The Crime of the Century Part 5

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 const.i.tution 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 b.u.t.tevante, April 13, 1844. Cronin swears that he lived at St. Catherines, Canada, until after the a.s.sa.s.sination 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 a.s.sa.s.sinated; 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 pet.i.tion 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 doc.u.ments 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 inst.i.tuted. 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 a.s.semble 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 a.s.saults 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, G.o.d 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:

TELEGRAM.

MARCH 13, 1889.--_Dr. P. H. Cronin, No. 468 N. Clark Street:_ Meet me at Westminster Hotel, New York, Tuesday evening, 15th, 8 o'clock. Peremptorily required on account report of committee to read. J. D. MCMAHON.

Telegram dated Jan. 19 or 18, 1889, New York:

_Dr. P. H. Cronin, Opera House, Chicago, Ill.:_ Ordered by the proper board that you send to me without delay your report on the trial. RONAINE.

Dr. Cronin's reply as follows:

CHICAGO, Jan. 17, 1889.

_T. H. Ronaine, Esq., New York_.--

DEAR SIR AND BROTHER: I am in receipt of telegram, and in reply would say that I vote as I did at last meeting of committee in New York; with the recommendation that vote be published and read to the clubs. McCahey has correct record of my vote. Or, if not, please inform me. Fraternally,

P. H. CRONIN.

PHILADELPHIA, PA., Jan. 15, 1889.

_To the F. C. of the U. S.--_

DEAR SIRS AND BROTHERS: The Trial Committee appointed at Chicago was unable to elicit all the facts connected with the charges placed before it, because of the refusal of several of the witnesses to answer many of the questions asked, and because of the inability of others to remember events and figures that might be supposed to be indelibly impressed on their memories. From the evidence presented I am obliged to report:

1. That the family of one who lost his life in the service of the order was scandalously and shamefully neglected, and continued to be neglected for two years after their dest.i.tute condition was known, and that Alexander Sullivan, Michael Boland, and D. C.

Feeley are responsible and censurable for that neglect.

2. That Gen. C. H. McCarthy, of St. Paul, Minn., was unjustly and deliberately excluded from the Boston convention, and subsequently shamefully persecuted and driven from the order, and that Alexander Sullivan, Michael Boland, and D. C. Feeley are responsible and censurable for that series of reprehensible acts.

3. That delegate from home organization was excluded from the Boston convention, and that the same three defendants are responsible and censurable for that exclusion.

4. That the same defendants issued a deceptive report to the Boston convention, leading the order to believe that its affairs had been examined by independent committees, and that the order was $13,000 in debt; that, in fact, Alexander Sullivan and Michael Boland were on the committee of foreign affairs, and the Treasurer states that there was a balance in the treasury and not a debt.

5. That prior to the Boston convention one hundred and eleven thousand ($111,000) dollars was expended without any direct or indirect benefit to the order, and most of it in a manner that could not in any way have benefited the order, and that the same three defendants are censurable and responsible for this enormous and wasteful expenditure.

6. That this enormous sum was spent without the sanction or knowledge of the home portion of the R. D.

7. That various persons sent abroad were not supplied with sufficient funds, and that the agent of the Triangle is responsible and censurable for that criminal neglect, and not the three defendants.

8. That Michael Boland and the late Secretary of the I. N. B.

issued fraudulent transfers, for the purpose of deceiving the order in Philadelphia into believing that the union with the home order had not been broken.

9. That Michael Boland and D. C. Feeley, the former by acts and the latter by a.s.sent, are guilty of attempting to pack the Pittsburg convention by, first, excluding the delegate from the Pacific Slope; second, excluding Mr. McLaughlin, delegate from Dakota; third, excluding O'Sullivan and Delaney, rightful delegates from New York; fourth, admitting the Rev. Dr. Betts and John J. Maroney, on bogus credentials from the bogus districts; fifth, admitting Boland and Malone, illegal delegates from New York; sixth, admitting proxies from Iowa, Brooklyn, and Illinois; seventh, sitting as delegates themselves in direct violation of the const.i.tution.

10. That the $80,491, reported to the district convention as having been spent in active work was not spent for any such work, no such work having been done or contemplated during the eleven months within which this large amount was drawn from the treasury. The active work done between the Boston and other district conventions, was paid for out of the surplus held by the agent of the Triangle at the time of the Boston convention, and not out of the $87,491 drawn from the treasury months after such active work had ceased.

11. That Michael Boland and D. C. Feeley, the former by acts and the latter by silence, are responsible for the expenditure of this large amount of money, and censurable for deceiving the district convention as to the purpose for which it was spent.

12. That Michael Boland, Alexander Sullivan, and D. C. Feeley, the former by acts and the two latter by a.s.sent, illegally suspended D's in January, 1885, and that Michael Boland and D. C. Feeley, the former by acts and the latter by a.s.sent, illegally suspended U.

D.'s in New York, in January, 1886.

Yours, respectfully, P. MCCAHEY.

I concur in the within and foregoing report, and would recommend, in strict fairness to all concerned, and in justice to the entire organization, that the evidence, from which were deducted the foregoing, be printed by F. C. and sent to each D. O. and by him read at the general meeting or district over which he presides.

P. H. CRONIN.

Signed Jan. 19, 1889.

NOTES OF TESTIMONY.

First meeting, Westminster Hotel, New York, July 30.

J. D. McMahon, of Rome, N. Y., in the chair.

Committee met, and after some discussion as to choice of chairman and secretary the matter was arranged by electing anew J. D.