Eskimos which Mr. Peary might cite, knowing as well as he did that one
can get any sort of desired reply from these natives by certain adroit
questioning, and knowing also that the alleged route on his map which he
said they drew was valueless, inasmuch as an Eskimo out of sight of land
and in an unfamiliar region has no sense of location. I felt the whole
statement to be what it was, a trumped-up document in which my helpers,
perhaps unwittingly, had been adroitly led to affirm what Mr. Peary by
jesuitical and equivocal questioning planned to have them say, and that
it was therefore unworthy of a reply.
I had left my instruments and part of the unreduced reckonings with Mr.
Harry Whitney, a fact which Mr. Whitney himself confirmed in published
press interviews when he first arrived--in the heat of the controversy
and after I left Copenhagen--in Sidney. When interviews came from Mr.
Peary insinuating that I had left no instruments in the North, this
becoming a definite charge which was taken up with great hue and cry,
I bitterly felt this to be a deliberate untruth on Mr. Peary's part.
I have since learned that one of Mr. Peary's officers cross-questioned
my Eskimos, and that by showing them Mr. Peary's own instruments he
discovered just what instruments I had had with me on my trip, and that
by describing the method of using these instruments to E-tuk-i-shook
and Ah-we-lah, Bartlett learned from them that I did take observations.
This information he conveyed to Mr. Peary before his expedition left
Etah for America, and this knowledge Mr. Peary and his party,
deliberately and with malicious intent, concealed on their return. At
the time I had no means of refuting this insinuation; it was simply my
word or Mr. Peary's.
[Illustration: RUDOLPH FRANCKE IN ARCTIC COSTUME]
[Illustration: MIDNIGHT--"A PANORAMA OF BLACK LACQUER AND SILVER."]
I had no extraordinary proofs to offer, but, such as they were, I now
know, by comparison with the published reports of Mr. Peary himself,
they were as good as any offered by anyone. I was perhaps unfortunate in
not having, as Mr. Peary had, a confederate body of financially
interested friends to back me up, as was the National Geographic
Society.
Not satisfied with unjustly attacking my claim, Mr. Peary's associates
proceeded to assail my past career, and I was next confronted by an
affidavit made by my guide, Barrill, to the effect that I had not scaled
Mt. McKinley, an affidavit which, as I later secured evidence, had been
bought. A widely heralded "investigation" was announced by a body of
"explorers" of which Peary was president. One of Colonel Mann's
muck-rakers was secretary, while its moving spirit was Mr. Peary's press
agent, Herbert L. Bridgman. In a desperate effort to help Peary, a
cowardly side issue was forced through Professor Herschell Parker, who
had been with me on the Mt. McKinley trip but who had turned back after
becoming panic-stricken in the crossing of mountain torrents. Mr. Parker
expressed doubt of my achievements because he differed with me as to the
value of the particular instrument to ascertain altitude which I, with
many other mountain climbers, used. I had offered all possible proofs
as to having climbed the mountain, as full and adequate proofs as any
mountaineer could, or ever has offered.
I resented the meddlesomeness of this pro-Peary group of kitchen
explorers, not one of whom knew the first principles of mountaineering.
From such an investigation, started to help Peary in his black-hand
effort to force the dagger, with the money power easing men's
conscience--as was evident at the time everywhere--no fair result could
be expected. And as to the widely printed Barrill affidavit--this
carried on its face the story of pro-Peary bribery and conspiracy. I
have since learned that for it $1,500 and other considerations were
paid. Here was a self-confessed liar. I did not think that a sane public
therefore could take this underhanded pro-Peary charge as to the climb
of Mt. McKinley seriously. Indeed, I paid little attention to it, but by
using the cutting power of the press my enemies succeeded in inflicting
a wound in my side.
I was thus plunged into the bewildering chaos which friends and enemies
created, and swept for three months through a cyclone of events which I
believe no human being could have stood. Before returning, I felt
weakened mentally and physically by the rigors of the North, where for a
year I barely withstood starvation. I was now whirled about the country,
daily delivering lectures, greeting thousands of people, buffeted by
mobs of well-meaning beings, and compelled to attend dinners and
receptions numbering two hundred in sixty days. The air hissed about me
with the odious charges which came from every direction. I was alone,
helpless, without a single wise counsellor, under the charge of the
enemies' press, mud-charged guns fired from every point of the compass.
