"Gentlemen," I said, "pack up every scrap of this paper in that dress-suit case. Take all of your belongings and leave this hotel at once."
I stood there while they did so. Not a word was spoken. Sheepish and silent, they shuffled from the room, ashamed and taken aback. Sick at heart at the thought that these men should have considered me unscrupulous enough to buy and use their faked figures, I went to my room. From that day—November 22—I have not received a letter or telegram from either.
Months later, in South America, I read with horrified amazement a summary of the account of this occurrence, sold by Dunkle and Loose to the New York Times. Distorted and twisted as it was I doubt if even the Times would have used it had Dunkle and Loose not forced the lie that these faked figures were sent to Copenhagen. They knew, as God knows, that every scrap of paper on which they wrote was packed in a suit-case as dirty as the intent of their sin-blotted paper.
If my report to the Copenhagen University proved anything, it was, by comparison, figure by figure, with the affidavits published, that in this at least I was guilty of no fraud.
In a re-examination later, a handwriting expert has come to the conclusion that the name of Loose was forged, and Loose was later put in jail for another offense. To the city editor of a New York evening paper Loose offered to sell a story retracting the charges published in the Times. Dunkle admitted to witnesses that he had been paid for the affidavit published in the New York Times. Loose, willing to discredit the Times story, said, however, he "wanted big money" for a retraction. One question that is forced in the interest of fair-play is, Why did the New York Times, without investigation, print a news item by which a man's honor is attacked, which is not only a perjury but a forgery? The managing editor was shown the evidence of this forgery, admitted its force, but not a word was printed to counteract the harm done by printing false news.
Captain E. B. Baldwin, a year later, discovered that this pro-Peary faked stuff was in possession of Professor James H. Gore, one of Mr. Peary's friends in the National Geographic Society, which prostituted its name for Peary by passing upon valueless "proofs." From the methods pursued by this society later, I am inclined to the belief that the Dunkle-Loose fake was concocted for members of this society. If not, how does it happen that Professor Gore is in possession of this faked, forged, and perjured stuff?