390 FUR-SEAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 



No 6. " That to the pernicious influence of the Alaska Commercial Company is due tLe 

 fact that Alaska is not to-day largely populated with an industrious and enterprising 

 people and that additional millions are not invested in the country." 



My opportunities for observing the condition of the natives and their relations to 

 jour company have been the very best; and, determined that the department of the 

 Government! have the honor to represent should be placed in possession of all the 

 facts through my official reports, I would not have hesitated to arraign your company 

 before the Secretary of the Treasury had I found any violation of the law ; there could 

 be no acts of your company's agents or employes tending to a violation of the law 

 which could have escaped my notice, as I think I have been reasonably vigilant, and 

 my official reports do not record any reflections whatever on your company. Indeed, 

 you have in your dealings w^ith the natives more than performed your jiart of the 

 contract with the Government. 



Instead of preventing the influx of "industrious and enterprising people," and 

 the " investment of additional millions" in Alaska, you have shown to the people of 

 the United States, by your enterprise and nerve and great outlay of money neces- 

 sary to maintain a footing on those rigorous shores and rivers penetrating the interior 

 of a country scarcely inhabitable, that you, at least, had faith in the ultimate reali- 

 zation of remunerative returns. This same Alaska is open to all comers, with no 

 power of yours to prevent them doing so. Yet how few have availed themselves of 

 the " great resources " or been stimulated by your example and enterprise. I con- 

 sider your company, with its just mode of dealing with the natives, the greatest civ- 

 ilizer and benefactor Alaska has ever had. 



No. 7. " That it has committed flagrant violations of the law and executive orders 

 in relation to the importation and sale of breech-loading tire-arms by its agents." 



As to this charge, I have only to say that I know of no such violation by your com- 

 pany's agents, but I do consider the law a dead letter when white traders, whalers, 

 and Sitka merchants sell the natives all the breech-loading fire-arms they want. I 

 do not see why your company should not obtain a permit from the Secretary to do 

 the same thing. The law should be so amended as to place the native on the same 

 footing with the white hunter in the matter of fire-arms, and I so recommend in my 

 report to the Department. 



No. 8. " That it has not kept its agreement with the Government as to the educa- 

 tion of the young natives in English." 



The company's agreement is for eight months' schooling annually in English on 

 each of the islands of St. Paul and St. George. My official report, on file in the De- 

 partment at Washington, will show that this stipulation in the agreement has each 

 year been satisfactorily performed; and outside of the agreement, I know your com- 

 pany maintains a flourishing school at Oonalaska. Your teachers on the islands 

 under my supervision take a great interest in their scholars. During the winter of 

 1885-86 I was a daily visitor of the school taught by Mr. Gray on St. Paul. Average 

 attendance was fifty-five, and with pleasure I bear witness to his faithfulness. 



No. 9. "That the lease by the Government to the Alaska Commercial Company 

 should be rescinded, if possible, and if not, it should not be renewed." 



There has been nothing done by your company since my official connection with 

 the fur-seal islands which would in the slightest degree Avarrant the Government in 

 taking steps to vacate the lease with you, and from the records in my office on the 

 islands; which I have searched very closely from the commencement of j'our opera- 

 tions thereon, I have failed to find any clue to fraud, and may add that my thorough 

 investigations during the long winter months spent upon the islands were in pursu- 

 ance of verbal instructions from the then First Assistant Secretary Fairchild, to 

 "look closely into all the past operations of the company." This parting injunction 

 was prompted by the talk of those not informed as to your operations, which, like 

 the charges you submit to me, have no foundation in fact to stand on. 



Having fully answered your question, I will say in conclusion, in reply to the last 

 paragraph of your letter, that so far as I am familiar with your " operations and 

 transactions" on the main-land and Aleutian chain, they are and have always been 

 characterized by fair dealing, liberality, and humanity ; and the abolition of the 

 present system of leasing the fur-seal islands and taking of the seal-skins by the na- 

 tives and selling them in open market, with a Treasury agent to " stand by and col- 

 lect $5 per skin " tax, is absurd and impracticable, and shows the mind that could con- 

 ceive such a plan to be wholly unfit to grasp and deal with the fur-seal question. To 

 protect and perpetuate the Government's vast seal property it must be run as a mo- 

 nopoly, whether that monopoly is operated by the Government or a corporation of 

 American citizens oroneindividual. Otherwise the seals would soon be exterminated 

 and the valuable fur lost to the people of the world. 



I am, very respectfully, Geo. R. Tingle. 



Louis Sloss, Esq., 



President Alaska Commercial Company, 



