INVESTIGATION OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 309 



April 18, 1S91. Charles Foster, Secretary of the Treasury, admits, when personal!" 

 interrogated by Hon. William McKinley and Henry W. Elliott, that he has given th'« 

 order of permission to kill 60,000 seals "because Blaine authorizes it, and has tol^ 

 me that Salisbury is ugly and will not stop his people from killing." 



April 22, 1S91. Sir Julian Pauncefote denies that his Government "is ugly," and 

 asserts that it is willing to stop the seal slaughter. 



April 24, 1891 . Henry W. Elliott in a half-column letter to the New York Evening 

 Post of to-day's issue, under caption of "Some seal history," tells this story of Mr. 

 Blaine's duplicity and venality, as above cited; it is telegraphed all over the country, 

 briefly, and on — 



May 3, 1891. President Harrison vetoes or orders the cancellation of this secret and 

 infamous permit; he then orders steps to be taken in the State Department which 

 result, June 14, 1891, in the modus vivendi being officially published, as originally 

 suggested by Henry W, Elliott, November 19, 1890, and Sir Julian, on April 7, 1891 , 

 as stated above. 



Henry W. Elliott. 



Washington, D. C, May 2, 1912. 



(Hearing No. 10, p. 672, May 2, 1912, H. Com. Exp. Dept. Com. and Labor.) 



In further illustration of this subornation, and proof of it, Mr. 

 Elliott, on January 25, 1907, gave to the Ways and Means Committee 

 of the House cf Representatives the following triginal letters cf 

 Charles Foster which admit that he issued that secret order to 

 kill 60,000 seals on April 11, 1891, and which permit, after its ex- 

 posure April 22 by Elliott, was "officially" dated "May 27," and 

 then canceled "c morally" May 27, 1891, by telegraph to Williams, 

 at San Francisco, Cal. 



charles Foster's admission to elliott that he had issued a secret permit to 



kill 60,000 seals, april 11, 1891. 



[Copies of the original letters made by Ways and Means Committee, H. R., Jan. 25, 1907: Hearing on Fur 



Seals. MS. notes of same, pp. 92 et seq.] 



Fostoria, Ohio, January 11, 1895. 

 Mr. Henry W. Elliott. 



My Dear Sir: The temper of your note of the 9th indicates that you propose to 

 assail the late administration for its conduct of the fur-seal question. 



In the discharge of my duty in the relation to this question I felt that it was best 

 your services be dispensed with. I knew that this act would result in your hostility 

 to me, and in due time I would be assailed by you. Now, as to your question as to 

 the whereabouts of letters of Capt. Healey, I do not recall any conversation with you 

 in which Capt. Healey's name was used. 



If we had such a conversation as you suggest, whatever statement I made was truth- 

 ful. I have no knowledge of the whereabouts of the letters of Capt. Healey. 



My order of the 11th of April authorizing the taking of seals limited the catch to the 

 "killable seals, not to exceed 60,000." My orders to Capt. Williams were not to allow 

 the company to take any seal that was not in size, age, and sex allowed by the contract. 

 Yours, truly, etc., 



Charles Foster. 



Smithsonian Institution, 

 Washington, D. C, January 19, 1895. 



Dear Sir: Your reply of the 11th instant has only reached me this morning, not 

 reaching Washington until yesterday afternoon, so that I can not be held responsible 

 for my seeming delay in reply. You speak of the "tone" of my letter of the 9th 

 instant. I wrote you a business letter, as you are a business man, and there is no 

 other tone to it. 



You assume that my purpose is to "assail the late administration" for its conduct 

 of the fur-seal question. That action on my part was taken some time ago, and effec- 

 tively, when I, like tens of thousands of other Republicans in Ohio, in November, 1892, 

 cheerfully helped to hurl that administration from its brief and unpleasant prominence. 

 I don't purpose now, as a live man, to get up and kick a dead antagonist, and you are 



