a ship against their will and brought to New York for museum purposes.
They were locked up in a cellar in New York, awaiting a market place.
Before the profit-time arrived, because of unhygienic surroundings and
improper food, all but one died. When in the grip of death, through a
Mrs. Smith, who ministered to their last wants, they appealed with tears
in their eyes for some word from Mr. Peary. They begged that he extend
them the attention of visiting them before their eyes closed to a world
of misery and trouble. There came no word and no responsive call from
the man who was responsible for their suffering. Of seven or eight
innocent wild people, but one little child survived. That
one--Mene--was later even denied a passage back to his fathers' land by
Mr. Peary.
A few years later, the Danish Literary Expedition visited the
northernmost Eskimos in their houses. The splendid hospitality shown the
Danes by the Eskimos saved their lives. The Danish people, aiming to
express their gratitude for this unselfish Eskimo kindness, sent a ship
to their shores on the following year, loaded with presents, at an
expenditure of many thousands of kroner. That ship, under the direction
of Captain Schoubye, left at North Star great quantities of food, iron
and wood. After the Danes had turned their backs, Mr. Peary came along
and deliberately, high-handedly, took many of the things. This story is
told today by every member of the tribe whom Peary claims to have
befriended, whom he calls "my people."
The sad story of the unavoidable deaths by starvation of the members of
General Greely's Expedition has for years been issued and reissued to
the press by Mr. Peary and his press agents, in such form as to
discredit General Greely and his co-workers. His own inhuman doings
about Cape Sabine and the old Greely stamping-grounds have been
suppressed.
In 1901 the ship _Erik_ left Mr. Peary, with a large group of native
helpers, near Cape Sabine. An epidemic, brought by the Peary ship, soon
after attacked the Eskimos. Many died; others survived to endure a slow
torture. Peary had no doctor and no medicine. In the year previous,
Peary had shown the same spirit to the ever faithful Dr. Dedrick that he
had shown to Verhoeff, to Astrup, and to others. Although Dedrick could
not endure Peary's unfairness, he remained, against instructions,
within reach for just such an emergency as this epidemic presented. He
offered his services when the epidemic broke out, but Peary refused his
offer, and allowed the natives to die rather than permit a competent
medical expert to attend the afflicted.
Near the same point, a year later, Captain Otto Sverdrup wintered with
his ship. His mission was to explore the great unknown to the west. This
unexplored country had been under Mr. Peary's eye for ten years; but
instead of exploring it, his time was spent in an easy and comparatively
luxurious life about a comfortable camp. When Sverdrup's men visited the
Peary ship, they were denied common brotherly courtesy and were refused
the hospitality which is universally granted, by an unwritten law, to
all field workers. Mr. Peary even refused to send him, on his returning
ship, important letters and papers which Sverdrup desired taken back. He
also refused to allow Sverdrup to take native guides and dogs-which did
not belong to Mr. Peary. This same courtesy was later denied to Captain
Bernier, of the Canadian Expedition.
Thus attempting to make a private preserve of the unclaimed North, he
attempted to discredit and thwart every other explorer's effort. In line
with the same policy, every member of every Peary expedition has been
muzzled with a contract which prevented talking or writing after the
expedition's return--contracts by which Mr. Peary derived the sole
credit, the entire profit, and all the honor of the results of the men
who volunteered their services and risked their lives. This same spirit
was shown at the time when, at 87 deg. 45'', he turned Captain Bartlett
back, because he (Peary), to use his own words, "wanted all the honors."
In profiting by his long quest for funds for legitimate exploration, we
find Peary engaged in private enterprises for which public funds were
used. Much of this money was, in my judgment, used to promote a
lucrative fur and ivory trade, while the real effort of getting to the
Pole was delayed, seemingly, for commercial gain. I believe the Pole
might have been reached ten years earlier. But delay was profitable.
After being thus engaged for years in a propaganda of self-exploitation,
in assailing other explorers whom he regarded as rivals, in committing
deeds in the North unworthy of an American and officer of the Navy,
Peary, knowing that I had started Poleward, knowing that relief must
inevitably be required, ultimately appropriated my supplies, and
absolutely prevented any effort to reach me, which even the natives
themselves might have made. Peary knew he was endangering my life. He
knew that he was getting ivory and furs in return for supplies belonging
to me, and which I should need. He knew, also, that it would not
coincide with his selfish purposes of appropriating all honor and profit
if I reached the Pole and should return and tell the world. His
deliberate act was in itself--whether so designed or not--an effort to
kill a brother explorer. The stains of at least a dozen other lives are
on this man.
