In doing this, my aim is not to challenge Mr. Peary"s claim, but to throw light on unwritten pages of history, which pages furnish the key to unlock the longclosed door of the Polar controversy and the pro-Peary conspiracy.
From the earliest days, Mr. Peary"s effort to reach the Pole was undertaken primarily for purposes of personal commercial gain. For twenty years he has pa.s.sed the hat along lines of easy money. That hat would be pa.s.sing to-day if the game had not been, in the opinion of many, spoiled by my success.
For nearly twenty years he sought to be promoted over the heads of stay-at-home but hardworking naval officers. During all of this time, while on salary as a naval officer, he was away engaged in private enterprises from which hundreds of thousands of dollars went into his pockets. By wire-pulling and lobbying he succeeded in having the American Navy pay him an unearned salary. Such a man could not afford to divide the fruits of Polar attainment with another.
In 1891, as the steamer _Kite_ went north, Mr. Peary began to evince the brutal, selfish spirit which later was shown to every explorer who had the misfortune to cross his trail. Nansen had crossed Greenland; his splendid success was in the public eye. Mr. Peary attempted to belittle the merited applause by saying that Nansen had borrowed the "Peary system." But Peary had borrowed the Nordenskiold system, without giving credit. A few months later, Mr. John M. Verhoeff, the meteorologist of the _Kite_ expedition, was accorded such unbrotherly treatment that he left his body in a glacial creva.s.se in preference to coming home on the same ship with Mr. Peary. This man had paid $2,000 for the privilege of being Peary"s companion.
Eivind Astrup, another companion of Peary, a few years later was publicly denounced because he had written a book on his own scientific observations and did work which Peary had himself neglected to do. This attempt to discredit a young, sensitive explorer was followed by his mental unbalancement and suicide.
About 1897, Peary took from the people of the Farthest North the Eskimos" treasured "Star Stone." At some remote period in the unknown history of the frigid North, thousands of years ago, when, possibly, the primitive forefathers of the Eskimos were perishing from inability to obtain food in that fierce war waged between Nature and crude, blindly struggling, aboriginal life because of a lack of weapons with which to kill, there swiftly, roaringly, descended from the mysterious skies a gigantic meteoric ma.s.s of burning, white-hot iron. Whence it came, those dazed and startled people knew not; they regarded it, as their descendants have regarded it, with baffled mystified terror; later, with reverence, grat.i.tude, and a feeling akin to awe. Gazing skyward, in the long, starlit nights, there undoubtedly welled up surgingly in the wild hearts of these innocent, Spartan children of nature, a feeling of vague, instinctive wonder at the Power which swung the boreal lamps in heaven; which moves the worlds in s.p.a.ce; which sweeps in the northern winds, and which, for the creatures of its creation, apparently consciously, and often by means seemingly miraculous, provides methods of obtaining the sources of life. As the meteor and its two smaller fragments cooled, the natives, by the innate and adaptive ingenuity of aboriginal man, learned to chip ma.s.ses from it, from which were shaped knives and arrows and spearheads. It became their mine of treasure, more precious than gold; it was their only means of making weapons for obtaining that which sustained life. With new weapons, they developed the art of spear-casting and arrow-throwing. As the centuries pa.s.sed, animals fell easy prey to their skill; the starvation of elder ages gave way to plenty.
The arm of G.o.d, it is said in the Scriptures, is long. From the far skies it extended to these people of an ice-sheeted, rigorous land, that they might survive, this miraculous treasure. It seemed, however, that the arm of man, in its greed, proved likewise long; and as the strange providence which gave these people their chief means of killing was kind, so the arm of man was cruel.
In 1894, R. E. Peary, regarding the Arctic world as his own, the people as his va.s.sals, came north, and a year later took from these natives, without their consent, the two smaller fragments. In 1897 he took "The Tent," or Great Iron Stone, the natives" last and one source of mineral wealth and ancestral treasure. That it was these people"s great source of securing metal meant nothing to him; that it was a scientific curio, whereby he might secure a specious credit from the well-fed armchair gentlemen of science at home, meant much to the man who later did not hesitate to employ methods of dishonor to try to secure exclusive credit of the achievement of the Pole. Just as he later tried to rob me of honor, so he ruthlessly took from these people a thing that meant abundance of game--and game there meant life.
