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Sunday September 27, 1914
From the Appeal to Reason: Helen Schloss, "A Most Dangerous Character," Freed
Helen Schloss Freed
"A most dangerous character," was the way Captain Shelly of the Eleventh United States cavalry described Helen Schloss as the two sat facing each other in the little railroad station at Ludlow turned into a court for the trial of the trained nurse who refused to stop picketing.
Small Helen in a white-duck suit, her smiling, sun-browned face topped by a mass of wavy, black hair, was but three days out of jail and here she was back again in the clutches of the law and at outs with the United States army sent to maintain the peace of John D. Rockefeller in southern Colorado.
"I had to make it my business to follow her around," testified the tall officer in khaki and polished tan riding boots," and I heard her ask the Greek as he goes off the train if he was not ashamed to take the bread out of the mouths of strikers-if he was not afraid to woke in a scab mine where he might be blown up at any time. She used the word scab-it is very objectionable; you will find it so by looking in the dictionary." declared the scandalized officer.
"Terribly Dangerous!"
"And you say she is a dangerous character?" interjected the little district attorney.
"Certainly, yes," snapped the captain. "Why, she called out to the strikers across the road so that every one could hear, 'Oh, boys, look here! Here's a scab going to work in the mines.' And that," said the captain stiffening up, "caused all the strikers to laugh and applaud her. All of which, I submit to the court, makes her a most dangerous character," the captain repeated with increased emphasis, "a most dangerous character."
Other soldiers with automatics strapped to their hips were put on the witness stand and reiterated the dangers which hung over the peace of the state of Colorado so long as this trained nurse was allowed to interview scabs.
The little district attorney followed up this charge of the military with confidence. He knew his judge-a weigh boss in a scab mine-and the dangerous Miss Schloss was pictured in colors to bring conviction from any friend of Rockefeller's.
The court in the little railroad station, filled with a crowd of sympathetic strikers, their wives and children, took on a depressed air. There was no hope. Nothing could save their little lady of the hospital tents from being carried away again to the foul cell in the Trinidad county jail, nothing but-
The judge instructed the jury as a faithful weigh-bossman of a coal company should. The jurymen retired to the baggage room of the station to consider. The little district attorney whispered to the judge what was to e done to the culprit after conviction. A baby patient of Miss Schloss' burst into a flood of tears-"was her dear nurse to be taken to prison by the wicked soldiers?"
Then the jury returned, and the foreman read the verdict-"Not guilty!"
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