between Dunkle and Loose, Peary's friends, the New York _Times_, and the
National Geographic Society? Do honest men, with honest intentions,
conspire with men of this sort, men who offered to sell me faked
figures--most likely to betray me had I been dishonest enough to buy
them--and who, failing, perjured themselves?
Disgusted, I decided to let my enemies exhaust their abuse. I knew it
eventually would rebound. Determined to retire to rest, to resolve my
case in quietude and secrecy, I left America. My enemies gleefully
proclaimed this an admission of imposture.
Yet, after they had turned almost every newspaper in the country against
me, having rested, having resolved my case, having secured damaging
proofs of the facts of the conspiracy against me, I returned to America.
Realizing my error in so long remaining silent; realizing the power of a
sensation-seeking press, which has no respect for individuals or of
truth, I determined, painful as would be the task, to tell the
unpleasant, distasteful truth about the man who tried to besmirch my
name. This may seem unkind. But I was kind too long. Truth is often
unpleasant, but it is less malicious than the sort of lies hurled at me.
After I had left America, the newspapers, desirous of sensation, had
played into the hands of those who, with seeming triumph, assailed me.
But meanwhile, however, I was taking advantage of the opportunity to
rest and gain an accurate perspective of the situation. I thought out my
case, considered it pro and con, puzzled out the reasons for, and the
source of, the newspaper clamor against me. Through friends in America
who worked quietly and effectively, I secured evidence, which is
embodied in affidavits, which laid bare the methods employed to
discredit me in the Mt. McKinley affair. I learned of the methods used,
and just what charges were made, to discredit my Polar claim. Damaging
admissions were secured concerning Mr. Peary's fabricated attacks from
the mouths of Mr. Peary's own associates. Knowing these facts, at the
proper time, I returned to my native country to confront my enemies. I
have proceeded in detail to state my case and reveal the hitherto
unknown inside facts of the entire Polar controversy. I have stated
certain facts before the public. Neither Mr. Peary nor his friends have
replied. One point in the Polar controversy has never reached the
public. Both Mr. Peary and many of his friends asserted that I left the
country just in time to escape criminal prosecution. They said the
charge was to be that I had obtained money on a false pretence by
accepting fees for lecturing on my discovery. I returned to America. I
have been lecturing for fees on my discovery since; I have not yet been
prosecuted.
Were Mr. Peary not the sort of man who would stoop to dishonor, to
discredit a rival in order to gain an unfair advantage for himself, were
he not guilty of the gross injustice I have stated, he would have had
all the opportunity in the world for effectively coming back at me. But
he has remained silent. Why?
I have, as I have said, absolute confidence in the good sense, spirit of
fair-play, and ability of reasoning judgment of my people. My case
rests, not with any body of armchair explorers or kitchen geographers,
but with Arctic travelers who can see beyond the mist of selfish
interests, and with my fellow-countrymen, who breathe normal air and
view without bias the large open fields of honest human endeavor.
In this book I have stated my case, presented my proofs. As to the
relative merits of my claim, and Mr. Peary's, place the two records side
by side. Compare them. I shall be satisfied with your decision.
FREDERICK A. COOK.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Accused of being the most colossal liar of history, I sometimes feel
that more lies have been told about me than about anyone ever born. I
have been guilty of many mistakes. Most men really true to themselves
admit that. My claim to the North Pole may always be questioned. Yet,
when I regard the lies great and small attached to me, I am filled
almost with indifference.
As a popular illustration of the sort of yarns that were told, let me
refer to the foolish fake of the gum drops. Someone started the story
that I expected to reach the Pole by bribing the Eskimos with gum
drops--perhaps the idea was that I was to lure them on from point to
point with regularly issued rations of these confections.
Wherever I went on my lecture tour after my return to the United States,
much to my irritation I saw "Cook" gum drops conspicuously displayed in
confectionery store windows. Hundreds of pounds of gum drops were sent
to my hotel with the compliments of the manufacturers. On all sides I
heard the gum-drop story, and in almost every paper read the reiterated
tale of leading the Eskimos to the Pole by dangling a gum drop on a
string before them. I never denied this, as I never denied any of the
fakes printed about me. The fact is, that I never heard the gum-drop
yarn until I came to New York. We took no gum drops with us on our Polar
trip, and, to my knowledge, no Eskimo ate a gum drop while with me.
