The women had no lawyers. Each spoke on her own behalf. They defended themselves on the ground of the constitutional right of free assemblage and appeal to the Government for the redress of grievances. They all pleaded, Not Guilty. Many of them added that they did not recognize the jurisdiction of the Court. Hazel Hunkins explained: “Women cannot be law-breakers until they are law-makers.” One of the witnesses was the Chief Clerk of Public Grounds, an elderly man. Elsie Hill suddenly asked him when he had taken office. He replied, “In 1878.” “Do you realize,” Miss Hill said, “that in that year a Federal Suffrage Amendment was introduced, and that since then women have been helping to pay your salary and that of other government officials under protest?” The Chief Clerk was so astounded that he merely shook his head. The trial of the remainder of the women on the charge of “holding a meeting on public grounds” took place on August 15. At the very beginning of proceedings Alice Paul said: As a disfranchised class we feel that we are not subject to the jurisdiction of this court and therefore refuse to take any part in its proceedings. We also feel that we have done nothing to justify our being brought before it. They then sat down and refused to answer any question put to them. The judge was utterly nonplussed by this situation. He said that he would call a recess of fifteen minutes to consider the question of contempt. Among the spectators who packed the room was a lawyer—a visitor in Washington. He extracted a great deal of enjoyment out of this occasion, because, he said, “if the women are not afraid of jail, there is nothing the judge can do.” He awaited the judge’s decision with an entertained anticipation. Apparently the judge came to the same decision, for at the end of fifteen minutes, the Court reconvened and the trial went on as though nothing had happened. The women refused to rise when charged. They refused to plead Guilty or Not Guilty. They sat and read, or knitted, or, as the proceedings bored them, fell asleep. The Park Police were, of course, the only witnesses. At last all the women whom they could identify were found Guilty. They were sentenced to pay fines of five or ten dollars or to serve in prison ten or fifteen days. They all refused to pay the fine. Mary Winsor said: “It is quite enough to pay taxes when you are not represented, let alone pay a fine if you object to this arrangement.” The prisoners were then bundled in the Black Maria and taken off to prison. Before the pickets were released from prison at the end of the previous year, Superintendent Zinkham said to them: Now don’t come back, for, if you do, I will have a far worse place than the jail fixed up for you. I will have the old workhouse fixed up for you, and you will have cells without sunlight, with windows high up from the ground. You won’t be as comfortable as you are here.