of the history of our lives, and for long hours Morrell and I have lain
silently, while steadily, with faint, far taps, Oppenheimer slowly
spelled out his life-story, from the early years in a San Francisco slum,
through his gang-training, through his initiation into all that was
vicious, when as a lad of fourteen he served as night messenger in the
red light district, through his first detected infraction of the laws,
and on and on through thefts and robberies to the treachery of a comrade
and to red slayings inside prison walls.

They called Jake Oppenheimer the "Human Tiger." Some cub reporter coined
the phrase that will long outlive the man to whom it was applied. And
yet I ever found in Jake Oppenheimer all the cardinal traits of right
humanness. He was faithful and loyal. I know of the times he has taken
punishment in preference to informing on a comrade. He was brave. He
was patient. He was capable of self-sacrifice--I could tell a story of
this, but shall not take the time. And justice, with him, was a passion.
The prison-killings done by him were due entirely to this extreme sense
of justice. And he had a splendid mind. A lifetime in prison, ten years
of it in solitary, had not dimmed his brain.

Morrell, ever a true comrade, too had a splendid brain. In fact, and I
who am about to die have the right to say it without incurring the charge
of immodesty, the three best minds in San Quentin from the Warden down
were the three that rotted there together in solitary. And here at the
end of my days, reviewing all that I have known of life, I am compelled
to the conclusion that strong minds are never docile. The stupid men,
the fearful men, the men ungifted with passionate rightness and fearless
championship--these are the men who make model prisoners. I thank all
gods that Jake Oppenheimer, Ed Morrell, and I were not model prisoners.