ORAL ARGUMENT OP FREDERICK R. COUDERT, ESQ. 285 



it will be obliterated practically and commercially in less time than that; 

 and yet even then the United States will not snft'er a wrong* that can 

 affect her greatness or her wealth in any perceptible degree. She can 

 stand thatassanlt npon her resources without impoverishiug herself or 

 distressing her people. That is her good fortune in one sense, her mis- 

 fortune from the purely professional view of the case. If the United 

 States were a small nation, dependent for livelihood and existence upon 

 this industry which has thus been carefully cultivated for nearlj^ a 

 century; if it had no resources to feed its people but that; if this were 

 an industry belonging to the men who now live there and who have 

 been transformed by the beneficent hand of the United States from 

 barbarism to civilization — if that were so, your sympathy would at 

 once go out to such a people, and you would say that they must be 

 protected. There must be, in the x>i'iuciples of humanity which regu- 

 late such matters and underlie international law, some rule, some 

 principle, upon which destruction may be averted. It must be that 

 there is something in the reasoning and consent of men which will 

 interdict absolute destruction of their only means of livelihood. It is 

 not so here. To that extent we are worse, or better off", as you may 

 choose to consider it, than would be the inhabitants themselves, if, 

 helpless and eloquent only through their helplessness, they appealed 

 to you; but I take it that when we consider this subject upon principle, 

 and upon rule, this fact does not enter into the consideration of the 

 case, and we are entitled to claim that if we have a right of protection 

 and of self-defence it is not the quantum or proportion of the wrong, it 

 is the quality of the act that you will consider. If this indiscriminate 

 and brutal slaughter is an invasion of our right in the slightest degree, 

 then I appeal to you and unhesitatingly and resx)ectfully insist that it 

 is your duty to prevent it. 



Have we an industry'? The contrary of that cau hardly be claimed. 

 We are using intelligence; we ar« using money; we are using effort 

 to protect the seals for the purposes of connnerce, for useful purposes 

 to mankind. We are raising seals on the Pribilof Islands as sheep are 

 raised in Australia, as cattle are raised in the far west. To carry out 

 our purpose we use care and self denial; we have invested a large 

 capital in the industry; Ave have never been interfered with by man 

 until within a comparatively recent period. We found the people in a 

 state of dismal ignorance, uncared for and unprotected, living with as 

 little regard to the laws of civilized life and Christianity as the very 

 animals that they dealt with. They have been transformed by the hand 

 of the United States, pursuing this industry, into a civilized, happy, 

 and Christian people — a small people, it is said by the other side, and 

 truly said, but yet a people. 



And now another industry, so called, arises — a practice I would call it, 

 unworthy of being dignified by the name of an industry. It is conceded 

 to be destructive in its effects and brutal in its methods. Perhaps if 

 that were all we would have nothing to say; but it is also plain, and 

 will be made plainer in a moment, that the pursuit of this so-called trade 

 or industry is destructive of our rights upon our islands. It is not worth 

 while mincing this question, or trying to evade it. The industry on the 

 Pribilof Islands and pelagic sealing cannot co-exist. You must stop 

 the one or destroy the otlier. The concurrence of the testimony will 

 show it. The undisputed proofs will show it; and it may be assumed 

 throughout, and it must be assumed when this high Tribunal comes to 

 make its decision and to formulate its decree, that you must elect 

 between the two — between the process of civilization, of economy, of 



