198 THE CONTROVERSY BETWEEN COOK AND PEARY 



annals, and deserves the credit of a long and hard record. To Peary, 

 the explorer, I am still willing to tip my hat, but Peary's unfounded 

 accusations have disclosed another side to his character, which will 

 n x ever be forgotten. 



"When Peary wired that he had nailed the Stars and Stripes 

 to the Pole, I immediately sent congratulations. I then believed, 

 as I do now, that his work over a new route far east of my line of 

 travel was a new r conquest of great importance, and of course, that 

 his position at the Pole would supplement my work with valuable 

 data. There is room enough and honor enough for two American 

 flags at the Pole." 



While Dr. Cook declined to be driven to a hasty laying of his 

 proof before the world, before he was in full readiness to do so, 

 and reiterated his intention to stand by his promise to present it 

 first to the scientists of Copenhagen; stating, however, that he 

 would immediately afterward offer it to the geographical societies 

 of the world, in order that their decision might be given simultane- 

 ously ; Commander Peary was similarly deliberate in making public 

 his proposed annihilation of Cook's claim of discovery. 



He finally sent his statement to the Peary Arctic Club, which 

 was equally deliberate in offering it to the public. When at length, 

 on October 12, 1909, the officials of the association answered the 

 impatient demands of the public and gave Peary's detailed statement 

 to the press, it was read with avidity, but created no fresh sensa- 

 tion. It had been taken for granted from his many utterances 

 as to the complete character of his evidence, that he had new and 

 significant proofs of the position he had taken and maintained. Yet 

 when the statement was read there was scarcely an iota of evidence 

 offered beyond that he had already given to the world. It proved 

 to be a formal extension of the wireless message he had sent from 

 ^Indian Harbor on his first reaching there, to the effect that the two 

 Eskimos who accompanied Cook had said that they had gone little 