[2] Among the many things which the public has been misled into
believing is that Mr. Bradley and I together connived the trip for the
purpose of essaying this quest of the Pole. The fact is, not until I
reached Annoatok, and saw that conditions were favorable for a long
sledge journey, did I finally determine to make a Poleward trip; not
until then did I tell my decision definitely to Mr. Bradley.
One of the big mistakes which has been pounded into the public mind is
that the proposed Polar exploit was expensively financed. It did cost a
great deal to finance the planned hunting trip. Mr. Bradley's expenses
aggregated, perhaps, $50,000, but my journey Northward, which was but an
extension of this yachting cruise, cost comparatively little.
[3] The killing of Astrup.--The head of Melville Bay was explored by
Eivind Astrup while a member of the Peary expedition of 1894-1895.
Astrup had been a member of the first expedition, serving without pay,
during 1891 and 1892 and proving himself a loyal supporter and helper of
Mr. Peary, when he crossed the inland ice in 1892. As a result of eating
pemmican twenty years old, in 1895, Astrup was disabled by poisoning,
due to Peary's carelessness in furnishing poisoned food. Recovering from
this illness, he selected a trustworthy Eskimo companion, went south,
and under almost inconceivable difficulties, explored and mapped the ice
walls, with their glaciers and mountains, and the off-lying islands of
Melville Bay. This proved a creditable piece of work of genuine
discovery. Returning, he prepared his data and published it, thus
bringing credit and honor on an expedition which was in other respects a
failure.
Astrup's publication of this work aroused Peary's envy. Publicly, Peary
denounced Astrup. Astrup, being young and sensitive, brooded over this
injustice and ingratitude until he had almost lost his reason. The abuse
was of the same nature as that heaped on others, the same as that
finally hurled at me in the wireless "Gold Brick" slurs. For days and
weeks, Astrup talked of nothing but the infamy of Peary's attack on
himself and the contemptible charge of desertion which Peary made
against Astrup's companions. Then he suddenly left my home, returned to
Norway, and we next heard of his suicide. Here is one life directly
chargeable to Peary's narrow and intolerant brutality. Directly this was
not murder with a knife--but it was as heinous--for a young and noble
life was cut short by the cowardly dictates of jealous egotism.
[4] The Death of John M. Verhoeff.--As we passed Robertson Bay, there
came up memories of the tragedy of Verhoeff. This young man was a member
of Peary's first expedition, in 1891. He had paid $2,000 toward the fund
of the expedition. Verhoeff was young and enthusiastic. He gave his
time, his money, and he risked his life for Peary. He was treated with
about the same consideration as that accorded the Eskimo dogs. When I
last saw him in camp, he was in tears, telling of Peary's injustice.
Mrs. Peary--I advert to this with all possible reluctance--had done much
to make his life bitter, and over this he talked for days. Finally he
said: "I will never go home in the same ship with that man and that
woman." It was the last sentence he uttered in my hearing. He did not go
home in that ship. Instead, he wandered off over the glacier, where he
left his body in the blue depths of a crevasse.
[5] Before he sailed on his last Northern expedition Mr. Peary, learning
that I had preceded him, took the initial step in his campaign to
discredit me by issuing a statement to the effect that I was bent upon
the unfair and dishonest purpose of enlisting in my aid Eskimos which he
had the exclusive right to command. Mr. Peary's attitude that the
Eskimos, because he had given them guns, powder and needles, belong to
him, is as absurd as his pretension to the sole ownership of the North
Pole. Although Mr. Peary had spent about a quarter of a century essaying
the task by means of luxurious expeditions, he had done little more than
other explorers and did not, in my opinion, either secure an option on
the Pole or upon the services of the natives. In giving guns, etc., to
the natives he also did no more than other explorers, and the Danes for
many years, have done. Nor was this with him a magnanimous matter of
gracious bounty, for, in prodigal return for all he gave them, Mr. Peary
on every expedition secured a fortune in furs and ivory. The Eskimos
belong to no one. For ages they have worked out their rigorous existence
without the aid of white men, and Mr. Peary's pretension becomes not
only absurd but grotesque when one realizes that following the arrival
of ships with white crews, the natives have fallen easy victims of
loathsome epidemics, mostly of a specific nature, for which the trivial
gifts of any explorer would ill repay them.
