INVESTIGATION OF FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 



Committee on Expenditures in the 

 Department of Commerce and Labor, 



House of Representatives, 



Saturday, May 4, 1912. 

 The committer mat at 10 o'clock a. m., Hon. John H. Rotliermel 

 (cliairnian) presiding. 



Present : Messrs. Young, McGillicuddy, and McGuire. 



STATEMENT OF LEONHARD STEJNEGER. 



Leoniiard Stejneger, having been duly sworn, was examined, and 

 testified as follows : 



Mr. Elliott. Since you have suggested that remarkable order of 

 work on the Russian IsL^nds, you are quoted by one of your associates 

 recent Iv, before anotli^r committee, as saying that one bull seal was 

 sufficient to serve 250 or 500 females. Arc vou really properly (juoted 

 there ? 



Dr. Stejneger. I am certainly misquoted. 



Dr. EvERMANN. There is no such (}uotation. 



Mr. Elliott. I have it here })ublishe(l. 



Dr. EvERMANN. I ask Mr. Elliott to i)ro(hice it. Now is the time to 

 produce it. 



Mr. Elliott. Here it is. [Exhibitmg jniper to the committee. j 

 Now, right here, in the Seattle Suiuhiy Times, issue of October 11, 

 1908, I state to Mr. P^rank H. Hitchcock, who has quoted from Dr. 

 Jordan's letter to him, dated January 12, 1904 (Swarthmore College, 

 Pennsylvania), [reading] : 



(Seattle Times, October 8, 1908.] 



natur.\l science misused to serve butchers of fur-seal herd ok alaska — • 

 henry w. elliott, of lakewood, ohio, asserts that dr. david starr jordan 

 and john w. foster were aoents of animal destroyers and submits what 

 he declares to be proof. 



Editor the Times: 



A friend in Seattle sends me a clipping from the Seattle Times, issue of the 20th 

 instant, in which I am properly quoted as saying that ''Jordan and John W. Foster 

 were agents of the land l)Utchers of our fur-seal herd,'' etc. He asks me if I am not mis- 

 taken, or if this is not a misprint, adding that Dr. Jordan is "well known as the head of 

 Stanford University, ' ' and as such ' ' could hardly be in such relation to those men, ' ' etc . 



I wish to answer him in your columns, and to tell him that I am correctly published 

 in The Times as above cited, and since this question is raised as to my authority for 

 such a serious charge against Dr. D. S. Jordan, I submit to your readers the following 

 proof of the entire sense and justice of my charge: 



On the 8th of January, 1904, I addressed a detailed letter to the Secretary of Com- 

 merce and Labor. In this letter I set forth at length the reason why I desired the 

 department to put an immediate stop to the work of the lessees of the seal islands of 

 Alaska in killing seals as they did on the islands. I declared that if the department 

 did not make this check upon that work, then the male breeding life of the Pribilof 

 rookeries would be extinct by the close of the season of 1907. 



Mr. F. H. Hitchcock at that date was the chief clerk of this department. Then he 

 told me that he had been very much impressed by my letter; that he was inclined to 

 agree with me. "But," said he, "I want to be entirely frank with you; all of our 

 agents and the associated natiu-alists do not agree with you; they say that there can be 

 no danger to the life of this herd from, the effects of land killing such as you assert 

 exists. Are you willing that I send a copy of yoiu- letter to Dr. Jordan, who has been 

 our chief adviser and guide in this matter? " 



