Scorned by her fellow anarchists, vilified by the press, and separated from her love Berkman, she retreated into anonymity and nursing. "It was bitter and hard to face life anew," she wrote later.[74] Using the name E. G. Smith, she vanished from public life and took on a series of private nursing jobs.[75] When the US Congress passed the Anarchist Exclusion Act, however, a new wave of activism rose to oppose it, pulling Goldman back into the movement. A coalition of people and organizations across the left end of the political spectrum opposed the law on grounds that it violated freedom of speech, and she had the nation's ear once again.