The substantive defence appears to have consisted chiefly of a series of alibis. They were of the familiar Irish type—a type which in the graphic American tongue is described as “lop-sided.”
Full reports of the speeches for the defence and of the concluding arguments for the State have not yet reached this country, and can hardly be expected for some days. But whatever the line taken by counsel for the prisoners may have been, it has failed to prevent a purely American jury of citizens of Cook County from convicting and sentencing to severe punishment four members of as foul and wicked a conspiracy as ever was hatched by Irish brains. That conspiracy, as the evidence shows, was itself the outcome of those intestine quarrels that by a just retribution ever corrode the heart of the Irish-American plots against this country. It was the State’s Attorney’s cue to paint Dr. Cronin as an innocent and patriotic Irishman, murdered by the hands of villainous rivals. But the true nature of the patriotic society to which Dr. Cronin belonged, and to the hands of whose members he owes his dreadful end, can hardly escape the American public when they come to study the records of the Cronin trial and the verdict of the Chicago jury. Whether that study will nerve the honest citizens of the Republic to rise against the tyranny of Irish machine-men, and purge their name and nation of the stain of harbouring and tolerating such associations, remains to be seen. At any rate, the people of Illinois are to be congratulated on their victory—a victory which, in spite of endless “exceptions” taken on behalf of the prisoners throughout the case, and the endless series of appeals allowed by American law, will hardly be affected in the long run by any fresh proceedings. On the other hand, the convictions may not improbably result in some of the convicts turning informers more patrio, and thus bringing the real prime movers in the murder, whose existence is widely believed in in America, in turn to their doom.—The Times, 17th December 1889.
APPENDIX III.
(page 1 of 2 of a handwritten letter)
(page 2 of 2 of a handwritten letter)
NOTE.—The above letter was written to me by Sullivan before the trial of the charges brought against him by Cronin, and refers to evidence being collected by Sullivan to refute those charges. “D.” means division, “J. G.” and “S. G.” mean Junior Guardian and Senior Guardian; and the use of these initials peculiar to the Organization prove Sullivan’s continued participation in the Clan-na-Gael.
H. le C.
Transcriber’s Note: the following is a transcription of the handwritten text of this letter.