The property which Peary took from Francke and myself, with the hand of
a buccaneer and the heart of a hypocrite, was worth thirty-five thousand
dollars. This was done, not to insure expedition needs, but to satisfy
a hunger for commercial gain, and to inflict a cowardly, underhanded
injury on a rival. All of my caches, my camp equipment, my food, were
taken; and under his own handwriting he gave the orders which deprived
me of all relief efforts at a time when relief was of vital importance.
Certainly to all appearances this was a deliberate, preconceived plan to
kill a rival worker by starvation. Here we find an American naval
officer stooping to a trick for which he would be hanged in a mining
camp.
Many members of his expeditions, some rough seamen, speak with
shuddering of his actions in that far-away North. In my possession are
affidavits, voluntarily made and given to me by members of Mr. Peary's
expeditions, revealing gross actions, which, in an officer of the Navy,
call for investigation. Mention has been made of certain facts, because,
only by knowing these things, can people understand the spirit and
character of the man and the unscrupulous attacks made upon me, and
understand, also, why, out of a sense of delicacy and dislike for
mudslinging, I remained silent so long. It is only because the public
has been misled by a sensational press, because I realize I have
suffered by my own silence, in order that history may know the full
truth and accord a just verdict, that with reluctance, with a sense of
shuddering distaste, I have been compelled to present these unpleasant
pages of unwritten Arctic history.
When Mr. Peary and his partisans attacked me they hesitated at nothing
that was untrue, cruel and dishonorable--forgery and perjury even seemed
justifiable to them in their effort to discredit me. I still hesitate
to speak of certain unworthy, unblushing and utterly cruel acts of which
Mr. Peary is guilty. I would have preferred to remain silent about the
actions of which I have told.
Assuming the attitude of one above reproach, Peary, upon his return,
assailed me as a dishonest person who tried to rob him of honor. Had the
actual and full truths been told at the time about Peary's life in the
North, his charges would have rebounded annihilatingly upon himself. For
certain things the people of this country, who are clean, honest and
fair, will not stand. The facts told about Peary in the affidavits given
me make his charges of dishonor and dishonesty against me a travesty,
indeed. Yet, at a time when I might have profited by revealing phases of
Mr. Peary's personal character, I preferred to remain silent. Of certain
things men do not care to speak. Although Mr. Peary and his friends
endeavored to make the Polar controversy a personal one, I regarded Mr.
Peary's personal actions as having no bearing upon his, or my, having
attained the Pole. He and his friends forced a personal fight; they
tried to injure my veracity, my reputation for truth-telling, my
personal honor. I had hoped against hope that the truth would resolve
itself without any necessity of my revealing elements of Mr. Peary's
character. I have herein recited pages from his past, known to Arctic
explorers but not to the general public, so that his attitude toward me
may be understood. Yet all, indeed, has not been told. Although Mr.
Peary did not scruple to lie about me, I still hesitate to tell the full
truth about him.
In the white, frozen North a tragedy was enacted which would bring
tears to the hearts of all who possess human tenderness and kindness.
This has never been written. To write it would still further reveal the
ruthlessness, the selfishness, the cruelty of the man who tried to ruin
me. Yet here I prefer the charity of silence, where, indeed, charity is
not at all merited.
The knowledge of these facts tempered the shocks I felt when the Peary
campaign of defamation was first made against me. I told myself that a
man who had done these things would, in the nature of things, be branded
by the truth, as he deserved.
I was not so greatly surprised that Peary tried to steal my honor. I
knew that he had stolen tangible things. Yet the theft of food, even
though a man's life depends upon it, is not so awful as the attempt to
steal the good name a father hopes to bequeath his children. Yet Peary
has attempted to do this.
