192 
In these and various other ways the fine hand of good, 
practical management showed itself. As one of their 
witnesses stated, “It was either a funeral or a resurrec- 
tion,” and they acted accordingly. Is it to be wondered 
that such persistent, well directed effort accomplished 
results? Is it strange that when the Stenographer of the 
Committee was in the pay of the association that the 
record at critical points, such, for example, as that relat- 
ing to the wishes of the fish Commissioners of the 
United States for assuming control of State fisheries or 
the “trust” nature of the Guano Association, the record 
has itself been materially altered and masculated? Is it 
a matter for surprise that six Democratic members of a 
Democratic House of Representatives should vote for a 
surrender of the rights of their States and an absolute 
abandonment of a distinctive principle of their party; 
that when the committee itself stood seven to six, a 
Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives 
should ‘“‘promote” a Republican member of the majority 
off the committee and substitute a more available man; 
that a substitute bill should then be introduced substan- 
tially similar, but most dangerously misleading; that the 
action of the committee should then be reversed by a 
snap judgment, only saved from final approval by the 
good sense of a single man; that, finally, this decision 
should be reversed in the utter absence of the entire ele- 
ments friendly to the bill, with the singular spectacle of a 
Chairman who declined to vote and only attended to 
make a quorum? 
Is it surprising that, notwithstanding an emphatic 
recommendation from the Governor of Massachusetts, 
these netting interests should by indirection for weeks, 
prevent sending any official representation from Massa- 
chusetts, while charges of the bribery of several members 
through the lobby were continually circulated? Is it to 
be wondered at that a Fish Commissioner of Massachu- 
setts saw reason suddenly to leave for home and never 
