834 INVESTIGATION OF THE EUK-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 



The significance and design of this falsification of the Prussian records of land killing 

 from 1800 to 1834, whereby the herd on the Pribilof Islands was nearly reduced to 

 complete extinction, and to its utter commercial ruin to the latter date, is apparent 

 and self-confessed to the committee by Dr. Jordan's associate and secretary, George 

 A. Clark, who, on February 23, 1914, page 551, hearing No. 2, testified as follows: 



"Mr. Clark. The whole fur-seal difficulty at the present time turns on that. If the 

 Russians killed only males, then you have a right to stop land killing, and to say that 

 land killing had something to do with the present state of our herd. If the Russians 

 killed females, then the crisis through which the herd passed in 1835 was due to killing 

 of females just as the crisis through which the herd has passed in 1911 has been due 

 to killing of the females by pelagic sealers on the high seas. 



"Mr. McGuire. This is one of the most material points that has been up." 



The testimony and documents produced to the committee show beyond dispute 

 or a shadow of doubt, that Dr. Jordan used a false translation of that Russian record of 

 the killing which enabled him to untruthfully assert that "the Russians killed males 

 and females alike" on the rookeries of the Pribilof Islands, from 1800 to 1834; thus de- 

 stroying the herd, and compelling that 10 years' close time which was ordered for the 

 herd, by the R. A. Co., from 1834 to 1844; and before commercial killing was again 

 resumed. (See pp. 183-186, hearing No. 1, and pp. 671-678, hearing No. 3.) 



That Dr. David Starr Jordan should have made an elaborate report to the Secretary 

 of the Treasury in 1898, wholly based upon a deliberate and studied falsification of the 

 Russian sealing records of 1800-1834, is proven by the official records of the Proceedings 

 of the Tribunal of Arbitration (Vols. VII, pp. 13-14, 152-153; VIII, pp. 305-323), and 

 which proof is fully carried in the testimony given on pages 671-678, hearing No. 3. 



That Dr. Jordan and his associates, who prepared this false based report, aforesaid, 

 did so to shield and conceal the truth as to the ruinous work of the land killing by the 

 lessees on the Pribilof Islands is beyond question, since the truth in the premises, 

 had it been told by Jordan in 1896 and 1898, would have compelled the immediate 

 removal of the lessees from the islands, and would have led to a betterment of the 

 conditions involved, at once. 



Your committee, taking due note of all the testimony given, and carefully review- 

 ing the same, together with that relating to the certified records given it by the United 

 States Bureau of Fisheries, of the London sales of fur-seal skins, which were secured 

 as "small pups" and "extra small pups" illegally on the Pribilof Islands by the 

 lessees thereof, in violation of the law and regulations of the Government, find that 

 said lessees have taken since 1896 at least 128,000 such yearling fur-seal skins as were 

 distinctly prohibited and denied to them by law and regulations, said illegal and 

 ruinous killing being annually done by them from 1896 to the end of their lease, 

 May 1, 1910. (See hearing No. 1, 213-280, 1914.) 



The committee therefore recommends: 



1 1) That the Attorney General be requested to take such steps as may be necessary 

 to collect the bond of $500,000 from the said North American Commercial Co. and 

 the sureties thereon. 



(2) That the Attorney General be requested to institute civil proceedings against 

 Isaac Liebes and his associate lessees, and their legal representatives, to recover such 

 damages as he and his confederates did to the seal herd of Alaska from 1890 to 1910, 

 and to proceed against such other persons who may be or who are also implicated. 



(3) That with a view to carrying these recommendations into effect, the Clerk of 

 the House be directed to forward to the Attorney General a certified copy of this report, 

 together with a complete set. of the official hearings held before and by this committee 

 on this subject, with the request that the Attorney General proceed in the case as the 

 law and evidence direct for the good of the public interests concerned. 



Mr. Stephens. I move that the statement of former Secretary 

 Nagel, as submitted to the committee, be printed as a part of the 

 hearings. 



(The motion was agreed to.) 



I make the same motion with reference to Mr. Elliott's answer to 

 Mr. Nagel's statement. 



(The motion was agreed to.) 



Mr. McGuire. I move that Mr. Nagel be accorded the privilege of 

 making an additional statement, if he so desires. 



(The motion was disagreed to.) 



Mr. Stephens. I move that the report be adopted as read. 



(The motion was agreed to.) 



