Bee
BDITORIAL
The Omaha
. AMUSEMENTS
VOL. L NO.' 85.
I
i
THOMAS JOHNSON
By GUY G. ALEXANDER.
i
"You, , have been found
guilty by a jury of your peers of
the crime of murder. Have you
Anything to say before the court
shall impose sentence?".
The prisoner, wan and haggard
looking, the ineradicable signs of
the telling ordeal through which he
has passed, during the course of ,
his trial, suddenly looks up, glances
about him at the expectant faces
of the crowds in the small court
room and then in 4 voice almost
inaudible answers, "No."
"It then is the sentence of this
court that you be turned over to
the custody of the warden of the
state penitentiary, there to be elec-
cuted by a sufficient current of
ctricity to cause death, between
tip hours of 6 a. m. and 6 p. m.
oi the day of ."
Thus does the court and jury,
of 12 good men and true, discharge
their obligations to a common
wealth which they represent .upon
one who has-transgressed the laws
of the state by the commission of
the crime of murder.
Jurors Fix Penalty.
Murder, in legal diction the
crime of premeditatedly and 'with
malice aforethought taking human
life, has since time . immemorial
been regarded by an outraged pop
ulace and judicial institutions of
the world as the most heinous of
all crimes.' Murder has at some
time or other in every civilized
country of the world been punish
able by the imposition and inflic
tion of the death penalty. - .
Many there are in all climes
who have in latter days railed and
petitioned against this mode of
punishing those responsible for
the illegal taking of human life.
.Many states of the United States
have abolished, eath penalty and
substituted the mmosition of a
--VTTV I ' ( LAST WAlXfe
i -3V 1 200 YARDS V
V S
i a 'y "T ' ' It'vfiK
t . inu'it ' -.is' " "" v fill ssxv
I life sentence at hard labor, within
l.-Vfison confines. " "r ,
Jfo almost every state in the un
Tfin where the death penalty is
,till in force, the jurors sitting" in
itm va nan .lilt llt.IUg4UYC VI
fixing the penalty either at death
"or life imprisonment! ' . -
In Nebraska, jurors in capital
ffene tasc have thL right. Sev-
fiOTTLlEB
cral unsuccessful attempts have
been made in this state within re-.-
cent years to abolish the death
penalty, but each and every at
tempt has been defeated. Since
the admission of Nebras'. a into
the union, the death penalty al
ways . has been upon the statute
, books. Since the beginning of
' the .twentieth century all execu
tions have been held at Lancas
ter) the home of the Nebraska
; state penitentiary. Prior to the
' opening of . the present century,
howf ver, executions . were held
under the direction of the sheriff
of the county in which the crime
t was committed, but some 20 years
, ago the state legislature passed a
law directing the capital punish
ment should be , inflicted only
( under the direction of the warden
of the state penitentiary and that
, all executions should be held with
in the walls of that institution. "
Since the. passage of that law,
the state has exacted a toll of 10
lives of convicted and condemned
murderers at Lancaster. Not such
a large number, to be true, in 18
years.- This represents but a small
number of men convicted of the
crime of murder by juries in the
" courts of the state during the same
period, but nevertheless does show
that juries in some cases still re
gard the death penalty as the pun
ishment best fitted for the taking
of human life.
Fight in Courts.
With the imposition of the pen
alty of death by a presiding judge
of the district court, generally be
gins an extended legal battle to
prevent the execution- of the sen
tence. Time and time again have
lawyers of the condemned ' men
carried their cases to the highest
court of the state, on appeals, re
hearings and other technicalities;'
there, time and time again, , to be
met with the order:
"To the warden of the, Nebraska
state penitentiary: You are or
dered to carry out the mandate of
the district court of the ' ju
dicial district in the case of tiit
Slate of Nebraska against "
With" their last hope gone of es
' capina the exaction of the supreme
BERT M. TAYLOR.
fc I A. f -..-. . jm
! If U -X
penaltyfor their crimes at the
hands of the courts, convicted and
condemned murderers, of Nebras
ka have unarailingly carried their
appeals to the chief executives of
the s&te to secure clemency, only
to be met with a firm refusal to
interfere in the execution of the
sentence imposed by , the courts
of the state.-
Last Minute Efforts.
Every person executed during
the last 18 years in , the Nebraska
state penitentiary has clung to the
hope of escaping the death penal
ty until within but a few short
hours of his death. The most re
cent example of this was the last
minute efforts made early on the
morning of December 20 last year
in the United States district court
at Lincoln to prevent the execu
tion of Alson. B. Cole. :
During the, time from the inflic
tion of the sentence of death by
the presiding district judge until
the last appeal, to the governor of
the state has been ; turned down,
almost without' . exception con
demned murderers for murder is
the only crime punishable by death
in this state have remained in
their cells at the penitentiary, there
. to be, punished by conscience.