[6] One of the charges which Mr. Peary circulated before he returned
North in 1908, was, that I violated a rule of Polar ethics by not
applying for a license to seek the Pole, nor giving notice of my
proposed trip. There is no such rule in Polar ethics. The following
letter, however, to his press agent, Mr. Herbert Bridgman, dated Etah,
August 26, 1907, answers the charge:
"My dear Bridgman: I have hit upon a new route to the North Pole and
will stay to try it. By way of Buchanan Bay and Ellesmere Land and
northward through Nansen Strait over the Polar sea seems to me to be a
very good route. There will be game to the 82 deg., and here are natives and
dogs for the task. So here is for the Pole. Mr. Bradley will tell you
the rest. Kind regards to all--F. A. Cook."
"It will be remembered," continued Mr. Bridgman, in his press reports,
"that Dr. Cook, accompanied by John R. Bradley, Captain Moses Bartlett,
and a number of Eskimos, left North Sidney, N. S., early last July on
the American Auxiliary Schooner Yacht _John R. Bradley_, which landed
the party at Smith Sound. Mr. Bradley returned to North Sydney on the
yacht on October 1. _The expedition is provisioned for two years and
fully equipped with dogs and sledges for the trip. The party is
wintering thirty miles further north than Peary did two years ago._"
And yet Bridgman, in line with the indefatigable pro-Peary boosters,
later tried to lead the public to believe that I had nothing but gum
drops with which to undertake a trip to the Pole. This same Bridgman
also printed in what Brooklyn people call the "Standard Liar" the fake
about my using, as my own, photographs said to belong to the newspaper
cub, Herbert Berri.
For fifteen years Bridgman used my photographs and my material for his
lectures on the Arctic and Antarctic, generally without giving credit.
Evidently, my work and my results were good enough for him to borrow as
Peary did. So long as my usefulness served the Bridgman-Peary interests,
there was no question of my credibility, but when my success interfered
with the monopoly of the fruits of Polar attainment, then I was to be
striped with dark lines of dishonor.
The most amusing and also the most significant incident of the
Bridgman-Peary humbug was the faked wireless message which Bridgman
printed for Peary in his paper. Peary claims he reached the Pole on
April 6, 1909. In the Standard Union, Brooklyn, of April 14, 1909 (eight
days after the alleged discovery), Peary's friend H. L. Bridgman, one of
the owners, printed the following:
"PEARY DUE NORTH POLE TWELVE M., THURSDAY"
(APRIL 15, 1909).
Is Mr. Bridgman a psychic medium? How, with Peary thousands of miles
away, hundreds of miles from the most northerly wireless station, did he
sense the amazing feat? Were he and Peary in telepathic communication?
Or, rather, does this not seem to point to an agreement entered into
before the departure of Peary, about a year before the attempt was made,
to announce on a certain day the "discovery" of the Pole?
From other sources we learn that the timing of the arrival of the ship
at Cape Sheridan seems to have been made good, but in an apparent effort
on the part of Peary to keep faith with Bridgman on April 15, we find
him in trouble. If Peary arranged his "discovery" for this agreed date,
he would have had to take nine days for his return trip from the Pole.
This would increase his speed limit 50 per cent., and since he is
regarded with suspicion on his speed limits, to make his "Pole
Discovery" story fit in between the known time when he left Bartlett and
the time when he got back to the ship, he was compelled to break faith
with Bridgman and went back nine days on his calendar, placing the date
of Pole reaching at April 6.
[7] _Game List._--The following animals were captured from August 15,
1907, to May 15, 1909:
Two thousand four hundred and twenty-two birds, 311 Arctic hares, 320
blue and white foxes, 32 Greenland reindeer, 4 white reindeer, 22 polar
bears, 52 seals, 73 walrus, 21 narwhals, 3 white whales, and 206 musk
oxen.
[8] Auroras in the Arctic are best seen in more southern latitudes. The
display here described was the brightest observed on this trip. Not more
than three or four others were noted during the following year, but in
previous trips I have witnessed some very wonderful color and motion
displays.
