No one would have believed that as late as the summer of 1940, San Quentin, a “modern” prison where Warden Jimmy Johnston had ended officer barbarism in 1919 and Warden James Holohan in the early 1930s instilled imprisoned men with new dignity and inspiration, was on the brink of deadly riots certain to reverse efforts in rehabilitation by 100 years.
Now under the stewardship of the tough, hard-boiled Warden Court Smith who adamantly refused to end “the shame of San Quentin”, a 50 foot long dungeon was constructed under the old hospital with seven niches cut into the subterranean rock on each side to serve as cells. Hundreds of convicts trembled with so much hate and fear that some were arming themselves to escape or kill as many guards as they could.
With the growing crisis no longer kept secret from a public well aware that the “Big House By the Bay” was a city of nightmares, Gov. Culbert Olson ousted the entire Board of Prison directors. And on the morning of July 13, a new five man board convened in the conference room of the warden’s office at San Quentin to fire Smith. Four years of bloodshed, strife, and, some officers insisted, rot and corruption during his brief tenure were about to end. Clinton Truman Duffy, a 42-year-old Parole Board secretary who was born, bred, married and now lived on the prison grounds, was summoned along with several other witnesses for questioning about the increasing abuses and chaos.
“I sat on a long polished bench outside the meeting room for what seemed like hours, mopping my face and listening to the wildest kind of rumors,” Duffy wrote 10 years later in his autobiography: The San Quentin Story. “I was sure I was due for the chopping block since a number of official heads had already been lopped off that morning. Then and there I made up my mind to quit prison work for good. Warden Smith was called before the new board around noon and for several hours loud voices filtered out into the hall. Smith emerged at four o’clock and clumped down the hall and out the door without a word.”
After several other flushed and nervous administrators entered and exited the conference room, someone called out, “Duffy, you’re wanted inside.” Duffy walked in and sat down, wiping his glasses to conceal his nervousness. He didn’t want to get fired; he wanted to quit. After all, his father had been a highly respected guard for more than 30 years. Suddenly someone said, “We have not agreed upon a new warden. You’ve been around here all your life and you know all the spots. We understand your dad taught you the cardinal rule of reform: no man can ever be redeemed by using the whip. How about taking over for the next 30 days?”
Duffy, from his autobiography, writes, “I could have crawled under the rug. ‘Taking over?’ I asked mechanically.”
“Yes, as Acting Warden.”
It was about six o’clock when Duffy called his wife Gladys about the news. They reflected upon how their old way of life was finished and that he was now assuming a great responsibility to the people of California and to the thousands of men behind the walls. “Before I come home, I have something important to do,” he said quietly and hung up.
Duffy then walked down San Quentin’s long main street to the house closest to the East Gate and knocked on the door. Captain Ralph New, under whom guards had used the dungeon, the straps, and the rubber hoses so frequently they had cost an old warden his job, opened the door. The unsmiling new acting warden said simply, ‘I’ve just been appointed to take control of the prison and staff. I’m making changes and as of this minute, you’re through.” He turned and walked back to the warden’s office.
Upon entering the deserted office, he immediately telephoned Joseph Fletcher, a guard he had observed for years. “I’m appointing you Captain of the Yard and your first official act within the next hour is to abolish the dungeon.”
“By eight o’clock that night, the moldy, foul 50-foot cave where hundreds of men had suffered unbelievable tortures through the decades had ceased to exist,” Duffy would say in later years.
Part two of this three part biographical sketch of “Mister San Quentin,” as Time Magazine referred to him in a January 7, 1942, article, will appear in the next issue of the SQ News.
