102 INVESTIGATION OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 



Friday, July 8, 1892. — The entire control and management of the killing grounds 

 and the killing of all seals were given to Mr. Fowler, of the N. A. C. Co., by order of 

 Mr. J. Stanley Brown, agent in charge, and Assistant Agent Murray was ordered to 

 count the seals. 



Here you see the entire control of the killing as it may be done on 

 islands, the selection, the driving, and time, all surrendered by this 

 sworn agent of the Government to the lessees! He actually reduces 

 his office to a cipher and gives the lessees absolute control of the 

 public business with which he is entrusted. 



By what authority does Mr. J. Stanley Brown, as the ' ' chief special 

 agent in charge of the seal islands," make this improper order for 

 himself , and his subordinates ? He has none; no agent ever had. Yet 

 in 1896, when the lessees faced the specific orders of the Treasury 

 Department of May 14, 1896, this man Brown appears on the scene, 

 as the "superintendent of the N. A. C. Co.," and actually nullifies 

 the same! 



When a Democratic administration caused the retirement of Mr. 

 J. Stanley Brown as the United States chief special agent in charge 

 of the seal islands early in 1893 and placed a Democratic agent in 

 his stead (one J. B. Crowley), the lessees at once sent Mr. Brown up 

 and back to look after their interests in their own name for the simple 

 reason that he had proved himself to them as a subservient and 

 trustworthy tool, even when in the service of the Government and 

 as its sworn servant. 



He took charge of the lessees' interests on the islands, June 6, 1894, 

 and this man has been either up there ever since as the agent of the 

 lessees down to the expiration of their lease in 1910; or he has been 

 serving the lessees as a " scientist" before and behind the Bureau of 

 Fisheries in Washington, D. C, when not on the islands. 1 



Of course, Dr. Jordan never interfered with Stanley Brown's 

 direction of the killing, after those unpleasant orders of Secretary 



i That Mr. J. Stanley-Brown was busy with these officials and ready to serve them and his masters, the 

 lessees, up to date of Dec. 16, 1909, is dearly confessed by the Bureau of Fisheries itself in the following 

 letter duly produced July 13, 1911 , to wit (Hearing No. 5, p. 226, House Committee on Expenditures in the 

 Department of Commerce and Labor): 



Mr. Townsend. Dr. Hornaday, there has been placed in evidence here a letter written by Barton W. 

 Evermann, to the Commissioner "of the Bureau of Fisheries, Department of Commerce and Labor. I will 

 read that letter to you: 



Department of Commerce and Labor, 



Bureau of Fisheries, 

 Washington, December 16, 1909. 

 The Commissioner: 



The Washington Star of December 10 last announced that the Campfire Club, of New York, had inaug- 

 rated a campaign to save the fur-seal herd through legislation designed to prevent the re-leasing of the 

 sealing right, the cessation of all killing on the islands for 10 years except for natives' food, and to secure the 

 opening of negotiations with Great Britain to revise the regulations of the Paris tribunal. As the result 

 of this movement, on December 7 three resolutions were introduced by Senator Dixon, of Montana, one 

 of which embodies the provisions before mentioned, the other two calling for the publication of fur-seal 

 correspondence and reports since 1904. 



As the object of this movement is at variance with the program of this bureau and of the recommendations 

 of the advisory fur-seal board, notably in the plan to prevent killing and the renewal of the seal island 

 lease, the advisability is suggested of having Messrs. Townsend, Lucas, and Stanley-Brown use their 

 influence with such members of the Campfire Club as they may be acquainted with with the object of cor- 

 rectly informing the club as to the exact present status of the seal question and of securing its cooperation 

 to effect the adoption of the measures advocated by this bureau. 



The attached letter is prepared, having in view the object stated. 



Barton W. Evermann. 



Mr. TOTCNSEND. 1 to you know of any effort that was made following this suggestion of the "advisability " 

 of having matters "explained" in New York. 



Mr. Hornaday. I do. I was told by Mr. Madison Grant, chairman of the executive committee of the 

 Zoological Society, that Commissioner "Bowers had called upon Prof. Osborne and laid before him copies 

 of the correspondence that had passed between the Secretary of Commerce and Labor and the Campfire 

 Club, with a statement that was in the nature of a protest against what I was doing in the matter, and with 

 a sort of general request that my activity in the matter should be curbed: in fact, as it came to me, "That 

 Hornaday should be suppressed." I do not know that any such language was used by the commissioner, 

 but that "was the general impression that came to me. 



