848 INVESTIGATION OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 



rule is all one way. The disappearance of the bison was a most amazing manifestation 

 of what will take place in the destruction of animals before the raid of commercial 

 man. 



"Now, whether this device will save the seal and, as the Senator hopes, lead to an 

 increase, I do not know. I have not the confidence the Senator has, but I think he is 

 proceeding in the right direction. I hope it will come out as well as the Senator be- 

 lieves; but human legislation is unavailing before the attack of predatory man." 



Here you observe that the Senate was informed by Chairman Dixon that this bill 

 was up to them for the purpose of "inaugurating a close season," and so expressly de- 

 clared to the Senators who opposed the same with that full understanding. How 

 puerile is Charles Nagel's attempt to deny this official record of that debate, and how 

 idle. 



Mr. Charles Nagel under this head closes with the solemn nonsense of this assertion: 

 " In no respect was the traditional attitude of this Government deviated from until the 

 law of 1912, in its provision for a five-year closed season, virtually repudiated the repre- 

 sentations upon which the United States delegates (Nagel and Anderson) in the con- 

 vention had secured the consent of the delegates of the other countries to the terms 

 of the treaty as it now stands." 



That this "traditional policy" was founded on a false basis which was substituted 

 at Paris, in 1893, for our claim, in lieu of the truth in the premises, at the behest of 

 private interests, did not and does not concern the servants of that private interest — 

 men like Charles Nagel; but the Senate held too many clear-headed men for such an 

 outrageous public imposition to endure as was Mr. Charles Nagel's "traditional atti- 

 tude" toward our foreign seal herd. So an end to the same was made in so far as that 

 " traditional attitude " went, for the good of the herd. 



Finally, under this head, Mr. Nagel makes the following "confession and avoid- 

 ance" of guilt in the premises, as I have charged him, in re killing yearling seals; he 

 says: 



"If it were true (and this has been conclusively disproved) that too young seals 

 have been killed, the Government would still get the proceeds and no one else." 



Here you have him self-confessed as being willing to violate the laws and regulations, 

 in re killing yearlings for the excuse that " the Government would still get the proceeds, 

 and no one else." 



At last and in conclusion, Mr. Charles Nagel throws off the mask and stands up in 

 his real color as a willing violator of the law because the Government will get money 

 from the proceeds of that malfeasance. 



How, then, about the money which the lessees got under his willing sanction in 

 1909 when they took 7,320 "too young" seals in open, flagrant violation of the law 

 and the regulations of the department? Did that money which these men got satisfy 

 the conscience of Charles Nagel as a sworn public agent? He says it did. 



Mr. Nagel closes this "brief statement" of his by saying: "Of my own knowledge 

 I know nothing of seal life, of the wisdom of or the unwisdom of killing this or that 

 percentage, of tins or that age. I have seen the rookeries and some skins in a ware- 

 house. I doubt whether any other Secretary lias seen as 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 Presi- 

 dent 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." 



Unhapily for Mr. Nagel, there is not a line in this letter to Senator Wesley L. Jones 



(which is his own untruthful and defamatory letter) that refers to "measurements" o! 



any sort whatever. But he quotes a series of "loaded" skin weights — the blubbered 



skins of yearling seals — to prove to Senator Jones that they are older seals, and so 



.deceive. 



He ends this ' 'brief statement" by telling the committee that he has no doubt in 

 his mind as to what the future will bring forth for the fur-seal herd when the closed 

 season, now in force, has lapsed. If he really believes that any ' 'scientific" organiza- 

 tion can be again created like the one upon which he has relied, to reopen the question 

 which common sense has closed it with, I have not. 



In conclusion, I think that Mr. Nagel has perhaps done himself scant justice in not 

 appearing before this committee. He was in this city weeks after he had received an 

 invitation to appear, and on similar business, to wit: on February 11, 1914. 



