O’Sullivan, and John Kunze, were indicted for the murder of Dr.
Patrick Henry Cronin, on May 4, 1889. The case naturally created
intense excitement throughout the State, affecting as it did many
and complex interests of party, race, and creed. Committees were
formed and funds were raised for the prosecution and for the
defence, and the prisoners were convicted and acquitted on the
platform and in the Press, with that reckless disregard of common
decency which disgraces the partisan warfare of America. American
judicial proceedings are, however, framed to work in a society which
habitually indulges itself in debauches of partisan fury, even while
prisoners stand at trial for their lives, and accordingly the most
elaborate safeguards are employed to secure the impartiality of the
jury. The State and the prisoners exercise the right of challenge
both peremptorily and for cause, in a degree undreamt of in this
country. Each juror, before he is sworn to try the issues, is
subjected to the most merciless examination and cross-examination
by counsel for the State and for the prisoners, and challenges
“for cause” are allowed on grounds which in English eyes appear
ludicrously trivial. The prisoners in the Cronin case were, by law,
entitled to twenty peremptory challenges apiece, or, as they combined
their challenges, to one hundred peremptory challenges in all, and
the State was also entitled to one hundred peremptory challenges. The
work of impanelling the jury began on August 30, and ended on October
22. Seven full working weeks were spent in this preliminary labour.
No fewer than 1115 unfortunate citizens of Cook County were exposed
to the rigid scrutiny of counsel for the State and counsel for the
defence. Of these, 927 were “excused,” to use the American euphemism,
for cause, while 78 were peremptorily challenged by the State, and
97 were similarly challenged by the defence. Thus the State had 22
challenges unexhausted, and the defence only three when the tale was
completed. At last, on October 24, the State’s Attorney “got down to
trial” and made his opening speech. The case relied upon and proved
by the State depended on the following assertions and inferences.
Dr. Cronin was summoned from his home at half-past seven on the
evening of May 4, and never returned. On May 22 his naked body,
bearing marks of violence, was found in the catch-basin of a sewer.
The theory of the prosecution was that he was murdered in pursuance
of a conspiracy, and that the accused, together with other persons
not in custody, were members of that conspiracy. The jury by their
verdict have declared that Dr. Cronin was so murdered, and that
all the prisoners save Beggs did conspire to murder him. This
conspiracy arose from a bitter quarrel within the ranks of the United
Brotherhood, or Clan-na-Gael. The history of that organisation was
sketched by State’s Attorney Longenecker in his opening speech. It
was founded in 1869, to “free” Ireland by open warfare. Irishmen
joined it from “patriotism,” Irishmen joined it for the purposes of
American political warfare, and others “for the sake of the money
that was in it.” The organisation grew “until now it stretches from
ocean to ocean in our land.” It was organised by districts, each
with its District Member and District “Camps.” Each “Camp” had a
public name, by which alone it was known to the general public.
Thus, “Camp 20,” to which several of the prisoners belonged, was
called the “Columbia Club,” and other “Camps” were known as “Literary
Clubs,” and so on. Prior to 1881 the organisation was governed by an
Executive Body, which was composed of the District Members. In 1879
this Board consisted of fifteen members.
In 1881 a National Convention of the United Brotherhood was held in
Chicago. At that Convention the Executive Body was reduced to five
members, and Alexander Sullivan, Feeley, and Boland were appointed
thereon. These three men constituted a majority of the new Board,
and, in the State’s Attorney’s phrase, “took charge” of it. “They
then adopted,” he says, “what is called the dynamite policy. They
called it ‘active work.’ They adopted a policy to blow up property
and individuals, and that policy was adopted immediately after
they got possession of the Executive Board of the organisation.”
Moreover, this new Executive Body inserted a provision in the oath
of the organisation binding all members to obey the Executive Body
without question. “If they directed a man to go and kill another
man in England it had to be done, and they had no right to question
the order.” In 1884 this controlling Board adopted the symbol of
the Triangle, and issued orders under that designation. The whole
object of this Junta was to steal the funds of the organisation,
and the State’s Attorney roundly accuses them of endeavouring to
effect this object by acts of well-nigh incredible infamy. They
pretended to their organisation that great sums were being expended
upon “active work.” To lend colour to this fiction they procured a
certain amount of such work to be done. They sent emissaries to this
country. But they failed to provide them with the funds indispensable
for their personal safety. The men were referred to an agent of the
organisation in England, and when they had reached this side of the
Atlantic precautions were taken that they should not too speedily
return. When the dynamite emissary landed in the United Kingdom, “I
say to you,” says the State’s Attorney, “that somebody there made
known who the man was, and what he was detailed to do, and he was
immediately arrested and thrown into prison. To-day the prison doors
in England are locked against twenty or more men who were sent there
by that Board.”
