INVESTIGATION OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 831 



Hon. Charles Nagel, that he enter into another lease of the said islands, for 20 

 years. The testimony discloses the fact that the Secretary of Commerce and Labor 

 had intended to enter into another contract to re-lease the islands to the highest and 

 best bidder. Strenuous objections to any leasing of the islands, however, were made 

 by public-spirited citizens, and this prevented the renewal of the lease. (See state- 

 ment of Charles Nagel, dated Mar. ]9, 1914, and review of said, appendix to hearing 

 No. 3.) 



V. That since the lessees were prevented from further killing by the expiration of 

 their lease and by the passage of the act of Congress, approved April 21, 1910, which 

 act prohibited the re-leasing of the islands for the purpose of killing seals, the Secre 

 tary of Commerce and Labor was placed in full control of affairs on the said islands. 



Your committee, after due and careful deliberation, finds that the lessee company 

 took 128,000 yearling seals in violation of law during the term of their lease. That 

 this was done in collusion with the agents of the Government on the islands. That 

 on May 14, 1896, the Hon. John G. Carlisle, Secretary of the Treasury, issued 

 regulations which prohibited the killing of yearling seals and seals whose skins 

 weighed less than 6 pounds. That, in spite of this regulation, the lessee company, in 

 collusion with the Government agents on the islands, took about 8,000 seals in viola- 

 tion thereof, during the season of its prohibition, i. e., June and July, 1896. (See 

 pp. 207-208, hearing No. 1.) 



That there were no other regulations issued until May 1, 1904, when .the Carlisle 

 regulations were, in effect, reissued, as the "Hitchcock rules," whereby the killing 

 of any male seals under 2 years of age was prohibited, on the well established fact that 

 the sex between the male and the female yearling seals can not be told apart, as they 

 haul out upon the island without a physical examination. 



That no further regulations were issued until May 9, 1906. No changes were made 

 then as to the ages or the prohibition of killing yearling seals, but a change in the 

 minimum weight of skin to be taken from "6 pounds" in the Carlisle, and from "5J 

 pounds" in the Hitchcock regulations, to "5 pounds" was made. It is quite ap- 

 parent to the committee that the object of both the Carlisle and Hitchcock regulations 

 as to the weight of skins was to prevent the killing of young or yearling seals. These 

 rules were made with the assumption that those skin weights would be properly made 

 when the pelts were taken from the bodies of the seals. 



VI. The committee further finds that in 1896, and thereafter, the leasing company, 

 in conjunction and connivance with the Government agents on the islands, killed 

 yearling seals, and added sufficient blubber in skinning the auimals so as to bring 

 the skin weights within the regulation. By lowering the weight of the skins it made 

 the fraud and deception easier, because it took less blubber on the small skins to bring 

 them within the regulations. In this connection it may be well to note that Mr. 

 Frank H. Hitchcock, who, as chief clerk of the Department of Commerce and Labor, 

 appeared before the Ways and Means Committee on March 9, 1904, and said that he 

 had been sent to represent the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, and to make the 

 following proposal to the committee. On page 35, hearings on fur seals, Ways and 

 Means Committee, Fifty-eighth Congress, second session, on House joint resolution 

 124, appears the following: 



"Mr. Hitchcock. First of all, we propose to limit still further the ages at which 

 seals can be taken. We will prohibit altogether the killing of seals under 2 years of 

 age. Killing will thus be restricted to seals between 2 and 4 years old. 



"Mr. Williams of Mississippi. You propose to forbid the killing of seals under 

 2 years old? 



"Mr. Hitchcock. Yes. 



"Mr. Williams. At 2 years of age that is the very time you can tell the difference 

 between the bull and the cow. In other words, if you kill nothing under 2 years old 

 there should be no reasonable excuse for a mistake in that respect? 



"Mr. Hitchcock. You are quite right; that's the point. The great objection to 

 the killing of these small seals, and, I take it, the only objection, is the difficulty from 

 distinguishing the males from the females." 



On July 28, 1910, Secretary Charles Nagel received from the Bureau of Fisheries a 

 marked copy of the above hearing, and sent that notice of this reception to the House 

 Committee on Expenditures in the Department of Commerce and Labor, June 24, 

 1911. (See p. 987, Appendix A, H. Doc. 93, 62d Cong., 1st sess.) 



Secretary Charles Nagel had full knowledge of the fact that on March 9-10, 1904, 

 the Department of Commerce and Labor pledged itself to the Ways and Means Com- 

 mittee not to allow any seals killed on the Pribilof Islands "under 2 years of age," 

 and this pledge was also given to the Senate subcommittee in charge of Alaskan affairs. 

 •(Gov. Dillingham, chairman, on Mar. 8, 1904.) (See p. 235, hearing No. 1, Jan. 17, 

 1914, H. Com. Exp. Dept. Commerce.) 



