[2] The same impulse that drove her to seek betterment in the lives of the poor and downtrodden apparently also led her to campaign actively for women's suffrage.

By 1911, Whitney's interest in the women's rights movement led her to become the California organizer of the National College Equal Suffrage League until 1913.

[9] Whitney's defense attorney, Thomas H. O'Connor, was unable to obtain a continuance in the case on the grounds that his daughter had fallen ill with influenza in the ongoing 1918 flu pandemic.

[10] Citing reasons of expense, Judge James G. Quinn swore in an alternate juror and demanded for Whitney's assistant counsel, J.E.

[10] A parade of 20 prosecution witnesses were presented on the stand, reading into the record hundreds of pages of IWW songs and literature, Comintern manifestos, and giving testimony about red flags in evidence at CLP headquarters.

[11] The defense attempted to show, through its testimony, that the Communist Labor Party was opposed to the use of terrorism, violence, or force to institute changes to the American system of government.

After 11 days imprisonment, Whitney was permitted to post $10,000 bail pending appeal only after three physicians gave testimony that continued incarceration would present a danger to her health.

It would be more than three years before the case was actually heard, with Walter Nelles of New York City making the argument for the plaintiff in error on October 18, 1925.

In December 1925, Whitney's legal team succeeded in overcoming the jurisdictional technicalities that had sabotaged its previous effort, and it won a petition for a rehearing before the Supreme Court.

The ruling featured a landmark concurring opinion by Justice Louis Brandeis that only a "clear and present danger" would be sufficient for the legislative restriction of the right of free speech.

Still dogged by criminal charges from her 1919 arrest, Whitney ran for California State Controller in 1924, waging a relentless political campaign that garnered over 100,000 votes.

Young added that the law under which she was convicted was constitutional but that "abnormal conditions attending the trial" greatly influenced the jury and that "under ordinary circumstances" the case never would have been prosecuted.

In 1935, she was again convicted by the California court system, related to election fraud, since eight circulators had made false attestations during a pre-election petition campaign, but the state watchdogs saw fit to add additional charges of "lecturing without a permit" and "distributing radical literature".