball wired Warden Ragen that the ex-inmate had been favorably accepted by the town.

A parole report for the month of February, 1954, his first month in Alaska, showed, “No hours of work. Weather 30 degrees below zero.” But another report, filed in June showed that he had worked 216 hours as a gardener during the month

of May. Thus Ragen had helped to find the key to another of his charge’s problems. Spring was no disciplinary problem in the prison but a man who needed an outlet for his talents.

Chapter Thirteen WARDEN

RAGEN

MEETS

POLITICAL

PRESSURE

In October of 1940, Governor Henry Horner died, after a

long illness. It actually began two years before, when he had a heart attack. He was mourned throughout the state because he had been an effective and able administrative officer. An opposition newspaper summed up his career with these words: He combined the talents of a jurist with traits, includ-

ing the gift of making firm friends, of the practical politician. He was able on the platform, a shrewd picker of political issues and a careful student of history. His personal integrity was never called into question. His associates recalled a speech he made to a group of young lawyers some years ago, and asserted that it represented his own philosophy. “Resolve to be honest,” the governor said. “If in your judgment you cannot be an honest lawyer, be honest without being a lawyer.”

To Warden Ragen, the governor’s death was a serious blow, for they had become close personal friends. Horner had served two terms in the governor’s chair, but because of ill-health, he had chosen not to run for his third term. Harry B. Hershey, of Taylorville, had been chosen to run in his place on the Demo-

cratic ticket. Hershey had been beaten by Dwight H. Green, the Republican candidate, and at the time of his death, Horner

was serving out the remainder of his second term. John Stelle, the lieutenant-governor, stepped into Horner's post and served as governor for the remaining three months.

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Warden Ragen Meets Political Pressure This chain of events posed serious problems

151

for Warden

Ragen. For six years under Horner, he had operated the prison on a non-political basis, but no laws had been enacted which made this arrangement permanent. Ragen felt certain that when

the new administration took over the reins of the state, all of the jobs in the prison would revert to the old method of selection. They would become political appointments. The warden had been through a situation of this sort once before, and the memory of it was not pleasant. He felt certain that he would be unable to operate the prison in the manner which he felt was best. He was not asked to resign the wardenship, but, rather than embarrass anyone, he decided to submit his resignation. Unknown to him, the professional and business

people

of Joliet had

prepared

a petition

and

circulated

it

throughout the state, requesting the new governor to retain Ragen as warden. When he announced his resignation, this

petition was just about to be mailed. In discussing the situation with a number of people before he made his decision, the warden found that most of them believed that if he decided to stay on as warden, his position would be insecure, and that eventually a Republican would be appointed to take his place. This possibility of insecurity was also a factor in his decision. After the resignation had been submitted, the warden received a warm letter from Governor Green, in which the governor said that he was sorry to hear of the resignation, and asked him to reconsider. At the same time, he received telephone calls

from prominent citizens all over the state, who insisted that they would do everything in their power to see that he was reinstated, if he would consent to their efforts. Ragen told them all that he appreciated their interest, but that he had already completed his arrangements. He preferred not to be placed in the position of being requested to resign at a later date. Privately he felt that while he might be retained as warden, the spoils system would be reinstituted for the rest of

the prison staff. This would put him in the position of disagree-

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ing with the governor, and probably bring about his resignation if nothing else did.

Ragen left Joliet to accept an appointment in the U.S. Department of Justice. He reported to a school in Washington, D.C,

for a number of weeks of special training and then was assigned to the Chicago office, in charge of a special investigating unit within the Immigration Department. This unit was set up to investigate aliens and those who were not naturalized Americans. War was in the air in this country, and already being fought in Europe. As long as the United States remained neutral, there

was the possibility that citizens of combatant nations might use this country as a sort of spy base, as, in fact, they did. Because of this activity, Ragen had a staff which included a number of

investigators, and made reports to the Director of the Division of Immigration. It hecatiie necessary to establish detention camps for aliens

whom the Department of Justice felt were risks during these unsettled times, and, because of his experience along these lines,

Ragen was the logical man to be assigned the task. One was opened in Chicago and another in Milwaukee. These camps served as way stops; some of the aliens sent to them were deported, while the others were sent on to permanent camps at other sites. Ragen’s resignation from the warden’s post became effective

in March of 1941, and he assumed his duties with the Department of Justice immediately. On October 9, 1942, Roger Touhy and a gang of desperate inmates went over the wall in as sensational a break as had ever occurred in Illinois. The next day, Ragen received a number of phone calls from prominent citizens in Chicago, none of them in politics.

All asked him if he would consider returning to Joliet as warden once more. Ragen was much was involved. Accepting meant little to him, unless he prison as he knew it must,

hesitant, because he knew how another appointment as warden would be permitted to run the without political interference.

Warden Ragen Meets Political Pressure

"

153

Finally, he agreed to meet with a group of these callers and to explain his feelings. After this meeting, he was asked if he would talk to Governor Green, if an appointment were arranged. Ragen agreed and on the following day he saw the governor. Green asked him to return to his old post, and Ragen agreed to do so, under certain conditions. He stipulated that he had to have a free hand mn discharging employees who didn’t come up to the standards and requirements of good employees; that all prison employees would come from the Civil Service lists; and that certain employees who had been with him at the prison before, and who had left shortly after him be permitted to come back. These latter were men Ragen knew he could depend on, men who knew prison work, and men around whom he could build an efficient organization once more. The next morning the newspapers in the state blossomed with

the headline that Ragen was returning to Joliet, and that the governor had pledged a military rule in the prison. Actually the warden had said he would tighten up the rule in the prison and restore it to what it had been before he left. It would be no more military than it had been before. By now, the United States had entered the war, and all-out

production was the order of the day. Employment was a real problem once again. The first time the warden had run into the employment problem, during the depression, there were too many men available and not enough jobs to go around. Now the situation was reversed. Practically every available man was working in a war plant, at high wages. For six months, the warden tried desperately to find new guards via the Civil Service list, but it proved to be impossible. Wages in private industry were so much higher, even for totally unskilled labor, that there were virtually no candidates. Finally, the warden had a meeting with the governor and with T. P. Sullivan, who was then the Director of Public Safety for

the state, to try to find a solution to this pressing problem. At the meeting it was agreed to raise the salaries of prison employees,

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and also to advertise in the newspapers for new men. The warden retained a free hand at selecting, hiring and discharging men, on the basis of his knowledge of the qualifications necessary for a good prison employee. At this time, the governor also agreed that all advancements within the prison in the future would be made from the ranks when vacancies occurred. This policy has been followed ever since, and Ragen hopes the policy will be continued when he retires. The new warden should come from the ranks. If this happens, then the last vestige of political influence will have disappeared from the prison system in Illinoss. All other jobs in the prison are Civil Service, now, except

the warden’s. Legally, this is stll a direct appointment of the governor, and can be used as it was before, as a political plum. Ragen feels that if this is allowed to happen, the system will deteriorate rapidly. The job of running a prison is a highly specialized one, and to be successful, the warden needs to be deep in prison experience. A political appointee, even if he has a good administrative background, would not be prepared for

the prison’s special problems. Every man likes to feel that he has left a mark of some kind in this world, something that will live after him. Warden Ragen would like to feel that his monument will be an efficient prison system, devoid of political influence.

Chapter Fourteen ROGER TOUHY’S STORY The case of Roger Touhy is shot through with controversy.

There are many people who believe that he was a big-time mobster and beer baron who was finally caught in one of his deals. There are others who are convinced that he was framed for the crime which sent him to the penitentiary, the kidnaping

of John “Jake the Barber” Factor. In August of 1954, Touhy obtained a hearing before Federal Judge John P. Barnes in Chicago, claiming that he had been framed. He presented his case and Judge Barnes listened, then

agreed. The jurist was quoted in the Chicago Herald-American the following day assaying: “I'he evidencetends toestablish the

charge that the agents of the FBI and the Department of Justice, acting in concert with prosecuting authorities of Cook and Factor, did contrive to bring about the conviction of through evidence the officials had reasonable cause to perjured.” On the basis of evidence presented, Judge Barnesfreed

County Touhy believe Touhy,

who remained out of prison just forty-nine hours, until Judge Barnes’ decision was reversed by a higher court.

Touhy was born in Chicago on September

18, 1898. His

father was a patrolman. Roger was one of eight children. His

mother died in 1908. Touhy’s early schooling was in Chicago. Then in 1913 the family moved to the suburb of Downer’s Grove, where Touhy completed his grammer school education

at St. Joseph’s school. He graduated at the age of thirteen and was class valedictorian as well as an Goodwin, the pastor of the parish.

133

altar boy

for Father

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Tue Five-Hunprep-Day HEADACHE

In 1913 the family moved to another suburb, Franklin Park, where Touhy helped to build the family home. By this time his

schooling had stopped because it was necessary for him to help

support the family. His first job was delivering freight bills for the Chicago and Alton Railroad. He did this for six months, then was an usher and a clerk in the wholesale department of Marshall Field and Co. for a year. From this job he went to sampling cookies in a biscuit company. At the age of sixteen he applied for a job as a Western Union clerk and telegrapher. The job took him to Denver, where he became a station man and telegrapher for the Denver and Rio

Grande Railroad. In 1917, at the age of nineteen, he enlisted in the Navy as a radioman. The Navy sent him to Harvard University as an instructor in telegraphy. He remained on the

Navy’s faculty at Harvard until his discharge in 1919. After his Navy service he worked as a telegrapher for the Rock Island Railroad for a short period, then took a job with a petroleum company at Yale, Oklahoma. Then he was transferred to another firm at Wirt, Oklahoma, as stationary engineer and tester. At the same time he held down a part-time job in a Western Union office.

In 1921 he returned to Chicago and started a used car business, using his savings of the previous few years to finance the operation. He had married in 1919, before leaving the Navy, and has two sons, one of whom is an Army veteran and the other a Navy veteran. The car business flourished, and he stayed in

it until 1928. In the late 20s, he “came in contact” with Matt Kolb, one of the leading bootleggers of the northwest part of Cook County who was engaged in the illicit manufacture and sale of beer. ‘Touhy’s used car agency furnished the cars for Kolb’s illegal activities. Touhy reports that he formed a partnership with Kolb in 1928. Together they bought a brewery which he claims was operated legitimately, but that the product of this brewery was immediately distributed to numerous miniature breweries for fermentation, distribution and sale in the northwest sector

Roger louby’s Story

157

of Cook County. He has said that the illegal beer business was highly profitable until 1933, when the Eighteenth Amendment was repealed.

After Prohibition was legislated out of existence, Touhy acquired an exclusive distributorship for two well-known beers in the same northwest area. He has commented that, oddly enough, many of the men who worked for him as beer wagon drivers during Prohibition became policemen in various towns

and villages in the same area in which he was selling beer. It 1s interesting to note that prior to his indictment for the kidnaping of Factor, Touhy had never been convicted of a felony and had no police record except for a traffic arrest and an arrest for the possession of a gun in his Titusville, Florida,

home in 1933, for which he was fined $100. In August of 1954, two weeks after Touhy was returned to prison following his forty-nine-hour vacation, he told his story to me in an exclusive interview which appeared in the Chicago Herald-American. “A few of the boys here,” he said, “wanted to know all about the world beyond these gates. I told them it was wonderful; wonderful. You could tell by the newspaper pictures they took of me how I felt about being out. I was usually ten feet ahead of my lawyer. I couldn’t walk fast enough. “Pm absolutely positive I'll be out very shortly. I don’t know why I'm back here. It’s ridiculous. That’s not a good word for it, but it’s the best I can think of. I know I’m the center of a lot of controversy. If people would read those 7000 pages of testimony, they’d see that the record speaks for itself. “I had only one traffic violation, back in 1920,” he continued, speaking of his record before his conviction.“I was valedictorian of the eighth grade graduating class. I started working when I was fifteen, became a telegrapher, taught telegraphy to Navy enlistees at Harvard University during World War I, went to Oklahoma, saved money to get into the automobile business— and of course, I had two exclusive agencies for beer.” Then he launched into his story of the kidnaping of Factor.

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ace wid a had I ed. olv inv not was I ed, pen hap r ve te ha “W the and , ons uni the ran ey Th s. der lea or lab h wit e quaintanc unions had treasuries running into millions and millions of dollars. All my troubles resulted from friendship with guys like Tom Reynolds, who was president of the Moving Picture Operators; Tom Maloy, business agent for the same union; Steve

Summers of the Milk Drivers; Art Wallace of the Painters; Jerry

Horan, of the Flat Janitors and Building Service Employees;

Bill Rooney, head of the Sheet Metal Workers; Tim Lynch, of the Teamsters; Mike Norris and Eddie McFadden, of the Material Drivers; and Paddy Berill, of the International Teamsters.

“The guy who knew all the angles was Marcus “Studdy” Looney, who was a front for Capone. My troubles began when Studdy came to see my brother Tommy and me at my house in

Des Plaines one night in 1933. “He laid out the plans for what the Capone crime syndicate had in mind. Studdy had a tally of what each of a long list of unions had in the treasury, and the total ran to more than ten million dollars. He said that the syndicate was going to take over these unions, and that their treasuries were what counted. He asked us what unions we wanted. That was our invitation to join Capone’s mob. “We told him we weren’t interested. Then we notified our friends in the labor unions that they were in trouble.” Touhy paused for a moment, then added, “And if I had it to do all over again, I'd do the same thing. I don’t double-cross.” He recalled that his warnings caused a great commotion among the union leaders. None of them wasted any time in ordering bullet-proof glass installed in their homes and offices and even in their automobiles. “They got bodyguards, too,” Touhy continued. “Each one had a couple. But most of the bodyguards had records and weren’t welcome in my home. I didn’t want ex-cons working for me. None of my beer runners had records. I just had guys with a lot of muscle for beer lifters.

Roger Touby’s Story

159

“In about a year and a half, a lot of my friends had been shot. Maloy, Rooney and Lynch were shot down. Thats the Chicago

type of gang warfare. Then one day Murray

Humphries

(The Camel)

came out to see me. He told me Frank

(The

Enforcer) Nitti wanted to talk to me in Cicero about some labor cases. I knew what that meant. I'd better stay out of Cicero. I told him Nitta could come to see me. “Then my two boys were threatened with kidnaping. They almost got away with the boys, in spite of me hiring a guard to watch them at school and recess and wherever they were. I watched the guard and fired him when I saw he was loafing. “All of this led up to the Factor case.” At the time that Factor was kidnaped and held for ransom, the United States Supreme Court had ordered rearguments before it in Factor’s appeal regarding the legality of an extradition warrant issued by Great Britain. The British government charged him with defrauding British investors of seven million dollars in stock deals. ‘Touhy has charged that the kidnaping of Factor neveroccurred but actually was a hoax arranged to build up public sympathy to help Factor to escape the extradition. Factor was held for twelve

days and released after the payment of ransom. Touhy points out that when he was released, Factor had a twelve-day growth of beard, but he also had a manicure, and his white linen suit was clean and unmussed. Touhy also claims that he was framed for the kidnaping in a double-barreled deal. Someone had to take the rap if the kidnaping was to appear legitimate. And he was

being punished by the Capone syndicate for not going along with their plans to raid union treasuries.

After lighting a cigarette, Touhy went on with his story. “On the morning of July 1, 1933, just after midnight or so, a man came to my home, told me that Factor had been kidnaped from the Dells. He identified himself as Lt. Leo Carroll from the

police department. He was actually Lt. Leo Carr of the Chicago detective bureau, who is Factor’s bodyguard in Los Angeles now.

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“He asked me if I'd cooperate in tracking down information about who the kidnapers were. I told him the Capone syndicate owned the Dells (a roadhouse in suburban Morton Grove) and

that I would never set foot on the grounds. He begged me to go out there and sound out the boys in the neighborhood. I said I would, although I reminded him that a couple of union leaders had been ambushed out there. “I couldn’t get any information, although I worked on it that day and most of the night, all through the area.”

Factor’s story of the kidnaping was that on the night in question, June 30, 1933, Factor, his wife Rella and his son, Jerome, were at the Dells Roadhouse in Morton Grove. In their party also was a man named Al Epstein and his wife. Factor 1s known to have gambled heavily at the Dells. After midnight,

the party decided to leave the place. The two women went together in one car, and Factor and Epstein drove a second car. The women were stopped by a group of men and detained for a while, then permitted to continue. Factor’s car was stopped, he was removed from it and put into another car, and taken to an unidentified spot where he was held prisoner for twelve days while ransom negotiations were carried on. ‘Touhy continued to relate his story. “A few days later, I got * a call from the late Father Weber, of Indianapolis, who was staying at the Morrison Hotel. I sent my car for him and we had a family dinner at home. Later he talked to me privately and said that Leo Carr had sent him to ask me to be the go-between in effecting Factor’s release, that the contact with the kidnapers had been made and that there was $150,000 waiting for me at the Morrison. “I said no. I got half a dozen more calls repeating the offer in the next few days. “I finally went fishing. My wife was going, too, but when McFadden, Willie Sharkey and Gus Schaefer showed up, she | decided to stay home. We went up to the Flambeau waters in Wisconsin. I was fishing with Joe St. German, an Indian guide,

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Platoons of inmates leave school at noon and proceed to dining room. Stateville is American prison offering a four-year high school course

Roger Touby’s Story

161

and while we were trying to bring in the muskies, Sharkey got a dozen Indians so drunk they were doing war dances. “Same thing happened the next day. I decided to cut the vacation short. I caught seven muskies that last day, (had to turn four of them loose) gave one to a doctor from Chicago who wasn’t having any luck fishing, and started for home. That was July 14.

“I got arrested in Elkhorn, Wisconsin, July 19, when I went off the road on an LL curve and knocked down a telephone post. I was sitting there in the station talking to Sheriff O’Brien when some citizen saw a pistol and a rifle in the back seat. Then the sheriff wanted identification and all. “About that time there was a lot of publicity about the Hamm kidnaping in St. Paul. I never knew such a man existed. But the Wisconsin cops notified Chicago. Dan Gilbert, chief investigator for the state’s attorney’s office, and some FBI men came

out and took us to Eleventh and State (headquarters of the Chicago police). We went through about a dozen showups. “They tried to get us to confess and sign papers. They broke my neck. I got a fractured vertebra. It still bothers me. After five or six weeks of this, McFadden and Sharkey had really gone insane. Next thing we knew, we were indicted. We couldn’

see anyone. From July until late October, I didn’t even get to see my wife. Schaefer finally got a lawyer and he got my wife in to see me in the presence of officers. They didn’t know we were both telegraphers. We held hands and I’d give her the code and she’d give me the eye. The officers though I'd gone nutty too.

