Читать книгу The Crime of the Century; Or, The Assassination of Dr. Patrick Henry Cronin - Henry M. Hunt - Страница 26

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New York, Sept. 15, 1888.

P. O. Boyle, Secretary.

Dear Sir:—At the opening of this investigation in Buffalo I protested against the presence of P. H. Cronin as a member of the committee to investigate any charges against me. The committee decided that it had no power to act in the matter, but, through its chairman, said that I could file my protest in writing. Therefore I formally and in writing renew said protest. My grounds are

First, he is a personal enemy; second, he has expressed opinions in this case; third, he is a perjurer and scoundrel, unfit to be placed on any jury.

To the first objection I cite the men of the United Brotherhood organization in Chicago, from which he was expelled in a case where I conducted the prosecution. There is no question in Chicago of his personal hostility. Before the National League convention in 1886, his was one of the signatures to a circular assailing me, and he was a regular attendant at meetings hostile to me. This is so notorious to me from all parts of the country that it is not necessary to enlarge upon it, but if substantiation is required it can be furnished to an overwhelming degree.

In the support of the second objection it is only necessary to recite the now notorious fact that Cronin was a member of the executive body of the United Brotherhood, and as such he was one of those who circulated charges against my former associates and myself. He therefore not only expressed opinions, but in his official capacity caused those opinions to be published and circulated.

Your committee is chosen from two bodies, whose members differ on many points, but who all agree, or profess to agree, in denouncing unfair trials, biased juries and prejudiced jurors in Ireland, and yet I am asked, after a period of four years has elapsed since I was a member or the organization, to come for trial before a committee chosen in my absence at a place where I was given no opportunity to be heard, although I was within a few hundred feet of the place.

While you ask the world to believe that you want a fair trial on one side of the Atlantic, you ask me to accept as a juror one who would be excluded in any civil court from a jury in a trial of a case in which I had an interest however trivial.

I am told that it has been declared that if I do not appear before this committee I shall be denounced as one unable to defend himself against the accusations filed. So I was left with the alternative of being tried before a jury, with at least one perjured member, or being abused and villified for my non-appearance. And this is what the men who selected Cronin were led to believe was fairness. They should never again be so indecently inconsistent as to criticise the position of juries or courts chosen to try men in England and Ireland. Had he as much decency as an ordinary dog he would not sit in a case in which I was interested.

As to the third objection to Cronin, I charge that the brand of perjury is so burned into the scoundrel's brow that all the waters of the earth would not remove the brand. He was a delegate at the district convention held in Chicago, March 23, 1884, that being the first one held in this district. After the constitution was so amended as to provide for the elevation of two delegates from each district, two delegates were elected at the very same session, one being chosen immediately after the other. Yet Cronin, after first officially reporting to his club that two delegates were elected, circulated a report that only one was elected, and stated that he would not be permitted to speak or to present any suggestions from his camp. Every such delegate at the convention has been sworn, and every one, including those who were with Cronin in the U. B. organization, testified that two delegates were chosen, that Cronin was present when they were chosen, that every delegate not only could speak, but was actually called upon to speak, and that every delegate, including Cronin, did speak.

Cronin was expelled, a convicted liar, who added perjury to his slander. I have further investigated his record, and I find that in several matters outside of this organization he is also a perjurer. A record obtained from Ireland by William J. Fitzgerald says that Cronin was born at Buttevante, April 13, 1844. Cronin swears that he lived at St. Catherines, Canada, until after the assassination of President Lincoln, April 14, 1865. Captain McDonald, of No. 2 Company, Nineteenth Battalion of the Canadian militia, of which P. H. Cronin was a member, says that at its formation in 1862 or 1863 he had P. H. Cronin in his company, or shortly after its formation. He was known as the "Singer Cronin," and at the time of joining he took the oath of allegiance as follows: "I swear that I will bear true and faithful allegiance to her majesty, the queen, her heirs and successors."

About 1863 positive orders were sent by the government that every man had to take the oath of allegiance, and that there were none under his command who did not take it. The record shows that Dr. Cronin's father, J. G. Cronin, was a British subject and continued in Canada up to the time of his death, so that P. H. Cronin until 1865 or 1866, when he left Canada, was a British subject, and if, as he claims, his father was naturalized in the United States before going to Canada, he voluntarily abandoned his American citizenship and resumed the position of a British subject.

