Читать книгу The Crime of the Century; Or, The Assassination of Dr. Patrick Henry Cronin - Henry M. Hunt - Страница 24

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But these vigorous measures, instead of crushing the opposition, served only to give it new life and energy. An organization, antagonistic to the Triangle, composed of men bitterly hostile to Sullivan, Boland, Feeley and others high in power, was brought into existence, and rapidly grew until it was equal in strength to the original Clan-na-Gael. It had trusty spies and avowed adherents in the older organization, and the bitter quarrel was also brought into other Irish movements. Sullivan and his aids gradually dropped out of control, first seeing to it, however, that they were to be replaced by men to whom their word would be as law. Still Cronin and those with him kept up their warfare. Numerous efforts were made to silence him, and twice in 1887 he was called as an expert witness in trumped up cases before two Chicago police justices, in the hope that his persecutors, by putting him on the rack of cross examination, might find some flaw in his life that could be made use of in lessening his influence, or some disgraceful scrape which might be held over his head, to make him heed the behests of the man into whose possession the secrets had come. This effort failed of its object, and the physician returned to the charge with two new allegations. One was that the Triangle had allowed the family of Lomasney to suffer for the necessaries of life, while funds that had been appropriated by a local committee of the Clan-na-Gael, which labored under the belief that the missing brother was in an English dungeon, had been withheld, and another, that Sullivan had gone to Paris, while Patrick Egan was an exile in the French capital, and demanded the sum of $100,000 of Land League funds to carry out the aims of the physical force men in America. According to this charge, the money was demanded to meet certain expenditures that had been planned in a convention of representative members of the Clan. Mr. Egan, so it was claimed, after a good deal of consideration, refused to turn over the money, and then Sullivan threatened to disrupt every Irish society in America unless his demand was speedily complied with. He pointed to the fact that there was a large and growing element among Irish-Americans that was dissatisfied with the management of national affairs, and was ready to revolt as soon as a leader turned up to direct them. A whole week was consumed in discussing the demand of the American emissary, and in the end Mr. Egan was convinced that it would be wiser to take counsel with some of his confreres before rendering a final decision. He told Mr. Sullivan plainly that he was opposed to granting so large a sum of money for any purpose whatever, but he was willing to abide by the decision of other men who had as close a knowledge as himself of the needs of the order at home and abroad. He offered to submit Sullivan's proposition to Sheridan, the famous No. 1 of the Phœnix Park Invincibles, and the leader of the physical force men in Ireland. Mr. Sullivan agreed to this offer, and Sheridan was called to Paris from Ireland by telegraph. Within a week after all the facts had been laid before him, he decided that the money demanded by Sullivan had better be paid than withheld to conciliate all factions of the Clan-na-Gael in America. In result it was claimed that Egan paid Sullivan $100,000 in cash, from the funds of the Irish National League, of which he was treasurer, and that the then chief of the Triangle brought the full amount with him when he returned home. Instead, however, of turning it into the treasury of the Clan-na-Gael, it was contended that only $18,000 was accounted for, and the balance of $82,000 was deposited in the Traders' Bank, to the credit of "Alexander Sullivan, agent," the full amount being subsequently withdrawn on account of certain speculations by Sullivan on the Chicago Board of Trade. That such a deposit had been made was confirmed some time later, when the bank in question failed and its records, as the outcome of legal proceedings, became public property.