INVESTIGATION OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 311 



The steps taken by Elliott to uncover the deceit and malfeasance 

 of Blaine and Foster are given by him to the committee, April 24,. 

 1912, as follows: 



Mr. Elliott: How was that secret permit of April 11 found out and soon made pub- 

 lie? By the rarest of accident. It was thus: 



On or about April 8, Sir Julian Pauncefote was a guest at a certain private or social 

 dinner given to htm. His hostess sat beside him; during the progress of this enter- 

 tainment. Sir Julian remarked to her that he believed that he had been instrumental at 

 last in settling the vexed fur-seal question, and that Mr. Blaine and he had just; 

 agreed that no further slaughter on the islands or in the Bering Sea was to take place 

 for at least six or seven years, or that until both Governments had thoroughly inves- 

 tigated the conditions, no killing was to be resumed, at least. 



On the evening of April 11 , following, this lady was at another social entertainment,, 

 and there overheard the attorney for the North American Commercial Co. congratu- 

 late an unknown pers m who stood beside him in the reception line over their success 

 during the day in getting Charles Foster to give them a permit to kill seals; that 

 "nobody in Washington knew anything about it," and "nobody was to know any- 

 aboutit" either, etc. 



In a moment it flashed on the mind of this lady that Sir Julian had been duped 

 or those mer were in error; second thought told her that the lessees' attorney (Gen. 

 X. L. Jeffries) was one who knew his business, and it must be true. She had heard 

 me tell how Mr. Blaine was pledged to a close season; so, on the following day, she 

 called on me at the Smithsonian Institution and told me of what she had heard, all 

 as above stated. 



Astonished and mortified, I at once set to work to find out the truth. I knew that if 

 this was a secret permit that if I went up to either Mr. Blaine or to Secretary Foster,. 

 they would not admit it; it must be secret, or it would be published and I would, too, 

 Lave been called in and notified of such an order, and the reasons why it was given over 

 the denial of it by myself and all of the official reports of the department's seal agents. 

 As Congress had adjourned March 4, 1891, there was no way of getting a resolution of 

 inquiry and the like introduced and passed. I therefore asked Congressman William 

 McKinley. jr.. who was still in the city, to call on Secretary Charles Foster and put 

 this inquiry sharply and squarely up to Mm. 



Major McKinley did so. On Monday morning — I think on or about April 14, 1891 — 

 he called on Foster at the Treasury Department. Later, same day, he reported to 

 me that Foster first shirked the answer; then admitted that he had given this secret 

 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 Francisco 

 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. 

 (Hearing No. 10, p. 664, Apr. 24, 1912, Ho. Com. Exp. Dept. Com. and Labor.) 



