INTRODUCTION 



SOME years ago I met at a dinner in Washington 

 the famous Norwegian arctic explorer, Nansen, 

 himself one of the heroes of polar adventure; and 

 he remarked to me, ""Peary is your best man; in fact I 

 think he is on the whole the best of the men now trying 

 to reach the Pole, and there is a good chance that he will 

 be the one to succeed." I cannot give the exact words; 

 but they were to the above effect; and they made a strong 

 impression on me. I thought of them when in the summer 

 of 1908 I, as President of the United States, went aboard 

 Peary's ship to bid him Godspeed on the eve of what proved 

 to be his final effort to reach the Pole. A year later, when I 

 was camped on the northern foothills of Mt. Kenia, directly 

 under the equator, I received by a native runner the news 

 that he had succeeded, and that thanks to him the discovery 

 of the North Pole was to go on the honor roll of those feats 

 in which we take a peculiar pride because they have been 

 performed by our fellow countrymen. 



Probably few outsiders realize the well-nigh incredible 

 toil and hardship entailed in such an achievement as 

 Peary's; and fewer still understand how many years of 

 careful training and preparation there must be before 

 the feat can be even attempted with any chance of success. 

 A "dash for the pole" can be successful only if there have 

 been many preliminary years of painstaking, patient toil. 

 Great physical hardihood and endurance, an iron will and 

 unflinching courage, the power of command, the thirst 



