The Mena weekly star., 1913-04-03
ALIENS PAY COST
 OF CIVILIZATION
Father and Son ElectrOcuted at Richmond Friday Afternoon for Shooting Up Courthouse
 Was Day of Sensations.

Richmond, Va. March 2S.-Claude Swanson Allen and his father, Floyd Allen, were electrocuted shortly after f o'clock this after nO0n-
 The men gained a few hours re- spite this morning, their electrocu- ton having previously been fixed for : a. III.
 The respite came because Gov ernor Mann left the state last night and the lieutenant-governor was Lhereupon appealed to to save the lives of the condemned men.
 The son of Governor Mann tele- phoned to his father at Washington the steps that were being taken and the governor hastened back to Richmond, arriving about noon. This ended the respite and the men we're executed shortly thereafter.
 Floyd Allen went to the chair first He was completely unnerved by the delay incident to the brief respite, and when the son, claude, whose nerve had never before failed, heard of the respite, he broke down and cried.
 The case of the Aliens has be- come one of the most famous in the annals of crime. Ii resulted from political feud as much as from a fight between the noun laineers and government prosecu- lors. for the Aliens are really not of the class known as outlaws. The death sentence grew out of the murder of five persons, who were Killed after Floyd Allen, convicted of a felony. refused in court to ac- company the sheriff to jail. When the latter attempted 10 remove him from he court Allen started 10 re- sisu. then from the northeast corner of lhe room there came a shot, The judge ,oppled over from his chair, Wrilhed in agony on the floor and lay in blood that flowed from a wound in his right shoulder in front of the arm. The sherilf fell Impty to the floor. shot through fife head. his revolver falling from his grasp ere he could defend him self.
 The first couple of shots that struck down these two court of fciaIs were followed by a fusil- lade from every direction, in which the commonwealth's attorney, the clerk. the deputy sherifrs and clerks joined against the clansmen who had opened fire from all sides. The states attorney was mortally wounded in the head, but braVely continued to fire toward the clans men. Soon he stumbled into the grand jury room and expired, his head resting on the Code of Nir- giuia. the book which contained t1e law he had died defending.
 The clerk was shot through the cheek, the bullet blowing through the neck and tearing away his col lar button: but he, too, fought or and finally succeeded in driving tho tasl of the cansmen from the Building. though his clothes WprC pierced by ll bullet holes in tht hail that struck around him.
 Three or four jurymen who haC but a few minutes before adiudgeC the prisoner guilty, were hit by bullets: one of them died the neX day. An innocent young woman who had testified for the stat' against the prisoner, was mortall! wounded in her frantic efforts tC escape, and she, too, passed ava! the day following
 The capture of all the Aliens wa an undertaking that lasted si, months to the day from the tim of the tragedy. Sidna Allen anJ his nephew, Wesley Edwards, Wer ihe last to be arrested, being caugh in Des Moines, Ia., September 1l Floyd Allen. his son Victor Byr Marion, Cabell Strickland and Joh1 Moore were arrested in Hillsvill the day after the shooting, but tn last three were released later.