Court Opinion

ID: 9422351
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:02:15.210864+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:35.048087
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Douglas,
while joining the opinion of the Court, dissents from an extension of the stay for reasons to be stated in an opinion.
Mr. Justice Douglas.*
When the decision in this case was announced on March 5, 1962, I noted that while I joined the opinion of the Court, I dissented from the continuation of the stay and would elaborate my views at a later time. As the decision to extend the stay was reached in Conference on March 2, 1962, there was insufficient time to prepare an opinion by the following Monday.
The stay was first granted by Mr. Justice Brennan, 80 Sup. Ct. 33, to maintain the status quo while this litigation was pending. The stay was then plainly justified, as the questions presented were substantial ones. Now, *77however, the adjudication has been made; and the Court is unanimous in concluding that these Indians have no right to use fish traps. A stay is not needed to protect rights that may arise from future Regulations, as in the Metlakatla case, for any administrative power of the Secretary of the Interior to allow the Kake and Angoon Indians to use traps is lacking. And with all deference, a stay is not shown to be justified on any other grounds.
A stay that continues in use for another season a device as nefarious as the fish trap needs potent reasons.
The destruction caused by fish traps is notorious. Mr. Justice Van Devanter, conservationist as well as jurist, described an Alaskan fish trap 1 designed “to catch about 600,000 salmon in a single season,” a trap which “will tend materially to reduce the natural supply of fish accessible to the Indians.” Alaska Pacific Fisheries v. United States, 248 U. S. 78, 87. Dr. David Starr Jordan in his 1904 report of the Alaska Salmon Commission stated, “If we consider the ultimate interests of Alaska and the permanence of her salmon fisheries, no traps should be allowed anywhere . . . .” Gruening, The State *78of Alaska (1954), p. 169. Beginning in 1931 the Territorial Legislature memorialized Congress condemning the use of the fish trap because of its adverse effect on salmon and on the salmon industry. See Alaska, Sess. Laws, 1931, p. 275; Alaska, Sess. Laws, 1953, pp. 401-402; Alaska, Sess. Laws, 1955, pp. 447-448. The 1955 Resolution ended by saying:
“WHEREAS, the vast majority of Alaskans, after many decades of first hand experience and study, are convinced that no salmon conservation program can achieve lasting effect unless salmon fish traps are abolished immediately, forever, from Alaskan waters;
“NOW THEREFORE, your Memorialist, the Legislature of the Territory of Alaska, respectfully urges and requests that immediate legislation be enacted abolishing fish traps from the waters of the Territory of Alaska.”
In 1959, the Alaskan Native Brotherhood, organized to speak for the Indians,2 reiterated its stand “for complete abolition of traps.”
Senator Gruening, on March 6, 1962, issued a statement to the Associated Press which emphasized another invidious effect of the use of fish traps by the Indians:
“The 1945 Alaska Territorial Legislature, at my behest, while I was Governor, passed an Act outlawing discrimination in public establishments based on race, creed, or color. This was designed to safeguard Alaska’s Native people who had been subject to such discrimination and it did so safeguard them. Secretary Seaton’s action would have created an inverse discrimination against Whites deeply sowing seeds of bitterness and arousing interracial friction and antagonism which has no place in America and had disappeared in Alaska. The performance was an inexcusable pressure play. In a referendum on fish *79traps in 1948, 88.7% of the people of Alaska voted for trap abolition, and Angoon’s vote was 49 to 9 and Kake’s 123 to 6 against traps. Yet Secretary Seaton sought to force traps upon them and on the people of Alaska.
“The Court’s decision in the Metlakatla case differs in its conclusion from the Kake and Angoon cases only because of Metlakatla’s historically different and unique legal status. It leaves the course of action open to the present Secretary of Interior. It is to be hoped that both he and the people of Metlakatla, who in the 1948 referendum — though owning seven traps — voted 112 to 33 for trap abolition, will agree that privilege and discrimination based on race should finally disappear totally from the 49th State.”
The devastating effect of fish traps upon Alaska’s economy was described by the Alaska Supreme Court:
“It has not been unusual for a single trap to catch as many as 600,000 fish in a single season. The impact of the catch of eleven traps on the fisheries of Southeastern Alaska is considerable from the point of view of conservation. The season’s catch of a gill net or purse seine fisherman in the same area might run from 2,000 to 10,000 fish respectively. The discrimination against all fishermen, natives and whites alike, resulting from the Secretary’s 1959 regulation, creates social problems for the state which it is powerless to remedy if the Secretary’s claimed right is upheld. The intention to retain such a power over the basic industry of the state was not intimated in the wording of the Alaska Statehood Act, much less described. Such a power has never been reserved as to any other state admitted into the Union as far as this court is aware. The fisheries of Alaska, although pitifully depleted, are still its basic industry. The *80economy of the entire state is affected, in one degree or another, by the plentitude of the salmon in a given season. The preservation of this natural resource is vital to the state and of great importance to the nation as a whole.” Metlakatla Indian Community v. Egan, - Alaska -, 362 P. 2d 901, 915.
The fish trap is “efficient,” 3 an adjective which, by conservation standards, means that it is “destructive.” As Senator Gruening has said, “Its economic and social aspects have been under unceasing attack by virtually all fishermen, by cannery men who do not own or control traps and have to depend on other types of gear for their salmon, and by the Alaska public generally.” Gruening, The State of Alaska (1954), pp. 170-171.
Moreover, the fish trap is not a selective device, taking only one type of fish. It catches everything that swims; and fish that are not “in season” are as irretrievably lost as are those in which the fishermen have the greatest interest.
We should not allow such a destructive device4 to be employed, absent a claim of legal right or a showing of *81imperative need. As I have said, no such right exists subsequent to our unanimous decision of March 5, 1962. It is, of course, provided in 28 U. S. C. § 2106 that in disposing of cases here for review we may not only “affirm, modify, vacate, set aside or reverse,” but also “require such further proceedings to be had as may be just under the circumstances.” But we have no reason for concluding that it would be unjust to turn these Indians to fishing with gill nets or hand lines like everyone else. All we have before us is a motion made in October 1961 to expedite a hearing in these cases. In that motion it is said:
“The 1962 fishing season in Alaska begins in July, 1962. To prepare for this fishing season, Appellants must commit large sums of money for materials and supplies, including wire, netting, and cannery equipment. A large portion of these materials must be ordered not later than January, 1962. If Appellants’ right to fish with traps were not to be upheld, their investment would be wasted. Conversely, if Appellants’ right to fish with traps is upheld, Appellants will be unable to fish unless substantial sums of money are committed early in 1962.”
Whether any sums have in fact been committed to the construction of these nefarious fish traps we do not know. Why these Indians cannot fish in the manner of all other fishermen is not apparent. Since the fishing season starts in July, they have four months from the date of our decision to prepare for it. What problems, if any, they may have in fishing without traps, we do not know. They have asked for no stay at this juncture of the litigation. We act gratuitously and without any knowledge of the actual facts. We in effect dispense to this group who have no legal rights a largesse, as if we sat as a Commission on Indian Affairs, giving a part of the public domain to this favored few.
*82Those who know the story of the decline of the salmon 5 can only look with concern on any action that further depletes the supply of this choice national asset. Severe human hardship may result from the decision we handed down on March 5, 1962. But if that is true, we should *83require that it be shown. The disposition of these cases four months before the 1962 fishing season starts gives ample notice that new ways of earning a livelihood must be found other than the lazy man’s device of the fish trap.6

