THE DEFENDANT: I can’t respect the law as it stands today. THE COURT: Margaret Sanger, there is evidence that you established and maintained a birth control clinic where you kept for sale and exhibition to various women articles which purported to be for the prevention of conception, and that there you made a determined effort to disseminate birth control information and advice. You have challenged the constitutionality of the law under consideration and the jurisdiction of this Court. When this is done in an orderly way no one can find fault. It is your right as a citizen.... Refusal to obey the law becomes an open defiance of the rule of the majority. While the law is in its present form, defiance provokes anything but reasonable consideration. The judgment of the Court is that you be confined to the Workhouse for the period of thirty days. A single cry, “Shame!” was followed by a sharp rap of the gavel, and silence fell. _Chapter Nineteen_ THIS PRISON WHERE I LIVE I sat in the front row while the court routine continued. The room buzzed with conversation. J.J. was busy with formalities; reporters were leaning over to ask me questions. Through the near-by doorway I saw several young men awaiting their sentences like actors in the wings listening for their cues. One was propped against the wall smoking a cigarette. At the sound of his name he raised his head, signifying he had heard, and yet kept on smoking. When it was called a second time an attendant shoved him forward roughly. I could almost feel the hardening of his soul under this brutal attitude and the physical handling. He gave still another puff; then deliberately dropped the stub, stepped on it, and sauntered leisurely forward to receive his sentence. I was led into an anteroom where other prisoners were being put through the regular fingerprinting procedure. I refused; there was a definite connection in my mind between admission of guilt and fingerprinting; both in their different ways placed me in the category of criminals. My refractoriness was reported to the court. But the judges, poor dears, had worn themselves out trying to avoid sending me to jail and were exasperated and cross; one more rebellion was too much for them. “Don’t bother us with that. It’s not our job. Take her away.” We were then herded through the rear of the building into an open yard where the van was standing. The careless youth who had answered the court’s call with such unconcern was waving farewell to friends who loitered outside. “How long, Alf?” asked one. “Five years,” and he laughed as he said it.