“They took us to St. Paul and we were finally acquitted (of the Hamm kidnaping), although five persons identified us. But the day I went on trial, the newspapers said I'd been indicted in Chicago for the Factor kidnaping. Back I came in the custody of the state. I waived extradition. Gilbert was waiting and he rendered a lot of witnesses useless for me. He threatened them.

“But if I'd had a hearing as far back as 1936, the proof of my

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innocence would even then have been overwhelming. I've spent a lot of money in these twenty years to pay investigators to dig up the facts.” Touhy claimed that a man named Isaac Costner was the only

identifying witness at the trial which followed, and that Costner testified falsely. He cited affidavits from a number of friends of his which substantiated his story of the hoax. And he also stated that the Capone syndicate was strong enough, politically, to bring about his prosecution. In his petition to the governor, he stated that the nickname “Roger the Terrible” was given to him as a result of this trial.

And in explaming why he escaped from Stateville, in 1942, he said he did so “when offered the opportunity by O’Connor because of my futile efforts to secure relief in the courts to correct a miscarriage of justice.” This is the story, as Roger Touhy tells it. Some persons believe it. Some do not. But all agree that he would have had a much better chance of being heard and of getting out if he hadn’t gone

over the wall in 1942.

Chapter Fifteen

ROGER TOUHY GOES OVER THE WALL Percy Campbell was an ordinary sort of man who was raised on a farm mn Mississippi and took up barbering as a career when he left the farm. A Negro, he was twenty-nine years old when he

moved to Chicago in 1919. The big city proved too much for him, and five years later, in 1924, he was sentenced to serve one year-to-life for manslaughter. He arrived at Stateville in August of that year. For the next eighteen years he led an uneventful

life in prison; the most interesting item in his prison jacket 1s the long series of requests he made to be transferred to the honor

farm. He wanted to go back to farm work pretty badly. Yet this little-known man with claims to fame which make him Stateville. First, if it weren’t for Campbell, and their accomplices would have

the unspectacular life has two important in the history of

Roger "Touhy, Basil Banghart not been able to escape from

Stateville in 1942. Second, Campbell himself walked away from the prison long before anyone knew his role in the big break and was gone for four years. Touhy stayed away only eighty days.

The story starts back in 1939. For a number of years Campbell had persisted in requesting a transfer to the honor farm. These pleas were ignored because prison officials regarded him as a poor risk, and also because he had too much time to serve.

Finally, however, in May of 1939, he was given an honor pledge to sign. The pledge stated that he would not trade or traffic while holding any position of honor in the prison, nor would he be guilty of any immoral or illegal conduct. He further promised

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in this pledge that he would not attempt to escape, and would do everything in his power to prevent the escape of any other prisoner. Having signed this pledge, Campbell was permitted to do

work outside of the walls,and in August of 1939, he wasassigned to the front gate as a night porter. Among his other duties, he was charged with lowering the flag on the big pole in front of

the prison at sundown. Life settled down into an even pattern for Campbell after he assumed his new duties and continued that way until September

of 1942. One evening in the middle of the month he went out to the flagpole at dusk and lowered the flag as usual. Having re-

moved it from the hoist, he began to fold it in the accepted manner. Then, when it was partially folded, he paused long enough to search surreptitiously under a nearby bush, following instructions which had been given to him by an inmate inside of the walls.

Soon he found what he was looking for, two guns, a .38 and a .45 automatic. They had been thrown there from a car as it sped past the prison in the lengthening shadows. Campbell carefully folded the guns into the flag and then walked in leisurely fashion back to the gatehouse, carrying the flag. He passed the guards at the gatehouse and continued on to the administration building, through the guard hall and through the

hospital gate. He must have passed twenty guards with his lethal load. Only once was he questioned, when he was asked where he was taking the flag. He replied that he was taking it to the clothing room for repairs. Once 1 the clothing room, he left the flag and removed the

guns. Hiding them inside of his shirt, he continued on to the general storeroom, where he met inmate William Stewart. Stewart was the man who had given him the instructions on where to find the guns and how to bring then into the prison. He passed the guns over to Stewart and then went back to his post at the main gate. His part in the Touhy escape had been played. ‘The guns had been thrown from a car by Casimir Darlak, a

Roger Touby Goes Quer the Wall

165

brother of inmate Edward Darlak, as part of a carefully worked-

out plan that had been ripening for some months. Nothing further happened for three weeks. Then, at 12:35 p.M., on October 9, two inmates, Cito and Morgan, drove a small garbage truck up to the rear door of the kitchen to collect the refuse from the recent meal. As Cito was filling some of the garbage cans, Roger Touhy walked up and told him to stick around a while, that someone had been looking for him. Cito sat down on the running board of the truck. A short time later, Matthew Nelson, another inmate, came along and told Morgan, the other driver of the truck, that he had a telephone call. Morgan went to see about this. Cito noticed that Touhy stayed in the vicinity, and that he seemed nervous. But he remembered Touhy as a nervous man, and so wasn’t disturbed by the fact. When the one o’clock whistle blew, Touhy ran up to the truck where Cito was sitting, and said, “Look, whats that down there on the ground?” Cito looked down, saw nothing and told Touhy so. When he looked up again, Touhy was bending over him, holding a pair of shears he had taken out of his shirt. Touhy went for Cito, stabbing him in the forehead with the shears, and at that moment a number of other convicts rushed up, acting on a timetable that had been worked out long before. Included in the gang which assembled around the truck, in addition to Touhy, were Basil Banghart, Edward Darlak,

Matthew Nelson, James O’Connor, St. Clair McInerney and William Stewart. As soon as they had all gathered, Touhy jumped into the driver’s seat and the rest climbed into the back of the truck. They drove to the mechanical storeroom.

Guard Samuel Johnson was sitting at his desk in the mechanical storeroom, when suddenly a convict vaulted through the supply window. Almost at the same moment, a second man came through the gate carrying a gun and shoved it in his ribs. A third inmate jumped in through the window, went directly to the telephone and cut the wires.

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An inmate carrying a .45 automatic pointed it at Johnson and said, “You're going with us.”

Johnson, stunned by the rapidity of the action around him,

said, “What's going on here?” The man with the gun replied, “If you don’t behave, you'll be dead in a minute.” He then asked Johnson where the long ladders were, and

Johnson replied that they were locked up. The inmates told him that he had the keys and to open the locks so they could get a forty-foot extension ladder. With the gun stuck in his ribs as a

persuader, Johnson felt there was nothing else to do but unlock the ladders. After he had unlocked the forty-foot ladder, the convicts decided that they needed a thirty-foot ladder as well, and made him unlock that, too. Then they forced Johnson to leave the mechanical storeroom. Outside, in the gangway between the storeroom and the yard gang basement, he found a truck standing, with its motor running. An inmate, wearing the white cap of a prison officer, was sitting at the wheel.

Johnson was forced into the back of the truck while the inmates loaded the two ladders on the top of the truck. When the truck was loaded, inmates on the outside yelled at the driver to

get started. Just then, the engine died. The driver of the truck declared that the battery was dead, and asked Johnson if there were new batteries in the mechanical storeroom. Johnson said that there were none, though actually he had three on the inventory. The prisoners pushed the truck back out of the gangway to

the road. Johnson noted that one inmate who appeared to be the leader cussed out the driver of the truck and took his place behind the wheel. All through this, another inmate kept Johnson covered with a gun. The man behind the wheel said to Johnson, “If this ———— truck doesn’t start now, you'll be a dead man.”

He stepped on the starter and the engine kicked over, much

to Johnson’s relief. The inmates piled aboard the truck once

Roger Touby Goes Over the Wall

167

more, but before they could get started, Lieutenant G. R. Cotter, aroused by the noise, came around to investigate. Swinging the ns to him, they made him get into the truck also. Then the truck drove off across the prison yard, past the powerhouse, toward the northwest corner of the wall.

As they drove past the powerhouse,

Officer Johnson saw

another officer in a truck going toward the south gate. He waved to him, hoping to attract his attention. The gun was jammed harder into his ribs. “You look like you want to get killed,” one of the inmates growled in his ear. As the truck went along, one of the inmates exchanged caps with Lt. Cotter. They approached the northwest corner of the great wall surrounding the yard. Above this corner was Tower Number Three, where Guard Herman Kross, was stationed. At the official investigation later, statements by the various guards involved gave different views as to what happened next, Guard Kross, in the tower, said that he saw the truck approach-

ing, and he could see Johnson and Lt. Cotter in it. He was confused and stepped out of his tower to see what was going on. Then he became suspicious and stepped back into the tower to get his rifle, and the inmates started shooting at him. He tried to draw a bead on the inmate standing behind Lt. Cotter, but at that moment a bullet grazed the left side of his head, knocking off his cap and glasses. He fell down then and lost consciousness. His statement says that by the time he regained his senses, the

convicts were on top of the wall, bringing Johnson with them. He felt he didn’t dare shoot then, for fear of hitting Johnson. One of the convicts approached and threatened to hit him with the butt of a rifle. The statement of Lieutenant Cotter, who was in the truck as it approached the base of the wall under the tower, was that as the truck stopped, two of the convicts swung a ladder off the truck. A third one joined them and helped to swing the ladder against the wall. Cotter signaled to Kross, who was standing up o : > on the wall, to shoot but Kross didn’t move. The guns of the

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inmates were pointed at him, but one of the gun bearers told Cotter that if he tried another signal like that he would be shot. Kross, according to Cotter, continued to stand in his place on the tower while the inmates fired three or four shots at him, and he made no attempt to get his gun. Finally he appeared to fall down, and Cotter assumed that one of the bullets had hit him. His closing statement to the warden was, “Up to the time we reached the tower I had made no move, figuring that the towerman would shoot them when they attempted to go up the ladder, but he just stood there without moving.” Later, when Warden Ragen took over the prison once more and conducted his own investigation, Guard Kross was dismissed on the ground that he should have fired before the inmates had an opportunity to put the ladder against the wall. Tower guards are placed on the prison wall to guard against just such attempts as this one. When they fail to fulfill the requirements of their jobs, they are no longer useful employees.

The seven convicts forced Johnson to go up the ladders with them, both ladders having been put against the wall by then, and went into the tower. Here they took the keys to the door of the tower, which was at the bottom of a flight of steps on the outside of the wall, and the keys to Guard Kross’s car, which was parked near the base of the wall on the outside. This, incidentally, was a violation of security regulations, as no cars are supposed to be parked in such areas.

The inmates crowded into the tower, leaving Johnson out on

the wall. One of them kept a gun on him so that he could not signal for help. The others took what armament they could find

in the tower—a .30 caliber Springfield rifle, a .33 caliber Winchester rifle, and a .45 caliber revolver from Guard Kross’ holster. In addition, they found fifteen rounds of ammunition for each of the nfles. The inmates disappeared down the steps on the outside of the

wall. When the last of them left the tower, Johnson pushed the ladders down from the wall, then ran to the telephone in the tower to sound the alarm. As he did so, he saw the convicts

Roger Touby Goes Over the Wall

169

climbing to Kross’ car, a green 1940 four-door Ford sedan. They sped off on a road which led to the honor farm, turned and went through a gate on the farm, and disappeared toward the west. The Touhy gang had escaped, and disappeared. The report

spread through the state and for days afterward sightings were telephoned in. They had been seen in virtually every corner of the state. The getaway car was located two days later in Villa Park, a suburb fifteen miles west of Chicago.

On the eleventh of October, Warden Ragen was asked by the -

governor to take over as warden at Stateville once more. On October 19, the warden who had been in charge at the time of the escape announced his resignation. On the twenty-first, the newspapers carried the news that Ragen had been reappointed, to “head a new military regime.”

Also on October announced

19, the Federal Bureau of Investigation

that they were

entering

the hunt for the seven

escaped felons. Although no federal laws had been broken during the escape, the government found an interesting technicality to make their interest in the case legal. Under the

selective service laws in effect at the time, any prisoner leaving Stateville or any other prison was required to register with his draft board within five days. Touhy and his six cohorts neglected to do this, and so federal warrants charging draft evasion were sworn out. The month of November passed but none of the gang turned up. The FBI picked up a lead early in December which said that

the whole gang had lived in an apartment building mn Chicago until December 5. During this time, Matthew Nelson began drinking heavily. When he returned to the hide-out, he and William Stewart were pistol whipped by the others. As a result, the gang split up. Stewart moved to a small hotel in Chicago’s Loop. Nelson went to Minneapolis, where he was captured without a struggle in a hotel room on December 16. Stewart was also taken without a fight in Chicago on

December

19. However, the FBI withheld this information,

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Tae Frve-Hunprep-Day HEADACHE

preferring to release the story of the capture of the whole gang at a later date. During the period the gang had its freedom, several big robberies occurred. It was believed that they were the work of the remaining five members. On December 18 an armored truck was held up in a daring robbery by five men in a suburb west of Chicago. The loot taken amounted to $20,000. Also during this same period an Evanston society matron and her

maid were killed and $30,000 was taken from her home. Nelson, when he was captured, told FBI men that he and the others spent their first night outside of Stateville in a woods near the prison. He said he had about $200 in his possession when he went over the wall, money that been smuggled in. He bought a

oun with a part of this, and lived on the rest of it for a while. When it began to run low, he held up a grocery storein Chicago. During this robbery he not only took the money in the register, but also stole the draft card and other credentials of one of the employees of the store. He used the man’s name thereafter, and was registered under it in Minneapolis when captured. Toward the end of December, the FBI picked up the trail of the other five members of the gang, and on December 27, traced them to two apartments in Chicago. Two of the men, McInerney and O’Connor, were occupying a two-room third floor apartment at one address. Banghart, Touhy and Darlak moved into the second apartment on the twenty-seventh, apparently to keep suspicion down. Neighbors’ interest might be aroused over the fact that five men were living in one apartment.

The FBI, led personally by Director J. Edgar Hoover, set traps at both apartments. Agents took rooms a short distance down the hall from McInerney and O’Connor, and drilled peepholes in the door to watch the hallway. The two fugitives were out of the building when the federal men set up their trap.

They returned a short time later, at 11:15 in the evening. As they prepared to enter their room, FBI men threw open the door and told them to surrender. Both men went for their guns and were caught in a withering blast from the FBI guns. One of the

Roger Touhy Goes Quer the Wall

171

gangsters tumbled over the banister and fell to the floor below. The other rolled down the stairs to end up beside his pal. Both were dead when agents got to them. Four hours later, FBI men were ready to spring the trap on the remaining three fugitives. In this building, they had taken an apartment directly across the hall, and had moved families from the building, to protect them in the event of shooting or that tear gas would have to be used. Floodlights were erected around the building to prevent any of the convicts from slipping away under cover of darkness, and all automobile traffic was stopped in the block around the building. A group of heavily armed agents moved up to the roof of the building, and another group was posted across the street. At five o'clock in the morning a loud-speaker system that could be heard for several blocks was moved into position and all of the lights were suddenly thrown on. One of the agents took the microphone and said, “Touhy,

Banghart and Darlak, we are the FBI. Surrender and come out with your hands up.” After waiting a minute. he gave them further instructions. “Come out through the front door. Come out backwards and with your hands up. Banghart, you come first.” For ten minutes the agents waited for a response. They learned later that all three men had been sound asleep when the booming loud-speaker sounded. It rocked them out of bed, and they all needed a few minutes to collect their wits and determine how badly they were cornered. Then, after a consultation, they decided to surrender. Banghart backed out first, and then the agents called for Touhy, and finally for Darlak. Touhy had bleached his black hair with peroxide, and was wearing brilliant red pajamas as he came into the spotlights. As each man came out, agents in the apartment across the hall reached out, pulled him in, and manacled him.

A search of the two apartments revealed $13,533.27, which Hoover

declared as either loot taken since their escape from

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True Frve-Huxprep-Day Heapache

Stateville, or money which had been stashed away before the

men had been “sent up.” Several automobiles stolen by the gang were located, and a small arsenal was uncovered. To complete the story, two of the seven escapees were dead. Touhy, Darlack. Nelson and Stewart were returned to Srate-

ville. Banghart had a thirty-six-year federal sentence for mail robbery at Charlotte, North Carolina, hanging over his head,

and on this charge, was sent to Alcatraz. When he completed that sentence in 1934, he was returned to Stateville, where he 1s now serving his enginal Illinois sentence. When Touhy was brought back to Stateville, Ragen

and

several other officers went to the FBI office to pick him up. On seeing Ragen, hus firs

your job back for you.’

words were, “Well, warden, I got

Part Two

THE

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Chapter Sixteen A PRISON

TOUR

The gatehouse 1s a separate little brick structure in front of the administration building, at the end of the parkway leading in from the highway. A pleasant-looking officer in a khaki uniform stands behind the counter inside, and politely asks your business in the prison. Then you sign in, giving the time of arrival and the name of the person you wish to visit. Male visitors are then directed to a little room to the left of the counter, and women are sent to a similar room to the right. In the room, you remove everything from your pockets or purse and lay the contents on a table. Then the frisking begins, an oflicer doing the job on the men and a matron on the women. The search 1s done politely, but also thoroughly. They check the padding in shoulders, the lining, cuffs, pockets—anywhere that an item might be concealed. You feel, when 1t’s over, that not much could have been missed. Next, attention 1s directed at the little pile on the table— which 1s usually messy enough to make you want to apologize. An inspection is made of wallets, cigarette packs and other containers. All items which experience has taught shouldn’t be taken inside of the walls are removed—and this includes some items which seem strange to the uninitiated. Any candy, gum or medicine is held out—narcotics could be smuggled in by this means. In my case, a suburban railroad timetable was withheld—though for the life of me, I couldn’t see how any inmate could find such a schedule useful. Postage stamps, which are the same as money, are kept, as 1s anything which might be of value to a convict. All items removed from the little heap are stored for you in the gatehouse, to be picked up when you sign out.