Unlimited funds were being consumed in the infamous mill of bribery.
I had not the money nor the nature to fight in this kind of battle--so I
withdrew. At once, howls of execration gleefully rose from the ranks of
my enemies; my departure was heralded gloriously as a confession of
imposture. Advantage was taken of my absence and new, perjured, forged
charges were made to blacken my name. Far from my home and unable to
defend myself, Dunkle and Loose swore falsely to having manufactured
figures and observations under my direction. When I learned of this,
much as it hurt me, I knew that the report which I had sent to
Copenhagen would, if it did anything, disprove by the very figures in it
the malicious lying document published in the New York _Times_. This,
combined with the verdict rendered by the University of Copenhagen--a
neutral verdict which carried no implication of the non-attainment of
the Pole, but which was interpreted as a rejection--helped to stamp me
in the minds of many people as the most monumental impostor the world
has ever seen.
I fully realized that under the circumstances the only verdict of an
unprejudiced body on any such proofs to such a claim must be favorable
or neutral. The members of the University of Copenhagen who examined my
papers were neither personal friends nor members of a body financially
interested in my quest. Their verdict was honest. Mr. Peary's Washington
verdict was dishonest, for two members of the jury admitted a year later
in Congress, under pressure, that in the Peary data there was no
absolute proof.
By the time I determined to return to my native country and state my
case, I had been placed, I am certain, in a position of undeserved
discredit unparalleled in history. No epithet was too vile to couple
with my name. I was declared a brazen cheat who had concocted the most
colossal lie of ages whereby to hoax an entire world for gain. I was
made the subject of cheap jokes. My name in antagonistic newspapers had
become a synonym for cheap faking. I was compelled to see myself held up
gleefully as an impostor, a liar, a fraud, an unscrupulous scoundrel,
one who had tried to steal honors from another, and who, to escape
exposure, had fled to obscurity.
All the scientific work which scientists themselves had accepted as
valuable, all the necessary hardships and the inevitable agonies of my
last Arctic journey were forgotten; I was coupled with the most
notorious characters in history in a press which panders to the lowest
of human emotions and delights in men's shame. When I realized how
egregious, how frightful, how undeserved was all this, my soul writhed;
when I saw clearly, with the perspective which only time can give, how
I, stepping aside, in errors of confused judgment which were purely
human, had seemingly contributed to my unhappy plight, I felt the sting
of ignominy greater than that which has broken stronger men's hearts.
For the glory which the world gives to such an accomplishment as the
discovery of the North Pole, I care very little, but when the very
result of such a victory is used as a whip to inflict cuts that mark my
future destiny, I have a right to call a halt. I have claimed no
national honors, want no medals or money. My feet stepped over the
Polar wastes with a will fired only by a personal ambition to succeed in
a task where all the higher human powers were put to the test of
fitness. That victory was honestly won. All that the achievement ever
meant to me--the lure of it before I achieved it, the only satisfaction
that remains since--is that it is a personal accomplishment of brain and
muscle over hitherto unconquered forces, a thought in which I have
pride. From the tremendous ovations that greeted me when I returned to
civilization I got not a single thrill. I did thrill with the handclasp
of confident, kindly people. I still thrill with the handclasp of my
countrymen.
Insofar as the earthly glory and applause are concerned, I should be
only too glad to share them, with all material accruements, to any
honest, manly rivals--those of the past and those of the future. But
against the unjust charges which have been made against me, against the
aspersions on my personal integrity, against the ignominy with which my
name has been besmirched, I will fight until the public gets a normal
perspective.
I have never hoaxed a mythical achievement. Everything I have ever
claimed was won by hard labor, by tremendous physical fortitude and
endurance, and by such personal sacrifice as only I, and my immediate
family, will ever know.
For this reason, I returned to my country in the latter part of 1910, as
I always intended to do, after a year's rest. By this time I knew that
my enemies would have said all that was possible about me; the
excitement of the controversy would have quieted, and I should have the
advantage of the last word.