This P. H. Cronin voluntarily swore allegiance to her British majesty. Yet this creature swore in his name as a voter in St. Louis and voted in that city. He thought best not to come to Chicago and reside one year, but sneaked down to a county in Illinois, doubtless being afraid of attracting attention in Chicago, and swore that he arrived in the United States a minor, under the age of twenty-one years; that he resided in the United States three years preceding his arrival at the age of twenty-one years. He claimed to have been home in 1856, and not in 1844, and even if that were true, he was only nineteen years old when he left Canada, because he swore he was in Canada when President Lincoln was assassinated; that he came to the United States in 1865 or 1866, and yet he swore he resided in the United States three years previous to arriving at the age of nineteen, and thus secured his papers on this minor petition falsely sworn to.

This side of Cronin's character, I submit, should be considered in connection with any report his malice and prejudice may dictate. I have not made any formal protest against the presence of Dr. McCahey on the trial committee, but it is well known that he has been active in publishing documents and interviews hostile to me, and it is at least strange that one who has been so engaged should be willing to serve on such a committee.

Very respectfully,

Alexander Sullivan.

The protest was overruled. The charges, five in number, filed by John Devoy, of New York, and Luke Dillon, of Philadelphia, set forth that no active work had been performed by the "Triangle" or its agents; that there was nothing to substantiate its claim that it had expended over $87,000 in active work; that it had basely neglected the families of men sent on errands of the Brotherhood; that bogus transfers had been issued to members of the organization as coming from Ireland, and that a district convention had illegally instituted. The trial was a heated one. Each side went to the hall every night backed by desperate followers. Letters threatening them death if a verdict of guilty was rendered were received by Cronin and McCahey. Suspecting treachery; the former took the precaution of making full notes of the testimony for his private information. When the evidence was all in a vote was taken on a motion to acquit. It stood three to three. Next a vote was taken to find Sullivan, Boland and Feeley guilty. This time it stood four to two, one of Cronin's colleagues deserting to the other side, and leaving the Chicago and Philadelphia physicians alone in their opposition to the Triangle. The question then arose as to the disposition of the evidence and a resolution was adopted that every record of the trial should be destroyed. Dr. Cronin demanded that the evidence should be published with the report, and sent to every Camp, but again the majority was against him. Thereupon he refused to surrender his private notes, and after returning to Chicago and consulting his friends, he determined that every man in the Clan-na-Gael should hear the story, and that a statement on the subject should be made at the meeting of the Irish National League of America, which had been called to assemble in Philadelphia in 1889. From this time on to his death, the matter was uppermost in his mind. A minority report, signed by the physician and Dr. McCahey, was filed with the executive, and a demand was made that it should be made public in the order. This was not done, however, simply because the majority of the Executive was attached to the "Triangle element," and, this avenue closed against him, Dr. Cronin contented himself with reading the report in his own Camp. It was this act, according to the subsequent theory of the prosecution, that, more than any thing else, cost him his life. Meanwhile he was industriously engaged upon the preparation of his papers for the prospective conventions of the Clan-na-Gael and Irish National League, his report of the New York trial proving invaluable to him in this connection; while he continued at the same time to periodically insist upon the publication of the minority report of the trial. On the very day upon which he was decoyed from home, the Executive Board was called together; and on the following day, (Sunday) an order was issued that Alexander Sullivan's protest, which branded the physician as a perjurer and a traitor, should be sent to every Camp.

It was hardly to be expected that the adherents and allies of the ex-head-centre of the Triangle would contemplate the vigorous assaults of Dr. Cronin upon the reputation and official conduct of their erstwhile leader with equanimity. The temporary calm that had settled over the organization with the close of the Chicago convention and its treaty of peace, vanished like a fog before the noon-day sun; and strife and bitterness once more reigned supreme. Every camp had its faction that championed the one side or the other. Under the banner of the physician, as well as under the colors of his adversary, were ranged scores and hundreds of men who had left their imprint upon the Irish-American history of the decade. The physician had his Rends, Dillons, Devoys, Hynes, Scanlans, McCaheys; the lawyer his Egans and Fitzgeralds, O'Briens and Bolands. Effort after effort was made to induce Dr. Cronin to abandon his policy. Arguments, pleading, cajolery, threats—all were employed in vain. To one and all he had but one reply: "That he had put his hand to the plow, and that, God helping him, he would never turn back." For months before his disappearance, he believed that he was a marked man, and that, at the first opportunity, he would pay forfeit with his life for what he regarded as his unselfish devotion to the cause of his native land.

Little wonder then, that those of his intimate friends who were familiar with these facts declared, as with one voice, that he had met his death at the hands of his enemies.

Dr. Cronin's report of the trial, and which for weeks prior to the night of his disappearance, he had carried with him for safe keeping, were found in one of his garments in his residence after his failure to return home. The record in full is as follows: