Mr. DIMOND. Are the fishermen who belong to these unions unanimously behind this measure to stop the Japanese from encroaching on the Alaska fishery? Mr. CARLSON. Yes, sir. Every delegate, like I stated, at the time. the resolution was brought up-and we met at two different conventions-voted for it; it passed unanimously. Mr. DIMOND. You have spoken something about a boycott and in that telegram I see a reference to taking other measures: Have you in mind a general economic boycott, or an embargo on the loading and unloading of Japanese vessels, or of vessels carrying Japanese salmon? Mr. CARLSON. No; I firmly believe it will be an economic boycott. There is a voluntary boycott already established. That is in effect and it is quite noticeable on the Pacific coast-that is, especially in the Northwest. Mr. DIMOND. Does that include an embargo on the loading and unloading of Japanese ships? Mr. CARLSON. Not on the loading and unloading. Mr. DIMOND. It does not? Mr. CARLSON. No. Mr. DIMOND. But that is contemplated? Mr. CARLSON. That is just in reference to the buying of Japanesemade products. Mr. DIMOND. Who is Andrew Vigen, who signed the first telegram? Mr. CARLSON. He is secretary-treasurer of the Alaska Fishermen's Union. Mr. DIMOND. And your organization at Cordova, Alaska, and Prince William Sound, is a member of that union? Mr. CARLSON. No. I happen to be a member of both unions. Mr. DIMOND. Is your union affiliated with the Alaska Fishermen's Union? Mr. CARLSON. No. Mr. DIMOND. It is not? Mr. CARLSON. Only that it belongs to the same international, the International Seamen's Union. Mr. DIMOND. Has the price paid for fish to the fishermen been increased in recent years in Bristol Bay? Mr. CARLSON. Yes, it has; it has increased considerably the last couple of years. Mr. DIMOND. And the wages have advanced too, to some extent? Mr. CARLSON. I am a fisherman, and I am not thoroughly conversant with the salaries of the monthly men, as to what the increase has been; but undoubtedly they have had an increase. Mr. SIROVICH. Do you think if you would take in the fixed cannery men and women who work there, who come from China, Japan, and Mexico, and have them all belong to your union, that it would be instrumental in excluding those orientals? Mr. CARLSON. Well, we won't have to take them into our union, as far as the fishermen's union is concerned. Mr. SIROVICH. You said you were going to organize the fixed canneries? Mr. CARLSON. Well, they are already organized. All it requires is that they become an auxiliary of the fishermen's union, you see. Mr. SIROVICH. The testimony that has been given here in the past by members of the unions showed that in many of the fixed canneries there were orientals, Japanese, Chinese, and men from Mexico that they have working up there. Is that true today? Mr. CARLSON. I believe the prevailing cannery help is Filipinos. The CHAIRMAN. My recollection is that the testimony was that practice was going out and had pretty effectively gone out, of employing Japanese and Chinese in those canneries. Of course, I would like to know what the facts are. Mr. CARLSON. There will be gentlemen who are operating these canneries who could answer your questions and answer them correctly. The CHAIRMAN. All right. Mr. DIMOND. Do you know how long the Japanese vessels remained after you and the others flew over them, on the occasion you mentioned; do you know how long they remained in that position? Mr. CARLSON. No, sir; I do not. Mr. DIMOND. Mr. Carlson, in your judgment, is there any danger of an armed conflict, if the Japanese continue to fish in Bristol Bay, between American fishermen and Japanese operators? Mr. CARLSON. Well, it possibly will amount to this: Naturally, we are not going to stay behind those nets and catch nothing--that should be understood and naturally we will have to sail out there and catch up with them, if we did not do anything else. That would probably provoke the Japanese to the extent that they will fire a shot or so at us, and you cannot tell what the outcome of that would be. Mr. SIROVICH. But you would have the airplanes there above you? Mr. CARLSON. Well, sir, the Airways planes are the ones that are in that country, and I do not think they have any gun on them. Mr. DIMOND. Is there any crab fishing in Alaska at all? Mr. CARLSON. There is quite a number of small crab canneries in Alaska. I do not know how many, but there is one in Ketchikan, or maybe more; the same in Wrangell; the same in Petersburg, and in Cordova we have two crab canneries. Now this is an industry that has been worked up recently-well, in the last 5 or 6 years-and it is a very valuable industry to the resident population, for this reason, that during the closed period there is a certain interval that