The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1915-07-12
BY Nixola Greeley Smith

NEW YORK, July 12.-"What
good will prayers do me il they
electrocute my husband? If
Charles Becker, an innocent man,
is killed by the state-if God per-
mits this terrible thing to hap
pen, how can ! help but hate the
thought of heaven?"
From the anguished soul >of
Helen Becker, true wife for bet
ter or worse of the convicted
murderer of Herman Rosenthal
came this terrible cry.
Since Gov. Whitman refused to
commute the sentence of the for
mer car of New York's under
world, but granted him a re-
prieve of IA days-postponing
the execution of the death SEN
tence from the week beginning
July IL to the week beginning
July 26-Mrs. Becker has Seem
ed benumbed by the thought of
the brief time which remains to
her to save her husband from the
electric chair!
Her frantic efforts, her I'M
sistence that Martin MantOn,
Becker's lawyer, appeal for
clemency to Gov. Charles
Whitman, who, as district
attorney of New York, pro-
cured Becker's conviction,
has obtained just ii days of
life for her husband--336
hours of hope and dread,
2O,f6 minutes LENGTH
ENED by agony, MADE TER
RIBLY SHORT by the fear
that every tick of the clock
brings nearer the dread and
final moment when, i'm the
gray dawn, he must pass
through the little green door
to death.
The annals of crime hold no
more splendid example of a good
woman's devotion and self-sacri-
flee for a worthless man than is
furnished by Helen Becker's fight
against justice and public senti-
ment for her husbands life.
Before and all during her
married life Helen Becker was
teacher in the public schools of
New York. She is teaching now.
Since her husbands arrest on
July 20, 1912, for ordering the
murder of Rosenthal for "squeal-
ing" on him, to the district attor-
ney's office, Mrs. Becker has left
her class only once.
That was to go to hospital to
give birth to a. baby for which the
Beckers had hoped in vain during
their prosperous and happy years.
but whose coming was made
known to them shortly before
Becker's arrest.
Becker was in the death house
when his baby was born. His
wife. worn out by the strain of his
trial and by her unceasing ef-
forts In his behalf, was in no con-
dition to give birth to a child.
Finally the doctors told her that
they would probably be able to
save only her life or the baby's
and asked her to choose which
one. In explaining her choice she
once said simply: II chose my
own life because thought ! could
be OF more use to Charlie I'm his
terrible trouble than our baby
could be-
Helen Becker's baby was born
alive, lived just long enough for
her to see It and so clasp an eter-
nal sorrow to her breast. The day
following its birth the little girl
that Charles Becker had deter
mined to call Ruth fluttered back
into the dark unknown--perhaps,
to wait for her father.
Even this supreme tragedy
did not lessen Mrs. Becker's
energy in her husbands
cause. As soon ms she could
get out Of bed she was back
at work seeing witnesses,
trying to get Beckei.'s former
associates to change the tes-
timony which had convicted
him.
The bullet which killed Rosen-
thai has already made three Wild
ows--Mrs. Rosenthal, now living
In poverty on the bounty Of a for
mer hairdreeser, and the two
young wives Of the gunner, Ro-
senberg and Horowitx. who went
to the chair more than year ago