Forest and Stream 
Terms, $3 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JANUARY i, 1910 . 
, VOL. LXXIV.-No. 1. 
1 No. 127 Franklin St., New York. 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL. 
Copyright, 1909, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
George Bird Grinnell, President, 
Charles B. Reynolds, Secretary, 
Louis Dean Speir, Treasurer, 
127 Franklin Street, New York. 
THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL 
will be to studiously promote a healthful interest 
in outdoor recreation, and to cultivate a refined 
taste for natural objects. 
—Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1873. 
IMPOSTOR. 
Last week the University of Copenhagen an¬ 
nounced its decision that the material sent in by 
Dr. Cook in support of his statement that he had 
reached the North Pole “contains no proof that 
Dr. Cook reached the pole.” The decision puts 
an end to the hot discussion which has laged 
throughout the civilized world for nearly foui 
months. 
On Sept. 1, Dr. Frederick A. Cook announced 
that he had reached the North Pole, and his 
statement received instant credence by a large 
part of the public. He landed in Copenhagen, 
was met there with enthusiasm, received many 
honors, and then sailed for this country. Among 
the declarations attributed to him is the follow¬ 
ing: “I have been to the North Pole and I have 
brought back the most exact observations, abso¬ 
lutely proving my statements.” 
Less than a week after the announcement of 
Cook’s achievement, Commander Peary was 
heard from and announced that he had reached 
the North Pole. He said also Cook s story 
should not be taken too seriously,” a word of 
warning which the short-sighted public imagined 
was prompted by jealousy, and which brought on 
Commander Peary much undeserved censure. 
For a month or two after his return, Cook 
was busily engaged in lecturing to crowded 
houses, telling of his adventures on the way to 
the pole. The New York Herald secured from 
him a long story of his trip, which it copyrighted 
and syndicated all over the country. The public 
sentiment of America seemed all one way. Cook 
was believed and Peary denounced as a slanderer 
and backbiter. 
When Cook was asked to submit his proofs to 
the National Geographic Society in Washington 
he declined to do so, saying that he had prom¬ 
ised that they should go to the University of 
Copenhagen. There was much delay about the 
sending of these proofs, and shortly after they 
were sent two men in New York, where Cook 
had been staying, made affidavits that they had 
been hired to work out a set of observations in 
support of Cook’s claims. They were to be paid 
a certain sum, which, they stated, Cook did not 
pay; hence their story. Meantime Peary’s proofs 
had been submitted to the Geographic Society in 
Washington, which after a time pronounced them 
satisfactory. Then Cook disappeared, and to this 
day no one knows where he is. 
The story .told by Cook is one of the most 
extraordinary fabrications of any time. Not less 
extraordinary is the fact that it secured instant 
credence by almost the whole public. A small 
group of men in New York, and another small 
group in Washington, never believed that Cook 
reached the pole, but their feeble protests were 
drowned in the general shout of acclamation. 
The motive which induced Cook to put forth 
statements which he knew he could not support 
is quite as extraordinary and mysterious as any¬ 
thing else that has happened. 
A few years ago Cook returned from Alaska 
declaring that he had reached the summit of 
Mount McKinley. He was not a mountaineei, 
and persons familiar with Alaska, and above all 
with the surroundings of Mount McKinley, de¬ 
clined to credit his statements of success. The 
North Pole discussion led to action by the Ex¬ 
plorers’ Club on the Mount McKinley story, and 
a respectable minority, led by Charles H. Town¬ 
send, himself an eminent explorer, had a com¬ 
mittee appointed to investigate the claim that 
Cook had reached the summit of Mount Mc¬ 
Kinley. This committee has announced that Cook 
produced no proof that he had been there. Cook 
was therefore expelled from the club. 
To many persons the greatest crime in this 
whole matter will appear to be not the false 
statement about his achievements, nor the ap¬ 
propriating of a thousand honors to which he 
had no title, nor the hoaxing of the whole 
public, nor the robbery of that public of many 
dollars by lectures describing something that 
never happened. The greatest crime will seem 
the robbing of a fellow-man of a large part of 
the glory to which his indomitable courage and 
persistence and his years of suffering and of 
hard labor had justly entitled him. 
don is best known to the readers of Forest and 
Stream, and in this regard he was written of 
a year or two since, as follows: 
“Few men are so familiar with the life of the 
old South in the days before the war as Colonel 
Gordon. The owner of vast estates and many 
slaves, he also possessed the swiftest horses, the 
best dogs, the most modern arms and equipment. 
No eye so quick as his to stop the buzzing quail, 
no ear so keen to listen to the cry of the hounds 
and tell which way the fleeing buck or bear would 
direct his course. When the war between the 
States came on, Colonel Gordon at his own ex¬ 
pense raised and equipped a company of cavalry 
and was at once in the field and fought through 
"the long conflict to its bitter end.” 
Colonel Gordon has been a more or less fre¬ 
quent contributor to Forest and Stream for 
more than thirty-six years. 
"PIOUS JEEMS,” UNITED STATES 
SENATOR. 
Governor Noei., of Mississippi, announced on 
Monday last the appointment of Colonel James 
Gordon, of Okolona, as United States Senator 
from Mississippi to succeed the late A. J. Mc- 
Laurin. The many friends of Colonel Gordon 
in the South and in the world of the older 
sportsmen will rejoice that so distinguished and 
so well deserved an honor has been conferred 
on Pious Jeems. 
To all save the youngest generation of sports¬ 
men Colonel James Gordon is well known. In 
his long life he has been sportsman, planter, 
statesman and soldier. 
Colonel Gordon is of the best type of Ameri¬ 
can citizen, a man of ability, energy, industry 
and of the highest honor. He will creditably 
represent his State in the United States Senate 
during the term for which he has been ap¬ 
pointed. It is as sportsman that Colonel Gor- 
Frederic Remington crossed the great divide 
last Sunday in the prime of his life. His 
admirers were legion and they will mourn his 
loss very keenly, so popular with all classes was 
his work. Mr. Remington was a big, powerful 
man, and possessed as well a nervous energy 
which enabled him to do a vast amount of work 
in a few years. His age was only forty-eight 
years, less than half of which time was required 
in making his name and work known to the 
civilized world. As an artist, in his own special 
style, he had no peer. When his pictures first 
appeared they attracted attention because they 
were totally unlike anything known to art. They 
were bold, strong, vigorous, true to life, and it 
was not long ere his critics became his imitators. 
Living among the cowboys and the soldiers, in 
the West, he gained impressions which he faith¬ 
fully reproduced in clay, water colors or oils. 
His cavalrymen, cowboys, Indians, horses and 
cattle of the West are recognized as true types 
of an era that is passing away. He was laid 
to rest in the village where he was born, in 
Canton, N. Y. Mrs. Remington survives him. 
* 
During the present year the imports of feath¬ 
ers for personal adornment into Norway have 
amounted to $18,519, or approximately twice 
as much as the imports of hats trimmed with 
feathers, flowers and lace. Consul Johnson, of 
Bergen, says that the Norwegian Bureau of 
Trade Information endeavored, by correspon¬ 
dence, to find out the number and value of 
the wings and skins of game birds exported 
from the Kingdom for the decoration of 
women’s hats. It is well known that quantities 
of the wings of the gull, the crow, and the 
magpie are exported for hat decoration, but 
information concerning those of game birds, 
especially woodcock, of which there are large 
numbers in the country, does not seem to have 
been ascertained. 
