Sinclair likened what happened next to an âold-style . . . melodrama.â He and the other speakers were stuffed into a police car and driven around for quite some time, ostensibly to evade the press, before finally ending up at the jail in nearby Wilmington. There the local police captain told them they had âforfeit[ed] your constitutional rightsâ by âencouraging . . . revolution,â a claim he backed up by denying them access to their attorneys. They spent the night there, Sinclair avoiding the lice-ridden cot in his cell by sleeping on the cold, hard floor.Â
By the time they were transferred to the Los Angeles County Jail, police court had conveniently just closed, prolonging their stay. In the end, his âunpleasantâ experience â as his friend, the poet George Sterling, put it â and the fact that the district attorney dismissed the case against him persuaded Sinclair that he could better serve the cause of civil liberties by financing the launch of the ACLUâs first affiliate, . Like its champion, the organization Sinclair helped to fund was fierce, determined, and attuned to local civil liberties matters. It was also imbued with a distinctively California ethos, independent and, at times, improvisational in ways that made some of the national ACLUâs first leaders uncomfortable.Â