The press also was inclined to be friendly. Reporters came up to Post Avenue, looked over the various articles. They agreed, “We think the Government absolutely wrong. We don’t see how it has any case.” Unfortunately, while we were talking, Peggy, who had never seen a derby before, took possession of their hats and sticks, and in the hall a little parade of children formed, marching up and down in front of the door. One of the gentlemen was so furious that I hid Peggy in the kitchen away from his wrath. As he went out he remarked, “You should have birth controlled them before they were born. Why don’t you stay home and spend some thought on disciplining your own family?” I had many things to do which could not be postponed, the most important among them being to provide for the children’s future. This occupied much of my time for the next few weeks. Temporarily, I sent the younger two to the Catskills and Stuart to a camp in Maine, arranging for school in the fall on Long Island. Defense funds were always being raised when radicals got into trouble to pay pseudo-radical lawyers to fight the cases on technicalities. I was not going to have any lawyer get me out of this. Since my indictment had not stopped my publishing the _Woman Rebel_, through the columns of the September issue I told my subscribers I did not want pennies or dollars, but appealed to them to combine forces and protest on their own behalf against government invasion of their rights. That issue and the October one were both suppressed. During what might be called my sleepwalking stage it was as though I were heading towards a precipice and nothing could awaken me. I had no ear for the objections of family or the criticism of friends. People were around me, I knew, but I could not see them clearly; I was deaf to their warnings and blind to their signs. When I review the situation through the eyes of those who gave me circumspect advice, I can understand their attitude. I was considered a conservative, even a bourgeoise by the radicals. I was digging into an illegal subject, was not a trained writer or speaker or experienced in the arts of the propagandist, had no money with which to start a rousing campaign, and possessed neither social position nor influence. In the opinion of nearly all my acquaintances I would have to spend at least a year in jail, and they began to condole with me. None offered to do anything about it, just suggested how I could get through. One kind woman whom I had never seen before called late one evening and volunteered to give me dancing lessons. In a small six-by-four cabin she had developed a system which she claimed was equally applicable to a prison cell and would keep me in good health. She even wrote out careful directions for combining proper exercises with the rhythm of the dance. But I myself had no intention of going to jail; it was not in my program.