148 INVESTIGATION OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 



order on April 11, and had given it after a full understanding with Mr. Blaine, who 

 on that day had informed him that there was no hope of getting any modus vivendi 

 from Great Britain; that "the British were ugly," etc. 



This report of Maj. McKinley aroused my suspicions as to the status in so far as 

 Great Britain's part in the business was concerned. I knew all the time that the 

 Canadians opposed my plan; but I had taken two letters over to Secretary Blaine in 

 January and February, 1891, written to me from London, and by a gentleman who 

 was very close to Lord Salisbury. These letters assured me that Salisbury was in 

 favor of my modus vivendi. (I gave those letters to Mr. Blaine and he kept them.) 



If anything was to be done to stop this infamous killing permit thus started under 

 cover, it must be done at once and before the lessees' vessel was loaded in San Fran- 

 cisco and cleared for the islands. I knew that such a permit would be flashed instantly 

 over to them there, and that this work of getting ready for the season's killing was 

 surely under way. 



On the 22d of April, 1891, I learned directly and positively that the British premier 

 was not "ugly," was not aware of the fact that he was secretly misrepresented here 

 by our own high officialism in charge of this fur-seal question. Knowing this, then, 

 I took the only step I could take as a good citizen to stop this infamous game as played 

 between the lessees and Secretary Charles Foster, using Secretary Blaine as their 

 shield. I wrote a brief, terse story of it, and signed my name; then addressed it to 

 the New York Evening Post on the evening of this day, April 22. That letter was 

 published in that paper Friday, April 24, 1891. It stirred official Washington from 

 top to bottom in the State and Treasury Departments. This exposure of that secret- 

 killing order went all over the United States instantly in the press dispatches, and it 

 caught the eye of President Harrison, who at this time was on a railroad-touring circuit 

 of the Pacific coast and somewhere in California. He vetoed this infamous killing 

 order by wire, either from Los Angeles or San Francisco, on May 3, 1891 (or from some 

 point in California). This was published in the New York Herald May 4, 1891. 



Thus, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, you see clearly step by step 

 the sin and shame and public loss wrought by this "Ogden Mills" letter, which has 

 been read into your record by Mr. Bowers on the 5th instant and done by him in the 

 fatuous conceit that it discredited me; that those bogus "affidavits" and that false 

 letter of Capt. Henley, which it inclosed to Secretary Charles Foster, branded me as 

 a conspirator hired by the old lessees to break up the business of their successful com- 

 petitors. 



Now, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, this is bad enough, but the 

 worst of my recitation to you anent this " Ogden Mills" letter is to come, for I have this 

 to tell you and to vouch for. 



When the publication of President Harrison's veto of this seal-killing permit was 

 published in the New York Herald, May 3, 1891, Secretary Charles Foster had to give 

 out to the press some warrant for his action in the premises. What do you think he 

 did? 



He prepared a quoted "interview" with himself and had it published in the New 

 York Tribune (May 9, 1891, I think). In this statement he quotes parts of this Mills 

 letter, but as though it was his own version, and cites these "affidavits" as being 

 his warrant for discrediting the official agents of the department. No mention of 

 Ogden Mills is made by Foster in this Tribune article [or of the receipt of this letter 

 aforesaid, by him]. 



Well, as President Harrison had acted so promptly and so honestly in the premises 

 and was hurrying back to Washington to take up this wretched mess and do the right 

 thing, I dropped the subject and returned to Cleveland and went to work in my 

 orchards and my vineyard there. I was happy in the thought that I had foiled those 

 venal officials and shut out those greedy butchers. I paid no further personal attention 

 to this matter in Washington. 



From 1891, April 22. to the end of November, 1894. I had no further hand in that 

 inception and finish of that work of the Bering Sea tribunal, which framed those idle 

 and abortive rules and regulations to protect and preserve the fur-seal herd of Alaska 

 frum destruction. 



When, however, the failure, utter flat failure, of those regulations was self-confessed 

 by the close of the first season of their working, 1894, I came to Washington again and 

 sought Gov. Dingley. Together, with Senator Frye, we agreed to make an effort to 

 reopen and revise those worse than useless Bering Sea rules by legislation which would 

 compel that revision. To that end I prepared a letter, which Gov. Dingley had read 

 at the clerk's desk, December 11, 1894, in the House of Representatives, and he intro- 

 duced, Januarv following, a bill to favor the recommendations of my letter so read to 

 the House. (H. R. 8633: Rept. 1849.) 