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Tue WarDEN AND THE Prison Tobay

After the frisking, you are directed through a short, narrow passage to an outside door. In reality, as you go through the passage, you are passing through an electronic eye which indicates whether or not you are carrying any concealed metal on

your person, though after the frisking this doesn’t seem to be possible. The administration building is a short walk through a tiny park and the warden’s office is on the second floor. In the lobby outside of the office 1s a large model of Stateville, made in plaster by one of the inmates. Looking at it, you get the impression of a good aerial view of the prison, and it provides a quick orientation on the layout of the prison. After a short visit with the warden, the tour begins. Opening at the back of the lobby in which the model of the prison is located is the guard hall. This is a short, wide hall with a barred gate at each end, and here the guards muster for work each day, and read the new orders before reporting for duty. The two gates of this hall cannot be opened at the same time. The records office, the parole office and the office of the assistant warden open off this hall, and a heavily armored bay juts slightly into it. This is the front of the prison’s armory,

where the 300 guns kept by the prison are housed—fully loaded and ready for stant action. The collection includes pistols, machine guns, rifles and tear gas guns. And the keys to all the doors in the prison are also kept in the armory. When a guard checks out a key or a weapon, he hangs his identification tag in its place as a kind of receipt.

If the warden wishes to enter the armory, he must do so alone. Any visitor with him must wait until he has been admitted and given permission for the visitor to come in. If anyone tried to enter at the same time as the warden, he would be shot immediately and without further questions, for he might be forcing the warden to enter at concealed gun point to gain access to the weapons. The armory door is never opened while either of the barred gates to the guard hall are open. Beyond the second gate of the guard hall, the main hall of the

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administration building continues. Off it at this point is the visitors’ room. Each mmate may have a visit from a relative every two weeks, and on those weeks when relatives do not come, he may receive permission to see friends. The visitors’ room 1s lined with sound proofing material to keep noise at a minimum. A long table runs down the center of the room. Visitors sit on one side and inmates on the other, separated by a glass partition so that they can talk freely but nothing can be passed between them. When Ragen assumed the wardenship, it was customary for VISItOTS to bring food as gifts for the inmates, but he put a stop

to this practice. He saw that many of the persons bringing elaborate baskets of food were half-starved themselves; and the prisoners were well-fed and in need of no such sacrifices. And he saw that often the loved ones of an inmate who could not afford to bring anything had to sit next to a visitor carrying a hamper of tiles While the more affluent visitor and his inmate sat

and ate, the others had to watch. This, to the warden, seemed an added bit of torture which wasn’t necessary. The visitors’ room holds ninety-eight persons, and is a sad place for an observer. All the woes of the world seem to parade

before him in a short time. Mothers bring tiny tots to see their fathers; wives who are trying to keep broken homes together come to see their men; and mothers who only a few years before had held an infant in chee arms and dreamed of the great things he would do in this world, try to hold their heads high as they are ushered through the cotton into | the visiting room to see their sons. One-quarter of the inmates in the two prisons never receive visitors. Their families and friends are dead or have forgotten them—and with the exception of the prison records, they are dead as far as society is concerned. An officer sits at one end of the visiting table and a matron

sits at the other end. Visiting continues from eight in the morning until four in the afternoon, six days a week. When a visitor

enters the room, a momentary kiss and embrace across the glass

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partition directly in front of the officer’s desk 1s allowed. No other contact with the inmate is permitted. The hall of the administration building leads to a long covered ramp, referred to by prison personnel as “a tunnel.” Actuall these tunnels are covered sidewalks leading from one building to another. Tunnels by which guards enter the guard towers in the panopticians run under these sidewalks, and hence the name. The tunnel from the administration building leads to the dining hall. Since the dining hall in any prison is the most dangerous spot— the place where the majority of riots start—the guards stationed in the central tower overlooking the dining tables carry guns, and are the only guards inside of the walls to do so. The dining hall can accommodate nearly 2000 inmates at a sitting, and the meal is served army style. Each inmate brings his own cup from his cell, hanging from his belt. At the entrance to the dining hall, he picks up a plate, knife, fork and spoon. Passing down the line in front of the serving tables, he holds

out his tray, accepts what is put on it, and files to one of the terrazo-topped dining tables. The meal is usually over in about twenty minutes. During that time, white-coated attendants walk up and down the aisles to serve “seconds” to any man who wants them. A sign in the center of the hall tells the inmates they may have all they want to eat—but they may not waste. In rooms off the dining hall are the kitchen and the bakery. Ragen is extremely proud of these two parts of his institution and he has every reason to be so, for they are immaculately clean. Every time the warden enters them, you see his eyes casting around in a quick inspection. No housewife was ever more particular. It 1s about this time in the tour that you begin to notice the men with the buckets. Wherever you go 1n Stateville there are men with buckets, mopping, mopping, mopping. After a bit, they become so commonplace that they seem to be a part of the scenery. They fade into the background, and you no longer notice them. But they are there. They are always there.

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The kitchen prepares 10,000 meals a day and uses about 13,000 pounds of raw food, while the bakery produces all of the baked goods for the prison. This includes 8oo two-pound loaves of bread every day, as well as doughnuts, rolls and cakes. The

warden invites you to sample whatever happens to be coming out of the ovens while you are there, and watches your face for

areaction. Whether itis a doughnut or a butterfly roll, he knows itis good, and wants you to know it. In addition to the regular meals, three special diets are prepared in the kitchen every day, for prisoners who are under doctor’s orders. There is a high-caloric menu for men who are underweight, a diabetic diet and a soft diet.

The coffee 1s brewed in a separate enclosure, walled off from the dining hall by steel grating. Ragen explains that ground coffee is a highly valuable item in the sub rosa bartering that inmates carry on in any prison. Therefore, it has to have special protection. An officer brings the ground coffee to the giant brewing urns and puts it in. Inmates handle the brewing and dispensing of the coffee and the cleanup of the coffee room afterward. One guard recalls that some years ago, he discovered that coffee was being brewed surreptitiously in some of the cells. This could mean only one thing: that someone had access to the ground coffee and was trading it to other inmates. A close check indicated that one of the two inmates who worked 1n the coffeedispensing room was probably to blame. But since they were never allowed to touch the ground coffee, it was difficult for the ard to understand how he gathered his trading stock. The guard posted himself in the dining room after one meal, behind a column so that he could watch what went on 1n the

coffee room without being observed. The coffee was prepared and served in the proper Fashion, and nothing untoward happened. Then the last of the inmates finished his meal and left the hall. The coffee men went to work, cleaning up their room. One of them removed the old grounds from the urns and instead of throwing them out, took them over to an oven. Care-

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Tare WARDEN AND THE Prison Tobpay

fully he put the soggy mess in the hot oven to dry out. That was the answer. He was peddling old, used coffee grounds to his fellow inmates. The guard knew the inmate well, and knew that he was about to be paroled. He had been a model prisoner, yet if the infringement were reported, his parole would be revoked and he would lose some of this good time. The guard pondered the question for a while, trying to determine the best means of serving justice, and finally he got an idea. During the afternoon that followed, he made it a point accidentally to meet several of the inmates whom he knew had possessed the coffee grounds in their cells. He struck up a casual conversation with each, and in passing mentioned that he thought inmate A must have had a screw or two in his head knocked loose.

“Why, I saw him urns this afternoon,” . He’d have to be wouldn’t he? Maybe

taking the old coffee grounds out of the he said, “and putting them in the oven to crazy to want to bake old coffee grounds, instead of being sent out on parole, he

should be transferred to the mental hospital.” Nothing further was said on the matter. But the next morning, the inmate turned up for duty in the coffee room with a conspicuous black eye, and the illicit trade in coffee stopped abruptly. From that point on, the grounds were thrown in the garbage where they belonged. Clustered around the dining hall are five cell houses, four of them the giant circular panopticans, and one a long rectangular building of standard construction. The panopticans have four tiers of cells, 248 cells in all, looking toward the watch tower in

the center. Part of the roof is glass, so they are as bright and cheerful as you could expect anything as dismal as a cell house to be. Naturally the men with the buckets are in evidence, and at the door of the cell house you see an inmate expertly frisked by the officer at the desk. The inmate then turns and leaves by

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himself. The warden explains that an inmate sent to do an errand, to report to the hospital or do any other chore which requires that he be alone, 1s frisked every time he passes into or out of a building. His time of departure is recorded and he is

expected to proceed directly to his destination, with no loitering along the way. You go into a cell to see what life on the inside 1s like, and are

struck by the extreme neatness and order—like an army barracks on inspection day. The cells are six feet wide, nine feet long and eight feet high, originally designed for single occupancy. The

prison population has never been small enough to permit this, however, and most of the cells house two men. Only Romer. uals and a few other deviates have cells to themselves. The warden feels that the best arrangement is either one or three men to a cell, but under present conditions this isn’t possible. A double-decked bunk occupies most of each cell, and there is a toilet and lavatory at the back. A chest of drawers has drop leaves on its sides which come up to serve as writing tables. A medicine cabinet is mounted on the wall over the lavatory, and over each bed, there is a radio, equipped with earphones, built into the wall. The radio programs are piped into each cell from a central receiver and each inmate has his choice of three stations.

One form of punishment for an infraction of the prison rules 1s to impound

a man’s earphones for several days or a week.

Ragen has found that to deprive an inmate of his privileges, such as listening to the radio, going to the movies or shopping in the commissary, is effective for controlling most of the men. They value these highly, and are careful not to lose them. Incidentally, no crime programs are sent out over the prison network. This is one type of education the warden feels his charges don’t need. As you walk through the prison with the warden, you begin to see some measure of the respect the officers and the inmates

accord the warden. The officers salute as he passes, but it 1s a

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Tar WARDEN AND THE PrisoN Tobpay

friendly, casual salute, usually accompanied by a “Morning, warden,” or “Hi, warden.” Instead of the formality of a military salute, these have the warmth and friendliness of a handshake. A good many of the inmates salute and nod or speak to Ragen, too, though it 1sn’t required of them. He stops one occasionally to ade how he’s making out in a new assignment, or how his sore foot is coming along and the man usually brightens and gets voluble. As you pass working parties, the warden points out men and tells you something about them. “He used to be a tough one,” he says, “but he’s getting old now, and settling down.” After a morning of this you feel that through some mental trickery, the warden has managed to commit to memory the life story and medical record of every man in the prison, and to establish some sort of a personal relationship with each one. Considering the number of men involved, as well as the constant turnover in the population, this is no small feat. But it contributes strongly to the way the men feel about him. The barber shop is next on the itinerary. The officer in charge is a master barber, and he has under him forty-six students who are being trained under state regulations. Each is issued a student’s card, then trains for nine months before taking the test for barber’s apprentice. After twenty-seven months of apprenticeship, he 1s eligible to take the test to become a registered barber. There is a growing shortage of barbers in this country, as fewer and fewer younger men enter training for barbering careers, and as a result the graduates of Stateville’s barber college have a relatively easy time in finding positions when they leave the institution. Ragen says that there are many barber shops in Chicago that have some of his alumni at work in them. Since no prisoners are permitted to keep razors in their cells, and each must be shaved twice a week, the student barbers get plenty of practice with the razor. And every inmate receives a haircut once a month, which keeps the scissors snipping at a good clip. The chief differencebetween thebarber college on the

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inside and the barber shop on the outside is the fact that the barbers are not permitted to talk to their customers—a severe handicap.

As you walk through the long barber shop, which looks much like any other barber shop you ever saw except that it is bigger, it suddenly dawns on you that there are forty- six armed convicts in the same room with you. You experience a momentary

twinge of apprehension, until you look at Ragen and the other officers, who walk around the place unarmed and, to all appearances, unconcerned. The barber college is only a part of the educational program at Stateville. Every inmate who has not completed the eight

grades of elementary school, is required to do so. In addition, every inmate is encouraged to complete his high school training, and correspondence courses are offered for those who want a college education. Diplomas are awarded for elementary and high school by Will County at graduation exercises—and the

diplomas don’t show where the work was completed. In the vocational school and through on-the-job training, a

total of forty-two trades are taught. At present, about 2,000 inmates are enrolled in the educational program, while hundreds of others are receiving on-the-job training.

The warden points out that 95 per cent of all the men committed to Stateville are eventually released. A part of the rehabilitation of these men is providing them with both education and vocational training. The more educaton a man has, the less likely he 1s to commit a crime. And the man equipped with a trade by which he can earn a living—will have a better reason for going straight. The majority of inmates reporting to Stateville have no trade in which they are trained, and the acquisition of a skill gives them a big morale boost. This in itself can be a big factor in

keeping them straight once they are returned to society. The vocational school includes courses in radio and television repair work, welding, all phases of the printing trade, art poster design and lettering, all phases of automotive repair work, m-

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Tae WARDEN AND THE Prison Topay

cluding body and fender work. On-the-job training in the prison industries, which include a furniture sheet metal works, a shoe factory, a soap factory, a a tailor shop, the stone quarry, a book bindery, products shop, a cannery, a mattress factory, an shop, a maintenance shop and the farm.

is provided factory, a textile mill, a concrete upholstery

The products of these prison industries are sold by the penitentiary to tax-supported bodies in the state, such as schools, on a cost-plus-ten-per-cent basis. The soap factory, for example,

produces four million pounds of soap every year, making a total of twenty-six soap products. Three hundred thousand gallons of vegetables are canned every year, and that part not consumed in dhe prison is transferred to other institutions. The book bindery

rehabilitates about 300 books a day, mostly textbooks used in the public schools in the state. The tailor shop, employing 300 men, is a major operation, and makes everything from handkerchiefs to suits and overcoats. Uniforms for the Stateville guards, as well as for officers in all the other state institutions, are made here. The furniture

factory employs 350 inmates and, on the cost-plus-ten-per-cent basis, does an $800,000 annual business. The farm has 2200 acres under cultivation. Two hundred men are assigned permanently to the farm, and live in the farm dormitory. Another 220 live inside of the walls and are assigned to work on the farm. During harvesting times, when it is necessary to have more help, inmates are drafted from other jobs. The men living on the farm are “trusties,” carefully selected.

Only two men have tried to escape in the past six years, and they were both caught. The farm is considered good duty, and the warden receives many requests for transfers to it. One of the reasons 1s that the families of trusties living on the farm are permitted to visit them each Sunday. Often they have lunch in the recreation room of the farm dormitory, or enjoy it picnic fashion in the park outside.

The farm has 2 50 dairy cattle, with 125 milk producers which

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185

deliver all the milk used mn the prison; in addition, 300 beef cattle are fattened on grazing land for use in the prison. Three thou-

sand hogs are raised and fattened every year. Crops include 700 acres of corn, 400 of oats, 250 in alfalfa, 250 more m garden vegetables, plus 6o acres of tomatoes. Pheasants for the Illinois

Conservation Department are raised on the farm; around 20,000 of these game birds are raised every year. An old escape trick in prisons, as well as a favorite means of smuggling in arms and other contraband, 1s to use the underside of trucks and railroad cars which pass into the prison. As you continue on your tour of the grounds with Ragen, he shows you his method of preventing such escapes. A huge cage has been built outside of the south gate, large enough to accommodate the largest trucks. Shipments brought in and sent out through this gate are held in the cage long enough to permit a thorough search. The truck is driven over an open pit, in which an officer

can walk to inspect the bottom side. Just the fact that such a gate exists acts as a determent on inmates with ideas. As a further safety measure, all coal intended for the prison is unloaded outside of the wall. It is then passed to the inside through a special grilled porthole in the wall. As the warden escorts you toward the double gate, known as the sally port, in the south wall of the prison, you see another of the precautions taken to keep security intact. Ragen raises his his hand and waves to the guards in the tower over the gate. Then he cautions you to stand where you are until signaled to proceed. He then walks alone across an open compound and enters the gate. Finally he waves to indicate that you can follow. This again is a precaution against the possibility that Ragen might have been taken prisoner as he made his round and was being used as a decoy or hostage to get through the gate. Instructions to the guard are clear. If the warden does not advance toward the gate alone, they are to assume the worst and start shooting. If necessary, they are to shoot the warden. The normal prison work day 1s seven hours long, and 1s followed by an hour of recreation. Each cell house has its own rec-

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186

reation yard, and each yard is equipped with turning bars, basketball courts, softball diamonds, handball courts, horseshoe pits and other facilities. The warden feels that recreation 1s a tremendous help in administering the prison and places a good deal of emphasis on it. Spectator sports, he feels, are important, too. Every Saturday an outside baseball team is invited to play the institution team. In talking of this baseball schedule to a visitor, the warden dryly comments, “We play all of our games at home.” Baseball 1s one of the most popular of the recreational sports, and the games between the inmates are apt to get pretty heated. The warden grins as he tells about the inmate batter who objected to the way the inmate umpire was calling the balls and strikes on him. Finally, after four or five pitches, he turned to the umpire and said, “For cryin’ out loud! Gimme a break, will yar

2

‘The ump snapped back, “Did you give that guy a break when you shot his head oft?” and called him out on strikes. Along side of the east wall, near the administration building, is the greenhouse, where all the plants used in landscaping the prison grounds are grown. To maintain the beautiful grounds,

more than 500,000 plants are set out each year—and the mates employed in the greenhouse gain practical experience in another trade that 1s short in new recruits on the outside. All of the jobs in the prison industries pay small salaries to the inmates holding them. These, of course, are cherished and are another reason for the men to maintain a good disciplinary record. The salaries are from twelve to fifteen dollars 2a month— not large, but enough to supply money to buy items at the prison commissary. And many men are frugal enough to save money toward the day of release, some of them leaving with a hundred to two hundred in their pockets. The commissary, which each inmate may visit once a week to spend his allowance, looks like an old-fashioned general store with a long counter down one side. No cash is used in the transaction. Each inmate has an account book in which money

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he earns or is given is deposited; any purchases he makes are

deducted from his account. He signs for his purchases and also puts his thumb print on the voucher. Ragen recalls that one inmate tried to use another’s account, and was very chagrined when called to the captain’s office for discipline after the forgery was discovered. “I wouldnt even have tried it,” he said sullenly, “if 'da known you had one 0’ them things.” The “them things” he referred to was a fingerprint expert, who had checked into the matter when the swindled inmate reported an incorrect balance in his book. The commissary makes a profit each year, which is applied to the purchase of textbooks and other equipment for the schools, for athletic equipment, and for motion pictures and other amusements. Cigarettes are one of the most popular items, in spite of the fact that both smoking and chewing tobacco made in the penitentiary at Menard are supplied free. According to some of the inmates, the prison-made tobacco lacks the refined taste of the commercial product. Prisoners are no different than the average citizen when it comes to the matter of whether or not to give up smoking. One inmate tried several times to break himself of the habit with little success. Finally he became discouraged enough to request transfer to the isolation cells, where prisoners who have committed serious offenses against the rules are confined for periods up to fifteen days. In isolation, the men receive only one meal a day, and they sleep on blankets on the concrete floor. The cells are well-lighted and clean, unlike the “solitary confinement” cells depicted in most movies. But the biggest thing about isolation, as far as the inmate with the smoking habit was concerned, was that while there he would not be permitted to smoke. The warden wasn’t sure that this cure was permanent, After touring Stateville, the warden drives over to the Old Prison and continues his daily round. The offices in the old administration building give away their age by the high ceilings, old-fashioned woodwork and tall, narrow windows. But the lighting, plumbing and security items such as gates are all

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Tae WARDEN AND THE PrisoN TopAy

as modern as possible. The exterior of the cell houses are old native limestone, but the interiors the past few years, so that they country Those industries located at the factory, the sheet metal shop and

have been modernized within surpass most prisons in the

Old Prison include the shoe the textile mill. The grounds

are neat and pleasant—if you ignore the omnipresent glare of the walls—but lack the gorgeous display of gardens seen at Stateville. The electric chair, which for years was located mn the Old

Prison, was transferred to new quarters at Stateville in 1947. The law 1n Illinois requires that all men sentenced to death in southern Illinois are to be executed at Menard. All those sentenced in northern Illinois are to be executed at Stateville, with the exception that counties of more than one million population must execute their own criminals. Thus, Cook County, in which Chicago 1s located, handles its own executions. Later in the afternoon, after returning to the warden’s office at Stateville, you go back through the little gatehouse, sign out and pick up your small pile of belongings. As you walk to your car in the parking lot, you find yourself experiencing mixed feelings. You are full of admiration for the manner in which the two prisons are run; you are certain that it would be impossible

to operate them in any better manner. At the same time, as a citizen with normal feelings, you find yourself depressed, for a prison 1s a prison no matter how well 1t is run. Your mind is full of pictures of gray men in blue denim behind gray walls, and you wonder how many thousands of years of work and enjoyment have been wasted.

