INVESTIGATION" OP THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OP ALASKA. 677 



Mr. Elliott. Not at all. He claimed that this spurious transla- 

 tion, which John W. Foster had repudiated, was the "American 

 version'' and that I had used the "British translation" as the Amer- 

 ican version. 



Mr. Watkixs. Now, in referring to the British translation did he 

 mean the correct translation ? 



Mr. Elliott. I suppose he did, because there was no " British trans- 

 lation," and there never has been a British translation. The correct 

 translation was the American translation, which was substituted for 

 the spurious translation first put in and referred to by Mr. Foster. 



Mr. Watkixs. Now, you say there was no British translation ? 



Mr. Elliott. Yes; there was none. 



Mr. Watkixs. Then he necessarily refers to the other translation, 

 which was also an American translation ? 



Mr. Elliott. Yes, sir; that is what he is talking about. 



Mr. Watkixs. That is the one that Foster repudiated ? 



Mr. Elliott. Yes. And side by side is the correct translation, 

 which he ordered into the case. Now, gentlemen, you will see there 

 is no doubt as to the proper translation. Our Government settled 

 that before the case was opened at Paris, and I have put into my 

 statement the very translation which our counsel and our Govern- 

 ment ordered in, in lieu of the false translation which Dr. Jordan 

 uses here in his report. 



Mr. Watkixs. What is the material difference between those two 

 translations ? 



Mr. Elliott. I am coming to that. 



Mr. Watkixs. Well, all right. 



Mr. Elliott. All the difference in the world; the difference between 

 black and white. Upon this falsified official record of the conduct 

 of Russian sealing, the whole fabric of Dr. Jordan's report of 1898 

 is based, and also so are the reports of his associates on the Fur Seal 

 Commission of 1896-1897. 



Dr. Jordan's final report was submitted to the Secretary of the 

 Treasury February 24, 1898, by him and by all of his itemized official 

 associates, who were duly sworn and paid agents of the United States 

 Government. Therefore this reproduction by him, on February 24, 

 1898, part 1, page 25, of his report (Fur Seal Investigations) of that 

 falsified record of Yahnovsky's report, and which record the United 

 States Government had repudiated as a "false translation" in 

 November, 1892, and before its case went to the Paris tribunal, 

 is now a distinct and indisputable exhibit of official deceit which was 

 practiced to unduly influence the Secretary of the Treasury in 1898, 

 with regard to any action which he might order in re Jcilling seals on 

 the Pribilof Islands, and in turn is now used to deceive the House com- 

 mittee as to the facts in re Russian land Jcilling which destroyed the herd 

 1800-1834! 



When, therefore, in good faith the Secretary of the Treasury pub- 

 lished Dr. Jordan's report aforesaid, then that publication became 

 a still more offensive power for deceit in the premises not only at 

 home but abroad, and has been so employed by the lessees of the 

 seal islands of Alaska ever since 1896-97, up to this hour of my ex- 

 posure of it. 



It became necessary for the good of the public interests at stake 

 that I should expose this deceit of Dr. Jordan's work to this com- 



