I call the attention of the Congress to the importance of the problem
of the fisheries in the interstate waters. On the Great Lakes we are
now, under the very wise treaty of April 11th of this year, endeavoring
to come to an international agreement for the preservation and
satisfactory use of the fisheries of these waters which can not
otherwise be achieved. Lake Erie, for example, has the richest fresh
water fisheries in the world; but it is now controlled by the statutes
of two Nations, four States, and one Province, and in this Province by
different ordinances in different counties. All these political
divisions work at cross purposes, and in no case can they achieve
protection to the fisheries, on the one hand, and justice to the
localities and individuals on the other. The case is similar in Puget
Sound.
But the problem is quite as pressing in the interstate waters of the
United States. The salmon fisheries of the Columbia River are now but a
fraction of what they were twenty-five years ago, and what they would
be now if the United States Government had taken complete charge of
them by intervening between Oregon and Washington. During these
twenty-five years the fishermen of each State have naturally tried to
take all they could get, and the two legislatures have never been able
to agree on joint action of any kind adequate in degree for the
protection of the fisheries. At the moment the fishing on the Oregon
side is practically closed, while there is no limit on the Washington
side of any kind, and no one can tell what the courts will decide as to
the very statutes under which this action and non-action result.
Meanwhile very few salmon reach the spawning grounds, and probably four
years hence the fisheries will amount to nothing; and this comes from a
struggle between the associated, or gill-net, fishermen on the one
hand, and the owners of the fishing wheels up the river. The fisheries
of the Mississippi, the Ohio, and the Potomac are also in a bad way.
For this there is no remedy except for the United States to control and
legislate for the interstate fisheries as part of the business of
interstate commerce. In this case the machinery for scientific
investigation and for control already exists in the United States
Bureau of Fisheries. In this as in similar problems the obvious and
simple rule should be followed of having those matters which no
particular State can manage taken in hand by the United States;
problems which in the seesaw of conflicting State legislatures are
absolutely unsolvable are easy enough for Congress to control.