The next trick of the Triangle, to hide their embezzlement of the
funds, was to circulate a rumour that English detectives were
watching the Order, and to get the biennial Convention postponed upon
that plea. A meeting was held of the friends of the Triangle, “and
they destroyed every vestige of work they had done. They destroyed
their books, and then sent out a circular showing that the Order
was indebted to them $13,000, notwithstanding when they took hold
of it they had a fund of $250,000 in the treasury.” Naturally these
proceedings led to great dissension in the Order, and finally to a
split in its ranks. To the quarrel that thus arose, Dr. Cronin, on
the theory advanced by the prosecution, and accepted by the jury,
owed his death. Cronin from the first protested against the action
of the Triangle. In 1885 he was tried for treason to the Order.
Alexander Sullivan prosecuted, and the convict Daniel Coughlin sat
on the Trial Committee. Cronin was convicted and expelled. Thereupon
Cronin joined a new organisation formed by the seceding members of
the Order, and no further steps were taken until June 1888. In that
month a joint convention of the two factions was held in Chicago
with a view to reunion. At that convention Cronin charged the old
Triangle, which had then ceased to exist, with misappropriation of
the funds of the Order, and with misconduct towards their emissaries
to Europe. It was resolved that the charges should be investigated,
and a Trial Committee of six, three from each faction, was appointed
to try Sullivan, Feeley, and Boland. Of that Trial Committee, Cronin
was a member. A memorandum in Cronin’s handwriting, containing the
joint findings of Cronin himself, and one P. M‘Cahey, as members of
the Trial Committee, and also minutes of the evidence adduced at
such trial, were found amongst Cronin’s papers, and proved at the
coroner’s inquest. These documents were, of course, inadmissible
at the actual trial, according to a well-known technical rule of
evidence, but, as they undoubtedly guided the State’s Attorney and
his associates in framing the case against the prisoners, and as,
moreover, they possess a very special and personal interest for
Englishmen, we do not feel constrained to ignore their contents here.
The Trial Committee, it appears, met at Genesee House, Buffalo,
on August 20, 1888. Alexander Sullivan objected that “one of the
committee was a malignant enemy of his,” and he named Cronin as that
enemy. Feeley and Boland joined in Sullivan’s objection, but Cronin
denied that he had any personal enmity to Sullivan and the objection
was overruled. Boland then charged the notorious John Devoy, who was
a friend of Cronin’s, and attended the Trial Committee, presumably in
his interest, with being a British spy. Cronin defended Devoy, the
committee settled down to work, and the trial proceeded. The minutes
of the evidence taken by this committee, and found in Cronin’s own
handwriting, form one of the most startling documents ever produced
in any Court. Four principal witnesses were examined in support
of the charges made against the Triangle of neglecting to supply
the emissaries actually engaged in dynamiting with funds, and of
neglecting the families of those emissaries who had perished by
explosions, or had been sent to penal servitude in this country. The
first witness was himself one of the London dynamiters. The last was
the widow of Mackey Lomasney, who was blown up while attempting to
destroy London Bridge. The names of the male witnesses are not given.
The first witness swore that after the Boston Convention of 1884,
one Donovan, “who acted as agent for the body,” and “was then in the
employ of General Kerwin,” asked him if “he could furnish enough men
to accomplish a certain amount of active work.” The witness procured
one recruit. Donovan and John J. Moroney paid their steerage passage,
and gave them $100 each “to carry on work.” For further funds they
were referred to “the agent on the other side.” The two dynamiters
crossed to this country, but the funds were not forthcoming. The
agent, it is satisfactory to learn, “was sure he had been betrayed by
some one,” and it is yet more gratifying to know that he “is now in
prison.” The witness then gives the following account of his exploits
in this country, and of the base ingratitude of his employers:—
“At the agent’s request, work was delayed six weeks. I at last told
him I would do the work. There were four of us.... I finally induced
him to give orders to do the work. This was on Thursday. On Saturday
we did it. After the work was done I met him the same evening. He
remained in capital city seven days afterward. I was so reduced for
funds that I prevailed upon him to give me four pounds of the sixteen
he had left. On landing in this country had three-and-one-half
pounds.... I at once complained to Donovan and Moroney, and through
them to the executive, or General Kerwin, of the treatment I had
received, and the culpable neglect of the F. C. About the last of
February 1885, Donovan furnished me with $10 with which to reach my
home.
