Address of Secretary Redfield 181 



buy new apparatus, but have to buy second-hand and 

 use it as long as it will last? Do you realize that no 

 private business would think for an hour of running on 

 such a basis as some of our services are compelled to 

 run upon? One of our vessels is a second-hand yacht. 

 It was a very good one, when it was built, for inland 

 waters, when it did not blow. But that vessel is sup- 

 posed to navigate the rough waters of the North Atlantic 

 in Winter time. We have tried for three years to have 

 that vessel replaced, but cannot get the money. We have 

 another scond-hand craft, one of the most agreeable 

 pleasure boats of her kind, but unfortunately, she, too, 

 has to go to sea. Why cannot we have once in a while the 

 privilege of a new ship ? We would be content if we had 

 the price of one tenth of a battleship for the entire fleet ! 



"Come with me for a moment to the coast of Alaska. 

 There is not much of it, — only about twenty-six thousand 

 miles, a little more than Gulf, Atlantic and Pacific coasts 

 put together. For many thousands of miles of this coast 

 which we are supposed to inspect and for the inspections 

 of eighty-seven canals and a number of streams required 

 by law to be closed and which we were supposed to 

 keep closed, we had four men and no vessels. Now there 

 is a beautiful situation for a great and practical people ! 

 We did not know, we could not know, and for years have 

 not known whether the regulations were violated there 

 or not, for we had no means of finding out. If you were 

 running a fish cannery there, this was the method of 

 inspection; you would get a letter from the inspector, 

 saying that he was going to inspect your cannery and 

 would you please send your boat and get him; and that 

 has been the only way in which access has been possible 

 to those places which we wished to inspect. 



"Now I have put before you certain very plain pic- 

 tures. That is the kind of extravagance we have had in 

 the Bureau of Fisheries! Now we protest that this sit- 

 uation is wholly wrong. Scientific men, men of energy 

 and enthusiasm cannot be expected to work with ineffi- 

 cient tools. It is wasteful to the highest degree. Wise 

 expenditure is the truest economy. There is no busi- 



