FOURTH INTERNATIONAL FISHERY CONGRESS. a 
that your deliberations here will add still more to the splendid record you have 
already attained. 
The work of this congress appeals with peculiar force to the popular mind. 
The propagation and culture of the food fishes, as well as the preservation of 
the important species which would become extinct but for the care, zeal, and 
knowledge which you exercise, offers to every man a most attractive field and 
brings its large reward in the consciousness of doing good for all mankind. It 
is, therefore, with especial pleasure that we welcome you to Washington, in the 
continued and increasing development of your practical work. 
We have not here, in a new country and a new city, the traditions and the 
histories which invest foreign capitals with so much charm; and yet you will 
find here in Washington many things that we hope will be of real interest to 
you. Yonder white-domed Capitol must dwell forever in your memories as an 
impressive and inspiring picture; the White House is the embodiment of our 
democratic life; and the tomb at Mount Vernon, when you stand beside it, 
whether you be an American or a foreigner, must compel your respect, if you 
admire in the human race the characteristics of patriotic courage and devotion. 
And, above all, in the laboratories and museums here you will have ample 
opportunity for the facilitation of that study in which you are engaged and 
which has earned for you the commendation of the world. 
I can not, I assure you, talk either as eloquently, as confidently, or with as 
much experience regarding ‘“‘rum and molasses” as my friend Secretary Straus 
[laughter], but I can join with him, and do join with him, in welcoming you to 
this beautiful capital, which has grown in hardly a century—in fact, the new 
Washington is but twenty or twenty-five years old. We can join together in wel- 
coming you here, in expressing the hope that your deliberations may be of such 
advantage to you, that your experiences here may be so pleasant, that the hos- 
pitality which we will try to extend to you may leave so warm a spot in your 
hearts and thought, that when you leave you will have had awakened a desire to 
reassemble as soon as possible in the capital of the United States. [Applause.] 
The CHAIRMAN. The president of the American Fisheries Society is with 
us, and will now extend a welcome in behalf of that society. I take pleasure 
in presenting Dr. Hugh M. Smith. 
Doctor SmirH. Mr. Chairman, ladies, and gentlemen, it is not inappropriate 
that on this occasion an opportunity should be afforded the American Fisheries 
Society to join with the United States Government and the city of Wash- 
ington in extending a welcome to those who have come from afar to partici- 
pate in this gathering of the fishermen of all nations; for the society feels that 
its objects, its accomplishments, and its affiliations entitle it to a voice in these 
proceedings. 
Forty years ago fish culture was a very absorbing theme among a small 
band of American pioneers by whom the creation of a fishery bureau under 
