"I don't care about the clothes," replied the State's Attorney. "You exhibited the trunk, and I am going to speak of that, although they are all in evidence. At the same time I desire to call your especial attention to the necktie, which was not unfastened in the front but cut from behind. They had the man on his face, and when they stripped his body of the clothing they cut his necktie. Now, I want to show you this bloody trunk. They never turned up the bottom of this trunk to show you what is there. There is some of the blood which ran through the trunk. Do you see this blood in the trunk? You do not believe that the man in that trunk died from apoplexy do you? You do not believe that he died from poison, do you? You do not believe he died a natural death. Where was the trunk found? It was found within three-quarters of a mile south of where the body was found in a catch-basin, and right by its side, within three or four blocks, were found the clothes of Cronin in the sewer. Remember that the wagon was seen half a mile north of where the body was found with this trunk in it, which was then thought to be a carpenter's chest, and it was seen coming this way empty three blocks east of where the body was found.
"I want to call your attention to this matter because it is important. You will remember that Mr. Ingham mentioned the fact in his statement that when seen they were north of Bryn Mawyr avenue, looking for the Lake Shore drive in the sand, whereas, if they had honestly been looking for the Lake Shore drive, they would have found it south. Now then, put these three things together. You know where the body was found and the clothes were found, and between those two points this trunk was found with blood fresh in it that could be stirred by those honest Germans the next morning, with cotton batting saturated with blood, and if you put those things together, you will have reason to believe that it was the same trunk that came from the Carlson cottage. Why? Because the trunk in the Carlson cottage was just such a trunk, and it had been moved, and in the valise was found Cronin's clothes, and that valise was moved from 117 Clark street and was found in the sewer. I am going to make up a chain of evidence in this case, although I am not going all over those outside circumstances, because every circumstance which is proved in the case is not necessary for a conviction; mark that. If you get instructions from the court that there is a necessary circumstance lacking, and if you have a reasonable doubt on that material circumstance, and if there can be no conviction without that circumstance in the case, then you can not convict. But every circumstance in the case that is proved is not a material or necessary circumstance. If such circumstances as are necessary to lead your minds to believe the guilt of the accused beyond a reasonable doubt are clearly proved, that is all that is necessary for you to be satisfied upon. You need all these little outside circumstances, because they corroborate and make stronger each link in the chain of evidence. You want to remember that every point which leads in the direction of a correct conclusion to your minds should be very clear to you. As to whether they affect the material circumstances is another matter.
"I want you to remember that Burke went to Winnipeg. Forrest says that he never attempted to deceive the officers there or to go under an assumed name, but Officer McKinnon tells you that he first said his name was Cooper, and when the chief of police told him any statement he made would be used in evidence against him, then, for the first time, he said his name was Burke. Again, when Patrick O'Sullivan was requested to come to the police station and he saw a lot of men standing back of the Carlson cottage, he wanted to know what those men were doing in that cottage, clearly showing that he knew what had transpired in the cottage. Another thing I want you to remember is what Beggs said after the murder, when he said to Maurice Morris and another person in the presence of Ward, who did not take the stand, 'Cronin is all right; we know what we are talking about and you do not; you are not in the inner circle.' Whoever said it was the organization or a part of the Clan-na-Gael which formed that inner circle? We did not, but that inner circle was made up of members of the order, men who knew what was going on. Foster says Beggs' remark was advertising the murder, but it was not. It means that he and other members who were interested in the murder of Dr. Cronin were an inner circle; that he knew where Cronin could be found, and that he believed his remains would keep there undiscovered until they could not be identified. You have another link, then, in the chain of evidence, and you have to take every circumstance in the case that leads you up to the chain, and strengthens each link in the chain that was forged by Beggs. Then he answers: 'Why didn't you call Tom Murphy?' We had him before the grand jury, and we examined his books, but the idea of calling Tom Murphy himself when his partner sits here and has sat here from the beginning of the trial as a lawyer for the defendant! As to the money in the camp, Tom Murphy did not have enough money in the funds of the organization to square his own account, let alone spending money for killing Cronin. We did not claim that he did. We do not claim that the camp paid the expenses, but we have the right to take Tom Murphy before the grand jury and investigate the camp in order to discover who were the conspirators.
"Now, gentlemen, I do not propose to dwell upon their defense at all. They have no defense. When we started in this case we groped in the valley and you groped in the valley. When you looked for the evidence you found it. If you are looking for an excuse to acquit those defendants, you may acquit them either on the ground that we have not stated the cause of death, or you can acquit them on the ground that you do not believe the evidence. But you are not going to do that; you are too honorable men to do so. The people of the State of Illinois have rights as well as these defendants. I would not ask you to convict the men unless you feel that the evidence justified you in doing so, but their defense, what is it? It is shorter than the defendants can cover themselves by lying upon it, and, as a covering, it is narrower than they can wrap themselves in. There is no defense. Since we were groping in the valley we have piled up a mountain of evidence, until you have the mountain peaks, which stand out so clearly, that all of you can not fail to see them, and there stands the evidence, irresistible, unimpeachable and indisputable. Gentlemen, let us see what we have got.