In the heat of the controversy, only just returned in a weakened
condition from the North, and mentally bewildered by the unexpected
maelstrom of events, I should not have been able, with justice to
myself, to have met all the charges, criminal and silly, which were made
against me. Even what I did say was misquoted and distorted by a
sensational press which found it profitable to add fuel to the
controversy. Sometimes I feel that no man ever born has been so
variedly, so persistently lied about, misrepresented, made the butt of
such countless untruths as myself. When I consider the lies, great and
small, which for more than a year, throughout the entire world, have
been printed about me, I am filled almost with hopelessness. And
sometimes, when I think how I have been unjustly dubbed as the most
colossal liar of history, I am filled with a sort of sardonic humor.
Returning to my country, determined to state my case freely and frankly,
and making the honest admission that any claim to the definite, actual
attainment of the North Pole--the mathematical pin-point on which the
earth spins--must rest upon assumptions, because of the impossibility of
accuracy in observations, I found that this admission, which every
explorer would have to make, which Mr. Peary was unwillingly forced to
make at the Congressional investigation, was construed throughout the
country and widely heralded as a "confession," that garbled extracts
were lifted from the context of my magazine story and their meaning
distorted. In hundreds of newspapers I was represented as confessing to
a fraudulent claim or as making a plea of insanity. A full answer to the
charges made against me, necessary in order to justly cover my case,
because of the controversial nature of certain statements which
involved Mr. Peary, was prohibited by the contract I found it necessary
to sign in order to get any statement of a comparatively ungarbled sort
before a public which had read Mr. Peary's own account of his journey.
I found the columns of the press of my country closed to the publication
of statements which involved my enemies, because of the unfounded
prejudice created against me during my absence and because of the power
of Mr. Peary's friends. It is almost impossible in any condition for
anyone to secure a refutation for an unfounded attack in the American
papers. With the entire press of the country printing misstatements, I
was almost helpless. The justice, kindliness and generous spirit of fair
dealing of the American people, however, was extended to me--I found the
American people glad--nay, eager--to listen.
It is this spirit which has encouraged me, after the shameful campaign
of opprobrium which well-nigh broke my spirit, to tell the entire and
unalterable truth about myself and an achievement in which I still
believe--in fairness to myself, in order to clear myself, in order that
the truth about the discovery of the North Pole may be known by my
people and in order that history may record its verdict upon a full,
free and frank exposition. I do not address myself to any clique of
geographers or scientists, but to the great public of the world, and
herein, for the first time, shall I give fully whatever proofs there may
be of my conquest. Upon these records must conviction rest.
Did I actually reach the North Pole? When I returned to civilization and
reported that the boreal center had been attained, I believed that I
had reached the spot toward which valiant men had strained for more than
three hundred years. I still believe that I reached the boreal center as
far as it is possible for any human being to ascertain it. If I was
mistaken in approximately placing my feet upon the pin-point about which
this controversy has raged, I maintain that it is the inevitable mistake
any man must make. To touch that spot would be an accident. That any
other man has more accurately determined the Pole I do deny. That Mr.
Peary reached the North Pole--or its environs--with as fair accuracy as
was possible, I have never denied. That Mr. Peary was better fitted to
reach the Pole, and better equipped to locate this mythical spot, I do
not admit. In fact, I believe that, inasmuch as the purely scientific
ascertainment is a comparatively simple matter, I stood a better chance
of more scientifically and more accurately marking the actual spot than
Mr. Peary. I reached my goal when the sun was twelve degrees above the
horizon, and was therefore better able to mark a mathematical position
than Mr. Peary could have with the sun at less than seven degrees. Mr.
Peary's case rests upon three observations of sun altitude so low that,
as proof of a position, they are worthless.
Besides taking observations, which, as I shall explain in due course in
my narrative, cannot be adequate, I also ascertained what I believed to
be my approximate position at the boreal center and en route by
measuring the shadows each hour of the long day. Inasmuch as one's
shadow decreases or increases in length as the sun rises toward the
meridian or descends, at the boreal center, where the sun circles the
entire horizon at practically the same height during the entire day,
one's shadow in this region of mystery is of the same length. In this
observation, which is so simple that a child may understand it, is a
sure and certain means of approximately ascertaining the North Pole. I
took advantage of this method, which does not seem to have occurred to
any other Arctic traveler, and this helped to bring conviction.
I shall in this volume present with detail the story of my Arctic
journey--I shall tell how it was possible for me to reach my goal, why I
believe I attained that goal; and upon this record must the decision of
my people rest. I shall herein tell the story of an unfair and unworthy
plot to ruin the reputation of an innocent man because of an achievement
the full and prior credit of which was desired by a brutally selfish,
brutally unscrupulous rival. I shall tell of a tragedy compared with
which the North Pole and any glory accruing to its discoverer pales into
insignificance--the tragedy of a spirit that was almost broken, of a man
whose honor and pride was cut with knives in unclean hands.
When you have read all this, then, and only then, in fairness to
yourself and in fairness to me, do I ask you to form your opinion. Only
by reading this can you learn the full truth about me, about my claim
and about the plot to discredit me, of the charges made against me, and
the reason for all of my own actions. So persistent, so world-wide has
been the press campaign made by my enemies, and so egregious have the
charges seemed against me, so multitudinous have the lies, fake stories,
fake interviews, fake confessions been, so blatant have rung the
hideous cries of liar, impostor, cheat and fraud, that the task to right
myself, explain myself, and bring the truth into clean relief has seemed
colossal.
To return to my country and face the people in view of all that was
being said, with my enemies exultant, with antagonistic press men
awaiting me as some beast to be devoured, required a determined gritting
of the teeth and a reserve temperament to prevent an undignified battle.
For against such things nature dictates the tactics of the tiger. I
faced my people, I found them fair and kindly. I accused my enemies of
their lies, and they have remained silent. Titanic as is this effort of
forcing fair play where biased abuse has reigned so long, I am confident
of success. I am confident of the honesty and justice of my people; of
their ability spiritually to sense, psychically to appreciate the
earmarks of a clean, true effort--a worthy ambition and a real
attainment.
INTO THE BOREAL WILDS
THE YACHT BRADLEY LEAVES GLOUCESTER--INVADES THE MAGIC OF THE WATERS
OF THE ARCTIC SEAS--RECOLLECTION OF BOYHOOD AMBITIONS--BEYOND THE
ARCTIC CIRCLE--THE WEAVING OF THE POLAR SPELL
II
OVER THE ARCTIC CIRCLE
On July 3, 1907, between seven and eight o'clock in the evening, the
yacht, which had been renamed the _John B. Bradley_, quietly withdrew
from the pier at Gloucester, Massachusetts, and, turning her prow
oceanward, slowly, quietly started on her historic journey to the Arctic
seas.
In the tawny glow of sunset, which was fading in the western sky, she
looked, with her new sails unfurled, her entire body newly painted a
spotless white, like some huge silver bird alighting upon the sunshot
waters of the bay. On board, all was quiet. I stood alone, gazing back
upon the picturesque fishing village with a tender throb at my heart,
for it was the last village of my country which I might see for years,
or perhaps ever.
Along the water's edge straggled tiny ramshackle boat houses,
dun-colored sheds where fish are dried, and the humble miniature homes
of the fisherfolk, in the windows of which lights soon after appeared.
On the bay about us, fishing boats were lazily bobbing up and down; in
some, old bearded fishermen with broad hats, smoking clay and corncob
pipes, were drying their seines. Other boats went by, laden with
wriggling, silver-scaled fish; along the shore I could still see tons of
fish being unloaded from scores of boats. Through the rosy twilight,
voices came over the water, murmurous sounds from the shore, cries from
the sea mixed with the quaint oaths of fisherfolk at work. Ashore, the
boys of the village were testing their firecrackers for the morrow;
sputtering explosions cracked through the air. Occasionally a faint fire
rocket scaled the sky. But no whistles tooted after our departure. No
visiting crowds of curiosity-seekers ashore were frenziedly waving us
good-bye.
