USA > Alaska > History of Alaska : 1730-1885 > Part 62
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During the eight or nine months which intervene between the sealing seasons, the Aleut is little better than a hibernating animal. He sleeps or slumbers for about eighteen hours out of the twenty-four, and for the rest he eats, drinks tea, smokes, goes to church, and occasionally gambles. Sometimes he will work at the grading of roads, or assist in the unloading of vessels, receiving for his services fifty cents to one dollar a day, but he does so with an air of supreme condescension, for after receiving his share in the pro- ceeds of the year's catch, he has sufficient to support him until the following season, and is averse to labor of any kind. The holidays of the Greek church, of which, including Sundays, there are usually three or four each week, afford some relief from the tedium of winter life. For those who are socially inclined,
27 About fifty pounds a week at St Paul Island.
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MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.
there are also birthday parties, and occasionally dance parties, at which the young pass through the figures taught them by the Russians and set to Russian music, and the old look on and drink tea.
At St Paul Island we have probably about as con- tented a community as can be found elsewhere on the Pacific coast. Strong efforts have been made from time to time to show that the natives are dissatisfied; 28 but the dissatisfaction appears to exist only in the minds of those who failed to procure the privileges granted to the Alaska Commercial Company, or who envy its privileges.29 That the company has been guilty of breach of faith in its relations with the na- tives or with the government has never yet been proved, and assuredly its conduct has not lacked investigation.
After a thorough inquiry into the affairs of the company, the committee of ways and means report to the house of representatives, in June 1876, that "there is no just ground of complaint against the Alaska Commercial Company or the officers of the government who were intrusted under the law with the power to make and see to the performance of the lease." The assignment of the lease was also made the subject of a special investigation.
Before a sub-committee appointed for the purpose of taking testimony, a large number of witnesses were examined, among whom were General John F. Miller, president of the company, George S. Boutwell, secre- tary of the treasury in 1870, B. H. Bristow, secretary of the treasury in 1876, and Louis Goldstone, who in 1870 "was trying," as he testifies, "to obtain a lease
28 Any wilful violation of the regulations is punished by the summary dismissal of the offending party. Id., 156.
29 For adverse comments and groundless complaints as to the company's management, see Honcharenko, Scrap Book, passim, and House Com. Repts., 44th Cong. 1st Sess., 623, p. 29-30. If we can believe the president of the company, General Howard, to whose pamphlet reflecting very severely on the management of the natives was due in part the investigation of 1876, had never been within 500 miles of one of the company's stations, or within 1,500 miles of the seal-islands.
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COMMERCE, REVENUE, AND FURS.
from the government for seal-fishing on the Saint George's and Saint Paul's islands."
In the fourth section of the act of July 1, 1870, for the protection of the seal-islands, it is ordered that the secretary of the treasury shall immediately lease the Prybilof Islands "to proper and responsible parties, to the best advantage of the United States, having due regard to the interests of the government, the native inhabitants, the parties heretofore engaged in the trade, and the protection of the seal-fisheries, for a term of twenty years from the 1st day of May, 1870." In the sixth section it is provided "that the annual rental to be reserved by said lease shall be not less than fifty thousand dollars per annum, to be secured by deposit of United States bonds to that amount, and in addition thereto a revenue tax or duty of two dollars is hereby laid upon each fur-seal skin taken from said islands during the continuance of such lease."
On the 8th of July, 1870, an advertisement was published by order of the secretary of the treasury, stating that bids would be received for a period of twelve days, and among them was one from Louis Goldstone, offering to pay, in addition to $55,000 of rental, $2.622 for each seal-skin and 55 cents. for each gallon of seal-oil. Goldstone represented three parties in California, among whom was the "American Russian Commercial Company," which withdrew about the time that the bids were opened, notice to that effect being immediately sent to Mr Boutwell.
After considering all the proposals, together with the character, fitness, and financial responsibility of the parties, the secretary decided that the Alaska Commercial Company best fulfilled the conditions named in the act, and could give the surest guarantee of a faithful and intelligent performance of their con- tract. He therefore awarded to them the lease on the same terms as were offered by Goldstone, the company agreeing, moreover, to furnish food and fuel,
645
LEASE OF THE ISLANDS.
and to maintain free schools for the use of their native employés on the Prybilof Islands.
