HOW A GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY PROSTITUTED ITS NAME
XXXVI
The Washington Verdict—The Copenhagen Verdict
While one group of pro-Peary men were early engaged in various conspiracies, extending from New York to the Pacific coast, fabricating false charges, faking, and forging news items designed to injure me, men higher up in Washington were planning other deceptions behind closed doors. The Mt. McKinley bribery and the Dunkle-Loose humbug had the desired effect in reducing the opposition in Washington, and by December of 1909 the controversy was settled to Mr. Peary's satisfaction by a group of men who, by deception, betrayed public trust.
The National Geographic Society very early assumed a meddlesome air in an effort to dictate the distribution of Polar honors. With the excuse that they would give a gold medal to him who could prove priority to the claim of Polar discovery, they began a series of movements that would put a dishonorable political campaign to shame. In the light of later developments, medals from this society are regarded by true scientific workers as badges of dishonor. By way of explanation, one of the officers said that they made it a rule to examine all original field observations before the society honored an explorer. This was a deliberate falsehood, for no explorer going to Washington had previously packed his field papers and instruments for inspection. If so, then this society again convicts itself of a humbug, as it did later. Mr. Peary had been given a gold medal for his claim of having reached the farthest north in 1906. Peary admitted that his position rested on one imperfect observation. I happened, quite by accident, to be in a position, soon after Peary's return, to examine the instruments with which the farthest north observations had been made. Every apparatus was so bent and bruised that further observations were impossible. Of course Peary will say that the instruments were injured en route on the return. But this does not excuse the idle boast of the members of the National Geographic Society, who said that they always examined a returning explorer's field notes and apparatus, when in this case they did not see Mr. Peary's observations nor his instruments.
As a matter of fact, the National Geographic, like every other geographic society, had previously rated the merits of an explorer's work by his published reports. Their tactics were now changed to bring about a position where they might focus the controversy to Mr. Peary's and their advantage. There would have been no harm in this effort, if it had been honest; but, as we will see presently, falsehood and deception were evident in every move.
The position of the National Geographic Society is very generally misunderstood because of its pretentious use of the word "National." In reality, it is neither national nor geographic. It is a kind of self-admiration society, which serves the mission of a lecture bureau. It has no connection with the Government and has no geographic authority save that which it assumes. As a lecture bureau it had retained Mr. Peary to fill an important position as its principal star for many years. To keep him in the field as their head-line attraction they had paid $1,000 to Mr. Peary for the very venture now in question. This so-called "National" Geographic Society was, therefore, a stock owner in the venture upon which they passed as an unbiased jury.
Of course Mr. Peary consented to rest his case in their hands; but, for reasons above indicated and for others given below, I refused to have any dealings with such an unfair combination. The Government was appealed to, and every political and private wire was pulled to compel me to submit my case to a packed jury. During all the time when this was done, its moving spirits, Gilbert Grosvenor and Admiral Chester, were publicly and privately saying things about me and my attainment of the Pole that no gentleman would utter. That Mr. Peary was a member of this society; that his friends were absolute dictators of the power of appointment; that they were stock owners in Mr. Peary's enterprise—all of this, and a good many other facts, were carefully suppressed. To the public this society declared they were "neutral, unbiased and scientific"—no more deliberate lie than which was ever forced upon the public.
Of course I refused to place my case in dishonest pro-Peary hands. With shameless audacity this society helped Mr. Peary carry along his press campaign by disseminating the cowardly slurs of Grosvenor, Chester, and others. They watched and encouraged the McKinley bribery; they closed their eyes to the Kennan lies. Through Chester and others, they faked pages of sensational pseudo-scientific news, all with the one centered aim of forcing doubt on opposing interests before the crucial moment, when, behind closed doors, the matter could be settled to their liking.
Thus, when Peary, his club, and his affiliated boosters at Washington were carrying their press slanders to a focus, there came a loud cry from the National Geographic Society for proofs.
With some wrangling, and a good deal of protest from half-hearted men, like Professor Moore, a jury was appointed to pass upon Mr. Peary's claims and mine. My claims were to be passed upon against my will. Unbiased and real Arctic explorers like General Greely and Admiral Schley were carefully excluded from this jury. Instead, armchair geographers, who were closely related to the Peary interests, were appointed as a "neutral jury," as follows:
Henry Gannett, a close personal friend of Mr. Peary.