The great "Iron Stone" was hauled aboard the S. S. _Hope_, and brought to New York. Today it reposes in the Museum of Natural History--a bulky, black heap of metal, which can be viewed any day by the well-fed and curious. In the North, where he will not go again to give his mythical "abundance of guns and ammunition," the Eskimos need the metal which was sold to Mrs. Morris K. Jesup (who presented it to the museum) for $40,000. That money went into Mr. Peary"s pockets. In a land where laws existed this act would be regarded as a high-handed, monumental and dishonorable theft. One who might attempt now to purloin the ill-gotten hulk from the museum would be prosecuted. Taken from the people to whose ancestors it was sent, as if by a providence that is divine, and to whom it meant life, it gave Mr. Peary so-called scientific honors among his friends. In the name of religion, it has been said, many crimes have been committed. It remained for this man to reveal what atrocious things could be done in the fair name of science.
At about the same time a group of seven or eight Eskimos were put aboard a ship against their will and brought to New York for museum purposes.
They were locked up in a cellar in New York, awaiting a market place.
Before the profit-time arrived, because of unhygienic surroundings and improper food, all but one died. When in the grip of death, through a Mrs. Smith, who ministered to their last wants, they appealed with tears in their eyes for some word from Mr. Peary. They begged that he extend them the attention of visiting them before their eyes closed to a world of misery and trouble. There came no word and no responsive call from the man who was responsible for their suffering. Of seven or eight innocent wild people, but one little child survived. That one--Mene--was later even denied a pa.s.sage back to his fathers" land by Mr. Peary.
A few years later, the Danish Literary Expedition visited the northernmost Eskimos in their houses. The splendid hospitality shown the Danes by the Eskimos saved their lives. The Danish people, aiming to express their grat.i.tude for this unselfish Eskimo kindness, sent a ship to their sh.o.r.es on the following year, loaded with presents, at an expenditure of many thousands of kroner. That ship, under the direction of Captain Schoubye, left at North Star great quant.i.ties of food, iron and wood. After the Danes had turned their backs, Mr. Peary came along and deliberately, high-handedly, took many of the things. This story is told today by every member of the tribe whom Peary claims to have befriended, whom he calls "my people."
The sad story of the unavoidable deaths by starvation of the members of General Greely"s Expedition has for years been issued and reissued to the press by Mr. Peary and his press agents, in such form as to discredit General Greely and his co-workers. His own inhuman doings about Cape Sabine and the old Greely stamping-grounds have been suppressed.
In 1901 the ship _Erik_ left Mr. Peary, with a large group of native helpers, near Cape Sabine. An epidemic, brought by the Peary ship, soon after attacked the Eskimos. Many died; others survived to endure a slow torture. Peary had no doctor and no medicine. In the year previous, Peary had shown the same spirit to the ever faithful Dr. Dedrick that he had shown to Verhoeff, to Astrup, and to others. Although Dedrick could not endure Peary"s unfairness, he remained, against instructions, within reach for just such an emergency as this epidemic presented. He offered his services when the epidemic broke out, but Peary refused his offer, and allowed the natives to die rather than permit a competent medical expert to attend the afflicted.
Near the same point, a year later, Captain Otto Sverdrup wintered with his ship. His mission was to explore the great unknown to the west. This unexplored country had been under Mr. Peary"s eye for ten years; but instead of exploring it, his time was spent in an easy and comparatively luxurious life about a comfortable camp. When Sverdrup"s men visited the Peary ship, they were denied common brotherly courtesy and were refused the hospitality which is universally granted, by an unwritten law, to all field workers. Mr. Peary even refused to send him, on his returning ship, important letters and papers which Sverdrup desired taken back. He also refused to allow Sverdrup to take native guides and dogs-which did not belong to Mr. Peary. This same courtesy was later denied to Captain Bernier, of the Canadian Expedition.
Thus attempting to make a private preserve of the unclaimed North, he attempted to discredit and thwart every other explorer"s effort. In line with the same policy, every member of every Peary expedition has been muzzled with a contract which prevented talking or writing after the expedition"s return--contracts by which Mr. Peary derived the sole credit, the entire profit, and all the honor of the results of the men who volunteered their services and risked their lives. This same spirit was shown at the time when, at 87 45"", he turned Captain Bartlett back, because he (Peary), to use his own words, "wanted all the honors."
