824 INVESTIGATION OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 



that lie will soon introduce a bill to relieve the shame and misery attendant upon 

 this collapse of the work of the Bering Sea Tribunal. 



1895 : Mr. Dingley , after full understanding with Secretary of State Gresham, intro- 

 duces a bill (fl. R. 8633, Rept. 1849) to prevent the extermination of fur-bearing 

 animals in Alaska; it is passed in the House after full debate, but does not reach the 

 Senate in time for action there prior to the sine die adjournment March 4, 1895. 



1896: Mr. Dingley reintroduces his bill as H. R. 3206, Report No. 451; it is passed 

 iu House unanimously, after full debate, February 25; it is reported from the Senate 

 Foreign Relations Committee by Senator Frye, March 4, and under a special order 

 for March 11; then Richard Olney, who has come into the State Department by the 

 accident of Judge Gresham 's death, ask Senator Frye to take no action on this bill, 

 since he (Olney) has "successfully reopened negotiations with Great Britain," and 

 the passage of this Dingley bill ' 'will greatly embarrass if not defeat these negotia- 

 tions." (!) Senator Frye has no alternative; thus bill is dropped. 



On June 14 Olney asks the Secretary of the Treasury to send up a special commis- 

 sion "to informally meet" with a British commission on the Seal Islands of Alaska. 

 Dr . D . S . Jordan and four ' ' expert " clerks are appointed to represent the United S tates, 

 and Prof. Darcy W. Thompson and one "expert" clerk are selected by the British 

 Government. 



Dr. Jordan submits a "preliminary report," November, 1896, to the Treasury De- 

 partment, in which he says that he finds 450,000 seals of all classes on the islands; 

 that he wants to brand all of the female seals, since it is feasible and will destroy the 

 value of their skins, and so put the pelagic hunters out of business, and that the Brit- 

 ish agent was in full accord with him, etc. 



1897: Dr. Jordan again visits the islands, but the British agent flatly repudiates any 

 agreement in 1896 with him ; he steers clear of it this year ; Jordan takes a team of col- 

 lege boys up with him; an absurd and costly attempt to brand the seals is made, and 

 it is witnessed in silent contempt by the British agent. 



Mortified and repulsed, Jordan is about to quit when he falls into the hands of an 

 "astute diplomat," ex-Secretary of State John W. Foster; by him he is steered into 

 a "joint agreement" with Prof. Thompson "as to conclusions of fact." This unfor- 

 tunate "agreement," for the fur seals, was signed in the Department of State November 

 17, 1897, by Jordan and Thompson; in this State paper Dr. Jordan surrenders every 

 point at issue to the Canadian demand. 



1898: Stimulated by their successes in dealing with Jordan, the Canadians agree 

 to the creation of a "high joint commission," on June 14; it consists of five members 

 on each side; to this commission this fur-seal question is referred for settlement, 

 along with 10 or 12 other issues also in dispute, many of them long outstanding. 



This commission holds two sessions in 1898, one in Quebec and one in Washington. 

 Without agreement of any kind on any subject these sessions adjourn to a final meeting. 



1899: The Anglo-American High Joint Commission finally adjourns in Washington, 

 January 29, without day of reassembling; it adjourns in hopeless disagreement on 

 every point submitted to it for agreement. 



1900: After learning from Hon. John A. Kasson, a member of this defunct commission, 

 that no result of any sense or value would ever come from this commission, even if it 

 were reassembled, in so far as the cause of preserving the fur-seal herd was concerned, 

 Henry W. Elliott, on April 2, addressed a detailed statement to Hon. John Hay, 

 Secretary of State. In this statement Mr. Elliott outlines a plan for reopening and 

 putting aside the erroneous and mischievous conclusions of the Jordan-Thompson 

 agreement; he proposes a plan for action which will enable Mr. Hay to successfully 

 reopen the case. 



1900: Secretary Hay replies under date of April 30, saying that if Congress will make 

 an appropriation on its own initiative, and order that expert work of Mr. Elliott, that 

 he will be glad to cooperate and put it into effect. Mr. Elliott then came to Washing- 

 ton, May 3, but the session was too far advanced to adjournment for the consideration 

 of new legislation, when said legislation was bitterly opposed by the land and sea 

 butchers of the fur-seal herd, who had suborned certain Senators, Congressmen, and 

 department officials to prevent such legislation. 



1901: Short session; no time in which to overcome this opposition. 



1902-3: Mr. Elliott secures, on February 2, 1903, the passage of House bill 13387 

 in the House; but on February 17, in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sena- 

 tor Charles W. Fairbanks deliberately tells the committee that this bill is not needed; 

 that the fur-seal question has been all agreed upon in the High Joint Commission, and 

 only waits the formal publication by that commission when it reassembles; he assures 

 the committee that this reconvention of the commission is to take place soon after the 

 4th of March (1903). This statement of Senator Fairbanks was an untruth in every 

 respect — a square and wholesale fabrication on his part, to defeat the pending bill. 