"Let us start in on this chain. Go into Camp 20 and see what there is there. You find that there was a committee appointed; you find that charges were made about spies; you find there was a circle of brothers banded together. Take in the 22d of February; take in the speech of Beggs; take in the letters of Spelman. There you have got a link. You start out from Camp 20 with that link. You go over to 117 South Clark Street; you go to Revell; you take the buying of the trunk and the buying of the valise and the buying of the furniture; the putting of it into 117 Clark street, and Kunze is in there as a man to throw the public off as to the cause of the occupancy. There you have a second link. The trunk, the valise, the strap and the furniture form a second link. Put that on and follow it up. These two links are undisputed and undenied. There is no dispute as to that second link; you find Martin Burke taking the furniture and putting the trunk and valise into that cottage. There is a third link undisputed; no question about it, unless you want to disbelieve the five witnesses as to the identification of Martin Burke. You go on and you find Patrick O'Sullivan contracting with Cronin, that is the fourth link. There are four links established by evidence and undisputed leading up to the murder of Dr. Cronin. You come to Dan Coughlin; he has the horse and buggy; that is the fifth link. These five links are as solid as the rocks—as solid as iron; five undisputed links in the chain. You find, further, on Evanston road, the trunk, the body and the clothes. That is another link. There are six links that lead from Camp 20 to the grave of Dr. Cronin. We have the first link made by the Clan-na-Gael brotherhood in Camp 20; to that add Beggs' letters and his statements about the inner circle; to that add that that committee was to report to him alone; to that add everything that Beggs did and said; it is all hanging on that link. We find Burke renting the cottage and saying that his sister is going to keep house with him; we find him disappear; we find him in Winnipeg. That is another link. Then there is the P. O'Sullivan link; you find his printed card was presented to Dr. Cronin, and the man who presents it says, 'O'Sullivan wants you to go to his ice house.' That is an undisputed circumstance. All these circumstances are leading you up to the murder of Dr. Cronin. Take Dan Coughlin's statement to Dinan; take his statement that Smith, from Hancock, Michigan, is the man who drove the rig, the very man that Burke went to see at Hancock, Michigan, and who says John Ryan is his friend.
"Look at it! There never was such a chain of circumstances. The chain itself is strong, and yet all those circumstances, those little links, are as strong—so strong that they can not be broken. And yet this lawyer will stand up here for three days and say there is not evidence enough to convict! Now, another thing that goes to add to P. O'Sullivan's link and to show that he was not honest in that contract is the testimony of this man A. J. Ford. He testifies that he made a speech in Camp 20, in which he said that there were men fraternizing with the deputies up in the Washington Literary Society in Lake View, and he gave this man O'Sullivan as his authority. There is another circumstance. Why then did O'Sullivan, if he believed that Cronin was organizing a lodge there—if he believed that that literary society was taking in men opposed to the Irish cause—why did he think Cronin was a friend of his, and why did he go and make a contract with Dr. Cronin? Now, gentlemen, I have laid down these links; you take it in Camp 20, follow it to 117 Clark street, to the cottage, to Dan Coughlin's horse and buggy, to the trunk, the body and the clothes. You come back to Camp 20 and it falls at the feet of John F. Beggs. His lawyer says that John F. Beggs is the dupe of no man. No, gentlemen; but John F. Beggs is just as guilty, if he was in this conspiracy, as Martin Burke, every bit. The learned counsel told you a story here, and it was very apt. He told you that men who had been defrauding the government and doing crooked work took a man who was on their track and put him over the brink of a precipice and swung him back and forth, and he says one of them climbed up and cut the rope, and an innocent man, innocently charged, dropped on the rocks below and was cut to pieces. The men who stood by and laughed while this was being done were just as guilty as the man who cut the rope. John F. Beggs, if he was in this conspiracy, is just as guilty as the men who dealt the blows, every bit. Now, in such a case as that, where an innocent man was swung out over the rocks—where these men who were criminals themselves, swung a man over a cliff down to death—what would you do if you were on a jury to try such men?
"Gentlemen, I am through; I promised you I would hurry up. I do not believe that if I were to talk from now till next June I would change your opinion one way or another. If you are settled to turn these men loose, you will do it; if you believe this evidence is not sufficient to convict them, why of course you will acquit them. But I want to call your attention to your responsibility. Gentlemen, this is a serious matter; it has got down to business. I have been sitting here for weeks, and indisputed evidence that must lead your minds to the conclusion that Dr. Cronin was murdered, evidence that must lead to the conclusion that it was done by a conspiracy; evidence that must convince your minds that it was a cold-blooded murder, that it was planned in secret, that it was done with the coolness of those men who swung the man over the cliff—you must have come to the conclusion that if there ever was a murder case in which the extreme penalty of the law was demanded at your hands by a verdict of that kind, this is one. Remember that you are not here to acquit guilty men; you are not here to convict innocent men. Remember that we are here insisting that this evidence is so overwhelming that you, as honest men, under your oaths, can not resist this volume of proof, and that it ought to convince you beyond a reasonable doubt that all five of these men are guilty of this crime."