they are not allowed to fish for crabs; but, otherwise, they fish over a longer period of time than they fish for salmon. Mr. SIROVICH. Do you know why Japan should be granted a concession to fish in American waters and can that crab meat, when we have our own fixed canneries that are operating, and we have a number of them on the Pacific and have them on the Atlantic coast? Why should they be thrown into competition with the Japs? Why does not charity begin at home? Mr. CARLSON. Well, I have asked, myself, that question. There is no question, as far as the Bristol Bay crab is concerned, that, if the Japanese were ousted from there altogether, there would be American companies in there putting up that crabmeat and, if it was necessary to have floating canneries, they could be easily equipped, and the crabs could be put up as an American pack, with American conditions Mr. BOWER. Might I clarify the record at this point by saying it is a very different type of crab that is taken by the Japanese in the offshore waters? Mr. SIROVICH. You mean the American canneries would not use it? Mr. BOWER. It is a very different crab from the type of crab that is put up by the canneries in southeastern Alaska. The CHAIRMAN. I know you have said that for a long time, and that has been the claim, but my people down my way claim it is interfering with them. I know the claim is made that it is a different type of meat, but it is interfering with some of the domestic product down in my country. Mr. BOWER. Sixty-five percent of the Japanese pack of crabs comes into this country. The CHAIRMAN. Sixty-five percent comes into this country? The CHAIRMAN. I understand it interferes with the sale of our crabmeat. Mr. BOWER. It may, although there is a very limited business in the packing of crabs in this country. This is more of a market for them in a fresh condition. The CHAIRMAN. Well, you go down and talk to my people about it. Mr. SIROVICH. But if 65 percent of it is sold in the United States and the American public consumes that, why should not some American manufacturer be enabled to get that same product and sell the 65 percent in our own country? Mr. BOWER. Mr. Chairman, American capital has never evidenced any interest in the Bristol Bay situation, so far as the canning of crabs is concerned. We have made frequent inquiries, and, due to the high labor cost and the peculiarities of the operation, no American capital has ever deemed it worth while. The CHAIRMAN. How about sanitary regulations that are put into effect in those cannery operations: Are they equal to the sanitary regulations that are put into effect in the United States and which are very exacting? Mr. BOWER. We have no opportunity to board those vessels to determine the nature of the sanitary conditions; but the pack is passed upon by Government authorities when it is imported into this country, and it is deemed by those Government agencies to be suitable to enter commerce in this country. The CHAIRMAN. But in the case of the domestic product, you go to the factory itself and see that the strictest sanitary regulations are in effect? Mr. BOWER. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. Yet that is not done with respect to the 65 percent of the Japanese canned products that come into our country. Mr. BOWER. We have no opportunity to do it. Mr. PETERSON. What is the volume of the 65 percent; it represents how many cases; how many pounds? Mr. BOWER. I would like to insert that in the record, if I may. (The statement requested is as follows:) In 1935 imports of canned crab meat from Japan aggregated 8,783,000 pounds. Mr. SIROVICH. Can you give us any economic justification why we should permit a foreign nation to come here and take our own products in Alaska to be exploited against our own products in other sections of the country? I would rather see those crabs in Alaska just stay at the bottom of the sea and nobody exploit them. Mr. BOWER. No concession has ever been granted by this Government to the Japanese to fish for crabs off the Alaskan coast. They simply came in there of their own volition and, in 1930, when they first appeared, the American salmon packers were much alarmed for fear they would extend their operations to the packing of salmon. Mr. SIROVICH. Well, that is what they are doing. Mr. BOWER. So a gentlemen's agreement or informal understanding, referred to by Commissioner Bell in his testimony earlier today, was entered into. Mr. SIROVICH. But in spite of that gentlemen's agreement you have spoken about, that has been entered into between Japan and our country that they would only take this crab meat the evidence of a distinguished member of the union was that he was on a plane above them and he saw on the deck of one boat alone 20,000 salmon