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.