An Arctic expedition had been born without the usual clamor. Prepared in
one month, and financed by a sportsman whose only mission was to hunt
game animals in the North, no press campaign heralded our project, no
government aid had been asked, nor had large contributions been sought
from private individuals to purchase luxuries for a Pullman jaunt of a
large party Poleward. For, although I secretly cherished the ambition,
there was no definite plan to essay the North Pole.
At the Holland House in New York, a compact was made between John R.
Bradley and myself to launch an Arctic expedition. Because of my
experience, Mr. Bradley delegated to me the outfitting of the
expedition, and had turned over to me money enough to pay the costs of
the hunting trip. A Gloucester fishing schooner had been purchased by
me and was refitted, covered and strengthened for ice navigation. To
save fuel space and to gain the advantage of a steamer, I had a Lozier
gasoline motor installed. There had been put on board everything of
possible use and comfort in the boreal wild. As it is always possible
that a summer cruising ship is likely to be lost or delayed a year,
common prudence dictated a preparation for the worst emergencies.
So far as the needs of my own personal expedition were concerned, I had
with me on the yacht plenty of hard hickory wood for the making of
sledges, instruments, clothing and other apparatus gathered with much
economy during my former years of exploration, and about one thousand
pounds of pemmican. These supplies, necessary to offset the danger of
shipwreck and detention by ice, were also all that would be required for
a Polar trip. When, later, I finally decided on a Polar campaign, extra
ship supplies, contributed from the boat, were stored at Annoatok.
There, also, my supply of pemmican was amplified by the stores of walrus
meat and fat prepared during the long winter by myself, Rudolph Francke
and the Eskimos.
As the yacht slowly soared toward the ocean, and night descended over
the fishing village with its home lights glimmering cheerfully as the
stars one by one flecked the firmament with dots of fire, I felt that at
last I had embarked upon my destiny. Whether I should be able to follow
my heart's desire I did not know; I did not dare hazard a guess. But I
was leaving my country, now on the eve of celebrating its freedom,
behind me; I had elected to live in a world of ice and cold, of hunger
and death, which lay before me--thousands of miles to the North.
Day by day passed monotonously; we only occasionally saw writhing curves
of land to the west of us; about us was the illimitable sea. That I had
started on a journey which might result in my starting for the Pole,
that my final chance had come, vaguely thrilled me. Yet the full purport
of my hope seemed beyond me. On the journey to Sydney my mind was full.
I thought of the early days of my childhood, of the strange ambition
which grew upon me, of my struggles, and the chance which favored me in
the present expedition.
In the early days of my childhood, of which I now had only indistinct
glimmerings, I remembered a restless surge in my little bosom, a
yearning for something that was vague and undefined. This was, I
suppose, that nebulous desire which sometimes manifests itself in early
youth and later is asserted in strivings toward some splendid, sometimes
spectacular aim. My boyhood was not happy. As a tiny child I was
discontented, and from the earliest days of consciousness I felt the
burden of two things which accompanied me through later life--an innate
and abnormal desire for exploration, then the manifestation of my
yearning, and the constant struggle to make ends meet, that sting of
poverty, which, while it tantalizes one with its horrid grind, sometimes
drives men by reason of the strength developed in overcoming its
concomitant obstacles to some extraordinary accomplishment.
As a very small boy, I remember being fascinated by the lure of a
forbidden swimming pool. One day, when but little over five, I, impelled
to test the depth, plunged to the center, where the water was above my
head, and nearly lost my life. I shall never forget that struggle, and
though I nearly gave out, in that short time I learned to swim. It seems
to me now I have been swimming and struggling ever since.
Abject poverty and hard work marked my school days. When quite a boy,
after the death of my father, I came to New York. I sold fruit at one of
the markets. I saved my money. I enjoyed no luxuries. These days vividly
occur in my mind. Later I engaged in a dairy business in Brooklyn, and
on the meager profits undertook to study medicine.
At that time the ambition which beset me was undirected; it was only
later that I found, almost by accident, what became its focusing point.
I graduated from the University of New York in 1890. I felt (as what
young man does not?) that I possessed unusual qualifications and
exceptional ability. An office was fitted up, and my anxiety over the
disappearing pennies was eased by the conviction that I had but to hang
out my shingle and the place would be thronged with patients. Six months
passed. There had been about three patients.