THE SOUTHERN SPRING MACKEREL FISHERY. 
209 
is tliat the bill was ordered to lie reported in total ignorance of the facts of this particular fishery. I 
take it my friend from Arkansas [Mr. Breckinridge], who made the report, will admit that if all the 
facts now known had been presented to the committee and discussed in committee, as they were not, 
there would have been at least a very considerable difference of opinion as to tiie propriety of this 
measure. 
Mr. Bi{1CCKINI!II>gi;, of Arkansas. I hope the gentlenian from New York will not attemjit to 
express what other gentlemen think. I have expressed no such opinion as that, and I assent to no 
such opinion. If other gentlemen of the committee agree with my friend from New York I hope they 
will so announce, hut until they have done so I trust ho will not claim them as coneniring with him. 
Mr. Hewitt. I have claimed nobody. I only repeat what I said: That there was no discussion 
in the committee which could possibly have led to the presentation of any minority report. The facts 
I am about to l>riug to the attention of the House were offered to the attention of the committee, but it 
was after the hill and report had been suhndtted to the House and were }daced upon the Calendar. 
Mr. Breckinridge, of Arkansas. The gentleman from New York is aware the committee is well 
able to take care of itself. If the gentleman has a great deal of information he deserves credit for 
it, luit I do not think he is the sole gatherer of information, or that other gentlemen are as ignorant 
as he seeks to represent them. 
Mr. Hewitt. Before I am through with the matter it will l>e discovered when and why at the 
time the report was made. 
Mr. Speaker, if this hill should he enacted into a law it will certainly produce three results: 
First, it will deprive a large numlier of the people of this country of a cheap and nutritious food. 
Secondly, it will deprive of employment a very large numher of fishermen, more than two thou- 
sand in numher, who find occupation in this business between the mouths of April and .lime in 
mackerel catching, which it is now proposed to jirohihit. 
And, lastly, it will coniine the mackerel fishing to the States of Massachusetts and Maine, because 
mackerel arrive on this coast about the end of March. They come chiefly olf the month of Chesapeake 
Bay, and proceed thence slowly northward and reach Massachusetts and Maine in the month of .lune, 
when this hill, if enacted, would cease to operate. While fishermen along the coast below were 
jirohihited from fishing, the whole mackerel schools, whatever they amount to, would he open for the 
fishermen of the States of Maine and Massachusetts. 
Now, as to the quantity of this food. There are about one hundred and eighty vessels which are 
engaged in catching mackerel from the 1st of A 2 iril to the 1st of June. The ijuantity caught is 
somewhat fabulous. 
The gentleman from Maine [Mr. Reed] referred to the testimony of Mr. Blackford, that on one 
occasion last year 15,000,000 of mackerel Avero brought into the city of New York, and the inability to 
handle them — of the market to take them — was so great they wore finally given away by basketfuls 
to the iioor. This year the mackerel have been somewhat late in coming on the coast, jirohahly 
duo to the cold weather. I happened to see the first vessel Avhich came into Fulton Market. It 
contained 30,000 mackerel. Two weeks later, in a single day, 8,000,000 of mackerel were brought into 
the 2 )ort of Ncav York and distributed, not as the gentleman from Maine said, in the immediate vicinity 
of that 2 iort, hut under the modern system of refrigerating cars were sent over the entire United States. 
The fact is, transportation has come in to distribute this food to every i>oint east of the Rocky 
Mountains, making this a (luestiou of importance to the whole country. This prolific catch of 
mackerel has gone on so that last night I received from Mr. Blackford, Avho, perhaps, is the best 
practical expert in matters of fish in this country, this telegram: 
Since last Monday [that is, four days] lour thousand five hundred and ten barrels of fresh uiackorcl landed and sold 
in Fulton Market; all large, fine fish. 
I quote that now as an answer to the assertion of the gentleman from Maine that this spring’s 
fishing produced only Ash of an inferior grade. 
There is authority for saying many of these fish are not good for salting. That is true. Spring 
mackerel are not so good an article for food as those caught later in the season; hut for fresh food, 
which in the spring of the year every man, whether he lie workman, lawyer, or statesman, craves, 
mackerel is one of the best food-fishes which is pint upon the table. 
Now, a jiroposition to destroy an industry employing over two thousand of these very fishermen 
for whom the gentleman from Maine seems to he so interested, and they are his pieopile — by whose aid 
this fishing is done in the main — a piroposition to take away from them an employment which is so 
advantageous to them and so useful to the whole community ought to rest on very clear authority. 
F. C. B., 1898-14 