[This opinion was filed March 19, 1962.]

 The salmon trap is described by the Alaska Supreme Court as follows:
“A trap consists of tall stakes or mechanically driven piling extending from the shore to varying distances seaward, depending on the depth of the water. Wire or webbing is stretched across the stakes or piling from the shore to the seaward end and from the ocean bottom upward to a point above high water. Located at the seaward end is an extended wing or hook and an opening into the heart and pot. When the webbing is on the ocean bottom fish cannot pass around the trap at the shoreward end. One tendency of migrating fish is to parallel the shoreline and travel with the incoming tide. Fish stopped by the webbing of a trap will eventually follow it seaward in an attempt to by-pass the obstruction. The wing or hook is constructed so as to discourage by-passing and divert the fish into the heart and pot where they remain. With some variations in construction, floating traps adapted to deep water are commonly used and are highly productive.” Metlakatla Indian Community v. Egan, — Alaska -, 362 P. 2d 901, 903.

 See Federal Indian Law (Dept, of Interior, 1958), p. 963.

 Those who defend the fish trap rate it as being a degree better than the purse seine. This is because the purse seine is movable and “difficult to keep track of by the inspectors,” while the fish trap is stationary and can be readily inspected. See Hearings before Subcommittee, Senate Committee on Fisheries, on S. 5856, 62d Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 458-459.