Such, in brief, is the story of this transaction-one that, like the purchase, is supposed to be deeply shrouded in mystery, but was in fact a very straight forward, business-like proceeding.
Mr Boutwell, in giving his testimony before the committee, stated that the lease was assigned by his direction, after such investigation as was thought necessary on the question of granting to the Alaska Commercial Company the preference. The matter had been first submitted to the attorney-general, who had also been asked whether, in his opinion, it was the duty of the secretary to give public notice of the passage of the bill, and to invite proposals. . The reply was that the company was entitled to prefer- ence only so far as the secretary should consider them to have peculiar facilities for the performance of the contract, and that the invitation for public bids was a matter that lay very much within his own discretion. If the terms which the company offered were as fa- vorable to the government, to the inhabitants of the seal-islands, and to the protection of the seal-fisheries as those which could be obtained in any other quar- ter, or nearly so, "then, under the provisions of the act, they would be entitled to a preference." 30
General Miller testified that the Alaska Commer- cial Company offered for the lease as much as any other proper and responsible party, and in addition, the considerations above mentioned. The proposals were merely invited by the secretary for his own in- formation, and he had of course the power to reject any or all of them, as he saw fit. Being asked whether, if the contract had been let to other parties, they could have fulfilled it satisfactorily, General Miller replied
30 Id., 49-50. Mr Boutwell's testimony was confirmed by that of W. A. Richardson, assistant secretary, by whom the contract was signed, the former being absent from Washington at the time. Mr Richardson states that Bout- well was very much opposed to leasing the seal-islands at all, but the law having been passed, and the attorney-general having rendered his opinion, there was no alternative. Id., 60.
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COMMERCE, REVENUE, AND FURS.
that it would have been very difficult for them to do so. They could not have obtained at the islands the use of a single building, nor any of the appliances needed for carrying on the business, since all of them belonged to the Alaska Commercial Company,31 a member of which had also made contracts with the natives for their labor. To build salt-houses, boats, dwelling- houses, and procure what else was needed, would re- quire much time and capital, whereas the company had already on hand everything that was necessary. Hence they were better fitted to carry on the business than were other parties.
In addition to the above reasons for granting the lease to this company, it may be stated that among its stockholders were three firms, certain of whose mem- bers had more experience in fur-sealing and the fur- seal business than any of the remaining applicants, their names being Williams, Haven, and Company of New London, John Parrott and Company of San Fran- cisco, and Hutchinson, Kohl, and Company. These firms afterward consolidated and formed the nucleus of the present Alaska Commercial Company, the first of them being the oldest and most successful of all firms connected with the American fur trade. At the time when the lease was assigned, this association repre- sented a capital of nine millions of dollars, and owned no less than fifty trading posts in various parts of Alaska.
As to the bid tendered by Louis Goldstone, it remains only to be said that, on the withdrawal of the American Russian Commercial Company, the secretary of the treasury considered it thereby inval- idated, probably not deeming Mr Goldstone and his colleagues "proper and responsible parties," "having due regard to the interests of the government." Cer- tain it is that the offer made by Goldstone was suspi- ciously liberal-more liberal than the law required,
31 Being transferred by Mr Hutchinson to the firm of Hutchinson, Kohl, and Company, and by the latter to the Alaska Commercial Company. Testi- mony of H. M. Hutchinson, in Id., pp. 112, 118.
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RIVAL BIDDERS.
though less so than the terms ultimately proposed by the Alaska Commercial Company. The action taken by the secretary gave sore offence to Goldstone and his associates, by some of whom a pamphlet was pub- lished, entitled the History of the Wrongs of Alaska,32 a memorial being also forwarded to the representatives and referred to committee, in which it was alleged that the lease had been illegally assigned. The state- ment was afterward retracted, as having been made under a misapprehension of the facts, and the memo- rial withdrawn. 33
If any other evidence be needed, in addition to the statements already mentioned, we have the testi- mony of the Hon. B. H. Bristow, of which more later, Joseph S. Moore, and other responsible gentlemen, whose answers before the committee were unanimously in favor of the company. Finally, we have the report of the members of the committee themselves, who "concur in the opinion that the lease with the Alaska Commercial Company was made in pursuance of the law; that it was made in the interest of the United States, and properly granted to the Alaska Commer- cial Company; that the interest of the United States was properly protected in all the requirements of the law; and that the lessees have faithfully complied with their part of the contract."