He has attempted to blacken me in the eyes of my family; but, with the
conscience of a brute, he has deserted two of his own children--left
them to starve and freeze in the cheerless north. They are there today
crying for food and a father, while he enjoys a life of luxury at the
expense of the American tax-payers. This statement calls for an
investigation by the Secretary of the Navy. See photograph of the
deserted child of the Sultan of the North, facing page 493.
THE MT. McKINLEY BRIBERY
THE BRIBED, FAKED AND FORGED NEWS ITEMS--THE PRO-PEARY MONEY POWERS
ENCOURAGE PERJURY--MT. M'KINLEY HONESTLY CLIMBED--HOW, FOR PEARY, A
SIMILAR PEAK WAS FAKED
XXXIV
HOW A MAN'S SOUL WAS MARKETED
After Mr. Peary had done his utmost to try to disprove my Polar
attainment; after the chain of newspapers which, for him, in conjunction
with the New York _Times_, had printed the same egregious lies on the
same days, from the Atlantic to the Pacific; after they had expended all
possible ammunition, the damages inflicted were still insufficient. My
narrative, as published in the New York _Herald_, was still more
generally credited than Mr. Peary's. To gain his end, something else had
to be done. Something else was done. The darkest page of defamation in
the world's history of exploration was now written by the hands of
bribers and perjurers.
The public suddenly turned from the newspaper-inculcated idea of "proof"
in figures to a more sane examination of personal veracity. To destroy
my reputation for truth in the public mind was the next unscrupulous
effort decided upon. The selfish and self-evident press campaign,
obviously managed by the Peary cabal, to that end had given
unsatisfactory results. Some vital blow must be delivered by fair
means or otherwise.
The climb of Mt. McKinley was now challenged.
I had made a first ascent of the great mid-Alaskan peak in 1906. The
record of that conquest was published during my absence in the North,
under the title, "To the Top of the Continent." The book, being printed
at a time when I was unable to see the proofs, contained some mistakes;
but in it was all the data that could be presented for such an
undertaking.
The Board of Aldermen of the City of New York decided to honor me by
offering the keys and the freedom of the metropolis on October 15. This
was to be an important event. The pro-Peary conspiracy aiming to deliver
striking blows through the press, their propaganda was so planned that
the bribed, faked and forged news items were issued on days which gave
them dramatic and psychologic climaxes. Two days before the New York
demonstration in my favor, the pretentious full-page broadside of
distorted Eskimo information was issued. This fell flat; for it was
instantly seen to be a pretentious rearrangement of old charges. But it
was so played up as to fill columns of newspaper space and impress
readers by its magnitude. This was followed by the Barrill affidavit,
similarly played up so as to fill a full newspaper page, which I shall
analyze later. All this was done to draw a black cloud over the day of
honor in New York, the 15th day of October.
Since the published affidavit of my old associate, Barrill, was a
document which proved him a self-confessed liar; since the affidavit
carried with it the earmarks of pro-Peary bribery and perjury, I
reasoned again that fair-minded people would in time see through this
moneyed campaign of dishonor. In all history it has been shown that he
who seeks to besmear others usually leaves the greatest amount of mud on
himself. But again I had not counted on the unfairness of the press.
The only reason given that I should have faked the climb of Mt. McKinley
is that, in some vague way, I was to profit mightily by a successful
report. The expedition was to have been financed by a rich Philadelphia
sportsman. He did advance the greater portion of the sum required. We
were to prepare a game trail for him. Something interfered, he
relinquished his trip, and did not send the balance of money promised.
The result was that many checks I had given out went to protest. Harper
& Brothers had agreed, before starting, to pay me $1,500 for an account
of the expedition, whether successful or not. On my return this was
paid, and went to meet outstanding debts--debts to pay which I
embarrassed myself. Instead of "profits" from this alleged "fake," I
suffered a loss of several thousand dollars.
As is quite usual in all exploring expeditions, some of the members of
my Mt. McKinley expedition, who did not share in the final success, were
disgruntled. Chief among these was Herschell Parker. Owing to ill-health
and inexperience, Parker had proved himself inefficient in Alaskan work.
Climbing a little peak forty miles from the great mountain, when he was
with me, he had pronounced Mt. McKinley unclimbable. Climbing a similar
hill, four years later, he stooped to the humbug of offering a
photograph of it as a parallel to my picture of the top of Mt. McKinley.