Chapter Seventeen

THE

VIEW

FROM

BEHIND

BARS

A prison can be seen from many viewpoints, and from each of these viewpoints it is something different. To the citizen passing it on the highway, it is ominous, frightening, and some-

thing he would just as soon forget as he tries to forget every-

thing that is not pleasant. To the warden and the prison officials,

it 1s a big institution to be administered, a gigantic problem

in logistics that is coupled to an even larger problem in security. To the newspaperman, it is, in addition to everything else, a hot spot for news. To the psychiatrist who must straighten out warped minds, it is one thing; to the legislator who must appropriate money for its upkeep, it is another. And to the inmate, the man on the inside, it is something else entirely. In an effort to obtain the view from inside of a cell,

three inmates of Stateville were invited to write short pieces for this book. They were assured that they could say anything they pleased, that the statements would be published just as they were written, and more important, that no matter what content of the statement, there would be no repercussions. There are stories about each of these men elsewhere in book. Although they are among the most publicized of the mates in Stateville, and probably in the world, their names purposes here are unimportant. Each 1s intelligent, each

the

the infor has

been behind the walls for a long time, and the object here is to see the viewpoint of such men. I told them briefly about the book and its contents, and I then asked them to write their VIEWS. 189

BACK

AGAIN

By Basil (The Owl)

Banghart

I've been sort of shanghaied back here and I hope to get out of this place—soon. In the six months since guards brought me back from Alcatraz, I've noticed a lot of improvements, although I haven’t had time to see the whole plant. Warden Ragen seems a lot more sure of himself than he was when I went over the wall. He’s earned his reputation for being the best warden 1n the United States; newspapers didn’t just blow him up. Some wardens, such as the one at Alcatraz, aren’t all they're cracked up to be; the newspapers build them. If a convict violates a rule here, he’s punished. The men here know that. No one ever likes virles but you got to have them 1n

a place like this, rules like no talking in line and that sort of thing.I suppose it would be bedlam let loose if there weren 1 sles It was a lot different at Alcatraz. That prison was originally an old Spanish Fort. Water 1s still hauled by barge and there are no physical improvements. There’s a lot of difference mn the food here and at Alcatraz. I don’t like vegetables grown in volcanic soil such as you get in Western states. I'll take Midwestern vegetables ahead of any other kind. In the six months I’ve been back here I've gained Alen pounds. Guess that tells the story of the food situation here. I! was run-down when I got back. An inadequate diet caused the condition. I haven’t heard a single complaint about Stateville food. There were practically no hospital facilities at Alcatraz. When inmates were seriously ill and needed emergency treat-

ment, they were transferred out somewhere to get it. Specialists were called only in extreme

emergencies.

Alcatraz

is full of

“psychos,” and no one there to help them. One medic and two or three nurses were in charge of the so-called hospital ward. Now I'm getting medication, liver shots, and good food so 190

The View From Behind Bars

191

that I'll get built up physically. I'm supposed to gain another ten pounds.

Morale

here 1s good,

largely because

convicts know

that

Ragen has a job to do. He’s strict but fair. He does his job. We do our time. Employees take their cues from the boss. Only a few minor employees around here hold grudges. I think I understand more than most men here how the warden operates because I was once an administrator in New

Jersey. I operated flying fields and gave flight instruction. That was after “Lindy” flew the ocean and everyone had the urge to learn how to pilot a plane. I understand they’ve expanded educational facilities here, high school and vocational school. I havent seen some of the shops like the radio and television repair shops. In fact, I've never even watched TV. As a high school graduate I can appreciate Ragen’s constructive ideas on education. Every man out here has an opportunity to keep busy with studies if he wants to, and prepare himself for the time when he’s a free man again. I don’t agree with the public officials who blame mothers and fathers for all the delinquency we hear about. Public officials could do a lot about cleaning up the situation. Seems to me they're shifting the blame and trying to ease their guilty consciences. There’s a place for improvement in parole board operations. I'd like to see the board put more emphasis on the positive marks of a man’s prison record, and less on his negative report.

Breaking rules is a pretty normal thing to do; the prisoner knows he’ll be punished if caught. But breaking small rules occasionally while hewing to a program of constructive 1mprovement shouldn’t be the all-important factor in judging a man’s record as to whether or not he will behave if paroled. I’d be happy to see more weight given to a man’s good conduct record and his honest conscientious efforts to improve himself and be useful while in prison. That would boost inmate morale still higher.

STATEVILLE

PRISON

AND

WARDEN

RAGEN

By Roger Touhy

What an improvement there could be out here!

Today there are rules for everything except breathing. Petty rules. They create tension. I won’t even go to a moving picture show or to church services because of someone always ordering, “Get in line.” All the talk about rehabilitation of inmates adds up to just

one thing: you're rehabilitated if you're an informer. I will not be an informer. That is, I refuse to carry false stories to the authorities about inmates. Therefore I have been discriminated against. When I'm summoned to a conference, such as when you have on occasion come here to interview me, I’m under constant check. From cell block to visiting room, the telephones

buzz all along the line with one guard after another passing the word that I'm on my way. I feel like an animal with so many eyes watching, watching, watching. I've been locked up in the “hole” for as many as twenty-two days for what was called “an infraction” of some ruling. It was unfair. Andit was over the mailing of a perfectly legitimate letter. There has been no improvement in conditions here since Warden Ragen took over. Sure, there’s more grass on the

ground, but men who are locked up don’t get to look at it much. It was much better here before Warden Ragen arrived. Men should not be locked up. They should be outside working or engaging in physical recreation. You should know the record of insanity that has resulted from the routine established by rules. What a bad effect all those rules—rules—rules—have on men, particularly the young men who come down here. They can’t take it. I can’t say anything good for this institution. And I can’t say how 1t compares with any others—because I've never been in other jails or prisons. I don’t even really know why I'm in this one! 192

WARDEN

RAGEN,

AS I SEE HIM

By Nathan F. Leopold, Jr.

I have known Warden Ragen for twenty-two years; for twenty of those years I have been a prisoner in his charge. That is not a particularly favorable vantage point from which to make a comprehensive judgment; a warden does not discuss his aims and policies with convicts. But there is something to be said for the intimacy of the worm’s eye view: the convict feels in his everyday living every slight decision made by the warden.

When Warden Ragen took charge of Joliet-Stateville, in October, 1935, I, in common with the vast majority of the 4000 other inmates (in Stateville), was unhappy. For he had been warden at Menard for several years, and his reputation had

preceded him. That reputation was that he was a “tough” warden—strict, that is. True, there was a rider to the story. He was strict but fair. Cons are perhaps the world’s greatest sceptics; like the rest of the men, I was perfectly willing to take the “toughness” on faith; about the fairness, I would have to be shown. The warden left no one in doubt very long about his strictness. When he took over, the institution was very loosely and informally run. It was “wide open.” Two convict “mobs”

wielded enormous influence. It took a very few weeks to change all that. The mobs were broken up completely and finally; security was increased unbelievably. Stateville is now said to be one of the tightest prisons in the country. It is usually described as “so tight it creaks.” On the fairness score, I couldn’t have been more dramatically

convinced. In 1939, I was reported for an infraction of the rules. I was accused of having sent out an unauthorized call ticket for another inmate. I was innocent, but I couldn’t convince the authorities of it. I did fifteen days in “the hole,” the maximum penalty. After I got out of “the hole” 1 secured an interview with Warden Ragen and protested my innocence strongly. The the asked I and existence , in still was question in ticket call

193

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‘Tare WARDEN AND THE Prison Tobpay

warden to send the ticket to a crime detection laboratory. The easy thing would have been simply to drop the matter; I had already been punished. But, though he was more than half convinced the authorities could be wrong, he did as I asked and I was cleared. After that I needed no further proof of the warden’s fairness.

Warden Ragen has changed very considerably in the twenty years he has been at Stateville, in the big things as well as in the little ones. As an example of the latter, in the thirties he had

an exaggerated case of microphone fever. To hear him read a speech over the radio was positively painful to the listener. Today, the warden is an extremely talented, forceful, convincing public speaker.

Much more important to the society he helps to safeguard and to us over whom he has complete and absolute control, is the steady growth and development of his penal philosophy. When he first became warden it seemed, at least to us prisoners,

that his one and only concern was with more and stronger locks, more numerous and stringent rules. I can see now that that was perhaps what needed doing first; but I feel now, as I felt then, that if all society expects or demands of a warden 1s

the prevention of escapes, the post can be filled by nearly anyone. But that isn’t, in my opinion, the only, or even the most

essential requirement of a good warden. For the enormous majority of the men in prison at any given moment will sometime be released, and how they act after release will depend in considerable measure on how they have been treated in prison and what attitudes they have formed. Those attitudes are influenced

enormously by the warden’s policy. Warden Ragen’s penal philosophy has grown and developed, year by year. If the expression is not impertinent, it has matured enormously. It has matured to the point, indeed, that for the last several years the warden has been generally considered

not only an exceptionally able penal administrator, but one of the leading penologists in America, and deservedly so. It is the recognition of his unquestioned ability in his field that accounts

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for his having been called in repeatedly by states other than Illinois to help straighten out their penal headaches. If Warden Rigen didn’t have something pretty special on the ball, he would not have been called to Michigan, to Massachusetts, to Missouri, and to a number of other states the moment a serious riot breaks out. Warden Ragen’s present views on penology are broad and liberal. Don’t get that wrong; he is still a stickler for iron discipline. But his main emphasis, once security is adequately provided for, 1s on education and on rehabilitation. During World War Two, Warden Ragen put the full force of his prestige and authority behind the wartime activities carried on in the institution. That the men recognized and ap-

preciated his constructive activities in these directions is evidenced by the fact that the men acting as guinea pigs on the

malaria experiments presented him with a certificate, signed by over 400 malaria volunteers, naming him an Honorary Malaria Volunteer. Such gestures are not usual in prison!

Not all the men in his charge like Warden Ragen. But everyone except a handful of psychotics respects him. And everyone who 1s willing to be honest with himself admires him. My own attitude toward the warden is the diametric op-

posite of what it was twenty years ago. Just as I waited to be convinced by personal experience on the score of his fairness,

just so I like to think that I had to be shown on every item, on his administrative ability, on his broad humanitarianism, and on his good judgment. But shown I was, for I have no hesitation in saying without reservation that today I like, admire, and respect Warden Ragen enormously. I believe he is making a permanent mark on American penal history. I like to believe that he has changed greatly in twenty years. Perhaps we've both changed!

Chapter Eighteen

STATEVILLE'S

SKY

PILOTS

Frank Souder came to Joliet the last day of January in 1934, convicted

of kidnaping

and

receiving

ransom.

He

victed of kidnaping James Hackett, a well-known

was

con-

gambler

during the Prohibition era, and holding him until his wife paid

a $75,000 ransom which tually twelve house.

demand.

This was the only kidnaping of

he was convicted, but it was rumored that he was vira kidnaper by trade, and had participated in ten or of them. In addition, he was part-owner of a gambling He was sentenced to serve life, and seemed determined

not to stay that long.

In September of 1934, eight months after being received and one month after being transferred to Stateville, he and three other convicts made a daring escape attempt. The four of them boarded a switch engine in “the prison vard and overpowered the engineer and fireman. Using knives, they tried to force the engineer to roll the train through the south gate. He refused to So as ordered, and instead set the 2ir brakes so that the engine would move only at a low rate of speed. As the engine approached the gate, tower guards, knowing

that something must be wrong, opened fire and drove the inmates off the engine. As they left the engine they took William Pentosky, a guard stationed on it, with them as a shield and 2 hostage. Thice of the inmates, including Souder, ran behind the cold storage plant for shelter from the tower guards’ bullets, then ran up through a tunnel and entered a clothing room, taking the guard with them.

From There, using Pentosky as a shield. they marched across the prison ma

diamond to the base of the wall under Tower

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Stateville’s Sky Pilots

197

Two. The inmate who was holding Pentosky ordered him to tell the tower guards to throw down their guns. Pentosky refused and a knife was placed at his throat. He still refused. At this moment, guards entered the prison yard through the

south gate and began firing. In the struggle that followed, Pentosky was cut about the face and neck, but was finally released. The inmates attempted to lose themselves among the other prisoners in the yard. In the shooting, two of the inmates were killed. Souder was wounded, but ran from the scene and managed to hide from the guards in one of the cell houses. He had been shot three times, in the leg and in the jaw, and was bleeding profusely. Weak from loss of blood, he was unable to hide for very long, and the guards found him. Taken to the prison hospital, Souder refused to talk to anyone. Father Eligius Weir, the Catholic chaplain at Stateville at the time, a member of the Franciscan order, tried to talk with him a number of times, but Souder would have nothing to do with him. Each time the chaplain approached him, Souder insulted him, then turned his head away and refused either to listen or to speak. Souder later told Warden Ragen that Father Weir was persistent in spite of the insults, and that he would talk whether Souder wanted to listen or not. Soon, Souder admits, he began to realize that Father Weir was really interested in him, and was the one person in the world who cared whether he lived or not. This caused him to do some serious thinking. Before he left the hospital, he called Father Weir to his bedside and apologized for having insulted him. He said that he had been doing some serious thinking and had begun to realize that his life had been all wrong. that no man in his right mind could live that kind of 2 life and like it. After recovering from his wounds, Souder was put into a solitary cell on a diet of bread and water for forty-five days.

When this punishment was completed, he was moved into an

isolation cell for a further period of ninety days. It was during

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Tue WARDEN AND THE Prison Topay

these two periods of confinement that Souder completed the chain of thinking that Father Weir had started. When he came out of isolation and returned to a normal prisoner’s life, he was a changed man. From that point forward, he was a model prisoner. He had the qualities of leadership, and eventually Warden Ragen made him an inmate instructor in the factory for upholstering furniture. The warden says that he was capable and efficient. Souder was

the first man in the prison to volunteer when the army doctors set up their malaria program at Stateville. Until he was paroled

in 1953, Souder continued to take part in the various research programs, volunteering for every one. Governor Stevenson reduced his sentence from life to fiftyfive years, and Souder was paroled to a farmer in Olney, Illinois. Shortly after his release Souder made a radio broadcast in which he said, “The flaw in public education today is the taboo on God. I found in prison what I failed to find in school.” The story of Frank Souder illustrates one of the important and traditional roles of the prison chaplain. The twin prisons have eight chaplains, two of them full time. Father Gervase Brinkman, a Franciscan monk who succeeded Father Werr, is the Roman Catholic chaplain. The Reverend Albert A. Sorensen is the Protestant chaplain. In addition, six other chaplains come 1n once a week to conduct services in their faiths, Episcopal, Christian Science, Lutheran, Colored Methodist,

Greek Orthodox, and Jewish. About two-thirds of the 4500 inmates of the two prisons attend religious services. Ragen, a religious man

himself, en-

courages church attendance. He and the chaplains are convinced that one of the chief reasons behind the crime careers and imprisonment of the majority of the inmates is that they did not have the proper religious training in their homes. Services are held in the chapel, a large auditorium which seats 1720 and 1s used as a recreation hall and as a moving picture theater. In the center of the stage in the chapel is a pulpit, for use in the Protestant services. To the left of the pulpit is a

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199

Catholic altar, made by convicts of marble obtained when Chicago’s old Board of Trade Building was torn down. To the

right of the pulpit is the Episcopal altar, made by the inmates of walnut and decorated by a religious mural painted by an inmate who never had an art lesson in his life before coming to Stateville. The building 1s equipped with a public address system and an electric organ. Each of the chaplains serving the institution is provided with an office as well as with facilities for conducting services. Warden Ragen encourages the chaplains to talk with the men, advise and encourage them. He feels that often when the psychologist and psychiatrist cannot get through to them, an understanding man such as a chaplain may be able to do so. But, at the same time, the chaplains have to keep in mind that they are dealing with incarcerated criminals. The Reverend Sorensen tells of how he found such an interest in the Bible by the inmates that he decided it would be well worthwhile to conduct a correspondence course in it. The course was

arranged so that the men had a series of lessons which they could study in their cells. Later they took an examination which covered the material which had been assigned. Reverend Sorensen shakes his head as he says, “So many of them cheated that we found we had to have monitors during the examinations!” The warden says that guards watch the prison services carefully and learn which prisoners attend each service. They have to do this, because the convicts have learned that the church

services give them an opportunity that could not otherwise be arranged to meet and talk with friends. One inmate, who had been a gang leader in his day on the outside, suddenly became an Episcopalian. After he switched churches, the guards waited. If he really wanted to change his religion, that was his business. However, the following Sunday two members of his old gang also switched to the same service. During the normal working day in the prison, these three lived in different cell houses and had different jobs, and so had no

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Tare WARDEN AND THE PRrisoN TopAY

opportunity to talk together, which was exactly the way the warden wanted it. He felt reasonably sure that conversations between these men could lead to nothing but trouble. Even after the three of them began to attend the service

together,

and to sit together during the service, the guards

hesitated. Is was barely possible that all three had acquired a sincere interest in religion. Finally, to test them, a lieutenant of the guards went to that service the following Sunday, and sat right among them. No conversation passed between them, and they appeared as devout as three archangels. However, the next Sunday, none of them attended theservice. And from that time on, they avoided church. The clever plan hadn’t worked, and they knew it without so much as a word being passed on the subject. Father Brinkman is the author of one of the most startling quotes ever to come out of Stateville. He says, earnestly and seriously, “Warden Ragen has set the prison system in Illinois back twenty years.”

