Twenty-five years in the Secret Service: The recollections of a spy

by Henri Le Caron

Philip H. Cronin was born in Ireland, but when very young emigrated to Canada. From thence when a young man he went to St. Louis, Missouri, where he studied medicine at the St. Louis College of Physicians and Surgeons. Before this he had been clerk in a chemist’s store, and had thus acquired a very considerable practical knowledge of medicine. He graduated with high honours, and became eventually Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in the college. He also attended a medical college from which he secured the degree of M.A. Cronin was a man of fine presence, good looking, almost six feet in height, and very well formed. He was a clever man in every way, and a good forcible speaker, though in style aggressive and combative to a degree. Very ambitious, like his future enemy Alexander Sullivan, he was never happy in a back seat, always thrusting himself forward and fighting for the place of leader. In fact, so pronounced were his ideas in favour of his supremacy, that where he could not rule he was quite prepared to ruin.

He moved to Chicago in the latter part of 1881, and immediately entered upon the practice of medicine, taking up his residence at 351 Clark Street, at the corner of Oak Street. At this time he was about thirty-two years of age, so that he was only some forty years old at the time of his murder. From the moment of his arrival in Chicago, he went in enthusiastically for Irish politics, and took a leading part in both Revolutionary and Land League matters. He identified himself with the Clan-na-Gael, and was prominent at all gatherings of the Irish of every kind. He was strong in social instincts, and was quite a figure at social gatherings, where he used to great advantage the fine tenor voice of which he was possessed, singing national songs especially with great spirit and enthusiasm. As a consequence he rapidly came to the front in Chicago, and in six months was better known than an ordinary resident would have been in ten years. Towards the Land League movement he was especially sympathetic, and he took a very large part indeed in building it up. He was in a short time elected President of the 18th Ward League, then known as the “Banner League” of Chicago. Equally active in the secret movement, he was a guiding spirit of Camp No. 96 of the Clan in Chicago, publicly known as the “Columbia Literary Association,” and so great was his influence that, on the appointment of the notorious Frank Agneau to the position of district member, Cronin succeeded him as Senior Guardian of the camp. This was the camp which held its weekly meetings in the well-known Turner Hall on the north side of the city.

It was at this time that the policy of dynamite had been decided upon, and that the campaign against English Government buildings and persons was being inaugurated. Cronin (who was anything but a saint in character) was an ardent advocate of the policy; and, owing to his scientific attainments, he was appointed as chief instructor in the use and handling of explosives, acting all this time, be it marked, as the President of the Banner League (or Chicago branch of the Land League) as well. In fact, he held the position of President of the Land League branch down to the year 1888. Cronin, unfortunately for himself, succeeded at a very early stage in falling foul of Alexander Sullivan. Living as he did till 1887 at the corner of Clark and Oak Streets, within a few doors of Sullivan himself, he gained such an amount of prominence that he was rapidly throwing Sullivan into the shade. He threatened to become more powerful than Sullivan, and this Sullivan, equally ambitious and more unscrupulous, could not brook. In a short time Sullivan and his adherents came to detest the Doctor, and as I found—for I lived within a stone’s throw of each, knew them both intimately, and saw them continuously—the relations between them were becoming more strained and bitter every day.

In June 1881, as I have related, Sullivan obtained a victory over all his rivals by being chosen President of the Clan-na-Gael, or Revolutionary organisation, at the Dynamite Convention held that year at the Palmer House, Chicago. It was after this that Cronin gave the first pronounced sign of his enmity in public. The opportunity for its display was brought about by the attack made by O’Meagher Condon upon John Devoy, the principal of the three members of the Revolutionary Directory, Devoy with his colleagues being charged with responsibility for the failure of the many schemes of active warfare proposed by Condon. Devoy, evidently jealous of Sullivan’s election, indulged in a good deal of incrimination, not confining his attacks to Condon alone, and he was afterwards supported by Cronin, who was possessed of the same grievance. The two joined forces, but without any effect, for Sullivan’s position was assured. From the dispute, however, which occurred at this Convention, dates the commencement of undisguised hostility between Sullivan and Cronin.

Early in 1883, when the call was issued for the Philadelphia Convention (at which was formed the first branch of the American National League as distinct from the Land League), a meeting of Cronin’s branch of the League took place in Chicago for the election of delegates to the Convention. Sullivan and his friends, determining to crush Cronin if they could, packed this meeting, and had elected as delegates Alexander Sullivan himself, his brother, and other personal adherents, much to the disgust of Cronin and his supporters.

Sullivan was equally successful later on when, under the new constitution, the Executive called district Conventions in lieu of the general convention they had managed to postpone. The Convention in Cronin’s district was held in Millionaire Smythe’s Hall in Chicago—Smythe being Senior Guardian of Camp 458; Cronin, as Senior Guardian of his own camp, attended in the capacity of delegate therefrom. Mackay Lomasney, my old friend from Detroit, also attended from his district in a like capacity. Although an attempt was made to impeach Sullivan’s action, it was not successful. His friends were in the majority, and his conduct was upheld. All attempts on the part of Cronin to bring about a different state of things—and they were not a few—were voted down, and Alexander Sullivan, in company with Mackay Lomasney, the London Bridge dynamitard, was elected delegate to the Triangle Convention of 1884.

Cronin, filled with fury, returned to his camp and made a series of most sweeping charges against the Triangle. In return charges were preferred against him of being a traitor, liar, &c. &c., Sullivan of course being the instigator. A Trial Committee, of which I was one, was appointed, and by it Cronin was promptly found guilty and formally expelled. I voted, as I always did, on the side of the winning party. Cronin on his expulsion immediately joined the ranks of the seceders, which by this time included such well-known men as Devoy, Dillon, M‘Cahey, and others, and he immediately obtained a seat on the executive of the new body. And here, for the moment, I must leave him.

XLVI.

The next matter of public importance in which I was interested was the Boston Convention of the Irish National League of America, which took place in the Fanieul Hall, Boston, on the 13th and following days of August. Of course I went in my dual capacity as League delegate and Revolutionary official. The same plan of campaign was practised with the same successful results. The Rev. Dr. Betts was again to the front as president of the secret caucuses, while Egan, grown more bold by this, was a regular attendant. When the nomination of officials of the League came up, Sullivan was named for re-election as president. He, however, declined, and made way for Patrick Egan. Egan, after some refusal on the ground that the British Government probably knew of his connection with the secret movement, and that his taking office might compromise Mr. Parnell, eventually agreed, and so he took the chair vacated by Sullivan. This Convention was attended by Mr. Thomas Sexton, M.P., and Mr. William Redmond, M.P., on the part of the Parnellite party, and by P. J. Tynan, the famous “No. 1” of the Phœnix Park murders—shall I say on behalf of the Invincibles? Sullivan undoubtedly was the pet boy of the period, for he was the object of the most adulatory references on the part of Mr. Sexton. He was, we were told, a man who did honour to the race from which he had sprung; a man of whom any race might well be proud—and so on. Egan, however, came in for his fair share of attention too. He was, according to another speaker, “that clean handed, that patriotic, that heroic exile,” although, of course, no reference was made to the reasons for his exile as supplied by the Phœnix Park crimes.