Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-06-15
FULL OF ADVENTURE.
Checkered Career of Alexander Sui
livan, Now Accused of the
ASSASSINATION OF DIR. CRONIN.
He Has Already Been on Trial Twice on
Charge Of Murder.
AN ACTIVE AND AMBITIOUS sCHEMER

politician, he has figured in every camp,
holding some Offices, seeking others, and as
suming to act as local Warwick, now in
one party, now in another. Reduced to fis-
cal straits, he scheduled as a bankrupt, and
when relieved by the easy process once in
vogue of all legal obligation to discharge
enumerated debts, he surprised his creditors
by payment in full with high rate of in
terest.
In the Territories, as in Chicago, he had
received and returned bodily menace.
He has exchanged shots. Thirteen years
ago in Chicago he killed school teacher.
Twice tried he was finally acquitted Of
murder Perseverance and andaeitY
marked his subsequent career, and his ad-
dress cannot be better illustrated than by
the statement that in the Office of that jour-
nal which denounced him with unsparing
vigor and bitterness and extended its amin
adversions to every one connected nearlv or
remotely with his defense he became
valued counselor.
Even looking at it as a justifable killing
Hanford's murder would have daunted the
perpetrator had he weaker nature than
Sullivan. He faced popular indignation
with grim but quiet resolve and had the
satisfaction of finding himself courted where
he had been condemned and sought where
he had been repelled. Had Blaine sue
ceeded in 1884 Sullivan's success would
have been complete.
AN AMBITIOUS MAN.
Having method, industry, thoroughness
and persistence, Sullivan, once embarked on
the career of an Irish Nationalist, readily
reached the first place. To gain leadership
was not difficult task to the possessor of
ambition guided by an intelligence un-
swayed by the emotions. Opposition gave
way before man who wasted no time in
thrasonical barroom discussions, but, study
ing men and situations, worked while others
slept. In the open he supported Parnell
and constitutional agitation. Under the
cover of secret society be was one of
triangle" preaching and practicing physi-
cal force.
Never wholly without enemies, accusers
and detractors he attained, nevertheless,
higher distinction and broader influence
than any assumed leader of the Irish in
Amerlca ever commanded. Irishmen who
would not Join a secret society and abhorred
the use of dynamite applauded him as one
who implicitly accepted the leadership of
Parnell, while the clansmen rejoiced in the
knowledge that at the head. of the Irish
League was a dynamiter who had taken the
oath of the brotherhood and as one of its
directing minds was projecting mysterious
expeditions against England.
Sooner or later factional differences char
acterized all Irish organization. Large
sums of money raised by the secret societies
were so mysteriously disbursed as to excite
comment which led to accusation. Sulli-
vans influence commenced to decline. The
League had followed him in American
politics and met disaster, buteven if he were
Alexander the successful and the just the
Irish would have wearied of him as the
Athenians weaIied of Aristides. Some in
Ciderts in Sullivan's life, his known specu-
lations on the Stock Exchange and in the
wheat pit, his lavish use of money in many
directions, gave color to the whisperings
against his fiscal honor.
CRoNIN's ENMITY.
Chief among those who challenged his in
tegrity was Dr. Patrick II. Cronin. Sulli-
van is bitter and implacable foe. His an
imosity was aroused. He appeared per-
sonally to persecute Cronin as traitor to
his oath as a cIansman, and procured his
expulsion from the society. But resolute
and persistent as himself, Cronin, organIz-
ing factional camps, continued his charges
against the triangle" of which Sullivan
had been the controlling force.
A union of the divergent camps was
effected, and Cronin was once again a clans
man. Prosecuted by Sullivan the time
came when, despite the bitter protest of the
accused, Cronin sat as juror on the trial of
Sullivan. Though in the minority, he held
to the truthfulness of his charges, and was
perhaps stimulated by the disclosures made
because of the failure of the Traders Bank.
The august meeting of the brotherhood was
to be perturbed anew by the scandal, for
Cronin resisted all pressure to cease and
stood ready to renew the combat which he
feared would cost him his life.
Alexander Sullivan lies in jail under the
heavy accusation of having been princi-
pal, an accessory, or of having guilty
knowledge of the murder of DR.. Cronin
The crime is hideous, revolving. Against
the deep damnation of Cronin's taking off
accomplished as it was in secret by assassins
and as the result of a horrible conspiracy,
planned and persisted in with devilish in
genuity and frmness of purpose, the killing
of Hanford, done in open day in hot blood
defense seems trivial offense.
HORRIBLE CRIME.
Couehlin was possibly shallow knave,
the iceman a fanatic, Woodruff a cheap
mercenary, but the intelligence that planned;
the hatred that persisted; the craft that in
spired was, if the Coroner's jury is right,
the intelligence, the hatred, the craft of
Alexander Sullivan. The very enormity of,
~ horrihla unefo
Htapger belief that Sullivan, who had
everything to lose by discovery and
nothing much to gain by accomplishment,
is the awful malignant this accusation
would make him out
That any man of even ordinary repute,
happily married, comfortably circum-
stanced, middle-aged, well acquainted with
the sweeping character of the conspiracy
law in Illinois, would deliberately incur
the possibility of swift and ignominious
death on the gallows and the pains of an
eternity of torment, leaving name in
famous and aceursed, is monstrous suppo-
sltion not to be accepted unless upon proofs.
Happily the time-honored and wisely cher
isbed maxim of the common law that an
accused is innocent until his guilt is proved
holds in our courts if it does not always
guide popular expression.
1t remains for the State to prove its case.
1t remains for the State to prove its case be-
fore a petit jury with all the limitations
upon testimony required by courts of record.
1t remains for the State legally to prove its
case with the accused at the bar fighting for
their lives There ought to be but one
sentiment in the public mind, the sentiment
of complete fairness expressed in the
phrase, Let justice be done!-ChicGgo
Times.
An Uupremedituted Bath.