This man was so ill-fitted for such work that two men were required to
help him mount a horse. But I insisted that we continue at least to the
base of the mountain. At the first large glacier, Parker and his
companion, Belmore Brown, balked, halting in front of an insignificant
ice-wall. The ascent of Mt. McKinley, still thirty-five miles off, they
said, was impossible. Parker returned, and in a trail of four thousand
miles to New York told every press representative how impossible was the
ascent of Mt. McKinley. By the time Parker reached New York a cable went
through that the thing was done. At a point four thousand miles from the
scene of action, he again cried, "Impossible!" When I returned to New
York, however, a month later, and Parker learned the details, he
publicly and privately credited my ascent of Mt. McKinley. Nothing
further was said to doubt the climb until two years later, when he lined
up with the Peary interests.
Using Parker as a tool, Peary's Arctic Club, through him, first forced
the side-issue of Mt. McKinley. With the Barrill affidavit, made later,
were printed other affidavits by Barrill's friends, who had not been
within fifty miles of the mountain when it was climbed. This act, to me,
was a bitter climax of injustice. But I have since learned that Printz
got $500 of pro-Peary money; that both Miller and Beecher were promised
large amounts, but were cheated at the "showdown." Printz afterwards
wrote that he would make an affidavit for me for $300, and at Missoula
he made an affidavit in which he attempted to defend me.[26] This he
offered to sell to Roscoe Mitchell for $1,000.
While easy pro-Peary money was passing in the West, Parker came forward
with his old grudge. His chief contention was that, because he had taken
home with him in deserting the object of the expedition a hypsometer, I
could not have measured the high altitudes claimed. The altitude had
been measured by triangulation by the hydrographer of the expedition,
but I had other methods of measuring the ascent.
I had two aneroid barometers, specially marked for very high climbing,
thermometers, and all the usual Alpine instruments. The hypsometer was
not at that time an important instrument. Parker also showed unfair
methods by allowing the press repeatedly to print that he had been the
leader and the organizer of the expedition. This he knew to be false. I
had organized two expeditions to explore Mt. McKinley, at a cost of
$28,000. Of this Parker had furnished $2,500. Parker took no part in the
organization of the last expedition, had given no advice to help supply
an adequate equipment, and in the field his presence was a daily
handicap to the progress of the expedition. Heretofore, this was never
indicated. But when he allows himself to be quoted as the leader of an
expedition upon which he attempts to throw discredit, then it is right
that all the facts be known.
In the press reports, when Parker was first heard from, came the news
that on the Pacific coast, at Tacoma, a lawyer by the name of J. M.
Ashton was retained by someone. To the press Ashton said he was engaged
"to look into the McKinley business," but he did not know by
whom--whether by Cook or Peary. He was "engaged" in a business too
questionable to tell who furnished the money.
In the final ascent of Mt. McKinley there was with me Edward Barrill,
the affidavit-maker. He was a good-natured and hard-working packer, who
had proved himself a most able climber. Together we ascended the
mountain in September, 1906. To this time (1909) there was not the
slightest doubt about the footprints on the top of the great mountain.
Barrill had told everybody that he knew, and all who would listen to
him, that the mountain was climbed. He went from house to house
boastfully, with my book under his arm, telling and retelling the story
of the ascent of Mt. McKinley. That anyone should now believe the
affidavit, secured and printed for Peary, did not to me seem reasonable.
Parker, filling the position of betrayer and traitor to one who had
saved his life many times, had decided, as the Polar controversy opened,
to direct the Mt. McKinley side-issue of the pro-Peary effort.
The first news of bribery in the matter came from Darby, Montana. This
was Barrill's home town. A Peary man from Chicago was there. He frankly
said that he would pay Barrill $1,000 to offer news that would discredit
the climb of Mt. McKinley. Other news of the dishonest pro-Peary
movement induced me to send Roscoe Mitchell, of the New York _Herald_,
to the working ground of the bribers. Mitchell was working under the
direction of my attorneys, H. Wellington Wack, of New York, Colonel
Marshal, of Missoula, and General Weed, of Helena, Montana.