Anyone hearing this statement perks up his ears, believing that at last he 1s about to hear inside information on the way Ragen runs his prison. Then Father Brinkman explains that the present system 1n Illinois 1s antiquated. Penologists, including Warden Ragen, agree that the ideal prison is a small unit, staffed and prepared to work carefully with a limited number of men. The state system should consist, the padre explains, of a number of these smaller units, of varying degrees of security. Not all of the men in Sintevitle need maximum security treatment, and such treatment, in fact, tends perhaps to slow down their rehabilitation. Modern methods of classification and prison psychology can be used to much more effect in smaller prisons that are tailored to the needs of the inmates within them. Institutions for each type of criminal would be possible under this system. “But,” Father Brinkman says, “every time someone goes to

the state legislature to ask an appropriation for such a prison system, the legislators rise up in arms. ‘What do you mean, we

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201

need new prisons?’ they say. ‘Look at what a fine prison we have

up at Joliet, and look at the way Ragen is running it.” Then the appropriation is voted down, and Illinois fails to get a modern prison system. This has been going on for twenty years, ever since Warden Ragen made it the prison it 1s today.” Thus Warden Ragen has set the Illinois prison system back twenty years. If someone of Ragen’s capabilities hadn’t been

found to take over Joliet and Stateville back in 1935, the state would have been forced into a drastic program of rebuilding its prison system. Father Brinkman’s curiosity was aroused as he went over the jackets of the prisoners shortly after his arrival at the prison. A fairly high percentage of the inmates listed themselves as Catholics. To satisfy this curiosity, he instituted a survey

which continued for several years, and included nearly 4700 inmates. Of this number, 1176 had listed themselves as Catholics when questioned at the Diagnostic Depot, a rather discouraging figure. eo be considered a member of the Catholic Church, a person must receive Holy Communion once a year between specified dates during the Easter season. Father Brinkman’s survey checked the declared Catholics and turned up some interesting

figures. Only 24.7 per cent of the total had received Holy Communion during the year prior to their admission to prison. Twenty-eight per cent had not received the sacraments in ten years. A large number actually had no religion, but felt obliged to fill in the blank space on the questionnaire. They remembered that their mother or grandmother had been a Catholic, and so filled out the blank space accordingly. One extremely interesting figure, which tends to prove that religion and education are the two greatest forces against crime,

indicates that out of the 1176, only twenty had completed a Catholic grammar school and high school education. Father Brinkman’s figures provide another revealing item. Seven hundred and fifty-nine of the total registered as Catholics came from homes broken either by divorce or by the death of

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Ture WARDEN AND THE Prison TobpAy

one or both parents. This figure bears out what specialists in juvenile crime have been saying in recent years, that broken homes or homes in which the children are neglected when both

parents are working, are the greatest source of juvenile delinquency. Chaplain Sorensen has discovered that in spite of the amusing incident of the cheating on the Biblical test, there 1s a genuine interest in the Bible among the inmates. He conducts two Bible classes, one with 200 in it and the other with fifty. About 500 of the inmates attend his Protestant services every Sunday and about fifty sing in the Protestant chor. Chaplain Sorensen finds his office a busy place in between classes and services, for when prisoners are worried or dis-

turbed they come most often to the chaplain for help. And he finds that the majority of men who come to see him are worried about the families they left behind. Harry Spegal, a taxi driver who was condemned to die only a few years ago for the murder of a boy in Champaign, Illinois, is one of the men Chaplain Sorensen points to when he talks of the interest in the Bible he finds among the inmates. In 1954,

when Spegal was in the death cell at Stateville awaiting execution, Chaplain Sorensen visited him and asked if he would like to attend a Bible class. “No,” Spegal said, “by next week I'll be in the presence of God, and I believe I can learn more there than you could teach me.”

However, the execution was stayed when the Illinois Supreme Court granted Spegal a new trial after his death sentence was appealed. He was returned to the Champaign County jail to await trial, and while he was there, the chaplain reports, he and another prisoner teamed up to convert six others.

In the second trial, Spegal pleaded guilty and was sentenced to serve 150 years. He was returned to Stateville to serve this

time and immediately sought out the chaplain. Since then, he has been one of the most active members in Chaplain Sorensen’s

Bible classes, a man who had found the kind of help he needs.

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203

A penal stitution is like a home in that its atmosphere is controlled by the attitude of the man at its head. In a home in which the parents are religious, there is a religious atmosphere, and the children are encouraged to take religion as a guide and a pattern for their lives. In a home where religion is ignored or merely tolerated, most often materialism becomes the guiding philosophy. Warden Ragen sets the atmosphere in his prison by his own life. In such an atmosphere, religious guidance, which most of

the inmates sorely need, can flourish. It is one of the important points in the warden’s program of rehabilitation. When he took

charge at Joliet there were only two religous services being conducted. He personally solicited the other six.

Chapter Nineteen MEDICINE IN PRISON On any tour of Stateville, Warden Ragen is certain to include

the prison hospital as a major point of interest. For years, it seems, people have soaked up the idea that there is a amount of brutality in any prison; and they also seem the idea that medical care, if given at all, is slipshod and to the administration of “Bandaids” and aspirin. The delights in correcting these misapprehensions.

certain to have limited warden

Joliet-Stateville’s hospital is entered through a door at the far end of the guard hall in the administration building. From this entrance a hall leads to a three-story building devoted to medical

services.

The

hospital has twenty-two

ward

rooms,

with a 130-bed capacity, and 1s staffed by a chief surgeon and three other civilian doctors. Dr. Frank Chmelik, now dead, was the chief surgeon for more than twenty years and, with Warden Ragen’s backing, the man chiefly responsible for the prison’s fine hospital. Besides Dr. Chmelik, Dr. Joseph Duffy, Dr. Wayne McSweeney and Dr. Leo Sweeney, had a part in the original cleanup of the hospital.

Today, Dr. Julius Venkus is the prison physician, and his special pride is in keeping the hospital as modern and up-to-date as possible. His colleague, Dr. Garris, serves at the Old Prison. The nursing staff is composed of a number of inmates who

have been carefully selected and trained for their jobs. In addition, the staff has a civilian anesthetist to assist in the operating room, a registered pharmacist, Ernesto Adsall, and a full-time dentist who is assisted by three inmates. In addition to the hospital, there is a separate, completely equipped clinic under 204

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Medicine in Prison

205

the direction of an eye, ear, nose and throat specialist, Dr. Flexner. There is a completely equipped X-ray laboratory, including

a fluoroscope, a darkroom and apparatus for reading the films. The equipment and the work of the X- -ray laboratory 1s of such high caliber that some of the pictures from it have been awarded rizes at medical exhibitions. The first floor of the hospital is devoted to those patients with minor afflictions. Operative cases and the laboratories are on the upper floors. Registration in the hospital averages about twenty

patients per day. About 300 minor and major operations are done every year in the glistening, modern operating room. Sick call 1s held every day, and those inmates requiring treatment

are looked after in the first aid room and returned to duty. The medical staff has a standing rule that at any time they feel it necessary, they are free to call in specialists in any field for consultation. Thus the prisoners actually have available finer medical and hospital care than they would have on the outside. The old notions about medical care in prisons simply

don’t apply at Stateville. When the door to one room in the laboratory section of the hospital is opened, a tremendous buzz, like the buzzing of 50,000

mosquitos, greets the visitor. And the noise is just that, the buzzing of thousands of mosquitoes. The room is lined with hundreds of small cages made out of screening, each holding a batch of malaria-carrying Mosquitos. These are raised right here in the prison as a part of continuing experiments in cures for malaria.

Back in 1944, when America’s fighting men were battling in the tropical areas of the South Pacific, the army found that battle casualties were only a part of its medical problem. Malaria, capable of sapping the whole strength of a regiment in a

few days, was an enemy equal to or greater than the Japanese. Army medical men had solved one malaria problem when building the Panama Canal by a sanitation program; they simply got rid oy places where malaria- -bearing mosquitos could breed.

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Tre WARDEN AND THE Prison Topay

This was a tremendous accomplishment and made possible the

completion of the canal. But, in the Pacific, the army medical

men were quick to realize that, with millions of square miles involved, a program of sanitation was not possible. Since they couldn’t eliminate the source, their next best a proach was to attempt to find safe, quick cures for the disease. "To accomplish this, a vast research programinvolving the Army, the U.S. Public Health Service and the University of Chicago

was begun. A research laboratory was set up in the prison, and since that time, over 3o000 prisoners have volunteered to serve as human guinea pigs in the program. This program, costing upwards of seven million dollars, still continues. As a result of the experiments conducted at Stateville, dy number of new drugs have been developed which have revolutionized the treatment of malaria throughout the w orld.

During the experiments, volunteer inmates permitted themselves to be bitten by malaria-bearing mosquitos, and then to be cured by drugs which were undergoing tests. Nathan Leopold has been one of a number of inmates serving

as laboratory technicians in the malaria tests. In talking about the tests during an interview, he said, “Men got sick, sicker than they ever had before. Their chills shook the beds. Temperatures

of 106 and 107 were common. They endured nausea and vomiting. Headaches from the fever were unlike any other ailment. The drugs caused severe cramps. Men writhed in agony, but never asked for out.” When asked why the inmates volunteered by the hundreds for the test when they knew what they were going to have to suffer, Leopold replied, “The feeling that one is permitted to

have a small part in helping to solve a grave medical problem is the source of more solid, lasting satisfaction than most of us have ever known. “Being present at the very birth of new knowledge is a

privilege given to few people in this world. And many of us were not unmindful of the fact that for the first time in a long,

long time, we were being offered

the opportunity of doing

Medicine in Prison

207

something which would be appreciated by society; something that would make people feel less harsh toward convicts, and cause people to remember that we, too, were human.” There were other factors, too, which Leopold did not point out. Contrary to what might be expected, convicts, though outcasts of society and under punishment by the state, have just as high a degree of patriotism as citizens on the outside. Many

inmates back in 1944 volunteered because they felt they could do something to help in winning the war.

Also, though no promises of any kind were made, many of the inmates hoped that in recognition of their extra service, their sentences would be shortened. The parole board was under no compulsion to alter sentences for voluntary participation in the program, and the prisoners were aware of this. But undoubtedly the possibility of clemency was a factor. Dr. Alf S. Alving, professor at the University of Chicago, and Major John Arnold, of the Army Medical Corps, directed the malaria research program at Stateville. Dr. Alving stated that the volunteers during the program took an average of four bites from malaria-infected mosquitos, and underwent cures involving some fifty types of new drugs. When, after six years, the most successful of the malaria cures produced by the project was announced, Dr. Alving said, “Malaria need never become a military problem again.” The importance of finding a cure for this disease can be understood when it 1s realized that three hundred million persons are afflicted annually throughout the world. Malaria has been called the world’s most prevalent disease, and strikes in all areas from the tropics to the arctic. One inmate, serving a life sentence for armed robbery, was infected by the poison from ten malaria-infected mosquitos. He was then given an antidote. The antidote cured the malaria rapidly, but at the same time it destroyed every white blood cell, those which fight infections, in his body. He became a living corpse, according to the army medics, for fourteen days, and is believed to be the only man in medical history to have

208

Tue WARDEN AND THE Prison Topay

survived without white cells. He was kept alive by injections of penicillin and eventually recovered completely. The doctors say that this inmate’s experience started the development of a new drug which 1s revolutionary in its curative value. Three other inmates in the tests sent the medical team off in another direction. All three were suffering from forms of arthritis when the tests began. After they had been infected with malaria and cured by experimental drugs, it was discovered that their arthritis had been cured, also. Arttiitls Isi pretty much a medical mystery, but somewhere in the treatment given these men lies a clue to its cure, and medical research men follow such clues like bloodhounds. Stateville has become a research center as a result of the successful malaria program. Research programs in other fields have been developed and tested, with volunteer inmates pitching in. Hundreds of them came forward to aid a program attempt-

ing to find a cure for the common cold. In 1948, five hundred of them bequeathed their eyes to an eye bank sponsored by the Illinois Society for the Prevention of Blindness. In this program, after a man has died, surgeons perform a corneal transplant, removing the cornea of he dead man’s eye and replacing the damaged cornea of a blind person with it. A species of bacteria which frequently occurs as a con-

taminant in some foods was tested in 1948. Live bacteria was administered and the volunteers suffered a brief illness during the test. During the same year there was also a brucellosis re-

search project, to help investigators learn about the immunological responses to certain vaccines, and to clarify diagnostic tests used for the disease. More recent tests included one in which 100 inmates wore clothes impregnated with a newly developed insect repellent.

The object of the test was to determine if the repellent had any toxic effect on human beings. Highly successful in coping w ith insects, especially mites A ticks, the repellent was developed

Medicine in Prison

209

by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in collaboration with the Army. In recent years the science of blood chemistry has made gigantic strides. It is sometimes hard for us to remember that words like “transfusion” and “blood bank” are very recent additions to our vocabulary. But in spite of this progress, a great deal more needs to be learned about this vital fluid. And further research projects at the prison are aimed at increasing scientific knowledge of blood. Misunderstandings have arisen concerning the research work being carried on at Stateville. People become aware of the fact that medical experimentation is being conducted there on the persons of human beings. Without knowing the circumstances behind the experiments, they have assumed that the prisoners used in the research projects, because they are prisoners, have been coerced into cooperation.

It should be clearly understood that every inmate taking any part in a research program volunteers to do so. He is told the

nature of the work into which he 1s entering, and he 1s told that his participation in the work will not affect the decision of the parole board. Every effort is made both by the prison authorities

and the medical people involved to emphasize the fact that no man should volunteer for any reason except that he himself wants to help. Another criticism of the program argues that it is wrong to use human beings in such experiments. Actually, this is a very old argument, dating back to the beginning of modern medicine. At some point in the development of every medicine, every vaccine, every medical practice, tests on human beings BecHie necessary. Penicillin, for example, came from a test tube and was found successful on animals. After experimentation indicated that it would probably be successful when used on humans, it had to be tried. It was listed only as a probable drug until it had been used successfully on thousands of humans, and the results of these injections had been noted and evaluated.

210

Tae WARDEN AND THE Prison TobpAy

Medical history contains some of the most dramatic stories ever written, the stories of scientists who discovered what they believed to be cures in their laboratories, and proved their theories at first by rolling back their own sleeves and trying the cures on themselves.

Dr. John Arnold, who as a major in the Army was one of the directors in the malaria project at Stateville, is now assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago. He states the case in this fashion: “There are problems now, there will probably be more problems in the future which can be solved only by using large numbers of human volunteers. The solutions of these problems are vital to continued progress in medicine. In a number of areas the lack of facilities for studying such problems is probably retarding developments which have an immediate and important perfing on the health and welfare of a vast number of people. The penal institutions of this country offer the most efficient and sometimes the only solution of such experimental work.” Doctor Arnold, in analyzing those elements which make for

a successful research program in a prison, says, “I think that the prisoner must feel that the prison administration is fair and alert and incorruptible. Should any of these elements be lacking in a prison administration, I for one would never allow myself to be associated with it, for it would surely fail and it would likely do so under very disagreeable circumstances. Although at first one is inclined to feel “that strict prison discipline works against the success of prisoner experimentation, I think, after SIX years’ experience in the penitentiary, that quite the contrary

is true, that strict though fair prisoner discipline is of first importance in the day-to-day management of a research program.” The work of the medical research teams and the inmates at Stateville 1s important. It has contributed much to the health and welfare of the human race already, and promises to do even more. It should not be forgotten. The prison system in Illinois took a great step forward, both in prison management and in prisoner rehabilitation, when the

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211

Diagnostic Depot was established in 1933. It was set up in a building across the street from the Old Prison in Joliet which

served, prior to this time, as a prison for women. Under the direction of the state criminologist, a classification program 1s carried out in the depot. All prisoners sentenced in northern Illinois report first to this building, and stay for a period of from four to six weeks. During this time, medical,

sociological, psychological and psychiatric examinations are conducted by a professional staff. Additional investigation 1s made by correspondence with all persons who are known to have had any connection with the prisoner. Every effort ismade here to evaluate and classify the prisoner as accurately as modern science permits. When all of the studies have been completed, the inmate is classified according to his personality, capacity for Improve1

ment and his need for training or treatment. Then a program is laid out that best suits his needs, and on the basis of the data which has been compiled, the prisoner is assigned to one of the prisons in Illinois. The compiled data 1s kept in a jacket, and periodic follow-up studies are made to check the kind of adjustment and progress the prisoner is making. A similar depot is maintained at Menard, and those convicted in southern Illinois are processed through it. The prison at Pontiac, referred to as a reformatory, receives

young offenders who are classed as improvable. The criminally insane, psychotic and sexual psychopaths are sent to Menard, where a psychiatric division has been established. The twin prisons at Joliet, being maximum security prisons, receive the incorrigibles. Those classified as being in need of permanent segregation are sent to Stateville. A certain number of improva-

bles are also sent to Joliet, because of the excellent rehabilitation facilities in Ragen’s two institutions. The Diagnostic Depot, under the direction of Dr. Roy Barrick, State Criminologist, also is a training center for students in the social sciences, who spend from one day to several months observing the methods used and the research in progress.