As They. Meet It. '
" Death, that intangible some
thing that means everything and
: nothing. What is death? It stops
the wheels of industry and halts
the march of trade. It brings
smiles to one and tears to another.
It is ever faithful. Above all, it is
infallible. It fails no one.
; To the child it means the' ab
sence of loving hands and days of
darkness.
' - To the youth it is the end of the
trail which in N the morning sun
' stretched toward the future.
To the man it is the end of con
quest or the release from failure.
' To the aged it is nightfall, the
"end of a summer or winter day.
To the theologian is means the
"" final reckoning and the reaping of
banicit.- - - - -
1 i) ' ;''
OMAHA, SUNDAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 13, 1921.
Invariably have shown them
TO BE COMPOSED. MTU NO
OUTWARD SIGN
ANYONE andU
MEET DEATH-
- -y
" A
ALSON
WILLIAM
RHEA
To the skeptic it is the grea
adventure, an opportunity to - ex
plore beyond the curtain. ' ,
-The pauper may shiver.
The prince may hold the riches
of the world and revel in the joys
brought to him in his worldliness.
but . v , . ,'..;.- , .
Death comes to both,:
Death the end of all? The be
ginning of all, who knows?
Andrew Carnegie, famous for
his philanthropies, his libraries,
his wealth, his influence, once pro
hibited the mention of the word
"death" in his presence.
This mighty captain of indus
try and fortune, not an atheist
and not a man known for his
Christianity, was able to prevent
the mention of the word "death"
in "his presence. -
His Sensations.
' Carnegie could bar the very
word death, but what of the con
victed felon with the stamp of
death imposed upon him," as he
sits or paces the floor of his tiny
cell, barred on all sides, with no
future, no hope, nothing but his
thoughts and his conscience?
What must be the feelings, the
, sensations, of the condemned .as
he stands before the bar of justice,
there to hear pronounced by the
' presiding judge, the words that
will send him to a murderer's
grave, rob' him of his future life,
- the God-giyen right to life, his
constitutional right to life, liberty
and pursuit of happiness?
No criminal, ho matter how
hardened, ever occupied a iur
dercr's cell in the state penitentiary
at Lancaster, Avho left behind any
sign or any evidence of his feel
ings, experienced during those last
few hours that remained of his
'mortal life. -
Walk to Death. '
It is true, no condemned felon
ever started the death march that
did not have the comforting help
arid the kindly cheer of friends
he had made either, outside of,, or
r
Q
4
OF MALICE TO:
READY TO
. - r-
FRANK
'
4-
ALBERT PRINCE
behind the prison walls. ,But to
these friends he could not impart
his feelings, the lashing of his con
science or his hopes and fears,
as he sat waiting within his cell
for- that tell-tale step, that he knew
meant, for him, the beginning of
the end.
Of the 10 men put to death,
eight in the little brown shack in
the southwest corner of the prison
yard at Lancaster and two in the
death chamber of tire new hospital
building, none was so completely
punished by his consciece that he
was unable to walk to his death.
Some there were, it is true, who
faltered as the prison chaplain,
the warden, guards and witnesses
joined the little procession at the
cell house for the last pilgrimage'
that led to death and the great be
yond, and FREEDOM, freedom
from the confines of stone walls
and iron bars. With but one ex
ception, the men put to death in
the Nebraska prison, had never t
before served a sentence behind
prison bars. To them the com
mission of the crimes for which
they paid with their lives was the
Alpha and Omega of their crime
careers.
Just a Boy.
William "Rhea," little more than
a boy, with the pink of youth still
upon his cheeks, was the first
murderer to p4y for his crime
with his life at the penitentiary at
Lancaster. It was on -the after-,
noon of July 10, 1903, that War
den Beemer, Deputy .Sheriff
George Stryker of. Omaha, tlieu
1 D
ALLEN V. (5RAMMER,
MS;
6AR,UER
JO'1"
HARRISON CLARK-
chief executioner for the state,
and a number of guards and wit
nesses entered the cell of Rhea to
take him to his death.
Rhea, displaying much of the
bravado that characterized the
commission of the crime for which
he was convicted, greeted his vis
itors and joined them on their
walk to the gallows. He walked
witfl a firm, steady step until he
entered the death chamber. There
he nonchalantly removed a light
slouch hat which he had -worn
continuously in his cell. Looking
about him he espied .a" guard, one
who had often befriended him dur
ing his incarceration in the death
cell. He lightly tossed the hat
to him and then walked up the
steps leading to the scaffold.
There he showed the first evi
dence of a break in his iron com
posure. As the executioner was
adjusting the rope about his neck
and drawing it taut, Rhea, his head
covered by the black cap, pleaded
with the executioner not to draw
the rope too tight.