32 A copy of it will be found in House Ex. Doc., 44th Cong. 1st Sess., no. 83, p. 152-71.
33 A copy of the letter will be found in House Com. Repts., 44th Cong. 1st Sess., 623, p. 136. It reads as follows:
SAN FRANCISCO, CAL., Dec. 15, 1871.
HONORED SIR: During the last session of Congress a memorial was pre- pared by the undersigned and associates and presented to the House, and re- ferred to your committee, in which it was alleged that the lease to the Alaska Commercial Company by the United States, for the islands of St Paul and St George, Alaska, August 3, 1870, was illegally obtained by said company from the Secretary of the Treasury, and ought to have been awarded to the under- signed and associates. I now desire to withdraw said memorial. The alle- gations contained therein, having been made under a misapprehension of facts, are therefore untrue. The undersigned, representing the memorialists, as an act of justice to the Secretary of the Treasury and all concerned, begs to withdraw all statements of complaint contained in said memorial.
I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,
LOUIS GOLDSTONE.
HON. JOHN A. BINGHAM, Chairman Judiciary Committee House of Repre- sentatives, Washington, D. C.
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COMMERCE, REVENUE, AND FURS.
Among the papers submitted to the committee of ways and means were two communications from Rob- ert Desty of San Francisco. In the first one, dated February 28, 1876, he cites a number of charges against the company,34 which then solicited an investigation, and which he compares to a "thief who aims to keep himself always ready to be searched, depending on hav- ing the search directed by himself." He also states that he has delivered to Senator Jones, of Nevada, cer- tain documents relating to Alaska, to which he refers the committee. "I am not a trader," writes Desty, "never was, and never likely to be, have no interest in Alaska, but for many years I have been a close student of its affairs, and have contributed some to writing up its resources, which I believe to be greatly underrated by the company; and desiring to see an honest admin- istration of the affairs of government, I took the lib- erty thus to address you."
From Desty's second communication, dated May 1, 1876, I will give a few extracts, which may serve to explain the History of the Wrongs of Alaska and the newspaper comments to which it gave rise. "Some time since I forwarded to you a collection of documents, and a written statement of the affairs of the Alaska Commercial Company. Since that time I have taken especial pains to investigate as far as I was able the matters involved therein, and I have become convinced that most of the charges against the company are not founded on facts which can be proved.
"Having written nearly all the newspaper articles which have appeared in the San Francisco papers dur- ing the last seven years against the Alaska Commer- cial Company, and being the author, in print, of most of the charges which have been published against that company ... I deem it incumbent on me to make the following statement ... Being a poor man, and a writer, I wrote upon this subject such things as I was required to write by those who employed me; and
" They are given in Id., p. 139-43.
649
DESTY'S WRITINGS.
being a radical in politics, of the French school, I was the more easily deceived, and more readily accepted the statements which charged oppression and wrong- ful acts upon the part of this powerful company as true, and wrote them up with all the vigor and zeal I possessed, induced by my natural desire to protect the weak against the strong.
"It is well known that there has existed in this city for several years a combination of individuals, mostly fur-dealers, who singly and together, under various names, have made common cause against the Alaska Commercial Company. For a time they took the name of the ' Alaska Traders' Protective Association;' lately they have assumed the name, 'The Anti-Monop- oly Association of the Pacific Coast.'35
"It was in the interest of this combination, as I now discover, that I was employed to write, and the alleged facts and charges which I have from time to time written and published against the company were fur- nished by one and another of these parties.36
"The pamphlet called the History of the Wrongs of Alaska was mostly composed of statements and charges made by me in the Alaska Herald and other sources-the articles written by me and published in the Alaska Herald and other San Francisco papers," and in the New York and Chicago papers.