“_Q._ How many operations did you perform?—_A._ Three. We always
bade each other good-bye after each meeting, thinking it might be our
last meeting on earth. I have learned that, in order to get back,
the other man who went over with me had to sell his clothes to get
passage-money. He came with a sprained ankle. In July or August 1885,
he received $7 from Moroney.”
Subsequently the witness found that the mother of Cunningham, the
dynamiter, was in want. He complained to Moroney and General Kerwin,
whereupon Kerwin told him he ought to be expelled. The munificent
sum of $100 was finally sent by the “F. C.” (Executive Body) to the
mother of their dupe Cunningham, now undergoing in this country the
just but awful punishment of penal servitude for life. The witness
further ascertained that Mrs. Mackey Lomasney, the widow of Captain
Mackey Lomasney, who “was killed in London, and was assured, witness
was told, that his family would never want,” was in great distress.
The relatives of Dr. Gallagher, another dynamite convict under a
life-long sentence, were also in want. A hundred dollars was raised
for Mrs. Gallagher. Then comes this terrible statement, a statement
which should warn the miserable tools of the Clan-na-Gael what kind
of succour they may look for from their chiefs when their “heroism”
lands them in the dock. “I requested,” says this same witness, “that
the men on trial on the other side should be defended. General Kerwin
said that friendless men were better off in such cases.” To the men
who have risked their lives at its bidding, the Order, with its ample
revenues, grudges the few pounds needed for their legal defence, and
coldly abandons them “friendless” to their fate.
The next witness confirms the above statements as to the conduct of
the organisation towards Mrs. Cunningham. In July 1885, he succeeded
John Moroney as D. M. (District Member), and in October of that year
he “went out as an organiser of the National League in the West.” “I
saw General Kerwin and told him that he should send money to Mrs.
Cunningham, that the lady was hurt on the subject of being neglected
by us. He said he would send it.”
The cross-examination of this witness was directed to show that he
entertained animus against Kerwin and Boland for endeavouring to
defeat his candidature for the presidency of the National League,
which candidature, he alleges, had been officially adopted by the
Clan-na-Gael. “The slate,” he says, “was Baldwin, Minton, and Carroll
for F. C. (Executive Body), and myself as President of the League.”
Boland asked him why he would not take the secretaryship.
The third witness, “a member since the beginning of the old
organisation,” knew Mackey Lomasney, and remembers his departure
for Europe in August 1884, with his brother Jim, and a third
conspirator. The witness describes his efforts to obtain relief
from the organisation for Mackey Lomasney’s widow. In 1885 he went
to Newhaven and saw Dr. Wallace (who was then “D.”), Condon, and
Boland. Boland “denied all responsibility,” and alleged that Mrs.
Mackey Lomasney had been supplied with plenty of money. The witness
called on Carroll. “He professed utter ignorance of the whole affair.
I said, ‘By God, you must see her.’ Carroll offered the witness
$100, which he refused. I said, ‘You know how to send this, as you
have the others; if you respect the memory of the dead, and the
widow and the orphan made so by your act, do your duty by all.’” The
witness further states that Mrs. Mackey Lomasney continued to be in a
poverty-stricken state, without coal or clothing, until August 1886.
The last witness was Mrs. Susan Mackey Lomasney herself. Upon
Alexander Sullivan’s request, made presumably to show his reliance on
the bare word of a dynamiter’s wife, she was not sworn. Mrs. Mackey
Lomasney stated that her husband went away in August 1884, and that
since that date she had received $1000 from the organisation. She
called on Alexander Sullivan in 1885, but did not ask for help. In
August 1886, she again visited Sullivan, explained to him the state
of her affairs, and asked for help. “He asked me for a schedule of
my liabilities—$200. He would attend to the matter. He gave me no
money, nor offered me any.” Sullivan told the witness not to mention
his name to any one. She then called on “James Q.,” who “talked to
her about Father Dorney,” but gave her no help. The witness was
so poor at this time that she borrowed a dress to visit Sullivan.
