21: THE HOT HOUSE
“How do you raise”: Adams, Tom White, 84.
“ugly, dangerous”: Rudensky, Gonif, 32.
“Warden White showed”: Ibid., 33.
White tried to improve: Believing it was imperative for prisoners to keep busy, White
allowed Robert Stroud, a convicted murderer, to maintain an aviary in his cell with
some three hundred canaries, and he became known as the Birdman. In a letter,
Stroud’s mother told White how grateful she was that someone who understood
“human nature and its many weaknesses” was in a position of authority over her son.
“The Warden was strict”: Adams, Tom White, 133.
“I had a ray”: Rudensky, Gonif, 27.
“I have no”: Autobiography written by Carl Panzram, Nov. 3, 1928, Panzram Papers,
SDSUL.
“I could hang a dozen”: Nash, Almanac of World Crime, 102.
“He does high”: Leavenworth report on Hale, Oct. 1945, NARA-CP.
“treated as”: White to Morris F. Moore, Nov. 23, 1926, NARA-CP.
“Would I be imposing to ask your”: Mrs. W. K. Hale to White, Sept. 29, 1927, NARA-CP.
“It was a business”: Deposition of Hale, Jan. 31, 1927, NARA-CP.
“evidence of repression”: Leavenworth report on Hale, Aug. 1, 1941, NARA-CP.
He allegedly arranged: Hale appealed his conviction, and in 1928 an appeals court
shockingly overturned his verdict. A man who had assisted the defense team
subsequently confessed that Hale had someone who had “done the fixing.” But Hale was
promptly tried again and convicted, as was Ramsey.
“IT IS FURTHER”: Probate records of Mollie Burkhart, File No. 2173, NARA-FW.
On December: My descriptions of the escape attempt are drawn primarily from FBI
records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act; a transcript of an interview
with one of the convicts that was conducted by the author David A. Ward; Tom White’s
letters; newspaper accounts; and Adams, Tom White.
“I know you’re going”: Dunkirk Evening Observer, Dec. 12, 1931.
“Shoot him”: Adams, Tom White, 114.
“White asked me”: Pittsburgh Press, Dec. 14, 1939.
“I am sure”: Dunkirk Evening Observer, Dec. 12, 1931.
“come back”: Ward, Alcatraz, 6.
“The funny part”: Ibid.
“He had begun”: Adams, Tom White, 109–10.
“The experience affected”: Pittsburgh Press, Dec. 14, 1939.
“The days of the small Bureau”: Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover, 169.
“I looked up”: Quoted in ibid., 58.
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