CHAPTER XII 



Receptions of Cook and Peary on American Soil 



THE announcement had no sooner been made that Dr. Cook 

 would leave Denmark on September nth for New York than 

 great preparations were begun to give him a rousing recep- 

 tion home. Many people, his neighbors in Brooklyn, friends of early 

 days, his comrades in the Explorers' Club and the Arctic Club, as 

 well as thousands of New Yorkers who felt merely a general interest 

 and entertained a patriotic enthusiasm to welcome the returning 

 victor, at once began to lay plans to make his homecoming a 

 memorable occasion. 



Although great interest prevailed not only in New York, but 

 over the whole country, the enthusiasm was greatest of all in 

 Dr. Cook's home city of Brooklyn. Eminent citizens, military 

 and civil organizations, friends and neighbors, and the people at 

 large of the city determined to show the country and the world 

 that the returning explorer belonged to them and that they pro- 

 posed to assert the fact. 



The Citizens' Committee, appointed by President Byrd S. 

 Coler, of the Borough of Brooklyn, held a meeting and decided 

 on the program for the reception. In the meanwhile New York 

 had not been idle. The Arctic Club, of which Dr. Cook is a mem- 

 ber, chartered the excursion steamer "Grand Republic" to take 

 more than twelve hundred people down the bay to Quarantine 

 that they might secure the first glimpse of the explorer and take 

 him home to Brooklyn. 



Invitations to banquets and receptions of all kinds, sent by 

 wireless, nearly overwhelmed the discoverer. Mrs. Cook naturally 



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