Prison Poll

Folsom Prison, where California sends its two-time convicts, boasts a warden who is currently a seven-day wonder among U. S. penologists. He is ruddy, white-haired Clyde Irvin Plummer, one-time Los Angeles policeman and vice raider, sent to Folsom last year after a riot in which Warden Clarence A. Larkin was fatally injured (TIME, Oct. 4). Whether through prudence or good nature, Warden Plummer has tried to keep Folsom's 2,800 inmates happy by inaugurating prison swing bands, trading the prison's herd of pigs for a herd of cows to produce fresh breakfast milk, proposing to the State Prison Board a series of broadcasts from Folsom, radio earphones for all convicts. Three weeks ago only a heavy rainstorm kept Folsom from watching an exhibition tennis match between Professionals Ellsworth Vines and Fred Perry. But a fortnight ago consensus was that paternal Clyde Irvin Plummer had surpassed himself when the prison-run Represa Sports-Telegram published the results of one of the most unusual polls of public opinion ever tabulated in the U. S. Suggested by the Represa Sports-Telegram'?, editor, "Chick" Galloway, who got his present job after murdering a friend in a quarrel over a ukulele, the poll was sent to a cross-section of 400 convicts. Fifty-eight of Warden Plummer's charges thought the U. S. would go to war in 1938, 342 did not. While 287 would refuse to enlist if they were out of orison when war was declared, 261 would refuse a parole to enlist. A healthy majority of 32440-76 favored a strong armament policy, regardless of the condition of the budget. The prisoners opposed the Roosevelt agricultural policies, approved "present court arrangements," voted 212-to-133 that TVA was "a competitive enterprise endangering private investment." On a question of special interest, whether the prisoners approved the activities of J. Edgar Hoover and his G-men of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Represa Sports-Telegram tactfully regretted chat "we are unable to list a represer ""live tabulation of the votes on this important subject."

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