In profiting by his long quest for funds for legitimate exploration, we find Peary engaged in private enterprises for which public funds were used. Much of this money was, in my judgment, used to promote a lucrative fur and ivory trade, while the real effort of getting to the Pole was delayed, seemingly, for commercial gain. I believe the Pole might have been reached ten years earlier. But delay was profitable.
After being thus engaged for years in a propaganda of self-exploitation, in a.s.sailing other explorers whom he regarded as rivals, in committing deeds in the North unworthy of an American and officer of the Navy, Peary, knowing that I had started Poleward, knowing that relief must inevitably be required, ultimately appropriated my supplies, and absolutely prevented any effort to reach me, which even the natives themselves might have made. Peary knew he was endangering my life. He knew that he was getting ivory and furs in return for supplies belonging to me, and which I should need. He knew, also, that it would not coincide with his selfish purposes of appropriating all honor and profit if I reached the Pole and should return and tell the world. His deliberate act was in itself--whether so designed or not--an effort to kill a brother explorer. The stains of at least a dozen other lives are on this man.
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.
a.s.suming the att.i.tude of one above reproach, Peary, upon his return, a.s.sailed 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 att.i.tude 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.
THE MT. McKINLEY BRIBERY
THE BRIBED, FAKED AND FORGED NEWS ITEMS--THE PRO-PEARY MONEY POWERS ENCOURAGE PERJURY--MT. M"KINLEY HONESTLY CLIMBED--HOW, FOR PEARY, A SIMILAR PEAK WAS FAKED
x.x.xIV
HOW A MAN"S SOUL WAS MARKETED
After Mr. Peary had done his utmost to try to disprove my Polar attainment; after the chain of newspapers which, for him, in conjunction with the New York _Times_, had printed the same egregious lies on the same days, from the Atlantic to the Pacific; after they had expended all possible ammunition, the damages inflicted were still insufficient. My narrative, as published in the New York _Herald_, was still more generally credited than Mr. Peary"s. To gain his end, something else had to be done. Something else was done. The darkest page of defamation in the world"s history of exploration was now written by the hands of bribers and perjurers.
The public suddenly turned from the newspaper-inculcated idea of "proof"
in figures to a more sane examination of personal veracity. To destroy my reputation for truth in the public mind was the next unscrupulous effort decided upon. The selfish and self-evident press campaign, obviously managed by the Peary cabal, to that end had given unsatisfactory results. Some vital blow must be delivered by fair means or otherwise.
The climb of Mt. McKinley was now challenged.
I had made a first ascent of the great mid-Alaskan peak in 1906. The record of that conquest was published during my absence in the North, under the t.i.tle, "To the Top of the Continent." The book, being printed at a time when I was unable to see the proofs, contained some mistakes; but in it was all the data that could be presented for such an undertaking.
The Board of Aldermen of the City of New York decided to honor me by offering the keys and the freedom of the metropolis on October 15. This was to be an important event. The pro-Peary conspiracy aiming to deliver striking blows through the press, their propaganda was so planned that the bribed, faked and forged news items were issued on days which gave them dramatic and psychologic climaxes. Two days before the New York demonstration in my favor, the pretentious full-page broadside of distorted Eskimo information was issued. This fell flat; for it was instantly seen to be a pretentious rearrangement of old charges. But it was so played up as to fill columns of newspaper s.p.a.ce and impress readers by its magnitude. This was followed by the Barrill affidavit, similarly played up so as to fill a full newspaper page, which I shall a.n.a.lyze later. All this was done to draw a black cloud over the day of honor in New York, the 15th day of October.
Since the published affidavit of my old a.s.sociate, Barrill, was a doc.u.ment which proved him a self-confessed liar; since the affidavit carried with it the earmarks of pro-Peary bribery and perjury, I reasoned again that fair-minded people would in time see through this moneyed campaign of dishonor. In all history it has been shown that he who seeks to besmear others usually leaves the greatest amount of mud on himself. But again I had not counted on the unfairness of the press.
