Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-09-22
OSCAR TRIED TO WIRE TO PEARY
COOKS SHIP UNABLE TO GET
INTO COMMUNICATION.
Explorer Did Not Know of Effort
Passengers Talk With North
Pole Discoverer.

NEW YORK, September 22-One Of the
most ardent supporters of DR.. Cook
among the passengers Of the Oscar II
was Dr. Benjamin F. Trueblood of Bos-
ton. who was returning from a trip to
Stockholm, where he had gone some
weeks ago to attend the eighteenth in
ternational peace congress, which was
held up by the labor war there.
Dr. Trueblood is a member of the In
ternational Law Association and of the
as well as general secretary of the Amer
lean Arbitration and Peace Society.
He first saw DIR. Cook when he boarded
the Oscar He was the first passenger
to extend his hand in greeting to DIR.
Cook in Christiansand, where the liner
had been waiting for six hours.
The explorer arrived in the small
steamer NJ. G. Melchior, from Copenha-
gen. DR.. Trueblood presented him to the
other passengers.
Won by Cooks Attitude.
He impressed me as sincere as we'll as
modest said Dr. TruebIood to a repor-
ter who boarded the Oscar II at upper
quarantine. He was calm and dignified: :
with no air of vainglory or any feeling
Of triumph over Commander Peary
Indeed. his attitude toward Peary won
me from the first. He spoke of him in
the kindest terms
II am convinced that DIR. Cooks story
is true from top to bottom, and that he
found the pole exactly as he relates He
brought all of his records with him on
this ship.
Some of the records, particularly of his
arrival at Annootok on his southern Jour-
ney from the pole. he quoted and also
told me of conditions there, which | can
not reveal now. as they were told to me
in confidence and are to form part of Dr.
Cooks book.
'He said the first person he met at An
nootol, was Harry Whitney, the New
Haven man who is up there shooting
musk oxen. He also spoke of Pritchard
the assistant steward of the Roosevelt.
He never told me that he had told
Pritchard or any one while in the mort h
of his achievements Dr. Trueblood re-
sumed:
II believe that on last Thursday night
while dinner in DR.. Cooks honor was in
made by the wireless operators of the
oscar to get into communication with
the Roosevelt. and William Pritchard. the
stewards assistant. who says he heard
Cook tell of his visit to the pole, but the
effort was unsuccessful.
I do not know that DR.. Cook had any
thing to do with the effort. I believe that
operators tried to get in communication
with the Roosevelt merely because of the
general interest felt concerning Com
mander Peary.'
Says Cook Didn't Ask It.
This view Of DR.. Trueblood was later
corroborated by Ernst Noerregaard and
Asker Petersen, the Oscars wireless
operators. Operator Noerregaard said he
had made repeated efforts Thursday night
to get a reply from the Roosevelt, but
he denied that DIR. Cook had spoken to
him about it or requested 1t.
"Dr. Cook was greatly interested in
the Roosevelt, and was in the wireless
room almost every day asking If we had
heard news of her., said Noerregaard.
But he never once asked me to send
word to Peary or any one on board the
ship.
so far as 1 could notice he had just
the interest that one who had been to the
far north would have in fellow-explorer.
He certainly never, asked me to try to
send any message to the Roosevelt
1.-The first news we had of the Roose-
Welt was when we received a relayed
message from the Cape Cod station re-
lating that the Roosevelt was off Point
Amour. Labrador, on her way to Sgd
ney."
Operator Petersen corroborated all that
Noerregaard had said.
Lectures Tailed Exactly.
81 heard DR.. Cook lecture before the
Royal Geographical Society In Copenha-
gen and also to the Passengers of this
ship. There was no hesitation In what
he said and no points in which the two
lectures clashed. He told the same story
in both, emitting the technical detail,
with part of which he favored me later.
zone of the things he spoke of was the |
discovery of two small bodies of land |
to the westward of his northern march |
over the north polar sea. He said he |