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

by Henri Le Caron

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.