"The object and purpose of all these various publi- cations on the part of this combination was to raise a clamor against the Alaska Commercial Company, and by charging fraud and oppression continually, make the company so odious to the public that congress would take action towards the abrogation of its con- tract of lease for the Seal Islands.
3ª The names of the members, according to Desty's information, are given in Id., 141. Desty states that he was himself invited to become a member, but declined.
36 'And others in written memoranda furnished by the pen of Honcharenko, and which I elaborated into the articles which appeared in print.'
37 Desty states that Honcharenko was never in Alaska, and that the Alaska Herald was published for several years in San Francisco, and supported by the combination and their sympathizers.
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COMMERCE, REVENUE, AND FURS.
"I now desire to retract all I have written against the company, and this I do freely and voluntarily, without fear or compulsion of any sort, but as an act of simple justice."
Desty's communications, for whatever they were worth, were put on file as evidence. Their worth is probably known to those who were residents of San Francisco when the suit of Thomas Taylor and others versus the Alaska Commercial Company and others was tried in 1871,39 and they are mentioned in these pages merely to explain in part the adverse comments that have appeared in the press and in various pam- phlets.
Perhaps the most valuable testimony educed during the investigation was that of B. H. Bristow. "I understand you to say," remarked a member of the sub-committee, "that you have instituted all the in- quiries that you deem necessary, but that you have not found anything against the company that is reliable?" "Yes, sir," replied the secretary of the treasury, "all that I thought necessary-indeed, all that I could; for, to speak the plain truth, when it came to my knowledge that the company was making a very large profit out of the matter,39 I felt that the gov- ernment was not getting as much as it ought to have, and I wanted to find some way of getting a share of the profits for the government; but I found myself confronted with the law and this contract, and I saw no reason to believe that the company were not carry- ing out their contract in good faith, whatever may be the suspicions by which they are surrounded."
The only charge worthy of mention that was brought home to the Alaska Commercial Company was a dis-
38 A portion of the evidence in this case, of which I have a copy, will be found in the Alaska Com. Co., MS.
39 Miller testified that the company lost money the first year, but the second year made a small profit, that for the third year the dividend was ten per cent, and for 1875 fifteen per cent. House Com. Repts., 44th Cong. 1st Sess., 623, p. 37, where are given the names of the stockholders in 1876.
651
CHARGES AGAINST THE COMPANY.
crepancy of $1,467.37 40 between the accounts kept by the custom-house and those of the company; and in the opinion of the official appointed to examine the company's books, this was due to an error of the gov- ernment agents.
In 1869 the value of a fur-seal skin in London, the world's mart for peltry, did not exceed three or four dollars, but at that date the tax was one dollar per skin. In 1876 a first-class skin delivered in London cost the company six to six and a half dollars; its market value at that date before being dressed or dyed was about fifteen dollars, and in 1881 twenty dollars. The enhanced price is due in part to better preservation, but more to whim of fashion.
The demand for furs is of course controlled by fash- ion. As men wear beaver hats in summer, so do women seal-skin sacks. Among others, furriers regu- late fashion. "When I was in London," remarks Miller, "I talked with all the great furriers, and they were delighted to know that they could cal- culate with reasonable certainty upon the number of skins that were to be put upon the market each year. The furriers influence fashion. The value of this article is subject to the caprice of fashion, but the fur- riers themselves aid in making the fashions, and they make the fashion for an article that will pay."
Among the charges brought against the Alaska Commercial Company was that of taking more than the number of skins allowed by law. It is unnecessary to discuss this charge. As a fact, they usually take one or two hundred less than the number prescribed, and not until 1881 did the number of accepted skins amount to a hundred thousand.41 "If we overran the
" The amount of tax on 559 skins at $2.623 each.
11 Elliott's Seal Islands, Alaska, 169. The list of the treasury agent is the official indorsement of the company's catch. The skins are shipped to San Francisco, where they are counted. 'As it never happened before, until the season of ISS1,' remarks Elliott, 'that the two counts at San Francisco and St Paul have agreed to a unit, the company has given strict and imperative orders that no more than 99,800 or 99,850 shall be annually taken by its
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COMMERCE, REVENUE, AND FURS.
market to any appreciable extent," stated Miller, in evidence, "it would certainly knock the price down, and it would do it because it disturbs the present equilibrium."
