Honors to Peary 



SI 



deed that counted for all mankind, a deed 

 which reacted credit upon you and upon 

 your country, and on behalf of those 

 present, and speaking also for the mil- 

 lions of your countrymen, I take pleasure 

 in handing you this Hubbard Medal, and 

 in welcoming you home from the great 

 feat which you have performed. Com- 

 mander Peary. (Prolonged applause.) 



RESPONSE TO THE PRESIDENT BY COM- 

 MANDER PEARY 



President Roosevelt: 



In behalf of the Peary Arctic Club and 

 its president, Morris K. Jesup, I beg to 

 express our deep appreciation of the 

 great honor conferred by the National 

 Geographical Society in this award of its 

 gold medal, and the double honor of re- 

 ceiving this medal from the hand of 

 President Roosevelt. 



Your continued interest, Mr President, 

 and permission to name the club's ship 

 after you, has been most deeply valued 

 by the club, and your name has proved a 

 powerful talisman. Could I have fore- 

 seen this occasion it would have lightened 

 many dark hours ; but I will frankly say 

 that it would not, for it could not, have 

 increased my efforts. 



The true explorer does his work not 

 for any hope of rewards or honor, but 

 because the thing he has set himself 

 to do is a part of his very being, and 

 must be accomplished for the sake of 

 accomplishment, and he counts lightly 

 hardships, risks, obstacles, if only they 

 do not bar him from his goal. 



To me the final and complete solu- 

 tion of the Polar mystery which has 

 (engaged the best thought and interest 

 of the best men of the most vigorous 

 and enlightened nations of the world 

 for more than three centuries, and to- 

 day quickens the pulse of every man or 

 woman whose veins hold red blood, is 

 the thing which should be done for the 

 honor and credit of this country, the 

 thing which it is intended that I should 

 do, and the thing that I must do. 



Assertions that the Pole cannot be 



reached; that the result of the last ex- 

 pedition is to show the unavailability 

 of dogs and sledges and of the route fol- 

 lowed; that there are better methods for 

 attaining the Pole than by dogs and 

 sledges ; that the discovery of the Pole is 

 not a matter of any value or interest, are 

 equally erroneous. 



The result of the last expedition of the 

 Peary Arctic Club has been to simplify 

 the attainment of the Pole fifty per cent, 

 and to accentuate the fact that man and 

 Eskimo dog are the only two mechanisms 

 capable of meeting all the varying contin- 

 gencies of Arctic work, and that the 

 American route to the Pole and the meth- 

 ods and equipment which have been 

 brought to a high state of perfection are 

 the best for attaining that object. 



Had the past winter been a normal 

 season in the arctic region and not, as 

 it was, a particularly open one through- 

 out the Northern Hemisphere, I should 

 have won the prize. And even if I had 

 known before leaving the land what ac- 

 tual conditions were to the northward, 

 as I know now, I could have so modified 

 my route and my disposition of sledges 

 that I could have reached the Pole in spite 

 of the open season. 



Another expedition following in mv 

 steps and profiting by my experience can 

 not only attain the Pole; it can secure 

 the remaining principal desiderata in the 

 arctic regions, namely, a line of deep-sea 

 soundings through the central Polar 

 Ocean, and the delineation of the un- 

 known gap in the northeast coast line of 

 Greenland from Cape Morris Jesup to 

 Cape Bismarck. And this work can be 

 done in a single season. 



As regards the belief expressed by 

 some, that the attainment of the North 

 Pole possesses no value or interest, let 

 me say that should an American first of 

 all men place the Stars and Stripes at that 

 coveted spot, there is not an American 

 citizen at home or abroad, and there are 

 millions of us, but what would feel a 

 little better and a little prouder of being 

 an American; and just that added in- 

 crement of pride and patriotism to mil- 



