The citizens of San Francisco were not at all overjoyed to have a federal penitentiary on Alcatraz Island. Throughout October 1933, the San Francisco Chronicle listed group after group who opposed the scheme. Chief of Police William J. Quinn, the Police Commission, and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors spoke out against a federal prison for gangsters on the island. An editorial in the Chronicle argued that Alcatraz was too close to the city to be a summer resort for bad men. Professional gangsters, it said, would have outside friends who would help them escape. It recounted that over the years 17 military prisoners had successfully escaped by swimming or by stealing boats and another six had gotten away by one ruse or another. The Federation of Women's Clubs joined the uproar of protests. Two young women, Doris McLeod and Gloria Scigliano, made separate and successful swims out to the island to demonstrate how easily it could be done by an escaping prisoner. In January 1934 the Chronicle proposed that a statue of peace be erected on Alcatraz instead of a prison. But the protests fell on deaf ears; the Justice Department continued its planning.