Chapter Twenty FAMILY LIFE IN PRISON In establishing a pleasant, comfortable home inside the walls of a prison, and in raising a healthy, normal family in these

surroundings, Warden and Mrs. Ragen have accomplished what most people would declare impossible and few would want to

try. Loretta Ragen is quick to agree that home life and the raising of a family 1s different on the inside. But when she is asked if the life of a warden and his family is lonely and abnormal, she denies it. She is a friendly woman, with a strong feeling for graciousness and hospitality, and could not be happy for long in a vacuum of loneliness. Early in her married life she decided that home life in a prison would be pretty much what she made it, and that making a real home was a true challenge to her ability. Visitors to her home today will agree that she has met the challenge successfully. Her career as a prison homemaker has now covered more than thirty years, all but two and a half years of her married life, and because of this she can say with a smile that she re-

ceived a life sentence, literally, with her gold wedding band. Her prison life started indirectly at a picnic, where she met

Deputy Sheriff Joe Ragen. She was a business girl of twenty-five at the time, and her home was in Breese, Illinois. Ragen was from Carlyle, the county seat, nine miles away. The second time they met, the deputy worked up enough courage to ask for a date, and from then on they “went steady.”

This was 1926, a big year for Ragen who was campaigning for election to the office of sheriff. Between offices and politics he didn’t have much time he did manage to find time for an occasional Finally, the two of them invented a new kind poena drive,” in order to be together. One 212

the duties of his for courting, but movie or picnic. of date, the “subof the deputy’s

Family Life in Prison duties mobile Louis, drives

213

was to deliver subpoenas, which usually mvolved autotrips. Most of the trips were local, with a few as far as St. fifty miles away. Loretta accompanied him on these and found them romantic in spite of their official nature.

They were married on Thanksgiving Day of 1926, just after Ragen was elected sheriff, and spent a Louis. Then they returned to their apartment 1n the Clinton County jail would balk at being carried over the

brief honeymoon in St. first home—a six-room at Carlyle. Most brides threshold of a jail, but

Loretta didn’t. Instead, she settled down to the business of adapting to a regimented and unusual pattern of living. Life in Carlyle, while different from that lived by most of her young married friends, was uncomplicated for Loretta. She adjusted to it easily. And as the children were born, Jane first

and then Bill eighteen months later, family life developed and home habits began to take shape. Many of these habits, dictated by the sheriff’s job and the nearness of prisoners, became rules and are still enforced in the Ragen household.

The move from Carlyle to the prison at Menard, tested Loretta Ragen’s character thoroughly. She still remembers that

first day clearly. It was a cold, dismal day in February and a torrential rain fell from the time they left Carlyle until long after they were established at Menard.

“I felt only dread and dismay,” she says now, looking back. “The apartment was huge in comparison to the one at Carlyle. I had never been in a warden’s home, and knew nothing about how to operate one. It seemed so different from the life at the jail. Everything was big and overwhelming. I'm a fairly sanguine person, but this came close to defeating me. For a long time after we arrived, I sat in a big chair trying to hold myself together and think things through. I simply couldn’t see how or where to begin. “Then a houseman entered and asked if he could do anything, and I said, ‘No, not just now.’ “He hesitated a moment, then in a kindly tone said, ‘Don’t worry, Missus. You needn’t be afraid.’

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“He probably had no idea how much he helped me right then. In an instant, everything was clear. I knew that I wasn’t afraid. I was simply weighted down with the grayness of the day, the sadness of leaving my family and friends around Carlyle, and the prospect of having to begin all over again to make a home. And contributing to it all was loneliness, for we had left the children in Carlyle to stay until we had settled at Menard.” As an antidote, she stirred up a flurry of activity. The houseman helped her with the unpacking and arranging of the apartment, and by the end of the day some degree of order had arrived. When the warden came in from the office, she pointed out that there was no reason why the children couldnt be brought down the next day, and he agreed. The next day, with the unpacking completed and her family gathered together, she began to feel better. She admits that she worried for weeks after this, never truly sure that she could adjust to this life. But she kept her worries to herself and finally, as time passed and she saw that Jane and Bill, then four and a half and three, were completely happy in their new surroundings, she forgot her fears. She soon learned the most difficult adjustments that a warden’s wife has to make: to learn to live apart from neighbors,

chiefly because she has none; to school herself to mask tension, alarm or indecision, especially in times of crisis; and to accustom herself to convicts as domestic help. It was not easy to forget that the men working for her had been robbers and murderers. Bill and Jane were lively children and found playmates among the sons and daughters of other Menard personnel who lived nearby. The warden’s apartment had a private yard which was separate from the prison and safe for the children to play in; and it had a private entrance outside of the walls, so that it wasn’t necessary for visitors to go through the security check at the main gate. “The boys,” as Bill and Jane called the inmates serving as household help, responded to the exuberance and pranks of the

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youngsters, and soon grew to love them. Bill still speaks of the boys as having been his best childhood playmates.

Possibly because the children were so used to the company

of adults at home, they were less repressed than most youngsters when grownups were around. They learned to enjoy adult guests who came to the prison on various missions from all parts of the world. They developed social graces and poise quite early and, while respectful of the distinguished status of many visitors, they were never awed by celebrities. As a result, amusing and embarrassing incidents sometimes occurred. Once a waiter forgot to place seafood forks on the dining room table at a dinner party for some state officials. As unobtrusively as possible, Mrs. Ragen called his attention to the error, but before he could correct it, one of the men was using his salad fork to eat the shrimp cocktail. Jane, then five, seated directly opposite this guest, noticed his mistake. First she tried to attract his attention with elaborate gestures and when she couldn’, said in a loud voice, “Mr. X, you're using the wrong fork.” She was very earnest about it, and held up the correct one for him to see. She was so disconcerted at the outburst of laughter that followed that she has never forgotten the incident. And neither has Mr. X. He told

the Ragens years later that he used the story a number of times in after-dinner speeches. Bill really got service as he grew up. He refused to walk up the stairs if he could get one of the housemen to carry him on his shoulders. And his favorite pastime was to watch them shine his shoes. Their skill at producing a mirror-like gleam fascinated him, and he chatted so enthusiastically as they worked, that

they couldn’t resist entertaining him in this fashion. His shoes and boots were polished whenever one of the boys wasn’t scheduled to do some other work, which was perhaps half a dozen

times a day. Completely uninhibited from the time he could talk, Bill called the housemen “my boys,” while other prisoners beyond the gates were just “the cons” to him. The housemen always

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laughed about the innocent distinction he drew in their ranks. Mrs. Ragen remembers a time when the warden invited her to go along on one inspection tour of the other prisons in the state. She was delighted at the prospect and was preparing for the journey when one of the housemen asked permission to

speak to her. He had overheard her making arrangements for one of the staff members and his wife to take care of the children while she was gone. The houseman said, “Ma’am, you know I'm going out on parole the day you leave, and I'm worried about Bill. I don’t think he’ll let the lady dress him. He’s used to me helping him when you're busy. I'd appreciate it if you and the warden would let me stay until you return.” The Ragens were touched by his real concern over little Bill,

and permitted him to remain three extra days. Then, after the inspection trip was over and the houseman was ready to leave, he came to Mrs. Ragen again and apologized for having to go.

“Mrs. Ragen,” he said, “I sure like working for you and I'll sure miss Jane and Bill. If this was on the outside, I'd never leave you . . . but I would like to get out.”

Eventually Governor Horner’s phone call sent the Ragen family to Stateville. The children were excited as their car, driven by a prison chauffeur, neared the prison the day after the warden reported there. They could hardly wait to see their new home. Bill’s first question when he spied the marble staircase that leads from the main floor entrance to the second floor, where the warden’s office is, was, “Mom, who’s the warden that owns this place?” Stateville had an elevator that carried them to the apartment

on the third floor, and the children were thrilled. They had ridden on elevators, but the prospect of having one right at home was exciting. And the excitement bubbled over when they got off the elevator and began to explore the twelve rooms in the apartment. The afternoon was punctuated with, “Hey, Jane, look at this!” and “Bill, come and see!”

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This time the adjustment for Mrs. Ragen was simple and quick. The first afternoon in the new home was like any other family’s first day after moving, but by nightfall things were in order. After the children were in bed, the warden and his wife had a serious discussion about the order in this new location. It was different from Menard in that it was completely within the prison. There was no private yard in which the children could play. And there were no other children as close as those at Menard, so finding playmates was a problem. The situation was complicated by the fact that children as well as adults had to pass inspection at the main gate of the prison. Time and new rules within the family eventually solved these problems.

The next day the children were enrolled at school in Joliet. Their classmates in the new school were friendly, and after their parents became acquainted with the rigid routine and safety precautions, they permitted their youngsters to visit

the Ragens. And Jane and Bill spent a good deal of time visiting their friends in town. Whenever the Ragens were not at home, veteran guards were assigned by the warden to watch over the children, and at no time were they left alone. Nor could they run and play at will on the prison grounds. This last rule was one that Ragen instituted not because he feared for the safety of the children, but for another reason which was just as important to him. He believed that the men who worked on the outside yard detail might suffer renewed mental stress at the sight of the Ragen children playing happily on the grounds, while they themselves were separated from their own families. He didn’t want to torture them in this manner, nor did he want to risk individual emotional explosions. By now the regulations by which the family lived had crystallized. The children were never disciplined in front of the

housemen. Neither Jane nor Mrs. Ragen nor any feminine guest ever appeared in housecoats, lounging pajamas, slacks or shorts. But each had to be fully dressed when outside of her own room.

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On retiring, each person checked the night lock on his bedroom door, then bolted the door with a second inside lock. These riles applied to the children as they grew older.

When Bill and Jane reached the age of dating, they ran into another problem peculiar to a family living 1 in a prison. They had to check in and out through the main gate, where the guards registered the time. Thus, neither of them could ever hedge on he time they arrived home. Boy friends coming to

call on Jane had to be passed through the gatehouse as any other visitor. While this situation certainly didn’t cut down on

the social lives of either of them, it was different from the routine followed by most teen agers. All the entertaining that the Ragens have done and do at Stateville is of necessity indoors. They cannot stroll in the fragrant gardens nor relax on the front porch on warm summer evenings. The gardens are inside of the walls and therefore

out of bounds. And the apartment has no back porch; in fact, not even a back door. An interesting side light concerning the safety of the family at Stateville came up when the Ragens were being interviewed for this book. I had been asking a series of questions about home life in prison, and then asked, “Have either you or your family ever been threatened?” Mrs. Ragen was sitting across the room knitting, while the warden was answering most of the questions. The warden is an expert at keeping a poker face, but when this question was asked, I caught a momentary golance that he shot at Mrs. Ragen. However, his voice was noncommittal as he began to answer. “We've always followed a normal pattern in our private life, without fear, because of the tight 2% security measures imposed. . I stopped him to say, “Yon mean your family has never been threatened or been a part of a plot?”

Again there was a glance at Mrs. Ragen, followed by a little

silence. Then Mrs. Ragen said, “Joe, would you like to talk to Miss Erickson alone, while 1 check dinner preparations?” The warden smiled a little and relaxed. “No,” he said, “I

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think it’s all right now, Loretta, for you to hear about this.” After a moment, the warden told his story. “It happened

shortly after we came back to Stateville following the escape

of the Roger Touhy gang. I got a phone call one night from a man who identified himself only as a former inmate. He said

he had learned through an underworld contact that Touhy’s

bunch was determined to free Peter Stevens, the only one of the

gang still behind bars. The caller warned that the gang was planning to kidnap one or both of our children, and then offer to exchange the children’s lives for Stevens’ freedom.” The warden stopped his story and turned to his wife. “Remember, Loretta, this happened fifteen years ago.” Then he went on. “I asked this ex-inmate why he was telling me this, and he said that I had been fair with him when he was doing time, and he wanted to be fair with me. I asked him pertinent questions about prison life, the kind only a man who had served time here would know the answers to, and he passed the test; so I was sure at least that much of his story was true. He insisted that Touhy and his pals meant business; that they didn’t like me for a lot of reasons. The informer convinced me of his sincerity, but I didn’t press him for his name.” “Why not?” I asked. “Because I believe he was a real friend,” the warden answered. “After warning me to take precautions, he wound up by saying that he had a contact with Touhy and that was how he learned about the plot. After he hung up, I was pretty worried. That Touhy gang was a pretty desperate bunch. I knew I wouldn’t feel absolutely safe until they were back behind bars. It could have been a hoax, of course, but I decided not to take any chances. And I decided not to tell Loretta. “My reason for not telling her was that she was with the children more than I was, and no matter how much she might try to disguise her concern, she might fail. Children are perceptive. And inmates detect fear or a change in mood, too. They have a talent for sensing anything out of the ordinary and smelling out information about it.

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“Only two men on my staff were told about the call, and they were put in charge of precautions here. A squad of state troopers 1n plain clothes was assigned to trail the car in which

Jane and Bill rode to school in Joliet. Jane was attending St. Francis Academy and Bill was a student at Joliet Catholic High School. The troopers stationed themselves at strategic points near the school buildings and even the school authorities never knew of their vigil. I curbed some of the kids’ extracurricular activities, on the ground that they needed more

study. But they did go to some parties and dances, and when they did, their police guard was right behind them. “I couldn’t really relax until the gang was brought back. And when they were in their cells, I quizzed them all about the plot, especially William Stewart, whom I thought might have engineered it. But everyone of them denied any part in such a scheme.” The warden went on to admit that he had been threatened many times but seldom gives such threats much thought. This was the one time he believed precautions were necessary. Then Mrs. Ragen, thinking back to those days, remembered that she had worried about her husband at the time, because he had seemed fretful and preoccupied. She recalled that she had decided not to say anything, but to wait until he was ready to tell her what was on his mind. It was all over and forgotten in a few weeks, and now this was the first time she heard the story. “It’s the first time anyone has heard the story,” the warden added, “outside of those police who watched over the kids.” The Ragens found they had to make one concession to “normal” living. During the summer months they found it difficult for the children not to be able to play freely out of doors. So they established a small summer home at a distant point on the prison property. Here, in addition to a small cottage, they equipped a children’s play area with a teeter-totter, a swing

and other gymnastic paraphernalia. For a number of hours on each pleasant day during the summer, the children were

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brought here to play, and the family picknicked together. Today, Jane and her husband, Jerry Fahrner, bring their three children to this secluded spot to romp in the sun and enjoy little picnics, too. Toy guns were taboo in the prison apartment, so Bill had to

wait until he arrived at the little cottage to be like other boys in pretending to shoot it out with imaginary robbers. A carpen-

ter inmate supplied him with curved chunks of wood which resembled guns so that he could play his games. The inmate staff serving in the apartment consists of six men, and at times there have been as many as three murderers in the crew. When outsiders learn this, they ask Mrs. Ragen if she doesn’t find this depressing or frightening. She says, “If we

spent much time thinking about it, I think we would be depressed. But we don’t. Of course, I feel sorry for some of the men and wonder many times why they did the dreadful things that cost them their freedom and honor.”

The inmate help must obey strict rules laid down by the warden, but the relationship between themselves and both the

Warden and Mrs. Ragen is natural and unstrained. The jobs in the apartment are highly valued by the rest of the inmates. Mrs.

Ragen gaily recalls Jane’s eighth birthday, when she invited a small group of girls to a party at the prison. It was held in. the big walnut-paneled dining room, usually reserved for state dinners, and served by one of the housemen who was young and quite good looking. Mrs. Ragen watched the houseman as he went about his

duties, to see that everything went smoothly. She couldn’t help but notice the pleasure on his face as he listened to the childish chatter about the beautiful pink birthday cake. Then suddenly one of the little girls looked at the houseman and said, “Mister Bob, I have an older sister at home. Why don’t you come over and see her some evening?” Mrs. Ragen still chuckles as she remembers the startled expression that crossed his face. But he recovered quickly and with courteous gravity replied, “I would like very much to.”

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The houseman glanced ar Mrs. Ragen and managed 2 poised

exit, his eyes dancing mernly 2s the lirde girl urged, “1 hope you do.”

The kitchen boys heard about this and ribbed Bob for a long time. Later, Bob told the warden 2bout the incident. adding, “She didn’t know I couldn't get out to see her sister, warden.” Then he assumed an innocent expression and said, “But if you'd like me to go, I will, sir’ Not long ago, one of the housemen reminded Bill of one of

his adventures that occurred; just after the Ragens arrived at Stateville. One of the inmates was cleaning and polishing the window bars of the administration building, and Bill was rying to climb them. The Protestant chaplain happened to pass by, saw the boy, and called out anxiously, “Bill, what are you doing?”

Bill grinned down ar him and said, “Hello, Reverend. I'm learning to be a second-story man.’ The housemen usually are pleased to know that guests are

coming to the prison apartment. They seem to like these occasions almost as much as the Ragens do. But there was one twoweek period which seemed to be one long parade of official

visits, each requiring considerable preparation. Toward the end of this period, one of the housemen who had been working

steadily turned to Jane and said, “Janie, go tell your poppa please bring that welcome mat from off the highw ay.’ Another time, one of the boys who had been consistently deferential in his manner 2llduring the ume he was serving in the apartment surprised the Ragens by talking out of turn. Mrs. Ragen was telling the family at dinner all > bout a beautful lace tablecloth she had been tempted to buy on her trip to Chicago that afternoon. She described 1t with enthusiasm and in great detail.