Mitchell secured testimony and evidence regarding the buying of Barrill,
but was unable to put the conspirators in jail. At Hamilton, Montana,
there had appeared a man with $5,000 to pass to Barrill. Barrill's first
reply was that he had climbed the mountain; that Dr. Cook had climbed
the mountain; that to take that $5,000, in his own words, he "would have
to sell his own soul." Barrill's business partner, Bridgeford, was
present. He later made an affidavit for Mr. Mitchell covering this part
of the pro-Peary perjury effort.
A little later, however, Barrill said to his partner he "might as well
see what was in it." Five thousand dollars to Barrill meant more than
five million dollars to Mr. Peary or his friends. To Barrill, ignorant,
poor, good-natured, but weak, it was an irresistible temptation.
Barrill now went to Seattle. He visited the office of the Seattle
_Times_. In the presence of the editor, Mr. Joe Blethen, he dickered for
the sale of an affidavit to discredit me. He knew such an affidavit had
news value. Indefinite offers ranging from $5,000 to $10,000 were made.
Not getting a lump sum off-hand, Barrill, dissatisfied, then went over
to Tacoma, to the mysterious Mr. Ashton. That all this was done, was
told me on my trip west shortly afterward, by Mr. Blethen himself.
After visiting Ashton, Barrill was seen in a bank in Tacoma. Barrill had
said to his partner that to make an affidavit denying my climb would be
"selling his soul." Barrill, ill at ease, reluctant, appeared. It is a
terrible thing to lure a weak man to dishonor; it is still more tragic
and awful when that man is bought so his lie may hurt another. The time
for the parting of his soul had arrived in the bank. With the sadness of
a funeral mourner Barrill was pushed along. The talk was in a muffled
undertone. But it all happened. In the presence of a witness, whose
evidence I am ready to produce, $1,500 was passed to him. This money was
paid in large bills, and placed in Barrill's money-belt. There were
other considerations, and I know where some of this money was spent. His
soul was marketed at last. The infamous affidavit was then prepared.
This affidavit was printed first in the New York _Globe_. The _Globe_ is
partly owned and entirely controlled by General Thomas H. Hubbard, the
President of the Peary Club. With General Hubbard, Mr. Peary had
consulted at Bar Harbor immediately after his return from Sydney.
Together they had outlined their campaign. General Hubbard is a
multi-millionaire. A tremendous amount of money was spent in the Peary
campaign. In the Mt. McKinley affidavit of Barrill we can trace bribery,
a conspiracy, and black dishonor, right up to the door of R. E. Peary.
If Peary is not the most unscrupulous self-seeker in the history of
exploration, caught in underhand, surreptitious acts too cowardly to be
credited to a thief, caught in the act of bartering for men's souls and
honor in as ruthless a way as he high-handedly took others' property in
the North; if he, drawing an unearned salary from the American Navy, has
not brindled his soul with stripes that fit his body for jail, let him
come forward and reply. If Peary is not the most conscienceless of
self-exploiters in all history, caught in the act of stealing honor by
forcing dishonor, let him come forward and explain the Mt. McKinley
perjury.
Now let us examine the others who were lined up in this desperate black
hand movement. In New York there is a club, at first organized to bring
explorers together and to encourage original research. It bore the name
of Explorers' Club; but, as is so often the case with clubs that
monopolize a pretentious name, the membership degenerated. It is now
merely an association of museum collectors. Among real explorers, this
club to-day is jocularly known as the "Worm Diggers' Union." In 1909 Mr.
Peary was president. His press agent, Bridgman, was the moving spirit,
and one of Colonel Mann's muck-rakers was secretary. Of course, such a
society, committed to Peary, had no use for Dr. Cook.
In a spirit of helping along the pro-Peary conspiracy, and after the
Barrill affidavit was secured, the Explorers' Club took upon itself the
supererogatory duty of appointing a committee to pass on my ascent of
Mt. McKinley. There was but one real explorer on this committee. The
others were kitchen geographers, whose honor and fairness had been
bartered to the Peary interests before the investigation began. Without
a line of data before them, they decided, with glee and gusto, that Mt.
McKinley had not been climbed. This was what one would expect from such
an honor-blind group of meddlers. But Mr. Peary's press worker,
Bridgman, who himself had engineered the investigation, used this
seeming verdict of experts to Mr. Peary's advantage.[27]