Jailhouse Journalism by James McGrath Morris

Author:James McGrath Morris [Morris, James McGrath]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Sociology, General, Media Studies
ISBN: 9781351511230
Google: Lx4uDwAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 1407050
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1998-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Harelike Growth

I’ve heard some people say “Procrastination is the thief of time.” Ifso, Ihope it’ll steal away About two years of mine.

– Good Words, circa 1937

In the early 1970s, it was said that occasionally the whistle of a Southern Pacific train could still be heard from inside the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem. Train engineers began to blow their engine’s whistle in 1927 while passing the prison to remind the DeAutremont brothers, doing time inside, that their bloody holdup of the Shasta Limited had not been forgotten. By 1961, however, the brothers were no longer in the prison. One had died, another had been committed to the state’s mental institution, and the third had been paroled. So usually the trains passed by silently, but sometimes, out of habit, an older engineer would reach for the whistle’s cord.

The DeAutremonts’ holdup in October of 1923 was, in the words of the Oregon Journal, “the boldest train robbery since the days of the Old West.”1 It was followed by one of the largest manhunts ever conducted in the Northwest. But it was not until 1927 that the three brothers were rounded up and sent to the state prison. There they faced a lifetime of confinement for their deed while still in their twenties.

Hugh DeAutremont, the youngest brother, was unwilling to simply fall into the routine of prison life, and instead, after being assigned to work in the print shop, became interested in writing. He enrolled in writing and English courses offered in the prison through the University of Oregon. In 1935 he went to work on a plan to put his newly acquired skills to use. He convinced Warden James Lewis that the prison should have a monthly magazine. The costs would be low, he argued, as prisoners would do all the writing, editing, and printing. Further, he claimed that some money could be made by selling advertisements in the new publication.

With convicted forger Clyde Spinning as art editor, a sports editor, and a business manager, Hugh DeAutremont brought out the first edition of the Shadows in February of 1936. “The well-printed, ably illustrated first issue carries short fiction, radio and sports news,” reported Newsweek.2 The editorial, written by DeAutremont, took aim at the Portland Oregonian for not supporting a Christmastime parole scheme. Shadows sold for ten cents a copy and featured a modest amount of advertising, mostly from funeral parlors, drugstores, and jewelers. Profits from the advertisements were set aside for renting movies and purchasing sporting goods for the inmates. Within a year it had a circulation of six hundred, half of which was outside the prison. Because Lewis saw little need to censor the new magazine — a privilege denied most inmate-editors —Shadows quickly became a favorite among inmate-journalists around the country.

In 1936 and 1937, for instance, Shadows won the Gries Award, an inmate-journalist-administered competition of prison publications sponsored by Walter F. Gries, a former warden of the State House of Correction and Branch Prison, in Marquette, Michigan. Frank Morrison of the Atlantian called DeAutremont the dean of prison journalism.

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