Finally the houseman, who had been listening as he had served the dinner, turned to the warden and said, “Warden, if you'll let me out of here for 2 couple of hours, I'll go get that tablecloth for your wife.”

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Mrs. Ragen acts as instructor when new housemen are assigned to the apartment. She teaches them to cook, serve, scrub,

dust and sew. She remembers one new man particularly. “John

was one of the cleanest-looking men I've ever seen,” she says. “He was an ex-moonshiner. I noticed after he had been with us for a few days that he was happiest when polishing silver or brass ware. He seemed to draw a great deal of satisfaction from seeing bright, shining metal. “I returned early one evening after seeing a matinee in Chicago. It was a wintery night and I was chilly from the drive

home. I suggested to John that he light the stacked logs in the

fireplace. He usually was eager to please, but this time he hesi-

tated, obviously shocked. “Why,” he said, ‘you can’t build a fire in there.” He emphasized the last word. “‘Isn’t it usable?’ I asked. ““Yes ma’m,” he replied, ‘but 1t’ll get black.’ “His concern was amusing, but at the same time, it was a case of who was training whom, so I said, decisively, ‘I like black fireplaces.’

“The logs were blazing in a few minutes and he never questioned an order again. But I noticed as the smoke and flame curled around the gleaming brass of the andirons, he had a wistful look in his eye.” All of the cooking in the warden’s apartment is done by the

housemen, but Mrs. Ragen admits that she sometimes longs to take over this domain. In fact, once in a while after the inmates have left for the night, she does go on a little cooking spree. The kitchen is big and old-fashioned, but the boys take pride in the huge old black stove, which they explain, “really works real good.” And under Mrs. Ragen’s watchful eye, they keep both the kitchen and the stove spotless. As Mrs. Ragen talks and thinks back through her years as the “boss of the third floor,” little memories pop out. They sometimes are disconnected and apropos of nothing in particular, yet they manage to add up into a total picture of life on the inside.

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Cae WarpeN AND THE Prison TopAy

he wise of an ex-inmate who had been discharged

a

several

ars Defers comes to her mind. In his day, this man had made readline news as 2 notortous bandit; then he had spent thirty QIN YR POISON before finally being sent out. On his return to

TH

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_wenoy mmartes volunteered to work on the project, which wien completed, wouldd represent a complete village carefully hmensions. Scrap lumber from the furniNome A JEU NOT SICOUCY WIS IV silable for the inmates, who toiled happily m NN Crvaowe venture ding the late autumn and winter

Family Life in Prison catory ceremony

when

126 y

the last building in the village was

put in its place. Ragen was particularly pleased with the project because the men were not only busy and enjoying the assignment, but they

also learned something about the carpenter's trade along the way. As a result, a number of them were promoted to the furniture shop for further instruction from professional teach ers. They had not only acquired the rudiments of the trade, but also a desire to learn more; and motivation of this kind is one

of the things Ragen watches for and encourages, for it is a hig step on the road to rehabilitation. Another little prison drama which Mrs. Ragen recalls tool place one sparkling springtime morning, when the air was fragrant with the scent of lilies of the valley and lilacs, An old man was waiting in a hospital room. He didn’t know wh y he was waiting. He was already “dressed out” in the prison

tailored suit which every inmate is given on discharge day. Ie had his cash allowance from the state in his suit pocket and he

should have been on his way before 10:30 that morning, He didn’t know that he was incurably ill. His relatives had abandoned him and he didn’t understand that they didn’t want to be bothered with an old man, ill and without funds, But Dr, Chmelik had examined him the day before and informed the warden that the victim probably would die within a weele or

two. Ragen telephoned the governor, explained the situation, and obtained executive permission to keep the man in the hospi tal until the end came. Ragen and Dr. Chmelik went to the hospital as soon a4 the

governor granted the permission, and together and as gently as they could, broke the news to him. There was nothing else to do. “Well,” the old man said finally, “I didn’t know I was that sick. T feel all right and I'm sure I could make the trip, I'm free.” Then he looked questioningly at the warden and the doctor. The physician, one of the kindliest men ever associated with

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prison work, said, “Yes, you're free. But stay with us. We'll take good care of you. You can’t go very far alone.” The warden added, “You'll be our guest. Your friends are here. And you'll feel a lot better with Doc taking care of you. Maybe you can help cheer up some of the men in the hospital who don’t feel as good as you do.” The old man’s eyes were wistful as he gazed out of the window. Then he sighed and said, “Can I walk out in the front yard today and sit in the sun for a while?” He did. And he was dead less than a week later.

When Mrs. Ragen talks about the warden, she brings out some interesting side lights. She says, “Although Joe’s prison travels have taken him into every state in the Union

and to

Canada, where he addressed the Parliament, he’s never boarded

an airplane. He claims he likes to keep his feet on the ground, and this 1s believable beyond all doubt to those who know him best. He's a great hiker. His walking tours around the institution and farm acreage would add up to countless thousands of miles. “He’s apt to forget, or perhaps he deliberately disregards the

possibility, that visitors may not share his enthusiasm for tramping mile after mile on a hot summer day or chill autumn after-

noon. Unless they suggest they’ ve had enough, Joe gives them ‘the works,” a full inspection. This 1s quite a tour, whether measured in mileage or in hours.

“Joe’s life has been centered on his career and his family. He has no other hobbies. Whenever

he’s out of town on official

business, whether forty or 400 miles away, he telephones me daily, and also calls Jane to inquire about the grandchildren, Stephen, Laura and Susan. He reads newspapers, magazines and

books, concentrating primarily on stories and articles pertinent to penology and personalities involved in the vast field of prison welfare. “He doesn’t yearn to travel to other countries. He thinks America has everything, and he hasn’t had time to see all of it.

We've stayed home more than most adults, but we didn’t have

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to go outside the walls to meet interesting people. The world, it seems, has come to us. Qur guest book has a long list of important names, the signatures of people who for one reason or

another journeyed to Joliet to spend an hour or a day in our

fortress.” A glance at the guest book shows visitors from every state in the Union, South America, Greenland, Holland, Africa, Korea, Canada, Honolulu, the Philippine Islands, China, Japan, Great Britain, India, France and other European nations. To date, there is no entry from Russia. The names on the list are fascinating: Maude B. Booth, the

pioneer commander of the Volunteers of America; the late Warden Lawes of Sing Sing; actors Jimmy Stewart and Richard Conte; actresses Zazu Pitts and Lois Andrews; producer Bryan Foy; prize fighters Rocky Marciano and Ezzard Charles, as well as many others. Many have come in quest of professional information, like William F. Byron, Professor of Sociology at Northwestern Uni-

versity. Others, such as the leaders of civic and patriotic organizations have come to learn just what goes on in a prison, and to find out how they can help in the rehabilitation effort. Most visitors who spend the night or a week end with the Ragens ponder a bit upon the things that might happen while they are there. Few visitors ever reveal these thoughts, and the vast majority of the time, their stay 1s more peaceful than an evening in their own homes. But once in a while something does happen. It did during the visit of a young man from

Chicago during the summer of 19535. The last afternoon of his stay was hot and sultry, and by evening the air was oppressive. The sky flickered with 1mpending thunderstorms. Exhausted by the hours of extreme heat, everyone went to bed early. Later in the evening, the thunderstorms stopped threatening and actually rolled over the sky the rip ped Win d lig htn ing wil . d by acc omp ani prison, ed tur ned rain of dow npo ur sla shi A ng wall s. the aga ins t tore and fur y. pis tol -sh wit ot h win dow the s pel ted and hail into

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Then telephones in the apartment began to ring. Guards notified the warden that he had forgotten to close his office windows. The officers were worried that furniture and carpets might be ruined, but they couldn’t get in because the warden had the key. Ragen hurried into his clothes, but before he could leave the apartment the phone rang again, this time to report that a fire had broken out in the prison butcher shop. An electrician

from the outside had been called in for a special repair job during the day, and had left a defective wire behind him. The warden invited his guest to come

along on the mid-

night expedition. Just as they were leaving, the phone rang again, now reporting that the storm had put the prison lighting

system out of order. The warden and his guest ran from the apartment, and Mrs. Ragen says that she didn’t see them again until five o’clock the next morning, when they returned from the yard caked with soot and mud.

The young visitor could only say, “What a might! I've had it!” The warden said that everything was back in order once more. The fire department from the town of Lockport had aided the prison fire fighters and prison employees in putting out the butcher shop fire. And electric power had been restored. The guest hasn’t been back to spend another night since

then. But he wrote a note, saying: I whistle every time I think about that memorable last night of mine at Stateville. Wish I had a film to show my friends that I helped Joe put out the fire and that I tramped unarmed those areas of “playground space” all through a night made for Macbeth’s witches. I'll never forget the mop-up brigade of inmates mobilized on a moment’s notice, nor the long “sit” in the warden’s candle-lit office while waiting for the electrical system to be restored. The searchlight revolving over the prison grounds was a beacon of cheer that night.

Fanuly Life in Prison

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The apartment, a large twelve-room layout, is well-suited to entertainment, and much of the entertainment is necessary because of the warden’s position as a state official. But in between periods of social activity, the Ragens live a simple, comfortable life in about half of the apartment. The walnutpaneled dining room, a music room and a large living room, all at the north end of the apartment are seldom used. Instead, life centers about a smaller living room in the middle of the apartment, a breakfast room and the bedrooms at the south end. One important room to the warden 1s his barber shop, just off the breakfast room lined with photographs covering his years at Joliet. Here, at six o’clock every morning, Ragen settles himself into his barber’s chair and relaxes while one of the inmates from the barber college practices his art. Sitting in the breakfast room over a light lunch, Mrs. Ragen talks about some of the important things that Warden Ragen has brought to Stateville. She mentions the increase of religious services and the Alcoholics Anonymous group. Discussion of the latter brings most outsiders, who never thought of such a group functioning behind a prison wall, to attention. The first Alcoholics Anonymous group was organized at

Stateville in 1948, with the permission of Donald Walsh, then Director of the Department of Public Safety. Three A.A. leaders from Chicago consulted the warden about establishing a chapter and a plan of operation was worked out. The success

of the group is shown in official reports which indicate that 54 per cent of its members, paroled five or more years ago, have completed paroles, and 73 per cent of its members discharged during the same period are still A.A.

Eighty inmates

joined

the first group, and total membership today 1s 273. Fifteen units meet regularly, ten at Stateville, four at the Joliet Branch, and one at the Honor Farm. As an interview with the Ragens about their personal lives draws to a close, one obvious question remains to be answered. What of the future? In a matter of a few years, now, the warden

23

Tue WarpeN AnD THE Prison Topay

will be retired on pension. He and Mrs. Ragen will leave the life they have known so long. What then? Mrs. Ragen smiles and says, “We'll have a lot of adjusting to do, getting > used to life on the outside. But we already have a new career started. We're baby-sitting with our grandchildren. We plan to expand and improve that operation.”

Chapter Twenty-One THIS

MAN

RAGEN

When you have watched Joe Ragen at work for a while, whether 1t 1s handling administrative problems behind the executive desk in the warden’s office or talking to the superintendent

of the textile factory about adding a new weave to the line, one deep impression is left with you: Here is a man who is at peace with himself. He knows and likes his job, and knows he’s doing it well. Someone has described Ragen as a man of firm purpose and calm competence. This aura of peace surrounding the warden is a refreshing change after observing the high-tensioned atmosphere in which most executives live. Yet Ragen has as much or more responsibility than the major executive of any top corporation. In

addition to being charged with the security of 4500 men, he operates the largest farm in Illinois; he presides over a cannery which puts out 300,000 gallons a year and a soap factory which

manufactures 4,000,000 pounds a year. Either of these latter operations is larger than many private businesses in the same field. At the same time he operates a clothing factory employing

300 men and a textile mill which produces 1,000,000 yards of fabric every year. And under his jurisdiction, too, are a furniture factory doing a business of $800,000 a year, a mattress factory, a shoe factory, a book bindery, a stone quarry, a sheet metal works, and one of the largest barber colleges in the nations. A total of forty-two vocations are taught in the prisons. Ragen is familiar with the smallest details of every one of his “subsidiaries” and inspects most of them every day. His salary for operating this multi-faceted business in a plant valued at 231

232

Tre WARDEN AND THE Prison Tobpay

$100,000,000 1S $9600 a year. Most men who carry as much responsibility are 1n the $100, 00o0-a-year bracket or better, Bur in spite of the tremendous weight and variety of these responsibilities, the warden is a man at peace with himself. Ragen 1s 2 man’s man, big and heavily-buile, wich a deep pleasant voice and a warm, slow-starting smile. His gaze 1s direct and forthright, and his speech 1Si deliberate. as though each word were carefully selected before being permitted to escape. The

combination makes vou feel that everything he says 1s the plan unadorned truth. In conversations with people he doesn’t know well, he assumes a poker face and it 1s impossible to tell what 1s going on behind those honest eyes. Bur behind this laconic front lurks a fine Irish sense of humor

which makes itself felt at the most unexpected umes. [tis a dry wit, used as sparingly as spice in a good recipe and with the same tangy effect.

Informanon has to be gently pried from him because he 1s naturally economical with words. But after a certain amount of probing 1 vou can get behind his reserve. And then you discover some things you hadn't expected. For example, there isa strong thread of pride in the fabric of his personality, and it shows as he

displays some of the goo Christmas cards he recerved from “his boys” last year; a good many with little notes scribbled on the back to tell him how they are getting along on the outside.

His sense of justice becomes evident when he is1s questioned about the work

of one of the prisoners with a famous name.

“There were fifty others on the same job,” he says with a frown and a trace of mmpatence. Then the frown relaxes and he explains in panent words that every man in the prison is equal; that no matter how notorious his name was before he came in. he receives no more attention or privileges than his fellow CONVICTS.

It becomes obvious as he speaks that the warden doesn’t like to see 2 few prisoners singled out for publicity while others are

forgotten. He stresses the point sufficiently for you to realize that you have come

up against one of those solid, rockhard

This Man Ragen

233

Ragen beliefs, the kind of belief which has helped to make him a good warden. The Ragen of today is more mellow and philosophical than

the Ragen who took over the prison in 1935. Faced with wrestling an institution in a near-riot condition to the mat, one fall and winner take all, no holds barred, he couldn’t afford the luxury of being philosophical. He had to reorganize the administration and build up the security. And that was more than enough to think about. He still has the solid core of toughness and purpose that made

him Governor Horner's first choice for the most dificult job in the State of Illinois, and probably in the nation. But now that core has softened a little around the edges. Part of this 1s due to the mellowing brought about by the passage of the years. And

part of it, Ragen says, is due to the education given to him over the years by the inmates, who have worked on him in relays of 5000. The purpose of the prison hasn’t changed, and Ragen’s basic program hasn’t changed either. But somewhere along the way,

Ragen stopped being a disciplinarian and became a penologist. At some point, as he wiped out the old system and built his own into the prison, he stopped thinking in terms of security alone and began to think of the men and their futures. This change was really quite small and made little difference in the way the prison was run. For the most part, it affected little but Ragen’s own insight. At first he created work for the

inmates to keep them out of trouble; it was a matter of security. Later, he made work for them with the added purpose of pro-

viding them with an honest trade at which they could work when they had served their terms. The development of this double viewpoint is one of the big reasons for Ragen’s success as a prison warden. But no one in this prison, officer or inmate, has any illusions

about Ragen’s mellowness. They know that in the event of trouble it would disappear like a pricked bubble and he would revert to natural form. As one convict put 1t, “He’s strict, but

234

Tae WARDEN AND THE Prison Topay

if you serve your time easy—you know, obey the regulations— he’s easy to get along with. But you always know that he’s

bigger and tougher than you and this whole place put together.” When you accompany the warden on one of his daily tours, he invites you to try a homemade pickled onion from a big barrel and takes one himself. He wants you to use a bar of toilet soap made in the prison soap factory and stamped “State of Illinois”’ in bold letters. He shows you the even stitching on an oxford and points out that the same shoe would sell for $14.95 or more on the outside. Throughout the tour, as you listen to Ragen’s quiet, under-

played description of prison activities, you try to identify some ever-present quality; and then finally you see it. You realize

that you have been witnessing a remarkably subdued display of craftsmanship. It is a simple, justifiable pride and at no time could the warden be accused of boasting.

But the pride 1s there. He 1s proud of the grounds and proud of the work of the inmates. But this is a pride which is in no way objectionable, for there never yet has been a truly capable artisan who lacked this pride and satisfaction in his own work; it is one of the main drives of his capability. On the tour, too, you learn more about Ragen’s firm ideas of how a prison should be run. He insists on absolute cleanliness and order, with heavy emphasis on “absolute.” The only dirt in the whole place 1s “clean” dirt, such as bits and scraps on the floor of the tailor shop, where the guard hastens to assure you

that this will be swept up before the men are mustered for lunch. It is necessary disorder, but embarrassed. And the guard at the machinery load of pipe neatly stacked in the livered and he doesn’t want to put

all the same, the guard seems storeroom apologizes for the corner. It has just been deit into its proper bin until the

bill of lading arrives and is checked. He assures you that such disorder doesn’t happen often. You look at the pipe and think that it looks rather neat, even if it isn’t in the proper bin; neater, for instance, than it would ever be in your own basement.

This Man Ragen

235

As these guards talk, you find yourself realizing just how

deeply Ragen’s thinking has been instilled into them. Just as the warden, they are not satisfied with anything less than the utmost in neatness and order. At first, this emphasis on orderliness seems a bit overdone, Obviously, everything should be neat and clean, especially in the kitchens. But neatness and order around the twin prisons seems to have gone beyond the natural, to have become a fetish. But as time goes on, you become more “stir-wise,” and you learn that there 1s a great deal of good sense in it. Neatness and

order, you discover, are an integral part of the prison’s security. There 1s much less chance for trouble when everything is in absolute order. If pipe, for example, were lying around the machinery store room in disordered piles and heaps, one piece more or less wouldn’t be noticed. And a small piece of pipe in the hands of a convict can be a lethal weapon. A convict 1s noted for his fab-

ulous ability to fashion something out of nothing, and the pipe could end up as anything from a plain billy to an efhicient homemade gun, just as an item as simple as dental floss was braided into a rope ladder by one inmate. But when the pipe 1s carefully stacked in bins where a per-

petual inventory can be made, and counts can be taken at a glance, temptation to the convict is lessened considerably. In Stateville, where there are 60,000 tools in use, everything froma sewing machine needle to a coal shovel has its place. And a piece of pipe in a place where a piece of pipe doesn’t belong screams louder than any escape siren. A tool missing from its accustomed niche when the workers check in for the day calls for a shakedown of the entire prison; normal work isn’t resumed until the tool is accounted for. Neatness, cleanliness and order aren’t fetishes of the warden’s. They actually are a part of prison security.

