The Crime of the Century; Or, The Assassination of Dr. Patrick Henry Cronin

by Henry M. Hunt

"After you have heard the arguments from counsel on both sides, having heard the evidence and instructions of the Court, you will go into your room and make up your verdict and bear in mind that the law itself is just; if the law compels you to inflict a penalty here that you do not like to inflict, remember that you are not to blame and the law is not to blame; it is the men who have violated the law. What I say to you in this case is from a feeling that we wish to get at the truth; what I say will be said with a view of getting at a truthful verdict and nothing else. I have no feeling against these men on trial personally. Why should I stand up here and ask you to convict Martin Burke, Daniel Coughlin, Patrick O'Sullivan, John F. Beggs and John Kunze unless I believe the evidence justified me in asking you to do it? If I should at this moment ask you twelve men to convict them upon anything else but the evidence, I would not be fit to fill the position that I now occupy. We do not desire that these men shall be 'guessed' guilty. We do not desire that they shall be convicted upon doubtful evidence. We do not desire that they shall be convicted upon anything except the law and the evidence in the case; but if you do believe that that law and that evidence satisfies your mind of their guilt, then we do demand at your hands that your verdict shall be in accordance with the law and the evidence, and nothing short of a truthful verdict under the law and the evidence will meet the demands of this case, whether the verdict be to acquit the defendants or whether it be to convict the defendants; with that verdict the people represented by myself and my associates must be content."

REVIEWING THE EVIDENCE.

"Now, gentlemen, as I said, we want to talk about the evidence in the case. I will do it as hastily as possible, bearing in mind at the same time that it is necessary that it be presented to you in such a way as you will see the chain that has been forged from day to day in this case, and so that you may be enabled from this evidence to come to a correct conclusion. I shall not attempt to go over all the evidence, that is all the details, because I apprehend that you men have watched this evidence as closely as I have; but what I intend to say to you regarding the evidence will be such as I think should be mentioned to enable you to come to a correct conclusion, and I will leave pieces of evidence here and there to be remembered by yourselves.

"Again, gentlemen, if I should misstate this evidence, I hope that the attorneys for the defense will call my attention to it; and I hope it will not be charged that I am trying to take any unfair advantage of these men who are upon trial for their lives. As I said to you in my opening of this case, we contend that the murder of Patrick Henry Cronin was brought about by a conspiracy. We claim that it was acted upon and executed. And that these men on trial are parties to the conspiracy, together with others who are not on trial. That is our position. We further claim that it was a cold-blooded conspiracy; a conspiracy that is without parallel, coldly and deliberately planned; a conspiracy that, as we understand it from the evidence, would chill the blood in the warmest heart; a conspiracy that is most terrible in its effects. If such a conspiracy as this has existed, as we know it has existed, and if the murder has been the result of such a conspiracy as this, then it follows that it must have been planned for weeks and weeks before its execution; and if that be true, then, gentlemen, you must notice the line of evidence in the case in order to come to a correct conclusion. A conspiracy always originates somewhere; one man can not conspire, two men may conspire; oftener three men conspire, and it is easier to commit a crime where two men are engaged in working it out in different ways, engaged in bringing about in different ways the same results, than where the same object is aimed to be accomplished by one man. Now, it is not necessary, as the Court will instruct you, that we prove that the parties got together and talked the matter over and arranged it; that is not necessary; the law does not require that; we don't need to prove that they ever came together. If that was so it would be very seldom that a prosecutor could obtain a conviction in a conspiracy case. Remember this is a charge of murder, brought about by a conspiracy, and we claim that this evidence shows conclusively that a conspiracy was concocted by these defendants on trial. Let us see where we go to start in. Where do we learn of this conspiracy first?"

CAMP 20'S MYSTERIOUS MEETINGS.