Several weeks after the witness again called on Sullivan and applied
for a loan of $100, which she obtained. That was all she ever got
from Sullivan. In cross-examination Mrs. Mackey Lomasney admitted
that her husband wrote to her from Europe, saying he had received
money from Mr. Sullivan. The witness did not know the amount.
“Here,” say the minutes, “Mr. S. admitted that (Mackey) Lomasney was
sent by the organisation.”
The Trial Committee was divided in opinion as to the guilt or
innocence of the accused. Four members were for an acquittal. Two,
Cronin and M‘Cahey, were for a conviction on the principal charges,
and, in particular, on the charges of “scandalous and shameful
neglect” of “the family of one who lost his life in the service of
this Order,” and on that of issuing a fraudulent financial report and
squandering the funds.
Dr. Cronin’s documents illustrate many interesting points. Amongst
other things they prove that he, his friends Devoy and M‘Cahey and
their faction, are to the full as wicked scoundrels as Sullivan,
Feeley, Boland, and the party of the Triangle. The minority report
does not condemn the Triangle for dynamiting, but for dishonest
dynamiting. It does not reprobate the despatch of miscreants like
Mackey Lomasney to work slaughter and destruction in the heart
of a great city, but the subsequent neglect of the Order to keep
faith with their emissary, by providing for his widow. It acquits
the Triangle of wilfully omitting to supply the actual authors
of the dynamite explosion with funds to fly from the law, but it
severely censures their “agent” for the omission. Both wings of the
Clan-na-Gael were engaged in the same devilish plots, and while every
one must rejoice that the assassins even of a dynamiter should meet
their lawful doom, Cronin merits no more sympathy as an individual
than “Captain Mackey” himself. He was brutally murdered, while
himself engaged in plotting the wholesale murder of others.
On the theory of the State’s Attorney, now endorsed by the verdict
of the American jury, it was Cronin’s persistent efforts to have the
evidence taken by the Trial Committee published with the report, that
sealed his doom. That committee, as has been seen, sat in August
1888. The report did not appear while Cronin lived. But on the day
of his murder the Executive Body of the Clan-na-Gael met, and on
the next day, or the next day but one, the report was published to
the Order. The evidence was not then issued with the report, but a
protest from Alexander Sullivan was annexed thereto, in which he
charged Cronin as a perjurer, and a traitor to the Irish cause. All
the prisoners except Kunze were members of the Clan-na-Gael. All
those members belonged to the same “Camp” of the Order, known in
the ranks of the Order as “Camp 20,” and in public as the “Columbia
Club.” The prisoner, John F. Beggs, was “Senior Guardian” of the
“Camp,” and an intimate friend of Alexander Sullivan’s. On February
8, 1889, the “Camp” met, with Beggs in the chair, and from that
meeting the prosecution dates the conspiracy to murder Cronin. A
member got up and said that they should investigate the affairs of
the Triangle, these men who had robbed them of their funds. The
prisoner Coughlin and others demanded the speaker’s authority for
this statement. He replied that he had heard part of the report of
the Trial Committee appointed to try the Triangle read in another
“Camp.” That other “Camp” was Dr. Cronin’s. The State alleged that
Beggs made a violent speech and declared that he would not have these
attacks made upon the Triangle, and that it had to be stopped if it
took blood. Coughlin at once moved that a secret committee of three
be appointed to investigate. The motion was carried, and the prisoner
Beggs, as Senior Guardian, was directed to nominate the committee.
All the accused except O’Sullivan and Kunze attended this meeting of
“Camp 20.” Two days later Beggs wrote to his superior officer, a man
named Spellman, and informed him that “it was charged that the S.
G. of the Columbia Club at a recent meeting read to the assembled
members the proceedings of the Trial Committee.” On February 17,
Spellman disclaimed any jurisdiction “to inflict the penalty” in
the case. On February 18, Beggs replied that the matter had to be
investigated or there would be trouble. The State’s Attorney argued
that this secret committee of three was in fact appointed to try,
and did try, the murdered man, and that Spellman’s disclaimer of
jurisdiction to inflict “the penalty” proves that Cronin had been
convicted and already stood for sentence at the bar of the Order.