At the Prybilof Islands the government has what may be termed a stock-farm, which yields an income of more than $300,000 a year. The advantages of leasing these islands to responsible parties are thus stated by Henry W. Elliott, formerly a treasury agent, who inspected the seal-grounds in 1876:
"First. When the government took possession of these interests, in 1868 and 1869, the gross value of a seal-skin laid down in the best market, at London, was less in some instances, and in others but slightly above, the present tax and royalty paid upon it by the Alaska Commercial Company.
"Second. Through the action of the intelligent business men who took the contract from the govern- ment, in stimulating and encouraging the dressers of the raw material, and in taking sedulous care that nothing but good skins should leave the islands, and in combination with leaders of fashion abroad, the de- mand for the fur, by this manipulation and manage- ment, has been wonderfully increased.
"Third. As matters now stand, the greatest and best interests of the lessees are identical with those of the government; what injures one injures the other. In other words, both strive to guard against anything that shall interfere with the preservation of the seal- life in its original integrity, and both having it to their interest if possible to increase that life; if the lessees had it in their power, which they certainly have not, to ruin these interests by a few seasons of rapacity, they are so bonded and so environed that prudence prevents it.
agents from the seal-islands. Taking the full quota for this season of 1881 was contrary to its express direction.' In the Rept. on Finances, in House Ex. Doc., 47th Cong. 2d Sess., 47, the secretary of the treasury states that in 1882 the Alaska Commercial Co. took 'nearly the maximum number of seal- skins permitted under its lease, paid the tax thereon, as well as the rent of the islands, and otherwise performed its duties under its lease.'
653
ELLIOTT'S REPORT.
"Fourth. The frequent changes in the office of the secretary of the treasury, who has very properly the absolute control of the business as it stands, do not permit upon his part of that close, careful scrutiny which is exercised by the lessees, who, unlike him, have but their one purpose to carry out. The char- acter of the leading men among them is enough to assure the public that the business is in responsible hands, and in the care of persons who will use every effort for its preservation and its perpetuation. . . As matters are now conducted, there is no room for any scandal-not one single transaction on the islands but what is as clear to investigation and accountability as the light of the noon-day sun; what is done is known to everybody, and the tax now laid by the government upon and paid into the treasury every year by the Alaska Commercial Company yields alone a handsome rate of interest on the entire pur- chase money expended for the ownership of all Alaska." 42
It is probable that the lease of the Prybilof Islands has been a much more profitable transaction, both for the government and the Alaska Commercial Com- pany, than was anticipated at the time when it was signed. In 1871 Hutchinson, Kohl, & Company obtained a lease of Bering, Copper, and Robben islands on very much more favorable terms. The rental was but five thousand roubles in silver, and the royalty two roubles. The minimum number of skins that should be taken was fixed at one thousand, but otherwise there was no limit.43
In many parts of Alaska there were, in the time of the Russian American Company, as the reader will
42 Seal Islands, Alaska, 26-7. 'It is frequently urged with great persist- ency, by misinformed or malicious authority,' continues Elliott, 'that the lessees can and do take thousands of skins in excess of the law, and this catch in excess is shipped sub rosa to Japan from the Pribylov Islands.' To show the impossibility of such action on the part of the company, he then states the conditions under which the skins are taken.
" A copy of the lease is given in House Com. Repts., 44th Cong. 1st Sess., 623, app. B.
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COMMERCE, REVENUE, AND FURS.
remember, seal-grounds of great value, but where to- day the catch is inconsiderable. In the south Pacific there were, less than fifty years ago, rookeries fre- quented by millions of seals, and which now yield but five to ten thousand skins a year. That the same fate would have overtaken the Prybilof Islands, but for the intervention of congress; that, instead of the five millions of fur-seals which at present make these islands their summer resort, there would have been but a few thousands, cannot reasonably be doubted.44 They return each year only because they are not allowed to be disturbed by the sound of fire-arms or by other means. much care and method being used during the slaughtering season.
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