her strong and public commitment to social justice, despite the censure then being levelled at activists during the cold war by the conservative government of r.g. menzies, was well illustrated in 1953. when the impending execution of julius and ethel rosenberg on charges of espionage galvanized liberal reaction around the world, she drew on her poetic skills, for which she had been awarded the sydney university medal in 1911, to write an impassioned attack on the "sydney morning herald" in reaction to the paper's headline: "the execution of the rosenbergs will end a two years' legal battle".