California Convicts

California sends her "repeater" convicts to Folsom Prison, a stronghold whose ashen walls command a desolate stretch of the American River valley laid waste by goldseekers. Prisons are gruesome places at best but Folsom ranks with the worst as a focus of human distemper and desperation. Last week, Folsom was the scene of the greatest prison revolt in California history.

The 1,200 pallid inmates of one of the cell houses were assembled for a Thanksgiving Day cinema. The silence was broken by a shuffling of feet and hoarse muttering. Seven or eight convicts had slipped from their places and surrounded Assistant Turnkey Ray Singleton. They were dragging him towards a door from the cellhouse into the adjacent hospital. They were telling him to get the master key. Turnkey Singleton was answering that the master key, which would open the main door of the cellhouse, had been taken away from its usual place at the telephone switchboard.

Weapons began to flicker in the half-light of the prison--daggers and stilletos wrought out of files, kitchen utensils, shovels, razor blades. One man had an automatic pistol. As Turnkey Singleton stammered his answers, some one shoved a knife in his back. Someone else struck him deep in the stomach.

The furious convicts turned their attention to Guard Charles Gorhanson, who was trying to drag out the dying Singleton. Pricking his back with their knives, they made Gorhanson buzz to the switchboard guard the signal for opening the cellhouse. Guard Gorhanson buzzed long and angrily. The switchboard man guessed something was wrong and slammed the door shut.

Prodding Gorhanson afresh, the convicts marched him to another door, opening from the rear of the cellhouse to the prison ballfield. They captured Guard Walter Neil on the way. At the ballyard door, Guard Neil was sent out first, then Guard Gorhanson. Before the convicts could follow, Guard Neil flung his weight against the door. Tony Brown, San Francisco thug, the convict with the "roscoe" (pistol), tried to shoot Neil's foot out of the way, but the lock clicked. The cursing convicts retired to secure the rest of their guards as hostages and hold a council of war.

When the alarm reached the prison gate, aged Gatekeeper Charles Gilles died of heart failure. The 1,800 inmates of another Folsom cellhouse were locked in their cells be fore they knew what had happened. In the rioters' building, yells and commotion arose as the messhall and library were barricaded against siege.

Warden Court Smith was beleaguered in his office. To reach the prison wall, he would have to cross a bald courtyard under whatever fire the convicts might loose. He telephoned to Governor Clement Calhoun Young in Sacramento, 25 miles away, to send over soldiers, bombs, artillery. He ordered all available riflemen to the prison wall and consulted with aides whether to starve out the revolt or crush it at once.

Close-fitted bars over the cellhouse windows screened out the tear-gas bombs hurled by police and militia, but screams and uproar told what effect the barrage of rifle-fire was having. The convicts returned the fire with their one gun, injuring only one attacker. Seeing that they needed heavier weapons to batter in the cellhouse doors, police and militia withdrew to await the arrival of tanks, airplanes, one-pounders. Snipers watched the cellhouse windows the rest of the afternoon. Warden Smith, who safely left and returned to his office after dark, warned the prisoners that he could flood the cellhouse and drown them all. He offered to let them march out in peaceable surrender. They refused.

The sniping continued. Floodlights were arranged to prevent a night sortie. The convicts asked for a doctor. The Prison Physician went in to them and he found a whole night's work. Nine men, including Turnkey Singleton, lay dead. Four more were dying. Thirty-one convicts were wounded, one of whom died while the doctor was amputating his leg.

From Governor Young came word to cease firing, except on any fugitives trying to scale the walls or swim the river. At midnight, having meantime ordered the guard doubled at California's other big "pen," San Quentin, Governor Young reached Folsom in person and learned how things stood. A mass attack by 700 troopers, preceded by tanks, was planned for the next morning.

At dawn, Warden Smith's telephone rang. "The men want to come out," said a voice, "especially the men who are not in on this. If we surrender will you guarantee to punish only the leaders and that none of us will be beaten, abused or starved?"

Warden Smith promised.

"We will not be abused?"

"You will be put in solitary confinement and you will get one square meal a day."

Surrender followed. In ominous silence, the guards lined up their charges and took the roll. Six haggard men--Tony Brown and two burglars, a murderer, a forger, a robber--went to dark cells to await trial for murder. Grilling began to discover who else had carried the score or more weapons collected, who had smuggled in Convict Brown's gun and a hatful of ammunition. Governor Young returned to Sacramento and Folsom Prison to bitter routine.