My Attainment of the Pole Part 45

Coming down from Quebec, I stopped in Troy, New York, to await Mr.

Hampton, who was to come from New York. While there, a sub-editor, with all a newspaper man's sensational instincts, came to see me. He communicated, it seems, a brilliant scheme for a series of articles. As he outlined it, I was to go secretly to New York, submit myself to several employed alienists who should p.r.o.nounce me insane, whereupon I was to write several articles in which I should admit having arrived at the conclusion that I reached the Pole while mentally unbalanced! This admission was to be supported by the alienists' purchased report! This plan, I was told, would "put me right" and make a great sensational story!

When I was told of this I felt staggered. Did people--could they--deem me such a hoax that, in order to obtain an unwarranted sympathy, or to make money, I should be willing to admit to such a shameful, mad, atrocious and despicable lie? I said nothing when the suggestion was made. At heart, I felt achingly hurt. I felt that this newspaper man, not hesitating at deceiving the public in order to get a sensation, regarded me as a scoundrel. I was learning, too, as I had throughout the heart-bitter controversy, the duplicity of human nature.

After a talk with Mr. Hampton, who finally arrived, and who, I am glad to say, had no such suggestion himself to offer, I got to work on my articles after the general plan spoken of in London. These were written at the Palatine Hotel, in Newburgh. The articles finished, I returned to London to settle certain business matter prior to my public return to America by Christmas.

Imagine my amazed indignation when, shortly before sailing, the cables brought the untrue news, "Dr. Cook Confesses." Imagine my heart-aching dismay when, on reaching the sh.o.r.es of my native country, I found the magazine which was running the articles in which I hoped to explain myself, had blazoned the sensation-provoking lie over its cover--"Dr.

Cook's Confession."

I had made no confession. I had made the admission that I was uncertain as to having reached the exact mathematical Pole. That same admission Mr. Peary would have to make had he been pinned down. He did make this admission, in fact, while his own articles, a year before, were being prepared, in the _Hampton's_ office.

In order to advertise itself, the magazine employed the trick of construing a mere admission of uncertainty as to the exact pin-point attainment of the Pole as a "confession." To the public I had apparently authorized this. The misrepresentation hurt me, and for a time placed me in an unhappy dilemma.

Before the appearance of the January _Hampton's_, in which the first instalment of my articles appeared, a series of press stories supposedly based upon my forthcoming articles were prepared and sent out by the sub-editor who had suggested the insanity plan. These were prepared during the absence of Mr. Harry in Atlantic City. By picking garbled extracts from my articles about the impossibility of a pin-point determination of the Pole, and the crazy mirage-effects of the Arctic world, these news-stories were construed to the effect that I admitted I did not know whether I had been at the North Pole or whether I had not been at the North Pole, and also that I admitted to a plea of insanity.

These stories were printed on the first pages of hundreds of newspaper all over the country, under scareheads of "Dr. Cook Admits Fake!" and "Dr. Cook Makes Plea of Insanity!"

In these reports, written by the sub-editor, he gave himself credit for the "discovery" of Dr. Cook and the securing of his articles for _Hampton's_. This claim for the magazine "beat" was as dishonest as his handling of the press matter for _Hampton's_. My dealings with the magazine were entirely through Mr. Harry, whose frankness and fair-dealing early disposed me to give my story to the publication he represented.

The widespread dissemination of the untrue and cruelly unfair "confession" and "insanity-plea" stories dazed me. I felt impotent, crushed. In my very effort to explain myself I was being irretrievably hurt. I was being made a catspaw for magazine and newspaper sensation.

But misrepresentations do not make history. The American people cannot always be hoodwinked. The reading public soon realized that my story was no more a confession than the "Peary Proof Positive" instalment in Hampton's had been the embodiment of any real Polar proofs.

Finding that it was impossible, in magazines and newspapers, to tell the full truth; finding that what I did say was garbled and distorted, I concluded to reserve the detailed facts for this book. There were truths about Mr. Peary which, I suppose, no paper would have dared to print. I have told them here. There were truths about myself which, because they explain me, the papers, preferring to attack me, would not have printed.

I have told them here.

I climbed Mt. McKinley, by my own efforts, without a.s.sistance; I reached the Pole, save for my Eskimos, alone. I had spent no one's money, lost no lives. I claimed my victory honestly; and as a man believing in himself and his personal rights, at a time when I was nervously unstrung and viciously attacked, I went away to rest, rather than deal in dirty defamation, alone. At a time when the tables seemed turned, when the wolves of the press were desirous of rending me, I came back to my country--alone.