The best illustrations of this remarkable color of aurora and night come
from the brush of Mr. Frank Wilbert Stokes. These were reproduced in the
_Century Magazine_ of February, 1903. After their appearance, Mr. Peary
accorded to Mr. Stokes (a member of his expedition) the same sort of
treatment as he had accorded Astrup--the same as that shown to others.
In a letter to the late Richard Watson Gilder, editor of the _Century_,
he denounced and did his utmost to discredit Mr. Stokes by insisting
that no such remarkable colors are displayed by the aurora borealis. Mr.
Gilder replied, in defense of Mr. Stokes, by quoting from Peary's own
book, "Northward," Vol. II, pages 194, 195, 198 and 199, descriptions of
even more remarkable color effects.
[9] The so-called "Jesup" sled, which Mr. Peary used on his last Polar
trip, is a copy of the Eskimo sledge, a lumbering, unwieldy thing
weighing over one hundred pounds and which bears the same relation to a
refined bent-hickory vehicle that a lumber cart does to an express
wagon. In this "Jesup" sledge there is a dead weight of over fifty
pounds of useless wood. The needless weight thus carried can, in a
better sledge, be replaced by fifty pounds of food. This fifty pounds
will feed one man over the entire route to the Pole. Mr. Peary claims
that the Pole is not reachable without this sled, but Borup, in his
book, reports that most of the sledges were broken at the first trial.
Since an explorer's success is dependent upon his ability to transport
food it behooves him to eliminate useless weight. Therefore, the solid
runner sled is as much out of place as a solid wood wheel would be in an
automobile.
[10] A great deal of careful search and study was prosecuted about
Svartevoeg, for here Peary claims to have left a cache, the alleged
placing of which he has used as a pretext for attempting to take from
the map the name of Svartevoeg, given by Sverdrup, when he discovered
it, to the northern part of Heiberg Land. Peary, coming later, put on
his map the name Cape Thomas Hubbard, for one who had put easy money in
his hands. But no such cache was found, and I doubt very much if Peary
ever reached this point, except through a field-glass at very long
range.
[11] On their return to Etah, and after I had left for Upernavik, my
Eskimos, questioned by Mr. Peary, who was anxious to secure anything
that might serve towards discrediting me, answered innocently that they
had been only a few sleeps from land. This unwilling and naive admission
was published in a pretentious statement, the purpose of which was to
cast doubt on my claim. Other answers of my Eskimos, to the effect that
I had instruments and had made constant observations, it is curious to
note, were suppressed by Mr. Peary and his party on their return. Every
insinuation was made to the effect that I had had no instruments, had
consequently taken no observations, and had, therefore, no means of
ascertaining the Pole even had I wished to do so.
[12] My enemies credit me with a journey of two thousand miles, which is
double Peary's greatest distance; but then, to deny my Polar attainment,
they keep me sitting here, on a sterile waste of ice, for three months.
Would any man sit down there and shiver in idleness, when the reachable
glory of Polar victory was on one side and the get-at-able gastronomic
joy of game land on the other? Only a crazy man would do that, and we
were too busy to lose our mental balance at that time. When leg-force
controls human destiny, and a half-filled stomach clears the brain for
action, for a long time, at least, insanity is very remote. Furthermore,
the Eskimo boys said we traveled on the ice-pack for seven moons, and
that we reached a place where the sun does not dip at night; where the
day and night shadows were of equal length. Has Mr. Peary reached that
point? If so, neither he nor his Eskimos have noted it.
[13] After my return to Copenhagen I was widely quoted as declaring that
I had discovered and traversed 30,000 square miles of new land. What I
did report was that in my journey I had passed through an area wherein
it was possible to declare 30,000 square miles--a terrestrial unknown of
water and ice--cleared from the blank of our charts. I have been quoted
as describing this land as "a paradise for hunters" and criticised on
the ground that animal life does not exist so far north. Whether animal
life existed there, I do not know, for the impetus of my quest left no
time to investigate. I passed the last game at Heiberg Land.
In my diary of the day's doings, only the results of observations were
written down. The detail calculations were made on loose sheets of paper
and in other note books--wherein was recorded all instrumental data.
