y can
tolerate no injustice and endure no wrong." The excessive punishment
dealt to him by the state struck her as barbarous and cowardly. "The
idealists and visionaries," she asserted years later, "foolish enough to
throw caution to the winds and express their ardor and faith in some
supreme deed, have advanced mankind and have enriched the world." At the
time, however, she grieved to think of her noble companion doomed to
waste the best years of his life in execrable confinement.

Unable to lighten his suffering, she resolved to double her effort
towards the realization of their common ideal. A physical breakdown,
however, forced her to seek rest and medical care. Her sister Helene
welcomed her back and helped her to regain strength. But the aggravation
of the unemployment crisis in 1893 caused her to disregard the doctor's
warning and to return to her post on the East Side. "Committee sessions,
public meetings, collection of foodstuffs, supervising the feeding of
the homeless and their numerous children, and, finally, the organization
of a mass-meeting on Union Square entirely filled my time." As the main
speaker at this large gathering she excoriated the state for functioning
only as the protector of the rich and for keeping the poor starved and
enslaved, like a giant shorn of his strength. Commenting on Cardinal
Manning's dictum that "necessity knows no law," she continued: "They
will go on robbing you, your children, and your children's children,
unless you wake up, unless you become daring enough to demand your
rights. Well, then, demonstrate before the palaces of the rich; demand
work. If they do not give you work, demand bread. If they deny you both,
take bread. It is your sacred right." For this speech she was arrested,
charged with inciting to riot although the meeting was peaceable, and
sentenced to one year in Blackwell's Island Penitentiary.

She went to prison in a defiant mood. She was now the avowed enemy of
the corrupt minions of the state and she knew they would stop at nothing
to keep her from agitating for a better world--the world for which she
and Berkman were then in jail. She resolved to fight back and fight
hard. So long as breath remained in her lungs and strength in her body,
she would deliver her message to the oppressed masses! No amount of
torture in prison or persecution outside would deter her in the struggle
against the state and the powerful rich!

While in prison Emma learned the ru