that had been taken in one catch. Mr. BOWER. That is what is causing us so much concern. Mr. SIROVICH. Well, if it is just a gentlemen's agreement we can put a stop to Japan by cutting off the umbilical cord between Japan and the United States that permits them to come in and siphon out things that belong to us. Mr. BOWER. The informal understanding simply benefited the American salmon industry at that time, because there was no American interest as I said before-no American industry that had evidenced any interest in the crabs. Mr. SIROVICH. Japan apparently does not understand what a gentlemen's agreement is. Mr. PETERSON. What kind of crabs are they that they catch up there? Mr. BOWER. Those are the king crabs, the very large ones. I have seen them in the Bering Sea region that stretched nearly 6 feet from tip to tip. Mr. PETERSON. Is that the same kind of crab that the American crabbers are catching in Bering Sea? Mr. BOWER. There are no American crabbers operating in Bering Sea. The place Mr. Carlson spoke of is about 1,000 miles away from there, and different conditions obtain. The crabs in central and southeast Alaska are of another species and are caught in inland waters, well within the so-called 3-mile limit. Mr. SIROVICH. Is it not a matter of fact that this crab meat we are discussing, that Japan is canning, is competing against the crab meat of Florida and Virginia? Mr. BOWER. That is true. Mr. CULKIN. You have never had any evidence of the political partisanship of those crabs, have you? [Laughter.] Mr. BOWER. I never heard of it. Mr. CARLSON. May I make one statement in reference to crabs? The CHAIRMAN. Yes. Mr. CARLSON. I want to make a statement in reference to this crab industry. It is just in recent years that the American packers, the ones who are putting up these crabs now, have been able to control that meat so it would not spoil, and to treat it in a manner so that they can put it up in cans. Mr. SIROVICH. How do they treat it? Mr. CARLSON. I do not know; but it is a certain procedure they go through now that, before, there was a danger of this crab meat spoiling when put in a sealed can, unless it was put up in the shape of a cold pack. Mr. SIROVICH. Has that been investigated by the pure-food department? Mr. CARLSON. Now they can successfully put it up in tins, similar to the salmon. I believe that is possibly one of the reasons, or the main reason, that the Bering Sea crab fishery has not been interesting for American capital to develop. Mr. DIMOND. Referring again to the type of gear you saw on the Japanese vessel in Bristol Bay on the 7th of July 1937, was that gear suitable to be used in crab fishing, or in salmon fishing? Mr. CARLSON. The gear that we saw was suitable only for salmon fishing. Mr. PETERSON (presiding). Is there any other statement you care to make? Mr. CARLSON. Delegate Dimond has asked me a question about Captain Shields, the captain of the Sophie Christensen. I am personally acquainted with Captain Shields and have had a number of talks with him and he possibly has more data and has made more observations of the activities of the Japanese than anybody else. He has stated to me that he has got affidavits written by one of his officers that they have caught the Japanese fishing within half a mile from shore; that they have been in that close; and, also, the codfish situation in that region is in a pretty bad state. There used to be a great number of vessels outfit from Portland and Seattle to go to Alaska, or in Bristol Bay, and fish for codfish, furnishing a lot of employment for fishermen. But now I am led to believe there are only two vessels that are operating in that capacity. The Japanese are depleting the cod fishery. The CHAIRMAN. Is there anything else? Mr. DIMOND. Unless someone has some questions to ask Mr. Carlson, I think his testimony has been completed, and I ask leave to incorporate in the record, either as a part of my remarks or independently, first, a resolution adopted at the eighteenth convention of the American Legion, Department of Alaska, with reference to this subject, asking for the exclusion of the Japanese; a copy of a resolution adopted by the Fishermen's Council, of the Federated Fishermen's Council of the Pacific Coast and Alaska, which is identical with a resolution adopted both by branches of the Alaska Fishermen's Union and by the Alaska Labor Federation. The CHAIRMAN. Will it be satisfactory to put those resolutions in an appendix? Mr. DIMOND. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, then, the resolutions you desire to put in will be incorporated in an appendix to the record. Mr. DIMOND. Very well. I am putting in only one copy of each resolution. The CHAIRMAN. And you will refer to the others as identical resolutions? |