Then there came the page broadside of rearranged charges printed by every American paper. It contained nothing new in the text, but with it there was a faked map, copied from Sverdrup, which was made to appear as though drawn by Eskimos. The best answer to this whole problem is that from the same tongues with which Mr. Peary tried to discredit me has come a much more formidable charge against Mr. Peary. For these same Eskimos have since said, without quizzing from me, that Mr. Peary never got to the Pole and that he never saw Crocker Land.
This part of the controversy was thoroughly analyzed by Professor W. F. Armbruster and Dr. Henry Schwartz in the St. Louis Mirror[24].
While this controversy early began to rage, the tremendous offers of money which came in every hour contributed to my bewilderment. They seemed fabulous; the purport was beyond me. I imagined this as part of a dream from which I should awake. Were I the calculating monster of cupidity which some believe me, I suppose I should have been more circumspect in making my financial arrangements.
I should hardly, for instance, have sold my narrative story to Mr. James Gordon Bennett for $25,000 when there were single offers of $50,000, $75,000, $100,000, and more, for it. While I was in Copenhagen, and before the Herald offer was accepted, Mr. W. T. Stead had come with a message from W. R. Hearst with instructions to double any other offer presented for my narrative. Had I accepted Mr. Hearst's bid he would have paid $400,000 for what I sold for $25,000. Here is a sacrifice of $375,000. Does that look as if I tried to hoax the world for sordid gain, as my enemies would like the public to believe? What Mr. Bennett asked and offered $25,000 for was a series of four articles on adventures in the North, for use in the Sunday supplement of the Herald. I had no such articles prepared at the time, nor, as I knew, should I have time to write these. I did have the narrative story of my trip, which consisted of twenty-five thousand to thirty thousand words, complete. I decided, when I heard the first reports of doubt cast on my claim, to publish my narrative story as an honest and sincere proof of my claim as soon as possible. So I gave this to Mr. Bennett for the sum offered purely for Sunday articles.
GOVERNOR KRAUL IN HIS STUDY
ARRIVAL AT UPERNAVIK
POLAR TRAGEDY—A DESERTED CHILD OF THE SULTAN OF THE NORTH AND ITS MOTHER
Mr. Bennett offered me $5,000 additional for the European rights of this story. To this offer I made no reply, giving Mr. Bennett the sole news rights of the story for the entire world.