Later all my observations were reduced in the form in which they were to
be finally presented. Therefore, these field papers with their
miscellaneous notes had served their purpose, as had the instruments;
and for this reason most of the material was left with Harry Whitney. A
few of the important calculations were kept more as a curiosity. These
will be presented as we go along. Those left I thought might later be
useful for a re-examination of the results; but it never occurred to me
that Whitney would be forced to bury the material, as he was by Peary. I
do not regard those buried notes as being proof or as being particularly
valuable, except as proving Peary to be one of the most ungracious and
selfish characters in history.
In the subsequent excitement, because Peary cried fraud on the very
papers which he had buried for me, an agitated group of American
armchair explorers came to the conclusion against the dictates of
history that the proof of the Polar quest was to be found in the
re-examination of the figures of the observations for position.
Part of mine were buried. Peary had his. Thus handicapped, because
blocks of my field calculations were absent, with the instruments and
chronometer corrections, I rested my case at Copenhagen on a report, the
original notes giving the brief tabulations of the day's doings, and the
complete set of reduced observations.
My friends have criticised me for not sending the data given below and
similar observations to Copenhagen to prove my claim, but I did not deem
it worth while to present more, taking the ground that if in this there
was not sufficient material to explain the movement step by step of the
Polar quest, then no academic examination could be of any value. This
viewpoint, as I see it at present, was a mistake. I am now presenting
every scrap of paper and every isolated fact, not as proof but as part
of the record of the expedition, with due after-thought, and the better
perspective afforded by time. Every explorer does this. Upon such a
record history has always given its verdict of the value of an
explorer's work. It will do the same in estimating the relative merits
of the Polar quest.
=Observation as figured out in original field paper for March 30, 1908=:
Longitude 95.36. Bar. 30.10 had risen from 29.50 in 2 hours. Temp. -34 deg..
Wind 2. Mag. N. E. Clouds Mist W.-Water bands E.
----
951/2 Noon, 0 18--46--10
4 ---- 18--48--20
+--------- 0 +-------------
60 | 382 2 | 37--34--30
+--------- +-------------
6-22 18--47--15
I. E. +2
+-------------
2 | 18--49--15
+-------------
58 9--24--38
61/2 h. --16-- 2
---------- --------------
29 9-- 8--36
348 R. & P. -- 9
+----------- --------------
60 | 377 8--59--36
+----------- 90
6--17 --------------
3--43--15 81--00--24
------------- 3--49--32
3--49--32 --------------
84--49--56
Shadows 39 ft. (of tent pole 6 ft. above snow).
(Directions Magnetic.)
Because of the impossibility of making correct allowances for
refraction, I have made a rough allowance of -9' for refraction and
parallax in all my observations.
The tent pole was a hickory floor slat of one of the sledges. It was 6
ft. 6 ins. high, 2 ins. wide, and 1/2 in. thick. This stick was marked
in feet and inches, to be used as a measuring stick. It also served as a
paddle and steering oar for the boat.
By pressing this tent pole 6 ins. into the snow, it served as a 6 ft.
pole to measure the shadows. These measurements were recorded on the
observation blanks. Absolute accuracy for the measurements is not
claimed, because of the difficulty of determining the line of
demarcation in long, indistinct shadows; but future efforts will show
that my shadow measurements are an important check on all sun
observations by which latitude and longitude are determined.
[14] Peary claims to have seen life east of this position. This is
perfectly possible, for Arctic explorers have often noted when game
trails were abundant one year, none were seen the next. In these tracks
of foxes and bears, as noted by Baldwin, are positive proofs of the
position of Bradley Land--for such animals work only from a land base.
[15] Observation on April 8, from original field-papers. April 8, 1908,
Longitude 94 deg.-2'. Bar. 29.80, rising. Temp. -31 deg.. Wind 2, Mag. N. E.
Clouds St. 3.
---
0 21 deg.--59'--30''
0 21 --08 --20
94 deg. --- +----------------
4' 2 | 43 -- 7 --50
+------ +----------------
60 | 376' 21 --33 --55
+------ ----------------
6-16 I. E. +2
+----------------
56'' 2 | 21 --35 --50
x 61/4 +----------------
-------- 10 --47 --55
14 --9
336 ----------------
+-------- 10 --38 --55
60 | 350 90--
+-------- ----------------
5--50 79 --21 -- 5
7-- 9--33 7 --15 --23
----------- ----------------
7--15--23 86 --36 --28
Shadows 32 ft. (of pole 6
ft. above snow).