CHAPTER XVI.
SPECIAL GRAND JURY SUMMONED—PERSONNEL OF ITS MEMBERS—JUDGE SHEPARD'S VIGOROUS CHARGE—THE TESTIMONY TAKEN—SEVENTEEN DAYS' INVESTIGATION RESULTS IN THE INDICTMENT OF SEVEN MEN—FULL TEXT OF THE INDICTMENT.
Sheriff Matson, tall and commanding, appeared in that branch of the Criminal Court presided over by Judge Shepard, at ten o'clock on the morning of June 12, at the head of such a procession of prominent business men as is seldom seen in the precincts of a court room, save on occasions that stir the entire community. For the third time during his term of office as sheriff—once in the Anarchist case, then in the celebrated "boodler" trial, and again on this occasion, the Sheriff had been ordered to summon a special venire of grand jurors. That he had taken pains to get good material, and at the same time avoid selecting any of those that had served on either of the two former occasions, was apparent when he presented the twenty-three men to the Court. Their names were called out as follows:
| D. B. Dewey, | Isaac Jackson, | |
| H. P. Kellogg, | H. S. Peck, | |
| D. A. Peirce, | W. J. Quan, | |
| W. K. Forsythe, | John O'Neill, | |
| John H. Clough, | Louis Hasbrook, | |
| J. McGregor Adams, | Henry Greenebaum, | |
| Jacob Gross, | C. Gilbert Wheeler, | |
| Francis B. Peabody, | J. C. W. Rhode, | |
| W. H. Beebe, | A. P. Johnson, | |
| A. G. Lundberg, | George W. Waite, | |
| John F. Wollensack, | Henry A. Knott, | |
| W. D. Kerfoot. |
JUDGE SHEPARD'S PLAIN WORDS.
The Judge looked approvingly over the double row of intelligent faces before him, and appointed John H. Clough as foreman. The customary oath usually administered in cases of special grand juries, where some of those summoned may be disposed to avoid service, was omitted, and the regular grand jury oath was clinched with the statement, "so help you God." After this the excuses of half a dozen of those who considered themselves entitled to exemption came too late. Commencing his charge by reading the section of the statute defining the duties of grand jurors, and fixing the punishment for disclosing grand jury proceedings, Judge Shepard went on to say:
"The prime matter which will come before you will be the murder of the late Dr. Cronin. This appalling murder demands a most rigorous investigation. Dr. Cronin, an American citizen, has been struck down and killed under circumstances so horribly indicative of conspiracy, premeditated design and malice, as to warrant the most searching inquiry. Fortunately the power of a grand jury is fully equal to the emergency.
"Men who can tell of facts and circumstances that will lead you to the discovery of the guilty parties can be made to tell. It is just as much perjury to falsely deny knowledge of a fact as to affirm its existence. Nothing short of a refusal to testify before you on the ground that his testimony will tend to criminate himself will excuse any witness, and he cannot falsely employ that personal privilege as a protection for another without subjecting himself to the pains and penalties of perjury.
"It is not the policy of the law that it is better that one or any number of guilty men should escape rather than that an innocent person should suffer; the law has no policy in such matters except that every guilty man shall be punished. With all the information already in the possession of the law officers of the county at hand, it will be a blot on the commonwealth, a severe blow to the administration of justice, and a frightful menace to the safety of the individual citizen, if every man engaged in this shocking crime, or having guilty knowledge of it, shall not be discovered.