The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-08-06
Official Writes to Secretary
Stallings of Local
Y. M. c. A.
WERE OVERAWED
BY NERVY WARDEN
M. l.. Northington Attributes Rebel
lion TO Fight Between Murphy and
Gov. understanding of the
Famous Penitentiary


because Governor William Sulzer and
Tammany Boss Murphy are doing dog
falls all over the state map just now,
says a letter received yesterday morn
ing by w. S. Stallings, secretary of the
Birmingham Young Mems Christian as
soeiation, from NJ l.. Northington, who
is an officer at the New York prison.
I'm your letter received the other day
you asked me about the situation up
here, and what was the cause of the
trouble" says Mr. Northington. TT isn't
vict leaders to play this sort of poll
tics But they are a fairly wise lot of
ex-citizens They know that Mr.. Murphy
would not cry his pretty blue eyes all
red If some one soused the governor
into a hot-pot.
"They saw that Mr.. Murphy's office
holders had managed to tie up the pris-
on department, and money could not be
obtained for car fare of draft of
felons from Sing Sing to Auburn prison.
"They reasoned that if there ever was
a time specially appointed to make
break for freedom that this time was
about now. And so they broke. And
then Warden James NJ. Clancy made
them sit down and forget all about it.
Convicts Rule Prison
THE truth is that convicts have ruled
Sing Sing in the past from the kitchen
to the front office. This latest revolt
was unpleasantly near success.
The neXtsrevolt may be successful.
; rpl To
draw warden whose jaw is somewhat
lightly timbered. That is why graft has
ruled there in the past, and why the
under world has held it to be pipe
either to do time in Sing Sing or to
get away from there.
The convicts have their hands in
everything about the place but the Of
flee safe, said Warden Clancy the 9TH
er day. 4 don't know why they've over
looked that. They could open it with
a shovel
Clancy had been II days a warden
when the revolt broke out. one thou
sand and four hundred men undertook
to test his metal. Before they got
through they had burned prison shops
valued with their contents at 100000
Two felons were seriously stabbed the
Ossining company of militia hovered
over its guns one painful night, an
armful of knives and black jacks and
stuffed billies were taken from the
mutineers, and GA of the worst were
sent to Auburn, where they will be in
troduced to some of the hardest work
they have ever tackled in their ca
reers.
And Clancy wasn't even scratched.
He was so far the master of the situa-
ton that one of the departing insur-
rectos crooked a finger at him:
=" Come here to me, warden, said he.
And when Clancy obliged;
Warden said he, you've got this
bunch on the run Don't you ever let
'em settle down into no walk
Clancy Cows Them
The morning after the wagon shop
had been burned down with one gate
to the prison gone and fully one-third
Of the guards away on their summer
vacation, word came to the office that
100 of the striclIing conyicts had re-
fused to go to their cells. Clancy put
on his straw hat and went out to rea-
son with them.
1--WE won't go to our cells said the
ringleaders of the mutiny They're hot
tern h. We gotta right to stay out
here in the yard
Nonsense said Clancy, crlsply you
know that sort of thing won't do at all.
You must go to your cells. Later on III
Jet you out for few minutes to cool off. i"
80. by and by, they went to their cells
That was the one big, bad moment in the
Sing Sing insurrection. Clancy didn't
know his guards. He didn't know how
many were loyal to him or how many
would stand off If fighting started. He
had to stand up there on log and face
down the whole bunch
If there had been one big man in that
bunch said a veteran guard to me, and
that man had made rush at Clancy, and
the others had followed-well, we'd be
picking convicts out of the landscape for
the next 30 days. Because this prison
would have just boiled over. But there
wasn't the big man
"rhe work up here is divided into that
of administration and manufacture. The
officials charged with the general duty of
administration soon find that certain con-
victs can override their orders. Time after
time it had happened that a convict has
objected to an order.
"'I will have that changed he has as
sured his friends confidently And by and
by it is changed. lie has reached some
man higher up and that man has issued
orders to the officials of the prison. That
has happened so often that it has become
a commonplace Goods to the value of
81 100000 annually are manufactured at
Sing Sing.
DOW W SOHtlCtS
without criticiszing the officials of the
manufacturing end of the prison. it is
nevertheless a fact that there are always
conviets who know indefinitely more about
the business than they do.
AS a matter of course, those convicts
gradually work into commanding places.
1t is unfair to blame an official possessed
of cent-and-a- half mind for obeying a
convict who has a 81 intellect.
hot "a
ministrative side of the prison there have
always been convicts whose word is prac-
tically law-just as in the manufacturing
end brains have been respected by those
whose chief capital has been a set of brass
buttons and a stick
THAT was a part of the situation tina t
Clancy found when he took charge An
other part had to do with the officials
more directly 1t has been a matter of
gossip for some time past that the guard 5
of the prison were divided into two fac
tions, one of which followed the old p. X ;
Principal Keeper Jim Connaughton-who
has grown gray in the service at Sing
Sing.
And the convicts-every man OF whom
keeps in close touch with the news of the
day-knew that Boss Charles f. Murphy
of Tammany Hall had locked horns wit h
Governor Suzer, who had appointed
Clancy.
"As result salaries at the prison were
being held up. Clancy could not even get
money TO pay the fares of the draft to
Auburn. and had to arrange for a line of
credit with the New York Central railroad,
something that had never occurred before.
"It isn't much wonder that the time was
ripe for an attempt to break prison. The
chief wonder Is that. after starting, they
didn't manage to make the break good"