Craig was willing to be one of the marchers but insisted that she had to have a proper costume. She waited until the department stores opened, and then she got herself an elegant long white cape. When I arrived at nine in the morning, I found no men but four ladies, one of whom had provided herself with a many-colored banner and a loud screaming voice. I invited her to set the banner against the wall of the Standard Oil Company and to stuff her handkerchief in her mouth; we then took up our silent parade in front of the office of Mr. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (We never saw him, and I learned that he had taken up the practice of coming in by a back door.)

VII

We walked for perhaps five minutes, and then policemen politely told us to walk somewhere else; when we politely refused, they told us that we were under arrest. One of them grabbed me by the arm and started to hustle me, but I said to him very quietly, “Please behave like a gentleman. I have no idea but to go with you.” So after that we had a pleasant stroll to the police station, where we found a half-dozen newspaper reporters with their pads of scratch paper and their busy pens.

To the sergeant at the desk I told the story of the Ludlow massacre all over again. It wasn’t his business to listen, but it was the reporters’ business, and all police sergeants are respectful to reporters. A little later we were put into a patrol wagon and taken to the police court, and again I told the story, this time to the judge. The policeman who had arrested me testified that my conduct had been “that of a perfect gentleman”; whereupon the judge found me guilty of disorderly conduct and fined me three dollars. I declined to pay the fine, and so did the four ladies; so each of us got three days instead of three dollars, and I was led over the “Bridge of Sighs” to a cell in the ancient prison known as The Tombs.

A most interesting experience, because I had as cellmate a young Jewish fellow in for stealing. He was a lively talker and told me all about his art; and of course every kind of knowledge is useful to a novelist sooner or later. This young fellow stole because he loved to. It was a sporting proposition—he pitted his wits against the owners of property in the great metropolis, and he didn’t especially mind when he was caught because the charge was always petty theft; apparently they never bothered to compare his fingerprints with previous fingerprints, and he was always a “first offender.” He trusted me—I suppose he thought of a socialist as an intellectual and higher type of thief. Anyhow, we were pals, and I was entertained for two days.

I never left the cell, because I had learned about fasting, and when I contemplated prison fare, I decided this was a good time to apply my knowledge. At the end of the second day a message came to me that if I wanted to appeal my sentence I would have to pay a fine; for, obviously, if I served the whole three days I could not sue to get my time back. It was my wife who had sent this information, and she set out to find the court where the one dollar for the third day was to be paid. She has told in Southern Belle the delightful story of how she got lost in the several galleries of courtrooms and stopped a gentleman to ask the way to the room where the fine should be paid. The gentleman asked, “What is it for?” and Craig said, “Some idiot of a judge has sent my husband to jail.” “Madam,” was the reply, “I am that judge.” But he told her where to go to pay her dollar.

We kept that demonstration going for a couple of weeks, and Craig met such people as Judge Kimbrough’s daughter had never dreamed of meeting in this world—lumberjacks from the mountains, sailors from the harbor, and poor Jewish garment workers half-starved in a period of unemployment.

George Sterling, the poet, happened to be visiting in New York. He marched on one side of Craig, with Craig holding his arm to keep him from making any move when the “slugs” muttered insults at her. (“Slugs” was what Craig called them, groping for a word.) Clement Wood, stenographer and also poet, marched on the other side. Irish-born novelist Alexander Irvine and Irish-born suffragette Elizabeth Freeman took charge while Craig rested, and some rich supporter put up money for a rest room and feeding station. I went out to Colorado to make publicity there, and to write it; meantime Craig kept things going on lower Broadway. Clement told her that an agent of the Rockefellers had come to him and offered him money for secret information about our plans and purposes. Since we had no secrets of any sort, Craig told him to get all the Rockefeller money that was available.

VIII

A group of students of the Ferrer School, an anarchist institution, came down to march, and later decided to carry the demonstration to the Rockefeller estate in Pocantico Hills. They did not ask our consent, and we had nothing to do with it—until they were beaten up for trying to hold a free-speech meeting in nearby Tarrytown. Then I went up to try to persuade the board of directors of the town to let us hold a meeting; I carried with me a letter from Georg Brandes, perhaps the most highly respected literary critic in Europe—but I doubt if the trustees had heard of him. They turned down our request.