840 INVESTIGATION" OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 



reputable scientists and the staff of the bureau without reason or motive upon so 

 flimsy a foundation is past belief. 



And upon what theory is a Secretary of a department to be made accountable for 

 such details of administration? I appreciate that a Secretary unavoidably gets 

 credit for many things which are done unheralded by men far more competent in 

 particular lines than he. I admit that he should be glad to take corresponding blame 

 for errors that may have been committed without his knowledge. I have no desire 

 to avoid the rules of the game. However impossible it may be for a Secretary who 

 presides over 14 bureaus, with anywhere from 12,000 to 25,000 employees stationed 

 in- all parts of the country or the territories on land and sea, to personally supervise 

 all the work, I would be the last to deny his responsibility for the general fitness of the 

 force employed. Of my own knowledge, I know nothing of seal life, of the wisdom 

 or unwisdom of killing this or that percentage at this or that age. I have seen the 

 rookeries and some skins in a warehouse. I doubt whether any other Secretary has 

 seen that much. I never saw a seal killed or a skin weighed , measured, or sold. When 

 I wrote Senator Jones the letter which has been published in three different places, 

 I gave the facts as they were reported to me by officials who were responsible for their 

 conduct to the President and to me. But I wrote more particularly to demonstrate 

 (and upon this feature there is no comment), that the account of sales of sealskins 

 which had been published to discredit the reports of the bureau had been doctored 

 by inserting imaginary measurements to sustain the theory of the charge. About 

 weights and ages and superfluous blubber on skins, I knew no more of my own knowl- 

 edge than I did about the details of other bureaus under my supervision, such as 

 the comparative value of gas buoys, or the soundings of the sea, or the precise pressure 

 at which a bar of steel gave way, or the correctness of a particular census enumeration, 

 or the precise number of fish in a hatchery. At the same time it was my good for- 

 tune to have associated with me essentially well informed and patriotic men; and 

 upon the whole we managed to live within our appropriations and to accomplish 

 the work with which we were unitedly charged in all the bureaus. 



CONCLUSION. 



Whatever may be the extravagant statements about inconsiderable details now, 

 the controlling facts are that the leasing system is abolished and pelagic sealing is 

 stippressed. These are the inure essential features, to which I gave particular per- 

 sonal attention. All killing is for a period abated, a new Commissioner of Fisheries 

 has been appointed, and with the wide experience of the past, there should be no 

 difficulty in evolving a policy. However, unless we are prepared to proclaim a seal 

 reservation on sea and land and to maintain the herds for the- entertainment of the 

 nations, it will become necessary at some time to decide what percentage it is safe to kill, 

 at what age, or of what weight or measurement. Some plan must be adopted. Either 

 the herds must be held permanently immune from killing for their furs, or the theory 

 of surplus male seals must be accepted, or males and females must be killed in equal 

 proportion, or the superiority of the females must be recognized by killing them alone. 

 When the day for that decision comes, no doubt the war will be renewed; the old straw 

 will be thrashed over before new committees; former publications will not be reread, 

 but they will be reprinted — all at the usual public expense. 



Charles Nagel. 



REVIEW OF MR. NAGEL'S STATEMENT BY HENRY W. ELLIOTT. 



Washington, D. C, March 24, 1914- 

 Hon. John H. Rothermel. 



Chairman House Committee on Expenditures Department of Commerce. 



Sir: In response to your request of even date that I read and review a brief state- 

 ment addressed to you by the late Secretary of Commerce and Labor, Charles Nagel, 

 dated March 19. 1914, I respectfully submit the following: 



Mr. Xagel has prepared this statement aforesaid under caption of several heads, 

 which I will address myself to in the order of their sequence. 



Under head of — 



I. "The Department's Attitude to the Leasing System." 



Mr. Nagel makes a labored and futile attempt to deny his own official record and 

 the facts that belong to it. The departmental letters which he authorized, and 

 which confound him now. in the premises are as follows, to wit: 



The fact that the Secretary of Commerce and Labor had resolved, upon renewing 

 the lease "to the best and highest bidder," etc., as early as October 23, 1909, was 



