n of the United Brotherhood
organization in Chicago, from which he was expelled in a case where
I conducted the prosecution. There is no question in Chicago of his
personal hostility. Before the National League convention in 1886,
his was one of the signatures to a circular assailing me, and he
was a regular attendant at meetings hostile to me. This is so
notorious to me from all parts of the country that it is not
necessary to enlarge upon it, but if substantiation is required it
can be furnished to an overwhelming degree.

In the support of the second objection it is only necessary to
recite the now notorious fact that Cronin was a member of the
executive body of the United Brotherhood, and as such he was one of
those who circulated charges against my former associates and
myself. He therefore not only expressed opinions, but in his
official capacity caused those opinions to be published and
circulated.

Your committee is chosen from two bodies, whose members differ on
many points, but who all agree, or profess to agree, in denouncing
unfair trials, biased juries and prejudiced jurors in Ireland, and
yet I am asked, after a period of four years has elapsed since I
was a member or the organization, to come for trial before a
committee chosen in my absence at a place where I was given no
opportunity to be heard, although I was within a few hundred feet
of the place.

While you ask the world to believe that you want a fair trial on
one side of the Atlantic, you ask me to accept as a juror one who
would be excluded in any civil court from a jury in a trial of a
case in which I had an interest however trivial.

I am told that it has been declared that if I do not appear before
this committee I shall be denounced as one unable to defend himself
against the accusations filed. So I was left with the alternative
of being tried before a jury, with at least one perjured member, or
being abused and villified for my non-appearance. And this is what
the men who selected Cronin were led to believe was fairness. They
should never again be so indecently inconsistent as to criticise
the position of juries or courts chosen to try men in England and
Ireland. Had he as much decency as an ordinary dog he would not sit
in a case in which I was interested.