C. M. Chester, related to Mr. Peary's fur trader, a member of a coterie that divided the profits of fleecing the Eskimos.
O. H. Tittman, chief of a department under which part of Mr. Peary's work was done.
With a flourish of trumpets, including pages of self-boosting news distributed by Mr. Peary's press agents, this commission began its important investigation. At the time, it was said that all of Mr. Peary's original field papers and instruments were under careful scrutiny. Later it was shown that one of the jury saw only COPIES. On November 4, 1909, was issued the verdict of this jury: "That Commander Peary reached the North Pole on April 6, 1909."
This verdict, at its face value, was fair; but the circumstances which surrounded it before and after were such as to raise a doubt that can never be removed. With the verdict came the insinuation that no one else had reached the Pole before Peary; that my claim of priority was dishonest. A nagging press campaign continued to emanate from Washington.
I have no objection to Mr. Peary's friends endorsing him—a friend who will stretch a point is not to be condemned. But when such friends stoop to dishonorable methods to inflict injury upon others, then a protest is in order. My aim here is not to deny that Mr. Peary reached the Pole near enough for all practical purposes, but to show how men sacrificed their word of honor to boost Mr. Peary and to discredit me.
The verdict of this jury which was to settle the controversy for all time was sent out on wires that encircled the globe. Soon after there was a call for the data upon which that jury passed. The public called for it; the Government called for it; foreign geographical societies asked for it. No one was allowed to see the wonderful "proofs." Why?
Officially, that commission said that Mr. Peary's contract with a magazine prevented the publication of the "proofs." But every member of the commission was on the Government pay-roll. Why, may we ask, should a Government official be muzzled with a bid for commercial gain? This contract was held by Benjamin Hampton, of Hampton's Magazine. If Hampton's contract muzzled the Government officials, Mr. Hampton thought so little of the so-called "proofs" that he did not print them. For, in Hampton's installment, with the eye-attracting title, "Peary Proofs Positive," the real data upon which the Peary case rests were eliminated. Why? In Mr. Peary's own book that material is again suppressed. Why? For the same reason that the jury was muzzled. The material would not bear public scrutiny!
The real difficulty is that, in the haste to floor rival claims, Mr. Peary and all his biased helpers fixed as the crucial test of Polar attainment an examination of field observations. Mr. Peary had his; he had refused to let Whitney bring part of mine from the North; and, therefore, he and his friends supposed that I was helpless, by assuming this false position. But when Mr. Peary's own material was examined, it was found that his position rested on a set of worthless observations—calculations of altitudes of the sun so low that it is questionable if the observation could have been made at all. So long as three men, behind closed doors, could be made to say "Yes, Peary reached the Pole," and so long as this verdict came with the authority of a Geographic Society and the seeming endorsement of national prestige, the false position could be impressed upon the pubic as a bona-fide verdict. But, with publicity, the whole railroading game would be spoiled. These three men could be influenced. But there are a hundred thousand other men in the world whose lives depend upon their knowledge of just such observations as were here involved. They knew publicity would bring the attention of these men to the fact that Mr. Peary's polar claim rests upon the impossible observations of a sun at an altitude less than 7° above the horizon. The three armchair geographers, seldom out of reach of dusty book-shelves, passed upon these worthless observations. Not one of one hundred thousand honest sextant experts would credit such an observation as that upon which Mr. Peary's case rests—not even in home regions, where for centuries tables for corrections have been gathered.
[29]A year later, at the Congressional investigation of the Naval Committee in Washington, Mr. Peary and two of his jurors admitted that in the much-heralded Peary proofs "there was no proof." Members of the Geographic Society acknowledged their "examination" of Peary's instruments was made in the Pennsylvania Station, when they opened Mr. Peary's trunk and casually looked over its contents. Therefore, Mr. Peary's claim for a second victory now rests upon his book.
In forcing the controversy, the press and the public have come to the conclusion that one or the other report must be discredited. This is an incorrect point of view. Each case must be judged upon its own merits. To prove my case, it is not necessary to disprove Peary's; nor, to prove Peary's, should it have been necessary to try to disprove mine.
Much has been said about my case resting in foreign hands. This came about in a natural way. It was not intended to convey the idea that my own countrymen were incompetent or dishonest. In the case of the National Geographic Society they have irretrievably prostituted their name; but the same is not true of other American authorities.