Trap Sprung.
No sooner had he made the re
quest than the trap was sprung
and his body shot downward.- He
was not pronounced dead for
nearly 20 minutes after. This was
due. to the fact that because of his
frail, slight physique, his' neck was
not broken by the fall. Death was'
caused by strangulation.
Rhea was convicted of the mur
der of Herman Zahn, a saloon
keeper at . Snyder, Neb., during a
holdup. His real name was Kleiu.
1 m v
A
mlmlm
1 -
iaiiiiiis
mmm
ANOREW CARNEGIE - DURIN6
HIS
THE
rt
He ran away from his home in In
diana when hut 12 years of age
and became a jockey. He foamed
throughout the ntire country and
was but 19 years of age .at the
time of the commission of the
crime. His father, Vho had ac
cumulated enough of this world's
goods to spend his declining years
hi comfort," spent every dollar he
had searching for . his son jafter he
ran away from home, but was un
able to find hira until he was occu
pying a murderer's cell in the pen
itentiary. ' ' ' - '
"All Ought to Be Killed."
"" While awaiting trial In the coun
ty jail at Fremont, Rhea
had a visitor, George Howe, a sa
loonkeeper of Fremont. Rhea ex
pressed himself as being glad that
. he had killed Zahn and ended his
conversation with the remark that
"every saloonkeeper should be
killed." Howe retaliated by say
ing he" would see his execution for
that remark and, by a turn of fate,
Howe was one" of the official wit
nesses, along with a brother of the
murdered man, at the execution.
Rhea's companion in the holdup
and murder, a man by the name
of Gardner, was sentenced to life
imprisonment. Gardner is in the
penitentiary today.
- The second felon to diq within
the "little brown shack" at the
prison was Gottlieb Neigenfind,
convicted in Pierce county of mur
dering his wife, from whom he was
estranged, and , her brother, Al
bert Breyer, a farmer residing near
Pierce. The murder occurred on
the afternoon of September 1,
1902. .
Captured by Posse.
Neigenfind had made repeated
efforts, to see his small son, who
had been given into the custody
his divorced wife. Repeated ef
forts to see his babe met with re
buffs from his wife and her broth
er. Finally, he shot and killed his
wife and then shot and killed her
brother who, attracted by the shots,
had come to her rescue. He then
started to flee from the scene of
his crime, but encountered his
wife's sister. Beating her with
the butt of the revolver which he
carried he finally escaped from the
farm, only to be captured a day ,or
so later by an armed posse of
neighbors. Neigenfind himself was
wounded before he finally surren
dered to the members of the posse.
Convicted and condemned to
TEN . CENTS
02
s
LIFE TIME PR0HI6ITEO
MENTION OF THE
WORD DEATH" IN
HIS PKESENCt
hang, Neigenfind was removed
tohe penitentiary, while his at
torneys made several futile ef
forts to secure a commutation of
sentence. . Neigenfind was a model
prisoner during the time he was .
confined in the prison and even -during
the walk to the scaffold he
maintained the solemn composure
which had narked his every hour
within the prison walls. He spent
the time in the death cell in read
ing and writing. At no time dur
ing the march from his cell to the
scaffold or upon the gallows did
he make-any . statement tor show
any signs of a physical collapse.
He was executed September 5,
1903. ' 1 .
Brutal Slaying.
V Early in January in 1908, or on
the 17th of that month, to be ex
act, Frank Barker, ' convicted in
Webster county, died up6ri the
scaffold for the murder of his own
brother and sister-in-law, a crime
regarded by many criminal law
yers and -criminologists as ' being
the most brutal, in the murder an
nals of the state.
Barker, a young farmer boy, was
convicted in 1904 of the murder of
his brother, Dan, and his wife in i
their farm home near Inavale. !
Barker, according to testimony ad- '
duced at his trial, was engaged to '
marry a young girl of his acquaint
ance, the daughter of a farmer
residing near the home of Barker
and his brother.
Dan, the older of the two boys,
was married and through constant
application to work had accumu
' lated a small competence a4 -highly
improved farm on .wnicA
he made his home. Barker was
employed by his brother part of
the time, and the remainder of the
time worked for other farmers in
the immediate neighborhood. On
the n?ght of February 1, 1904, at
about-10 o'clock he called at the
home of his brother, Dan. Knock
ing at the door, he attracted he
attention , of, his brother and' as
Dan opened the door to greet him
he was slain by the discharge of
a gun held by his brother, Frank.
Shoots Sister-in-Law.
Stepping over the dead body of
his brother, Frank calmly walked
into the house, made his way to
an upstairs bedroom where the
wife of the murdered maa was
preparing to retire and without
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if'
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