INVESTIGATION OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 197 



Here is the unqualified statement made by Dr. Jordan that he has 

 fully agreed upon a minimum weight of "5£ pounds" for skins to be 

 taken on the rribilof Islands; that this order represents "a fair con- 

 servation," and he is gratified to find "that for once" he "was in 

 agreement with Air. Elliott" on this "matter involving executive 

 procedure." 



With that full knowledge and great satisfaction on his part, over 

 the fact that "5h pounds" was a minimum weight of a correctly 

 skinned seal's pelt which could be safely and properly taken without 

 injury to the herd, January 16, 1906, as above declared, why did this 

 chief authority on March 9, 1906, immediately following, agree to the 

 lowering of this minimum weight to "5 pounds" on that day? And 

 that lowering down done by his fellow-citizen and neighbor, Victor 

 Metcalf, Secretary of Commerce and Labor, who lived only a few 

 miles away from Palo Alto, at Oakland, Cal.! 



Why did he agree to it ? And still more and worse for Dr. Jordan 

 and Secretary Charles Nagel's agents, as well as for Nagel himself, on 

 November 23, 1909, these men all united in a unanimous recom- 

 mendation that this improper "5-pound" minimum for seal pelts be 

 continued in a new lease for the islands to be made May 1, 1910! 



The following sworn testimony proves it, to wit: 



Mr. Bowers. On November 23, 1909, there was a meeting of the advisory board 

 with the fur-seal board and the Commissioner of Fisheries and Deputy Commissioner 

 of Fisheries (Dr. Hugh M. Smith), at which were present also Mr. Chichester and Mr. 

 George A. Clark. After mature deliberation these gentlemen unanimously agreed 

 upon the following recommendations: 



1. It is recommended that the agent in charge, fur-seal service, shall, under the 

 direction of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, have full power to limit or restrict 

 the killing of fur seals and blue foxes on the Pribflof Islands to any extent necessary 

 and that no specified quota be indicated in the lease. 



2. It is recommended that, for the present, no fur-seal skin weighing more than 8^ 

 pounds or less than 5 pounds shall be taken, and that not more than 95 per cent of the 

 3-vear-old male seals be killed in any one year. (Hearing No. 2, p. 110, July 9, 1911, 

 H" Com. Exp. Dept. C. & L.) 



Here is the change of a "fair" and proper minimum weight of 5% 

 pounds to one of "5 pounds," improperly made, ordered so as to 

 facilitate the "loading" of yearling 4^-pound skins into the 2-year- 

 old class or 5^-pound skins. 



In spite of all the protests made since 1906 against this trick of 

 regulation continuing so as to permit an easier criminal trespass by 

 the lessees upon the seal herd, yet in 1909, these men in charge who 

 are public officials, all sworn to protect and conserve that fine public 

 property on the seal islands of Alaska, actually combined with the 

 lessees, on November 23, and sought to continue that public imposi- 

 tion in a new lease. 



Charles Nagel, David Starr Jordan, George M. Bowers, George A. 

 Clark, B. W. Evermann, W. I. Lembkey, Isaac Liebes, S. B. Elkins, 

 and D. O. Mills all had then guilty knowledge of this trespass by 

 them, as above cited, in the past, in the present, and for the future, 

 when this meeting was held November 23, 1909, in the city of Wash- 

 ington, D. C, office of the United States Commission of Fisheries, and 

 then adjourned to Charles Nagel's office in the Department of Com- 

 merce Building the same day. 



The men who were present at this remarkable meeting and voted 

 as a unit to renew that lease and public imposition were David Starr 