Over 82,000 convicts have served time at Joliet and Stateville since the old prison first opened

its doors for business 1n

236

Tue WARDEN AND THE Prisox Tobpay

1858, and 3 35,000 of these have been incarcerated since Ragen took command In 1935. The experience of dealing with this many convicts, plus the fact that his two insurutons are acknow ledged to be the finest from an administrative standpoint of any in the country, qualify Ragen as one of the most outstanding penologists in the world. When he speaks of things which concern a prison, he speaks with authority. Ragen, in talking of his life in prison work. often says that he wishes he had known as much about lawbreakers and the running of a prison twenty years ago as he knows today. He feels that he would have been able to rehabilitate more men.

There 1s a wistful note in his voice as he admits that onginally, faced with the nearly insurmountable problem he met when he walked through Stateville’s gate, he was primarily a disciplinarian. Rehabilitation was purely a by-product of the system. As he gained experience, he learned that discipline could be maintained while such things as education and training were emphasized. He 1s quick to point out that herein lies one of the great weaknesses of the spoils system as applied to prisons. Prison

personnel, subject to change with every change of political administration, are not properly selected in the first place; and

they don’t remain in their jobs long enough to learn those lessons in prison operation which

can be gained

only by experience.

And to settle any argument, he can hold himself as a prime example.

He hopes that when he retires, the man who is governor at the time will understand the lesson that has been learned the hard way in Illinois, and 1s being learned in even harder fashion in some other states, and will appoint a new warden from the ranks.

A good vote-getter or a fine fund-raiser couldn't possibly have enough experience to operate a pair of major prisons successfully. But men who have worked in these prisons are prepared to do so. In the past it has been assumed, when political considerations

were set aside in making appointments, that the man for the job

This Man Ragen

237

needed only good administrative ability. If he had administrative experience in industry, then he should be able to operate a prison. This has been proven fallacious. Administrative ability Is necessary, but it 1s only a part of a warden’s job. Equally necessary 1s a deep knowledge of the criminal mind. The warden also has some very definite ideas as to improvements that can be made in Illinois prisons. First of all, he believes that the state needs many smaller prisons in place of big 1nstitutions of the type he operates. Many inmates do not require maximum security confinement, he says, and smaller inmate populations would permit better work with each individual. After classification, new convicts could be housed according to criminal type and to possibility of rehabilitation more easily than 1s now possible. Illinois has come a long way in its program of convict classification, but it is hampered in making further progress by the type of institution it has available for the men once they are classified.

Next, Ragen strongly advocates that all criminals be sentenced to serve a one year-to-life term. He would include all crimes, even murder, in this indeterminate sentence. Under such a sentence, an inmate would serve a minimum of one year for his crime. After that, his release would depend upon his crime, his past, his future, his mental and physical type; and he would become eligible for release when he had proved to the satisfaction of a trained panel of prison personnel and the Board of Pardons and Paroles that he was ready to be sent back to society. Such a sentence, the warden points out, would depend on a parole board that was fully qualified to administer it. Such a board would be composed of members who devoted full time to the work. Their appointments would have to be at least for ten years. “I have nothing but good to say about the parole boards I have worked with since I have been warden,” Ragen adds. “They have been made up of sincere men doing the best job they could, and they have all performed well.” But to administer

238

Tue WARDEN AND THE Prisox Topay

the one year-to-life sentence the warden suggests, parole board members should be career men, just as the warden should be. Such a sentence, Ragen argues, would provide sufhcient latitude for reform and rehabilitation of offenders, and at the same ume afford society adequate protection from the so-called recidivist, the criminal who refuses to be reformed. It would also eliminate the old idea of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” from penology. Prisons, in the view of modern penology, are not primarily places of punishment. They are places where a man who has been a menace to society is segregated for as long as 1s necessary to restore him as a social being. Under the “indeterminate” sentence the warden advocates, a man would be held until he could be returned to society

“cured.” At present, 95 per cent of all men put behind bars eventually return to society. Parole board figures show that most of those released under supervision “go straight.” But in many cases, men are not paroled; instead, they are released when they have served the full term of their sentences, whether they are ready for release or not. The warden says, “We have men here serving life sentences who could be released after serving a few years, even though their crimes might have been murder. Then, too, we have men with sentences of one or two years who should be held in an institution untill they are rehabilitated. In some cases, I think there are a few who never should be released.” He also points out that a record of good conduct in prison does not necessarily

mean that a man would make a good member of society. Good prison conduct is only one small factor in determining man can be considered as rehabilitated.

when a

Ragen is not the only man advocating the indeterminate sentence. There are many others. There also are many who do not believe in putting as much power as the Board of Pardons and Paroles would have under such a law into the hands of a small group of men. The warden feels that these people are shortsighted, and fail to see that if the parole board consists of special-

This Man Ragen

239

ists trained for the job of evaluating prisoners, no one in the world could do the job better. The indeterminate sentence would have a number of important effects within the prison. It would open the door to the elimination of isolation and segregation cells, because no inmate, knowing that he could be locked up for as long as he violated the prison regulations, would want to violate them. And once an inmate understood that his release depended entirely upon his ability to demonstrate that he was ready to return to the world, he would have a strong motivation for undertaking training and increasing his education. In other words, the inmate would take as much or more interest in his own rehabilitation as the prison officials did. Under the present system it 1s not always easy, and sometimes impossible, to get an inmate to help himself. The warden 1s also of the opinion that capital punishment does not deter murder or any other crime. He says that murderers

not only can be reformed, but actually are the best parole risks; he substantiates this by pointing to several murderers who serve on his household staff, and also by producing parole records. He 1s frank to admit that he, and the prison system, have failed to produce satisfactory reform in many of the inmates who have passed through. Better than half of the prison population consists

of repeaters. He notes that burglars, confidence men, pickpockets and sex offenders, in his experience are most often “unreformable types.” They compose the bulk of the population, and when they leave after serving relatively short sentences, Ragen expects them back. At the same time, he hopes they won’t return, remembering that each of these men 1s an individual. When talking of parole and members with a trace of humor from Srateville and went back was free. The man had served

rehabilitation, the warden reone inmate who was discharged to his old trade the moment he a sentence for operating a con-

fidence game. Just after he left Stateville, he appeared in the capital city of another state and went straight to the office of the

Tue Warpex axD THE Prison Topay

240 director

of

the

department

which

supervised

prisons

and

aroles. There he introduced himself to the director as a member of the Board of Pardons and Paroles of the State of Illinois. The director, not wanting to insult a colleague from another state, accepted him on his word and did not ask for idenufication. During the conversation, the ex-inmate indicated that he wanted very much to tour a prison which was located in the city. The director, happy to oblige, made arrangements, and the two of them spent a day going through the place. At the end of the day. the con man returned to his hotel,

wrote a large check, and asked the cashier of the hotel to cash it for him. The banks, of course, had closed hours before. Since the cashier didn’t know the man, he asked for identufication. The con man presented some sort of identification, and then

suggested that the director of prisons and parole department knew him and would vouch for him. The cashier called the director on the phone. The director assured him that he knew the man, and told him that they had

spent the day together, touring the prison. Satisfied that he had sufficient identification, the cashier honored the check. Needless to say, the check bounced a few days later, leaving an unhappy hotel cashier and a chagrined director. The con man by that time was in another state and no doubt chuckling over his little plot, which not only netted him some money but also a degree of revenge against prison officials. On the matter of prison riots, the arden has some definite ideas. He has been called to sixteen states and Canada to conduct surveys of about roo prisons, and often these surveys are made as the aftermath of serious disturbances. Several years ago, prisoners rioted at the Western State Penitentiary in Pennsylv: ania.

Governor John S. Fine invited Ragen to be a member of a bo ard to Investigate this the state’s prisons, the state’s prison Before leaving

riot and one w hich had occurred ar another of Rockview, and to make an overall survey of system. for this assignment, Ragen was interviewed

This Man Ragen

241

and asked why riots occurred and how he intended to proceed with his investigation. tion of the plants. He explained. “You can’t tell a thing about kis first move, he said, would be to make a thorough inspecwhat's wrong in a prison until you've checked the entire physical plant and the program, if any. But you can begin to feel almost the minute you enter a prison what the general morale 1s. You sce the lack of respect and sense the bitterness in an institution that needs modernization.” He pointed out that all factors in the administration of a prison dovetail and are of equal importance.

“Discipline is of paramount importance,” he said, “but it isn’t worth a dime without good food. Even a rabbit will fight if 1t 1s hungry.

“Along with discipline of employees and inmates, plus the provision of food, you must give men decent living quarters. But that’s not enough. Their minds must be occupied with something constructive or they’ll be plotting a break or building up resentments. You've got to get them thinking straight. That 1s why you must provide industrial, educational and recreational facilities.” Other keystones in the warden’s approach to modernizing a prison which has suffered a serious riot are fair treatment of all inmates and the hiring of competent personnel, two items which have been important in the administration of his own prison. Ragen makes a positive distinction between escapes and riots. Every man in a prison wants to be somewhere else, and escape is a natural thought to him. The warden assumes that many men in his charge would go over the wall if the slightest opportunity presented itself. The warden’s job, first of all, 1S to see that the opportunity 1s not presented. The second job 1s to keep the men busy enough so that they haven’t time to plot escapes.

Riot, however, is something else again. Riots are caused by excessive frustrations and dissatisfactions that boil up in the if seldom 1s , Escape violen tly. protes t to them cause and men

242

TrHE WARDEN AND THE Prison Tobay

ever, involved in a riot. Rioters usually are taking violent means to protest about something, and they want some assurance that the situation will change “before they calm down. Too often, the daily newspaper reader assumes that a riot is an attempt at mass escape. Actually, a riot is a symptom of a badly run prison and should be thought of as such. One other factor enters into a riot, and that is mass psychology. The dissatisfaction that boils up in one man and causes him to stage a one-man riot is dangerous because it can spread rapidly and senselessly. For this reason, Ragen advocates quick action in dealing w ith the initial outbreak of any disturbance within a prison, “catching violence before it spreads into a fully developed riot. In his own prisons, Ragen has a standing order for guards to smother any type of demonstration promptly, even Pt the risk of his own life or those of any of the guards. Quick action at the first sign of a disturbance prevents its spreading. And if Ragen or any of the guards have been seized as hostages, his officers have been trained to do whatever is necessary 20 suppress the disturbance without negotiations and despite threats on the part of the inmates to kill their hostages. The important thing 1s to stop the disturbance without compromise as soon as possible, for if it spreads, many lives may be lost. The primary means of preventing riots, however, is good prison administration. For most of the causes of riots are eliminated when a prison 1s well run. Another question which frequently 1s thrown at the warden 1s, “How can we cut down crime? Rehabilitation is fine, but how can we prevent the necessity of sending a man to prison in the first place?” After talking with thousands of convicted criminals, Ragen has observed hat the vast majority headed into crime at a youthful age. And interviews indicate that most of them had been subjected to one or more common experiences as children and teen agers. The same items have appeared so often in these interviews that the warden considers them important contrib-

This Man Ragen

243

uting factors in the making of a criminal. These are the factors: 1. Lack of training in the home, which includes an absence

of practical discipline and guidance by the parent or guardian. 2. Lack of religious training. 3. Lack of supervision when away from home and school. (Street-corner gangs grow out of this, and often lead straight to trouble.) 4. Lack of supervision by parents over those with whom their children associate. 5. Lack of adequate academic or vocational training.

The warden says, “The best way to lower prison populations is to stop delinquency at 1ts inception. I am of the belief that children are not born with criminal tendencies, but acquire these because of a combination of the factors which I have outlined. Obviously, the first line of defense in this matter are the parents and guardians, who must guide their children through those dangerous years by proper home supervision and by seeing that they get sufficient religious, academic and vocational training. There are more delinquent parents than there are delinquent children. “Discipline 1s important in the home and in the school. The decisions of children, due to their immaturity, are not always wise, but with proper guidance, they can choose the road to good citizenship. A lack of it may sometimes result in a loss to society, either by way of property, or in loss of life. “But juvenile delinquency is every citizen’s business, and not just the parents’. This 1s true first of all because of the high tax money that each delinquent who develops into a criminal causes the state to spend for arrest, conviction and confinement. Second, every citizen is a potential victim of each new criminal. “If every warden rehabilitates every man who enters his prison (and this will never happen), and we still do nothing to

relieve the cause of rising prison populations, we will not improve our situation a little bit. Each and every citizen must attempt to do something about the cause.”

244

Tue WarDEN axD THE PrisoN Topay

An interesting sidelight in the prisons at Joliet are the suggestion boxes which the warden has had placed in all cell houses. All notes placed in these are delivered directly to him, and through them he learns of small gripes the prisoners have, and often of means of improving prison operation. He has even been threatened via the suggestion box. Several notes have been addressed to him, daring him to be at a certain location within the prison at a certain time. When he reads such notes, Ragen has no way of knowing whether they are intended as pranks or are a test of his courage. In any event, he always complies with the writer's wishes, and appears at the appointed ume In the area mentoned. So fur, nothing has ever happened, except perhaps that the author of the note achieved the dubious sausfaction that Ragen was inconvenienced somewhat.

In recent years these prankish (or otherwise) notes have stopped—apparently because the mmates have learned that Ragen dosen't flinch when threatened. And also, possibly they suspect that he may get mad enough someday to trace the notesender. Motion pictures about police work and prisons often indicate

that the “stool pigeon™ whe “squeals” to the warden or the police is an mmportant part of law enforcement work. This annoys Ragen, who does not believe in the use of stool pigeons. He points out that no inmate is ever punished or disciplined on the word of another inmate. Ragen often plays a game with himself in his moments of relaxation, a game that frequently pays s big dividends. He plans just how he would escape if he were an inmate, or how he would touch off a riot. He searches for weak spots in the prison system and plans how he could use them to get out. Once he has formulated a plan, he goes to the scene and takes another look, to see if by any chance his plan would work. If so, something 1s done about it immediately. Gradually, over the years, changes have been made in the prison routine as a result of such daydreaming and as a result

This Man Ragen

245

of actual attempts. Neither of the prisons has any areas such as dark corridors, closets, or other facilities which could be used for concealment, that are accessible to inmates. No automobiles or rolling stock, such as railroad engines are permitted inside the walls while prisoners are at large. Only after they are locked

in their cells and the 6: 30 P.M. count has been taken are railroad deliveries made to the prison. Ragen is often asked what he considers his chief recreation. To anyone who has been around him, this is no mystery. He is on duty twenty-four hours a day, and his chief recreation 1s his evening survey of the prison’s 2200-acre farm. He inspects

its 6oo head of cattle and its 3000 hogs; he notes the lush growth of the corn and beets and cabbage and beans; he checks the

fences and looks at the sky and contemplates the possibility of a rain or a frost. To anyone observing him as he enjoys this evening tour, most often made in the company of Mrs. Ragen and any visitor who happens to be staying with him, it is immediately obvious that if he hadn’t chosen penology as a career, he would have been an enthusiastic farmer. While he may be performing some of his duties on these trips, it is so obvious that he is enjoying himself that the trips could hardly be called work.

When he explains the prison to anyone, he is thorough and obviously proud. But when he gets around to the farm, a special note creeps into his voice and a brighter gleam leaps to his eye. On these tours with Mrs. Ragen, he often stops for a moment at the prison cemetery on a grassy well-kept knoll south of the prison. Here, under white tombstones, are buried the unclaimed bodies of deceased convicts. At the gate 1s a monument with this inscription carved out: They Paid Their Debt To Society May God Remit Their Debt to Him.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS THE AuTHOR gratefully acknowledges professional assistance from two colleagues in turning out this book. Both hold fulltime jobs as does the author. Together we learned a new concept of time as we tackled the job of assembling and correlating a mass of material from prison files and other sources. We pooled our efforts and pushed each other to keep the project rolling, despite daily newspaper and magazine deadlines. My thanks to Charles Finston, political editor of The Chicago American, who carried out much of the basic research and to Leonard Hilts, whose experience as a magazine editor inured him to the surgical process of editing the book. With trained eyes they elicited many an oblique detail in inmate case histories, analyzed, pieced together and then interpreted their findings “for the record.”

In “covering” the Stateville- Joliet prisons I have talked with and listened to many persons associated with Warden Ragen. From each I learned much. My special appreciation to Mrs. Ragen for her gracious cooperation in telling her complete story for the first time and to the Ragens’ son, Bill, and daughter, Jane Fahrner, whose affection

and respect for their famous father fail to dampen their enjoyment of playing a practical joke on “Joe” whenever the time 1S opportune. To many others, a big thank you for direct and indirect enlightenment and guidance: Harry Romanoff, veteran night city editor of The Chicago American and former star police reporter, who devoted many hours ferreting out pertinent information and key prison aides, as well as the clerical staff.

My appreciation also to Eugene Zemans, official of the John Howard Association; Dr. John Francis Pick, Professor William Byron of Northwestern University, and Harry Reutlinger.

247

248

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The forthright and voluntary contributions from Inmates Basil Banghart, Nathan Leopold and Roger Touhy are particularly appreciated. Their analyses were made at the request of the author without fear of recrimination or promise of favor. Finally, my gratitude 1s extended to the Honorable William G. Stratton, Governor of the State of Illinois, and the Honorable

Joseph D. Bibb, Director of Illinois’ Department

of Public

Safety, for authorizing Warden Ragen to narrate his story and permitting my unrestricted perusal of confidential prison records. G. A. E.