On February 19, a man giving the name of Simonds, who is not in
custody, took rooms at 117 Clark Street, Chicago, immediately
opposite to Dr. Cronin’s office. On the same day he bought some
furniture and a carpet. He asked for goods of the cheapest quality,
and stated that he required them only for temporary use. He also
bought from the same dealers the largest packing trunk they had, a
valise, and a trunk strap. He told the shopman that the first strap
supplied to him was not large enough, and a larger one was procured.
All these articles were put into the rooms at 117 Clark Street.
On March 20, a man, proved to be the convict Martin Burke, hired
Carlson cottage, under the name of “Frank Williams,” for one month
from Mr. Carlson, who himself lives next door. Burke then went to
the prisoner P. O’Sullivan, whose premises immediately adjoin the
Carlson cottage, and told O’Sullivan that he had taken it. Burke and
another man not in custody next removed all the furniture, the trunk,
the valise, and the carpet from 117 Clark Street into the Carlson
cottage. This removal took place on the evening of March 20, the day
Burke took the cottage.
O’Sullivan is an ice man by trade. On March 29, nine days after
the taking of the cottage, O’Sullivan tried to find one Justice
Mahoney, to come and make a contract between him and Dr. Cronin.
O’Sullivan did not find the justice on March 29, but some time in
April they went together to Cronin’s office, and a contract was made
between O’Sullivan and Cronin, whereby Cronin agreed to attend to
O’Sullivan’s workmen. O’Sullivan then gave Cronin some cards and
said, “I may be out of town and my card be presented.” O’Sullivan’s
business was not dangerous. No accident had ever occurred amongst his
men. Numbers of doctors lived between O’Sullivan’s place of business
and Dr. Cronin’s office, which is nearly an hour’s drive from
O’Sullivan’s yard. “What,” the State asked, “was the object of this
contract, made after the discussion in ‘Camp 20,’ and after Beggs had
been directed to appoint the secret committee?”
On April 20, Martin Burke, under the _alias_ of “Frank Williams,”
returned to the Carlson cottage and paid a second month’s rent in
advance. He had never occupied the cottage. He said his sister was in
hospital and could not come to housekeeping. The Carlsons grew uneasy
about their tenants. They inquired of their neighbour O’Sullivan
about these men, who had taken their house but never moved into it.
O’Sullivan said, “You will get your rent; it is all right,” and told
them he knew one of their tenants. Shortly before May 4 the convict
Coughlin was heard to declare in a “saloon” or public bar that a
certain north-side man, a leading Catholic, or a leading Irishman,
would soon bite the ground, or to use words of the like effect.
On the evening of May 3 there was a meeting of “Camp 20.” A member
asked if the secret committee appointed in February to inquire into
the alleged publication of the report of the Triangle Trial Committee
in Cronin’s “Camp” had itself reported. The State alleged that Beggs,
the Senior Guardian, answered, “That committee is to report to me.
The ‘Camp’ has nothing to do with that.”
Between eleven and one o’clock on May 4, the convict Coughlin went to
Dinan’s livery stable and ordered a horse and buggy to be ready about
seven that evening “for a friend.” Later he telephoned to the convict
O’Sullivan to go out. About 7.15 in the evening Coughlin’s friend
came and asked for the buggy. The ostler harnessed a white horse.
The stranger objected to the colour, but the ostler said it was the
only horse he could have. The stranger then drove to Dr. Cronin’s.
He reached Cronin’s home about 7.20, gave him one of O’Sullivan’s
cards, saying, “O’Sullivan is out of town, and here is his card”—the
very words used by O’Sullivan himself when he made his contract with
Cronin—and told Cronin that one of O’Sullivan’s men had his leg
crushed, and that the doctor was wanted immediately. The doctor took
his instruments and some cotton with him and drove hastily off in the
buggy. He was never seen alive again.
The State allege that the convict Burke was at the Carlson cottage on
the night of May 3, together with another man, after the meeting of
“Camp 20.” On the night of May 4 Burke was also there, and he bade
good-night to his landlord and neighbour, old Mr. Carlson, at a late
hour that evening. A casual passer-by saw a man whose description
answers to that of Cronin get out of a buggy and hastily enter
Carlson cottage, and she afterwards heard blows and cries. Between
eight and nine that night, two men, whose descriptions answer to
those of Coughlin and Kunze, were also seen to drive up to Carlson
cottage, and Coughlin was seen to enter it.