I have now made my fight; I have been compelled to extreme measures of truth-telling that are abhorrent to me. I have done this because, otherwise, people would not understand the facts of the Polar controversy or why I, reluctant, remained silent so long. I have done this single-handedly. I have confidence in my people; more than that, I have implicit and indomitable confidence in--Truth.

RETROSPECT

Returning from the North, in September, 1909, while being honored in Copenhagen for my success in reaching the North Pole, there came, by wireless from Labrador, messages from Robert E. Peary, claiming the attainment exclusively as his own, and declaring that in my a.s.sertion I was, in his vernacular, offering the world a "gold brick."

On April 21, 1908, I had reached a spot which I ascertained, with as scientific accuracy as possible, to be the top of the axis around which the world spins--the North Pole.

On April 6, 1909, a year later, Mr. Peary claimed to have reached the same spot.

To substantiate his charge of fraud, Peary declared that my Eskimo companions had said I had been only two sleeps from land. Why, he further asked, had I not taken reputable witnesses with me on such a trip?

I had taken, on my final dash, two expert Eskimos. Mr. Peary had four Eskimos and a negro body servant.

Before launching further charges, Mr. Peary delayed his s.h.i.+p, the _Roosevelt_, at Battle Harbor, on the pretext of cleaning it, that he might digest my New York _Herald_ story, compare it with his own, and fabricate his broadside of abuse. There he was in constant communication with the New York _Times_, General Thomas Hubbard--president of the Peary Arctic Club and financial sponsor of the "trust"--and Herbert L.

Bridgman. The _Times_, eager to "beat" the _Herald_, was desirous of descrediting me and launching Peary's as the _bona-fide_ North Pole discovery story. General Hubbard, Mr. Bridgman, and the "trust" were eager for a publicity and acclaim greater than that which might attach to any honorable second victor. Dishonor and perjury, to secure first honors, were not even to be weighed in the balance.

When I arrived in New York, I was confronted by a series of technical questions, designed to baffle me. These questions, I learned, had been sent to the _Times_ by Mr. Peary with instructions that the _Times_ "get after" me.

I answered these questions. I had answered them in Europe. Mr. Peary, when he arrived at Sydney, and afterward, refused to answer any questions. He continued simply to attack me, to make insinuations aspersing my honesty, playing the secret back-hand game of defamation conducted by his friends of his Arctic Club.

Why had I not, on my return from my Polar trip, told anyone of the achievement, Mr. Peary asked in an interview, aiming to show that my Polar attainment was an afterthought.

On my return to Etah I had told Harry Whitney and Pritchard. They, in turn, told Captain Bob Bartlett. Captain Bartlett, as well as the Eskimos, in turn told Peary at Etah that I claimed to have reached the Pole. At the very moment when this charge was made, Peary had in his pocket Captain Adams' letter which gave the same information. Why did Mr. Peary suppress this information, convicting himself of insinuating an untruth from three different sources to challenge my claim.

Returning from the North with the negro, Henson, and Eskimos, Mr. Peary himself had not told his own companions on the _Roosevelt_ of his own success. Why was this?

In a portentous statement Mr. Peary and his party declared my Eskimos said I had not been more than two sleeps from land.

I had instructed my companions not to tell Peary of my achievement. He had stolen my supplies. I felt him unworthy of the confidence of a brother explorer. I had encouraged the delusion of E-tuk-i-shook and Ah-we-lah that almost daily mirages and low-lying clouds were signs of land, so as to prevent the native panic and desertion on the circ.u.mpolar sea. They had possibly told this to Peary in all honesty; but other natives also told him that we had reached the "Big Nail."

Why was the news to Mr. Peary's liking given, while that which he did not like was ignored?

Not long ago, Matthew Henson, interviewed in the south, was quoted as saying that Peary did not get to the Pole. In another interview he said that Peary, like a tenderfoot, rode in a fur-cus.h.i.+oned sledge until they got to a place which was "far enough." I still prefer to believe Peary rather than Henson. Peary's Eskimo companions of a former trip positively deny Peary's claimed discovery of Crocker Land. I still prefer to believe that Crocker Land does deserve a place on the map.

Peary's last Eskimo companions say that he did not reach the Pole. But I prefer to credit his claim. Mr. Peary's spirit has never been that of fairness to others when a claim impinges upon his own. He has always adopted the tactics of the claim-jumper.

