Emma denounced the capitalist basis of war
before crowds of enthusiastic sympathizers. As late as March 1917 she
wrote:

I for one will speak against war so long as my voice will last,
now and during the war. A thousand times rather would I die
calling to the people of America to refuse to be obedient, to
refuse military service, to refuse to murder their brothers,
than I should ever give my voice in justification of war,
except the one war of all the peoples against their despots and
exploiters--the Social Revolution.

She and Berkman organized the No-Conscription League for the purpose of
encouraging conscientious objectors to resist induction into the army.
Writing in behalf of the League, Emma explained: "We will resist
conscription by every means in our power, and we will sustain those who,
for similar reasons, refuse to be conscripted." At several mass-meetings
she and Berkman expressed these sentiments, knowing that government
agents were taking notes on their speeches. On June 15, 1917, both were
arrested and charged with "conspiring against the draft."

The two rebels did not flinch from the ordeal awaiting them. "Tell all
friends," Emma wrote shortly before their trial, "that we will not
waver, that we will not compromise, and that if the worst comes, we
shall go to prison in the proud consciousness that we have remained
faithful to the spirit of internationalism and to the solidarity of all
the people of the world." In court they conducted their own defense with
a facility and frankness that gained the admiration of even their
detractors. They shrewdly used the courtroom as a forum. In addressing
the jury they were eloquently polemical.

It is organized violence on top [Emma asserted] which creates
individual violence at the bottom. It is the accumulated
indignation against organized wrong, organized crime, organized
injustice, which drives the political offender to his act....
We are but the atoms in the incessant human struggle towards
the light that shines in the darkness--the ideal of economic,
political, and spiritual liberation of mankind!

The dramatic trial was in a sense another re-enactment of the age-old
tragedy in which the rebellious idealist is condemned by the gross
guardians of society. The obdurate defendants were each given the
maximum penalty of two years in prison and a fine of ten thousand
dollars.

Time passed