When I came to Copenhagen, the Danish Geographic Society gave me a first spontaneous hearing. The Copenhagen University honored me. It was, therefore, but proper that the Danes should be the first to pass upon the merits of my claim. While these arrangements were in progress, I met Professor Thorp, the Rector of the University of Copenhagen, at the American Legation. I did not know the purport of that meeting, nor of his detailed, careful questions; but on the 6th of September appeared an official statement in the press reports. In these it was stated that the meeting had been arranged to satisfy the University authorities as to whether the Pole had been reached. Among other things, Professor Thorp said:
"As there were certain questions of a special astronomical nature with which I myself was not sufficiently acquainted, I called in our greatest astronomical scientist, Professor Stromgren, who put an exhaustive series of mathematical, technical and natural scientific questions to Dr. Cook, based particularly on those of his contentions on which some doubts had been cast.
"Dr. Cook answered all to our full satisfaction. He showed no nervousness or excitement at any time. I dare say, therefore, that there is no justification for anybody to throw the slightest doubt on his claim to have reached the Pole and the means by which he did it. Professor Stromgren and I are entirely satisfied with the evidence."
I have always maintained that the proof of an explorer's doings was not to be found in a few disconnected figures, but in the continuity of his final book which presents his case. To this end I prepared a report, accompanied by the important part of the original field notes and a complete set of reduced observations. These were submitted to the University of Copenhagen in December of 1909. The verdict on this was that in such material there was no absolute proof of the attainment of the Pole.
The Peary press agents were in Copenhagen, and sent this news out so as to convey the idea that Copenhagen had denounced me; that, in their opinion, the Pole had not been reached as claimed, and that I had hoaxed the world for sordid gain; all of which was untrue. But the press flaunted my name in big headlines as a faker.
"In the Cook data there is no proof," they repeated as the verdict of Copenhagen.
A year later Mr. Peary and his jurors confessed unwillingly in Congress that in the Peary data there was no proof.
This was reported in the official Congressional pamphlets, but, so far as I know, not a single newspaper displayed the news. The two cases, therefore, so far as verdicts go, are parallel.
Wearied of the whole problem of undesirable publicity; mentally and physically exhausted; disgusted with the detestable and slanderous campaign, which, for Mr. Peary, the press forced unremittingly, I decided to go away for a year, to rest and recuperate. This could not be done if I took the press into my confidence; and, therefore, I quietly departed from New York, to be joined by my family later. Out of the public eye, life, for me, assumed a new interest. In the meantime, the public agitation was stilled. Time gave a better perspective to the case; Mr. Peary got that for which his hand had reached. He was made a Rear-Admiral, with a pension of $6,000 under retirement.
By the time I had resolved my case, I received through my brother, William L. Cook, of Brooklyn, and my London solicitor, various offers from newspapers and magazines for any statement I desired to make. Because I had gone away quietly and remained in seclusion, the newspapers had inflamed the public with an abnormal curiosity in my so-called mysterious disappearance. This fact imparted a great sensational value to any news of my public reappearance or to any statement which I might make. Eager to secure a "beat," newspapers were offering my brother as high as one thousand dollars merely for my address. The New York newspaper which had led the attack against me sent an offer, through my London solicitor, of any figure which I might make for my first exclusive statement to the public. One magazine offered me ten thousand dollars for a series of articles.
While in London I received a message from Mr. T. Everett Harry, of Hampton's Magazine, concerning the publication of a series of articles explaining my case. Mr. Harry came to London and talked over plans for these. The opportunity of addressing the same public, through the same medium, as Mr. Peary had in his serial story, strongly influenced me—in fact, so strongly that, while I had a standing offer of ten thousand dollars, I finally gave my articles to Hampton's for little more than four thousand dollars.
In order that Hampton's Magazine might benefit by the publicity attaching to my first statement, and in response to the editor's request, I came quietly to the United States with Mr. Harry, by way of Canada, to consult with the editor before making final arrangements. Mr. Harry and I had agreed upon the outline for the articles. They were to be a series of heart-to-heart talks, embodying the psychological phases of the Polar controversy and my own actions. In these I determined fully to state my case, explain the ungracious controversy, and analyze the impossibility of mathematically ascertaining the Pole or of proving such a claim by figures. The articles that eventually appeared in Hampton's, with the exception of unauthorized editorial changes and excisions of vitally important matter concerning Mr. Peary, were practically the same as planned in London.
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 pronounce 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 shores 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 assistance; 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.