jail she could have rendered but little assistance. All she could do was to inform her that even though she was not in jail, her father had disinherited her after reading his morning paper. My wife was informed by lawyers that she was in position to collect large damages from the Associated Press, and from every newspaper which had printed the false report. Some thirty suits were filed, but my wife's health did not permit her to go on with them.
We were taken to the Tombs prison, where the ladies sang the Marseillaise, and I wrote a poem entitled "The Marseillaise in the Tombs," and again found it possible to have my poetry published in the New York newspapers! The magistrate who tried us was an agreeable little gentleman, who allowed us to talk without limit—the talk all being taken down by the reporters. The charge against us read "using threatening, abusive and insulting behavior." The witnesses were the policemen, who testified that my conduct had been "that of a perfect gentleman." Nevertheless we were found guilty, and fined three dollars, and refused to pay the fine, and went back to the Tombs.
The newspapers tore me to pieces for my "clownish conduct," but I managed to keep cheerful, because I saw that they were publishing the news about the Colorado coal-strike, which before they had banned from their columns. The "New York World," for example, published a sneering editorial entitled, "Pink-tea Martyrdom." "No genuine desire to effect a reform actuates them, but only morbid craving for notoriety." But at the same time the "World" sent a special correspondent to the coal-fields, and during the entire time of our demonstration and for a couple of weeks thereafter they published every day from half a column to a column of news about the strike.
I spent two days and part of a third in the Tombs. Every day the reporters came to see me, and I gave interviews and wrote special articles—all the news about Colorado I could get hold of. And every day there was a crowd of ten thousand people in front of Twenty-six Broadway, and young Rockefeller fled to his home in the country, and "Standard Oil," for the first time in its history, issued public statements in defense of its crimes.
My wife had taken up the demonstration after my arrest, and I was amused to observe that the police did not arrest
