INVESTIGATION OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 185 



I now reach in due order a very serious question which involves the 

 intelligence and the honor of Dr. David Starr Jordan, who, as the 

 chairman of the commission of 1896-7, visited the seal islands and 

 reported to the United States Government upon the condition of 

 this life. 



In this report Dr. Jordan has deliberately falsified the authentic 

 Russian records, which declared to him as they declare to us the 

 fact that female seals were never killed by the Russian authorities 

 on the seal islands of Alaska — never from start to finish of their 

 regime. 



DR. JORDAN DELIBERATELY FALSIFIES THE RUSSIAN RECORD IN RE 



NOT KILLING FEMALE SEALS. 



Dr. Jordan had full knowledge of the fact that the Russian killing 

 of seals from the time the old Russian-American Co. took charge 

 of the Pribilof herd in 1800, up to the day we received it from them 

 in 1867, never permitted the killing of female seals. He, with that 

 full knowledge in his possession, after holding it for nearly two years, 

 has the following untruthful statement to finally report under date 

 of February 24, 1898, relative to the conduct of this work of killing 

 seals by the Russian management of the herd, to wit: 



On page 25, Fur Seal Investigations, Part 1, 1898, under head of 

 "The company's management," he says: 



At once, upon assuming control of the islands, the Russian-American Co. put a 

 stop to the ruthless slauehter which threatened the fur-seal herds with destruction 



* * *. They still continued to kill males and females alike. The injury to the 

 herd naturally continued * * *. 



That Dr. Jordan could make such a statement in distinct denial 

 of the only authority which he has used and knows, is hard to 

 believe, when on page 222 following, of this same report above cited, 

 part 3, appears the- following translation of Bishop Veniaminov's 

 account of this killing, which was originally published in St. Peters- 

 burg, 1839, by Von Baer, to wit: 



The taking of fur seals commences in the latter days of September * * *. The 

 6iekatchie (bulls) and old females (i. e., 2 years and older) having been removed, the 

 others are divided into small squads, and are carefully driven to the place where 

 they are to be killed, sometimes more than 10 versts distance * * *. When 

 brought to the killing grounds, they are rested for an hour or more, according to 

 circumstances, and then killed with a club * * *. Of those 1 year old, the males 

 are separated from the females, and killed; the latter are driven carefully back to the 

 beach. 



Here is the explicit clear-cut statement made by Veniaminor, who, 

 writing in 1825, after a season spent on St. Paul Island, denies Dr. 

 Jordan's assertion that the Russians killed male and female seals 

 alike, and that that kilUng of females destroyed the herd. 



And still worse for Dr. Jordan, this translation quoted was made 

 by Leonhard Stejneger, one of Dr. Jordan's own associates on the seal 

 islands in 1896-97. 



There is but one conclusion for any fair mind in the premises. 

 That the Russians did not kill the female seals is positively stated 

 by the only authority who has been invoked by Dr. Jordan in the 

 premises, and who has been translated at length in Dr. Jordan's final 

 report, and correctly translated, as above cited. 