"You remember that there is a Camp 20 in this city. It is proven here that the Clan-na-Gael organization has a camp called Camp 20, also named Columbia Club; that they met in North Side Turner Hall, and that before the date of which I now intend to speak there had been a division in this organization, and that the two factions had united, after which the numbers had been changed, so that this Camp 96 had become Camp 20. I will also ask you to remember that before this reunion of these two organizations, or these two factions of the organization, a trial committee was appointed to try the ex-executive body of this organization; that this ex-executive was to be tried by a committee to be selected at a convention that met in this city last year in the month of June. You will remember that Dr. P. H. Cronin was one of the members appointed on that trial committee, and that after that trial committee had acted, the two factions were united and the camps were renumbered. I speak of that, and I want you to bear it in mind, that Dr. Cronin was on that committee, and that it was shown that there were three men called trianglers who were being tried by the committee of which Dr. Cronin was a member. Now we will stop there, and go to this Camp 20, on the 8th day of February. You go into that camp. We call the secretary here, John F. O'Connor, and he testifies that on that occasion, the night of the 8th of February, one Andrew Foy made a speech. O'Connor can not remember what Foy said, but he tells you that there were resolutions passed, and that he does recollect that Thomas F. O'Connor made a speech there. He tells you that Thomas F. O'Connor had charged that a certain report of the trial committee, this trial committee to which I have already called your attention, and of which Dr. Cronin was a member, was read in another camp. Secretary O'Connor tells you that Thomas F. O'Connor said he had heard the report of that trial committee read. That is about all that this man could remember, except that some one jumped up and demanded to know how it was that some camps had got the reports of this trial committee before others. He did not pretend to know what Foy had said in his speech, but he did recollect that some resolution was passed in regard to the matter.

"We next called Andrew J. Foy. Andrew J. Foy testifies here that he did make a speech; that he did say that he understood there were parties getting into the camp who were other Le Carons; that there were other Le Carons in this country; that there were spies in this country and in the organization. He admits that in his testimony, and he further said that they ought to be more careful in admitting members into the organization and not to admit parties of this kind into the organization. Then it was that Thomas F. O'Connor made his speech and said they had better look after the ex-executive if they wanted to find out the traitors who had been squandering the funds of the order and sending honest, patriotic men to English prisons. And thereupon you are told four or five men jumped to their feet and a motion or suggestion was made to have a secret committee appointed. What for? [State's Attorney Longenecker paused when he asked this question and for a moment gazed silently and earnestly into the jurors' faces.] What for?" he repeated. "Not to get a report of the trial committee, not to find out what it was that was contained in this report, but to see why this report was made in this other camp and who it was had made it. We called Michael J. Kelly, another member of that organization, a junior guardian in Camp 20, and what does he say? You must remember that these three witnesses were not what might be called willing witnesses. These three witnesses that were first called here upon the stand were unwilling witnesses for the people; but we called them. We called Michael Kelly to the stand, and he remembers that a speech was made by Foy, and he remembered that Thomas F. O'Connor made a speech, and that Le Caron's name perhaps was mentioned, but he does not remember much about it. He does tell you, however, that Thomas F. O'Connor stated that he had heard Dr. Cronin read that report in his, Dr. Cronin's, camp. That is about all we got out of him. We then called to the stand Anthony J. Ford, who was very fair in the witness stand, and he goes on and tells you that Andrew Foy made a speech, but he does not remember very much about Foy's speech. He also remembers that Thomas F. O'Connor made a speech in reply to that, and he tells you here in reference to that matter. We called Stephen Colleran here, a friend of Burke's, and he remembered and tells you that he heard some remarks made by Andrew Foy, and he also heard the speech made by Thomas O'Connor, and he recollects that three or four talked of the appointment of a committee to investigate the matter alluded to in O'Connor's speech, but whether it was a secret committee or not he does not remember."

PURPOSE OF THE SECRET COMMITTEE.

"You will bear that in mind in regard to Colleran, because I shall not go into details with his evidence on this particular point, as he touches another line of evidence in the case. Then Denis O'Connor was called here, who says that he has belonged to the order for fifteen or sixteen years, and he testifies that it was charged in Camp 20, at that meeting to which I have referred, that Dr. Cronin had read a report of the trial committee; he says Foy had made a speech, that Captain O'Connor had replied to him in another speech, and that he understood that a committee was appointed. What for?" again exclaimed the State's Attorney, with considerable emphasis. "To go up to visit Dr. Cronin's camp, he says, for the purpose of ascertaining why he read this report in his, Dr. Cronin's, camp. That we find in the record, gentlemen, there is no dispute on that point. You will remember that these men swear to that fact, men who were not willing witnesses for the prosecution; they swear that they understood it was to investigate Dr. Cronin and his camp as to why he in that camp had read a report of that committee before which the charges had been tried before the ex-executive body. That is from the mouth of Denis O'Connor. But he tells you that he did not understand it to be a secret committee, but we called other witnesses on this same point."

Mr. Foster at this point broke in with an interruption. He called the State's Attorney's attention to the fact that the record will show that Denis O'Connor had not said that the committee had been appointed to investigate why the report had been read, but to find out if a minority report had been read there, and, if so, what it was.