to light, Dr. Cronin was an
unselfish, a public-spirited, an honorable and an honest man, and
those who hated him and lured him to his death did so because of
that character of his, which could neither be bent nor broken,
severed nor turned aside by threats against his life, by attacks
against his life, by plots against his life that he had discovered,
or by the easier methods of bribery that must have been within the
power of those who organized those plots. In the presence of a
society whose object is the maintenance of the right of the
individual to think, to speak and to act as his conscience directs,
regardless of any adverse powers. Impressed by the spirit of such a
meeting, I can not refrain from giving expression to the sentiments
I feel. I do so for another purpose, and it is this:

"That the miscreants who planned and effected this foul murder will
know, or rather they will understand, how the public knows how I
regard them. They have known it for years. This is a time when no
man who ever had anything to do with the Irish movements
especially, can afford to be silent and do justice to himself. I do
so with the distinct consciousness that the man who attacks this
conspiracy invites its hatred. I believe I have had its hatred for
some time. If speaking as I have done does not invite its hatred, I
invite it now. No man who shakes hands with a criminal, or his
allies or sympathizers, can be relied upon as a faithful
conservator of justice. Let no man having political ambition be
deluded with the thought that subserviency will aid him. Treason to
American institutions and to the cause of justice, at this time,
will damn forever the man that the public believes guilty, and he
does not have to be tried by a jury or any other bar than
enlightened public opinion."

But no more graphic a tribute to the characteristics and memory of the
murdered man could have come from tongue or pen than came from Colonel
Rend, and his auditors hung breathless upon his words:

"He was a man endowed with many of the choicest gifts and graces of
nature. In person he was a perfect model of physical manhood. In
intellect he possessed talents of a high order. His natural
abilities enabled him to overcome the stern circumstances of an
early life of poverty and discouragement. B