In a like manner, and with similar intent, Mr. Peary had attacked many explorers before me. To prevent his companions from profiting by their own work, members of each expedition were forced to sign contracts that barred press interviews, eliminated cameras, prohibited lecturing or writing, or even trading for trophies. To insure Mr. Peary all the honor, his men were made slaves to his cause.

In a quarrel which resulted from these impossible conditions, Eivind Astrup was a.s.sailed. Broken-hearted, he committed suicide. Captain Otto Sverdrup was made to feel the sting of the same grasping spirit. General A. W. Greely has been unjustly attacked. All of this detestable selfishness culminated in the treatment of Captain Bob Bartlett. When the Pole, to Peary, seemed within reach, and the glory of victory was within grasp, the ever-faithful Bartlett was turned back and his place was taken by a negro, that Peary might be, to quote his own words, "the only white man at the Pole."

When, on my return to New York, I found myself attacked by a man of this caliber, I decided that the public, without any counter-defamation on my part, would read him aright and see through the unscrupulous and dishonest campaign. So I remained silent.

Coming down to Portland from Sydney, where he had landed, Mr. Peary gave out an interview insinuating that I had had no instruments with which to take observations. "Would Dr. Cook," he asked, "if he had had instruments, have left them in the hands of a stranger (Harry Whitney), when upon these depended his fame or his dishonor?"

On his return to this country, Mr. Whitney corroborated my statement of leaving my instruments with him. Mr. Peary's own captain, who had cross-questioned my Eskimos for Mr. Peary, later stated to two magazine editors that my companions had described to him the instruments I had had. Is it reasonable to suppose that Mr. Peary did not know of this? I know that he knew. If he is an honest man, why did he stoop to this dishonesty? Even if he believed me to be dishonest, dishonest methods only placed him in the cla.s.s of the one he attacked as dishonest.

By using the same underhand methods, as when he got the New York _Times_ to cross-question me for himself, Peary now got his friends of the Geographic Society, who had boosted him, to call for "proofs." Such proofs, it appeared, should always be presented before public honors were accepted or the returns of a lecture tour considered. But Peary had engaged in exploration for twenty years, and had always given lectures at once, without ever offering proofs. I was asked to cancel lecture engagements and furnish what Peary knew neither he nor anybody else could furnish offhand. For the proof of an explorer's doings is his final book, which requires months and years to prepare.

With much blaring of trumpets, the Peary "proofs" were submitted to his friends of the National Geographic Society. With but a casual examination of copies of data, claimed at the time to be original field notes, with no explanation of the wonderful instruments upon which it had been earlier claimed Polar honors rested, an immediate and favorable verdict was rendered.

A huge picture was published, showing learned, bewhiskered gentlemen examining the Peary "proofs," and reaching their verdict. Mr. Peary's case for a rediscovery of the Pole was won--for the time. The public were deceived into believing that positive proofs had been presented; that the society, acting as a competent and neutral jury, was honest.

Later it was shown that its members were financially interested in Mr.

Peary's expedition, and still later it was admitted that the Peary proofs contained no proof. All of this later development has had no publicity.

In the meantime, I was attacked for delay. My data was finally sent to the University of Copenhagen. A verdict of "Unproven" was rendered.

Thereupon, Mr. Peary and his friends at once shouted "Fraud!" The press parrot-like re-echoed that shout. With this unfair insinuation there came to me the biting sting of a burning electric shock as the wires quivered all around the world. At the Congressional investigation, a year later, the Peary data was shown to be useless as proof. It was a verdict precisely like that of Copenhagen on mine, but the press did not print it. Did the Peary interests have any control over the American press or its sources of news distribution?

After the call for "proof" came charges, from members of the Peary cabal, that I was unable to take observations. Mr. Peary was so much better equipped than I to do so! Moreover, he had had the able scientific a.s.sistance of Bartlett and--the negro.

When I was at the Pole the sun was 12 above the horizon. At the time Peary claims he was there it was less than 7. Difficult as it is to take observations at 12, because of refracted light, any accurate observation at 7 is impossible. It is indeed, questionable if an observation could be made at all at the time when Peary claims to have been at the Pole.

Finding that, despite all charges, the public believed in me, Mr. Peary, through his cooperators, attempted to discredit my veracity. An affidavit, which was bought, as I have evidence to prove, was made by Barrill to the effect that I had not climbed Mt. McKinley. The getting of this affidavit is placed at the door of Mr. Peary.

Do honest men, with honest intentions, buy perjured doc.u.ments?

Do honest men, believing in themselves, besmirch their own honor by deliberate lying?