Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-09-23
COOK GIVES DETAILS OF TRIP:
NO FORMER QUARREL WITH PEARY

| NEW YORK, September 23-Dr Fred
lick A. Cook faced the reporters yester-
day for the first long interview upon
American soil. For an hour and a half
| questions were flung at him by the forty
| men present.
! He answered them all readily except
| such as bore too closely on Commander
| Peary's personal challenge to his truth
| funess and those regarding details and
! adventures which will increase the in
terest of his jealousy guarded book. But
he let fall many hints vividly suggestive
| of the sufferings on his lonely marches.
| and supplied many bits of detail NTH
| erto untold or incorrectly reported
| The beard Of aldermen expressed faith
in his claim by voting yesterday to give
the explorer the freedom of the city and
to hold reception for him in the City
Hall. DR.. Cook kept close to his rooms
in the Waldorf throughout the day. at
tending to his correspondence, visiting
| with his family and receiving the friends
| who called on him.
Cook Patient Under Quizzing.
The interview was anything but cross
examination. 1t was more like the quiz
zing of lecturer by an audience anx
ious for further information upon his spe-
cialty.
DR.. Cooks bearing soon won the SYM
pathy of his interviewers, and though the
rather untechnical questions which fol-
lowed the preliminaries were put swiftly,
there tone. There were many skeptics in
the room when DR.. Cook entered there
were few when he had done.
The reporters gathered in a lofty room
in a Waldorf suite. with gilded chairs
and sofas of yellow satin. The explorer
entered with his usual quiet saunter. ac-
companied by his little daughter Ruth
and Walter Lonsdale. his secretary. who
Egan in Copenhagen. He paused at the
door. bowed to the newspaper men as
they gathered about him and sat down.
I'm ready he said. Fire away
the reporters more than the man they
sought to quiz.
Then he continued:
II am ready to answer any questions
you may wish to ask. But perhaps you
had better have some one man put the
questions"
He seemed not to notice that his inter-
rogators paid no attention to his sugges-
ton. Then the questions came thick and
fast.
Imposing Secrecy on Whitney.
For what reason did you impose Sc
crecy upon Whitney and Pritchard"
II didn't think that l was bound to
divulge to Peary the nature of my work.
Whitney is at liberty to give the world
all the news he has when he lands, with
out my consent"
When do you expect to hear from
him.
About the middle of October. The
Jeanne is following the program that
Whitney told me, running over to the
American side and to Hudson bay to hunt
big game"
"How about Whitney's letter of Sep
TENDER to his ,sister?'
SO long as it did not get out before 1 did.
Pritchard did write such letter and
made him change it,"
why did you not want Commander
Peary to know of your exploit"
The explorer Strengthened himself in
his chair. He replied, however. in the
same steady tone that he had used from
the first:
than the rest of the world? He wouldn't
have done So
Did anything ever occur between you
and Peary to cause bitterness or to make
him feel that your report Of gaining the
pole was worthless?'
Nothing that l know Off,
Considers Peary Was Friend.
DO you look upon Commander Peary
as friend or an enemy?"
Il must say" with rather rueful SMILE
that l don't know. 1 have treated him
as friend and SO far as 1 know 1 con-
slider him a friend. and shall do SO until
know more about the situation
Us 1t true you said at Etah that you
there?"
There is no truth in that"
VIII you meet Peary in debate?
mere Dr. COOK turned quickly in his
cnalr with the first movement of i'm
patience he had shown.
so 1ar as l am concerned the Peary
incident Is closed" he said "Peary ia not
| the dictator Of my affairs nor l of his
and you will ask nothing further about
the whole Peary matter"
Since you knew Whitney expected
| ship. why did you not wait for herr"
by way of Upernavik 1 hoped to make
Denmark by July or August
mark earlier?"
mo. l think not. 1 might have risked
| journey in an open boat for 800 miles,
but the risk would have been great
Three hundred miles in what direc-
tion?"
!south-but cut all that out. That's
not essential"
Seeming Contradiction.
| 1t was the first time the explorer had
made anything that might seem like
contradiction. The readiness with which
he abandoned it, willing to let a matter
of conjecture go unexplained and con-
hning himself to matters of experience.
| strengthened the impression which his
frank manner had already made upon the
men present.
| For how long were you provisioned
when the last supporting party went
| back?"
| For eighty days. reckoning two Es-