INVESTIGATION OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 833 



seals on the islands by the lessees, received on May 9, 1910, from Henry W. Elliott 

 the following letter, to wit: 



Lakewood, Ohio, May 9, 1910. 

 Hon. Charles Nagel, 



Secretary Commerce and Labor. 



Dear Sir : The reason why a new and competent audit of the seal-island books must 

 be made in your department, and why it is demanded imperatively for the public good, 

 is as follows, briefly stated: 



I. The law has been openly violated on the killing grounds of the islands, and the 

 terms of the lease ignored by the lessees thereof at frequent intervals, and repeatedly, 

 from July 17, 1890, up to the close of the season of 1909. This violation of the iaw 

 and the contract has been chiefly by the act of killing female and yearling male seals; 

 said killings have not been in negligible numbers, but have run up into the tens of 

 thousands of female and yearling male seals. 



II. This illegal and improper killing has been ordered by the lessees, and falsely 

 certified into your department as the taking of male seals according to law and the 

 rules of your department. 



III. The full and complete proof of this illegal killing as specified above exists on 

 the islands and in the records of the sales of those skins. Any competent and honest 

 auditor of those records will lay them open and so disclose the truth of those charges 

 as made by Items I and II. 



Very truly, yours, 



Henry W. Elliott. 



The said Charles Nagel ignored this letter, which is part of the record of the depart- 

 ment, and was again notified to the same effect on May 24, 1910, by another letter from 

 the said Henry W. Elliott, which is also part of the record of the department. 



After these warnings of the guilty conduct of the lessees in conjunction with the 

 Government agents on the islands, during the year 1909, the said Charles Nagel, in 

 1910, under authority of the Government, sent to the islands the same Government 

 officials who again killed young or yearling seals in violation of law, in the same manner 

 as was done in conjunction with the sealing company prior there in 1909. In that year 

 June and Julv, 1910, they killed 7,733 yearlings. (See pp. 642-645, hearing No. 2; 

 pp. 702-709, hearing No. 3.) 



In the judgment of the commitee half of that number were females. 



In 1911, after said Charles Nagel was fully aware that the Committee on Expendi- 

 tures in the Department of Commerce was investigating the conduct of the lessees and 

 Government agents and the killing of seals on the Pribilof Islands, he again sent the 

 same Government agents to the Pribilof Islands. They killed 6,241 yearlings in 

 violation of law and regulation in 1911. This occurred during the months of June and 

 July, 1911. 



In 1912, the said Charles Nagel sent the same guilty Government agents again to the 

 islands, and 1,178 yearlings were killed out of the small total taken of 3,773 seals, in 

 violation of law and regulation. 



VIII. Your committee finds that regulation as to the weight of skins is futile, for 

 the reason that the skin of a yearling can be taken and sufficient blubber may be added 

 by skinning, to make it weigh as much as, and more than that of a 2-year-old pelt, 

 which is properly skinned. The committee further finds that the records made by the 

 agents of the Government in the Bureau of Fisheries during the lease of the sealing 

 company, and subsequent thereto, were made by skin weight, and not by skin measure- 

 ment, as should have been done. 



IX. Your committee finds that Isaac Liebes and the late Herman Liebes were en- 

 gaged in pelagic sealing at the time that the lease was obtained from the Government; 

 that the late Darius O. Mills, of New York, was a member of the leasing company, as 

 was the late Stephen B. Elkins, Senator from West Virginia; that Lloyd Tevis and 

 Herman and Isaac Liebes were also incorporators and shareholders of the leasing 

 company known as the "North American Commercial Co.," of San Francisco and New 

 York. (See pp. 224, 225, 285, 290, hearing No. 1.) 



The evidence is full and complete that said lessees had full knowledge of this guilty 

 killing of yearling and female seals aforesaid; and, did annually divide up and par- 

 ticipate in the profits of said illegal killing of seals since 1891, to the end of their lease, 

 May 1, 1910. (See pp. 305, 307, 313-316, hearing No. 1, and p. 707, hearing No. 3.) 



Your committee finds in further evidence the proof that the Russian sealing records 

 of 1800-1834, have been deliberately falsified by the report of Dr. David Starr Jordan, 

 on Fur-Seal Investigations, Parts 1-4, 1898, being a report made to the Secretary of the 

 Treasury, February 24, 1898. 



53490—14 53 