 Those who defend the fish trap are quick to add “provided the trap has no jigger.” Hearings, supra, note 3, at 458. Senator Gruening describes the “jigger”:
“The ‘jigger’ is a lateral extension of the trap, curved or hooked, extending away from the wall of the outer ‘heart’ into the direction from which the salmon come. It makes avoidance of the trap toward which at that point the salmon are heading almost impossible.” Gruening, The State of Alaska (1954), p. 170.
It is significant that the Regulations under which these Indians are now allowed to fish during the 1962 season do not bar the “jigger” (see 25 CFR §88.3), though the Territorial Legislature as early as 1913 had banned it. See Gruening, op. cit., supra, at 169.

 James Wiekersham, delegate in Congress from Alaska, testified in 1914 as to the start of the depletion of the salmon:
“I want to call the attention of the committee to one stream which has been depleted in California, and that is the Sacramento River. The Sacramento River was one of the first rivers upon which canners put up salmon. In 1864 the first canned salmon were packed in California on the Sacramento River. In 1882 there were 200,000 cases of canned salmon put out from the Sacramento River — 48 pounds to the case, making a total of 4,800 tons of salmon canned during that year on the Sacramento River.
“Then it began to decrease, and it went down to 123,000; then to 90,000; then to 67,000; then to 31,000; then to 14,000; and finally in 1906 there were none put up on that river. For three or four years there were none put up, but in 1913 there were 950 eases put up on the Sacramento River. In short, that great salmon stream has been utterly destroyed and there are no fish there now, substantially.
“Of course, that situation resulted from several causes. It resulted from overfishing, and from putting barriers across the streams to catch the fish, and it resulted in part from mining. All these things are going to happen in Alaska. There is mining going on there now on many of these streams. All the obstacles that operated to bring about that evil in the Sacramento River will operate in Alaska as soon as they open up that country. As soon as that is done and they get to work in there, the streams there are going to be depleted.
“When the first Russians went to Kadiak Island, more than a century ago, they found the Karluk salmon stream surrounded by Indians. It was a great fishing spot. That stream has probably turned out more canned salmon than any other stream in Alaska. Dr. Evermann and all those who were acquainted with it say it was the greatest salmon stream in the world. I saw the fishing going on there in 1903. I know how it was done. They had at one side a great post set in the ground sufficient to hold the nets. The nets were put into big boats, and they were long nets, some of them half a mile long, I suppose, and they were carried out into the bay, and as they came around they were fastened to a rope on the shore, to which was attached a big engine, and when they got that far along *83the big engine pulled the nets for them. The number of fish which they caught in there is simply unbelievable, and they were pulled in by machinery. The men themselves were unable to handle big nets of that kind. They were able to handle the small nets, but when they got machinery handling the fish for them they soon destroyed that stream. Every fisherman in that region knows it is destroyed; knows that the greatest salmon stream in Alaska has been destroyed.” Hearings before House Committee on the Territories on H. R. 11740, 63d Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 45-46. For later discussions on the plight of the salmon of the Pacific, see Hearings before Merchant Marine and Fisheries Subcommittee, Senate Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, on S. Con. Res. 35, pt. I, and on S. 502, 86th Cong., 1st Sess.; Hearings before Senate Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce on S. Con. Res. 35, S. 2586 and S. 1420, pt. II, 86th Cong., 1st Sess.
The depletion of salmon from California to Alaska is notorious. See Dufresne, Troubled River, Field and Stream, July 1959, p. 27; Netboy, Salmon of the Pacific Northwest (1958); 1958, A Year of Surprise in Pacific Salmon Canning, Pacific Fisherman, Jan. 25, 1959, p. 81; id., Jan. 25, 1960, p. 53; id., Jan. 25, 1961, pp. 13, 23; Van Fleet, The Vanishing Salmon, Atlantic, May 1961, pp. 48, 51:
“In my estimation, the former great wealth of the salmon fishery in California is doomed. In Oregon, the main runs are badly crippled but not entirely gone. In Washington, the runs are diminished along the coast and in the waters around Puget Sound, but careful husbandry could even bring about an increase. My advice to Alaska is to heed the lesson so well portrayed in the states to the south of it.”
The Hearings on S. 502, supra, are replete with examples of the impact on people and on the Alaska economy of the salmon depletion. This depletion also has a serious impact on wildlife. For an account of what a scarcity of salmon means to the brown bear population, see the Hearings on S. 502, supra, at 25-26.

 “A trap fishes in the night when the man sleeps; it employs less men than other kinds of gear; it is a labor-saving device . . . .” Hearings on S. 5856, supra, note 3, at 389.