The only reason given that I should have faked the climb of Mt. McKinley is that, in some vague way, I was to profit mightily by a successful report. The expedition was to have been financed by a rich Philadelphia sportsman. He did advance the greater portion of the sum required. We were to prepare a game trail for him. Something interfered, he relinquished his trip, and did not send the balance of money promised.
The result was that many checks I had given out went to protest. Harper & Brothers had agreed, before starting, to pay me $1,500 for an account of the expedition, whether successful or not. On my return this was paid, and went to meet outstanding debts--debts to pay which I embarra.s.sed myself. Instead of "profits" from this alleged "fake," I suffered a loss of several thousand dollars.
As is quite usual in all exploring expeditions, some of the members of my Mt. McKinley expedition, who did not share in the final success, were disgruntled. Chief among these was Hersch.e.l.l Parker. Owing to ill-health and inexperience, Parker had proved himself inefficient in Alaskan work.
Climbing a little peak forty miles from the great mountain, when he was with me, he had p.r.o.nounced Mt. McKinley unclimbable. Climbing a similar hill, four years later, he stooped to the humbug of offering a photograph of it as a parallel to my picture of the top of Mt. McKinley.
This man was so ill-fitted for such work that two men were required to help him mount a horse. But I insisted that we continue at least to the base of the mountain. At the first large glacier, Parker and his companion, Belmore Brown, balked, halting in front of an insignificant ice-wall. The ascent of Mt. McKinley, still thirty-five miles off, they said, was impossible. Parker returned, and in a trail of four thousand miles to New York told every press representative how impossible was the ascent of Mt. McKinley. By the time Parker reached New York a cable went through that the thing was done. At a point four thousand miles from the scene of action, he again cried, "Impossible!" When I returned to New York, however, a month later, and Parker learned the details, he publicly and privately credited my ascent of Mt. McKinley. Nothing further was said to doubt the climb until two years later, when he lined up with the Peary interests.
Using Parker as a tool, Peary"s Arctic Club, through him, first forced the side-issue of Mt. McKinley. With the Barrill affidavit, made later, were printed other affidavits by Barrill"s friends, who had not been within fifty miles of the mountain when it was climbed. This act, to me, was a bitter climax of injustice. But I have since learned that Printz got $500 of pro-Peary money; that both Miller and Beecher were promised large amounts, but were cheated at the "showdown." Printz afterwards wrote that he would make an affidavit for me for $300, and at Missoula he made an affidavit in which he attempted to defend me.[26] This he offered to sell to Roscoe Mitch.e.l.l for $1,000.
While easy pro-Peary money was pa.s.sing in the West, Parker came forward with his old grudge. His chief contention was that, because he had taken home with him in deserting the object of the expedition a hypsometer, I could not have measured the high alt.i.tudes claimed. The alt.i.tude had been measured by triangulation by the hydrographer of the expedition, but I had other methods of measuring the ascent.
I had two aneroid barometers, specially marked for very high climbing, thermometers, and all the usual Alpine instruments. The hypsometer was not at that time an important instrument. Parker also showed unfair methods by allowing the press repeatedly to print that he had been the leader and the organizer of the expedition. This he knew to be false. I had organized two expeditions to explore Mt. McKinley, at a cost of $28,000. Of this Parker had furnished $2,500. Parker took no part in the organization of the last expedition, had given no advice to help supply an adequate equipment, and in the field his presence was a daily handicap to the progress of the expedition. Heretofore, this was never indicated. But when he allows himself to be quoted as the leader of an expedition upon which he attempts to throw discredit, then it is right that all the facts be known.
In the press reports, when Parker was first heard from, came the news that on the Pacific coast, at Tacoma, a lawyer by the name of J. M.
Ashton was retained by someone. To the press Ashton said he was engaged "to look into the McKinley business," but he did not know by whom--whether by Cook or Peary. He was "engaged" in a business too questionable to tell who furnished the money.
In the final ascent of Mt. McKinley there was with me Edward Barrill, the affidavit-maker. He was a good-natured and hard-working packer, who had proved himself a most able climber. Together we ascended the mountain in September, 1906. To this time (1909) there was not the slightest doubt about the footprints on the top of the great mountain.