Religion: Bitter Thweatt

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What manner of soul has Al Capone, only he and his Lord know. In the Terminal Island prison in San Pedro Bay, California (whither he was transferred last January), the nation's most notorious criminal attends Roman Catholic Mass, confesses his sins regularly. But, like most prisoners, who will do anything to get out of their cells, he also attends Protestant and Christian Science services. Last month a Baptist minister thought he saw a chance for Al Capone's soul, and plucked it forthrightly. The Rev. Silas A. Thweatt (rhymes with "bleat") of San Pedro, detailed for a service at the prison for the first time, preached straight at the gangster. His text: . . . Died Abner as a fool dieth? (II Samuel: 3: 33).

Later Mr. Thweatt declared: "At the close of the talk, Capone's face seemed to radiate, and when I asked those prisoners to stand who felt the need and will to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Saviour, he was the first to rise." That this "conversion" had taken place, no one doubted. Said Prison Warden E. J. Lloyd: "Sure, the ministers do that all the time. And there are always ten or fifteen men who raise their hands or rise. I don't know whether they really mean it or not." What Warden Lloyd did know, however, was that a prison rule forbade clergymen to talk publicly about such matters. When Baptist Thweatt's story got in the press last week, the Warden had his name stricken from the list of ministers eligible for service at the prison.

Said Mr. Thweatt, slightly bitter: "If the government is going to spend so much money for a correctional institution and if the religion of the Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, is a correctional religion, then why should the news of an inmate's accepting the religion be barred from the press and public knowledge?"