186 INVESTIGATION OP THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OE ALASKA. 



In this connection it is also passing strange that Dr. Jordan should 

 have gone out of his way to misquote another authority who has 

 explicitly denied the killing of female seals by the Russians. On page 

 25 Jordan's own statement is : 



In 1820 Yanovsky, an agent of the imperial Government, after an inspection of the 

 fur-seal rookeries, called attention to the practice of killing the young animals and 

 leaving only the adults as breeders. He writes: "If any of the young breeders are 

 not killed by autumn they are sure to be killed in the following spring." 



Unfortunately for Dr. Jordan, he has not quoted Yanovsky cor- 

 rectly. He has deliberately suppressed the fact as stated by this 

 Russian agent, and put another and entirely different statement in 

 his mouth. Witness the following correct quotation of Yanovsky: 



In his report No. 41, of the 25th February, 1820, Mr. Yanovsky in giving an account 

 of his inspection of the operations on the islands of St. Paul and St. George, observes 

 that every year the young bachelor seals are killed and that only the cows, seekatchie, 

 and half siekatch are left to propagate the species. It follows that only the old seals 

 are left, while if any of the bachelors are left alive in the autumn they are sure to be 

 killed the next spring. The consequence is the number of seals obtained diminishes 

 every year, and it is certain that the species will in time become extinct. (Appendix 

 to case of United States Fur Seal Arbitration: Letter No. 6; p. 58, Mar. 15, 1821.) 



Think of this deliberate, studied suppression of the fact that the 

 Russians did not kill the female seals thus made by a "scientist" 

 like Dr. Jordan, as above. Why does Dr. Jordan attempt to deceive 

 his Government as to the real cause of that Russian decline of the 

 herd between 1800-1837 ? Why, indeed, when the truth is so easily 

 brought up to confound him? 



He stands convicted out of his own hand of having falsified this 

 record of Russian killing so as to justify the shame and ruin of that 

 work of our own lessees, who are thus shielded by him in his official 

 report to our Government dated February 24, 1898, and published 

 by the Secretary of the Treasury in January, 1898, under title of 

 "Fur Seal Investigations," parts 1, 2, 3, and 4, 1898. 



Why does Dr. Jordan substitute the word "breeders" for Yanov- 

 sky's word "bachelors" in his quotation from that Russian agent? 

 Because a "breeder" must be either a male or a female seal and 

 "breeders" must be both male and female seals — the very idea that 

 Yanovsky clearly denies — the idea of killing female seals. He 

 denies it clearly by saying that the "young bachelors" are killed, 

 and they only. 



This substitution of "breeders" for "bachelors" by Jordan is a 

 guilty attempt to conceal the truth as told by Yanovsky, and plainly 

 told by that Russian. 



At this point, and with special regard to the killing of yearling seals, 

 Dr. Jordan, in 1909, when the charges were being put up to him that 

 those young seals were being taken in violation of law and to the 

 injury of the herd, made no denial himself, but urged Secretary Nagel 

 to send his own associate and assistant, George A. Clark, up to islands 

 to investigate and report upon the charges, etc. (See Appendix A, 

 pp. 815, 816; June 24, 1911, House Com. Exp. Dept. Com. and Labor.) 



In this connection I now ask the committee to observe the following 

 record of that report and its result, to wit: 



On April 26, 1909, Henry W. Elliott addressed a detailed letter of 

 specific charges to Secretary Charles Nagel, declaring that the agents 

 of the Government, in collusion with the lessees, were killing yearling 

 seals in open, flagrant violation of the law and regulations. 



