One of the remarkable things about modern journalism is that, by persistent repetition, it can create as a fact in the public mind a thing which is purely immaterial or untrue. Taking the cue from Peary, there was at the beginning a widespread and unprecedented call for "proofs," which in some vague way were to consist of unreduced reckonings. Mr. Peary had his own—he had buried part of mine. I did not at the time instantly produce these vague and obscure proofs, knowing, as all scientists know, that figures must inevitably be inadequate and that any convincing proof that can exist is to be found only in the narrative account of such a quest. I did not appreciate that in the public mind, because of the newspapers' criticisms, there was growing a demand for this vague something. For this reason, I did not consider an explanation of the absurdity of this exaggerated position necessary.
Nor did I appreciate the relative effect of the National Geographic Society's "acceptance" of Mr. Peary's so-called "proofs" while mine were not forthcoming. I did not know at the time, what has since been brought out in the testimony given before the Naval Committee in Washington, that the National Geographic Society's verdict was based upon an indifferent examination of worthless observations and a few seconds' casual observation of Mr. Peary's instruments by several members of the Society in the Pennsylvania Railroad Station at Washington. With many lecture engagements, I considered that I was right in doing what every other explorer, including Mr. Peary himself, had done before me; that is, to fulfill my lecture and immediate literary opportunities while there was a great public interest aroused, and to offer a narrative of greater length, with field observations and extensive scientific data, later.
Following the exaggerated call for proofs, there began a series of persistently planned attacks. So petty and insignificant did many of them seem to me that I gave them little thought. My speed limits were questioned, this charge being dropped when it was found that Mr. Peary's had exceeded mine. The use by the newspaper running my narrative story of photographs of Arctic scenes—which never change in character—that had been taken by me on previous trips, was held up as visible evidence that I was a faker! Errors which crept into my newspaper account because of hasty preparation, and which were not corrected because there was no time to read proofs, were eagerly seized upon, and long, abstruse and impressive mathematical dissertations were made on these to prove how unscrupulous and unreliable I was.
The photograph of the flag at the Pole was put forth by one of Mr. Peary's friends to prove on prima facie evidence that I had faked. Inasmuch as the original negative was vague because of the non-actinic light in the North, the newspaper photographers retouched the print and painted on it a shadow as being cast from the flag and snow igloos. This shadow was seized upon avidly, and after long and learned calculations, was cited as showing that the picture was taken some five hundred miles from the Pole.
A formidable appearing statement, signed by various members of his expedition, and copyrighted by the clique of honor-blind boosters, was issued by Mr. Peary. In this he gave statements of my two Eskimo companions to the effect that I had not gotten out of sight of land for more than one or two "sleeps" on my trip. I knew that I had encouraged the delusion of my Eskimos that the mirages and low-lying clouds which appeared almost daily were signs of land. In their ignorance and their eagerness to be near land, they believed this, and by this innocent deception I prevented the panic which seizes every Arctic savage when he finds himself upon the circumpolar sea out of sight of land. I have since learned that Mr. Peary's Eskimos became panic-stricken near the Big Lead on his last journey and that it was only by the life-threatening announcement to them of his determination to leave them alone on the ice (to get back to land as best they might or starve to death) that he compelled them to accompany him.
In any case, I did not consider as important any testimony of the 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.
RUDOLPH FRANCKE IN ARCTIC COSTUME
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.
