[1] _In the year of our Lord 1916 Emma Goldman was sent to jail for advocating that “women need not always keep their mouths shut and their wombs open.” Some extracts from letters written during her fifteen-day sentence appear on the next page._ Letters from Prison EMMA GOLDMAN _Queen’s County Jail, Long Island City, New York. April, 1916._ What am I doing? I am watching human misery. There is no misery so appalling as imprisoned misery. It is so helpless, so humiliated. Yes, I think the prisoners do love me, at least those who have been thrown in with me. It is so easy to get their love. The least bit of kindness moves them—they are so appreciative. But what can one do for them? Do you remember that passage from Galsworthy’s _Justice_ in which some one says to Falder: “No one wishes you harm”? Therein lies the pathos. No one wishes these social victims harm. The Warden and Matron here are exceptionally kind. And yet the harm, the irreparable harm, is done by the very fact that human beings are locked up, robbed of their identity, their self-respect, their self-hood. Oh, I am not sorry I was sentenced. In fact I am glad. I needed to get to these pariahs who are the butt of all the horrors. It would be well if every rebel were sent to prison for a time; it would fan his smouldering flame of hate of the things that make prisons possible. I am really glad. * * * * * ... We are awakened at six and unlocked at seven in the morning. Then comes breakfast, of which I have so far eaten only oatmeal with what pretends to be milk. The coffee or tea I have not managed to get down. At seven-thirty we are taken out into the yard. I walk up and down like one possessed, to get the exercise. At eight-thirty we are back, and the women keep themselves busy scribbling; but my girls will not let me do that; I must talk to them. (The Warden, by the way, is reading my _Anarchism_, and the Matron my _Social Significance of the Modern Drama_). In fact, I seem to have more devotion here than on the outside. At eleven we have dinner, and at four in the afternoon supper—which I will describe to you when I come out. Then we are locked up until seven A. M.—fifteen hours, the hardest of all to bear. Do you remember the line in _The Ballad of Reading Gaol_: “Each day a year whose days grow old”? To me it is “each night a year whose nights grow long”. I have always loved the night, but jailed nights are ghastly things. The lights are on until nine P. M., and we can read and write all day—which is a god-send. Also this prison is one of the cleanest in the country. * * * * *