TITE ALASKA FISHERMAN_
Published the 15 of each month at Ketchikan, Alaska
WILLIAM L. PAUL, ATTORNEY FOR THE
ALASKA NATIVE BROTHERHOOD
Entered as second - class matter at the Post Office at
KETCHIKAN, ALASKA
SUBSCRPTION PRICE $2.00 FOR TWELVE ISSUES
OUR PLATFORM:
ALASKA FOR ALASKANS.
FULL TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT.
ABOLISHMENT OF ALL TRAPS.
COMPETENT CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP.
THE DECEIT OF SECRETARY HOOVER'S
FUR SEAL BULLETINS
To conceal from the public the fact that he
has converted a fine public financial asset of
great value to the Government into one of
heavy annual loss and liability during the last
five years, Secretary Hoover’s Bureau of Fish
eries, in charge of the Pribilof seal herds puts
out the following grossly untruthful statement
from Seattle, Washington on April 17th last,
to-wit;
“A GOOD CATCH OF SEAL PREDICTED
FOR THE YEAR.
SEATTLE: April 17:.. The Bureau of Fish
eries estimates the value of ..the seals to be
caught during the summer on the Pribilofs at
$600,000. More than 21,000 seals will be harvest
ed. The increase has been about 10 per cent
each year making this one the 26th catch, the
largest in history with one exception before
scientific propagation methods were employed.
It is estimated the Pribilof seals number 723,000."
(Daily Empire, Juneau, April, 1926.)
This statement as quoted above, is simply a
studied concealment from the public of the fact
that in the fiscal year of 1925, 25,395 fur seal
skins from the Pribilof Islands were taken and
sold by Secretary Hoover for $713,276.28. But,
it cost the Government $718,225.29 to take, sell
and thus dispose of these skins.
Thus in truth, these 25,395 fur seal skins that
were sold by Mr. Hoover in 1925 actually cost
the Govenment to take and sell and dispose of
them, $5,000 in round numbers MORE than it
got from Mr. Hoover as his sales receipts for
them.
So, we are now told, April 17, 1926, in the
face of this shameful exhibit of Mr. Secretary
Hoover’s mismanagement of the catch of 25,395
fur seal skins in 1925 that another catch of
21,000 is to be made next summer on the Pri
bilofs, and that the value of it is $600,000.
If the value of this 1926 catch is measured
by the value of the records of the 1925 sale,
above cited, then instead, the Government not
only has lost $600,000, but at least $3,000 more.
These deceitful official statements made in
Secretary Hoover’s annual report for 1925, (page
178) about making sales of 25,395 fur seal skins
that fiscal year for a “price obtained” of
$713,276.28, or as so much revenue derived there
from, for the public treasury, actually so fooled
the new Governor of Alaska, that in his first
Annual report for 1925, he makes the following
absurd request, to-wit; (Gov. Geo. A. Parks says -)
“The revenue derived from the sale ..of seal
skins in 1925 was more than $700,000. ..
at least 50 per cent of this should he allotted
to the Territory for the support of the common
schools
Little did Governor Parks know of the truth
in the premises. When he does learn of his
complete deception in the premises, it is safe
to predict that in his next annual report for
this year, 1926, he will ask no more of Sec
retary Hoover’s seal skin revenues. He will try
hard to forget that he ever made such a foolish
request.
Henry W. Elliott, Washington, D. C.
THE FISHERMEN’S UNION
On account of the misleading inference which
the Ketchikan Chronicle has sought to attribute
to the meeting held by the Trollers recently
we feel that we should state our position re
garding unions and the labor movement.
It goes without saying that the ideal labor
situation would be one in which there was but
one big union. That is, that there should exist
the condition in which laboring men of one
craft would not cut the throats of the laboring
men of another. The reasons are obvious.
The meeting held the first night was call
ed to consider prices. But when the men gath
ered, they found that the matter of organization
was necessarily the first to be considered. How
could they talk about prices when they had
no organization?
The need seemed so great to one of the men
that he made some allusion that he was even
ready to join the I. W. W. At the first men
tion of those letters, the secretary of the Deep
Sea Fishermen’s Union called him to order stat
ing that the charter under which the hall was