The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1910-12-02
COOK CONFESSES.
lie Isn't Sure That He
Reached the Pole.
SELLS STORY TO MAGAZINE.
Admits That Perhaps Privation Drove
Him Mad and Made Him Believe
That He Had Accomplished
His Great Ambition.

New York, Dec. 1.-Dr. Frederick A.
Cook has confessed.
This announcement is made by-Ben-
jamin Hampton, editor of the maya
zine that paid $4,000 for Commander
Peary's story of his trip to the north
pole.
In his "Own Story" the first Install
ment Of which will appear in the Jan
uary number of the magazine, DIR.
Cook frankly admits that he does not
know whether he reached the north
pole or not.
In the opening article. dealing par
ticularly with the psychology of his ad-
venture, the man who has been alter
nately lauded as the greatest explorer
and denounced as the most colossal
faker of the age declares:
Did l get to the north pole? Per-
haps | made a mistake in thinking l
did. Perhaps l did not make a mis-
take. After mature thought l con-
fess that l do not know absolutely
whether l reached the pole or not.
This may come as an amazing state
ment, but l am willing to startle the
world If by so doing l can get an OPP
portunity to present my case. By my
case | mean not my case as a geo.
graphical discoverer, but my case as a
man. Much as the attainment of the
north pole once meant to me, the SYM
pathy and confidence of my fellow
men means more.
Fully, freely and frankly l shall
tell everything and leave the decision
with you. If. after reading my story,
you say, Cook is sincere and honest;
half crazed by months of isolation and
hunger he believed that he reached
the pole; he is not a faker'-then I
shall be satisfied"
DR.. Cook tells his life story and
| pictures the overpowering ambition
for exploration that beset him until
finally it eliminated in his effort to
reach the pole. He declares that at
the time he convinced himself that he
| had discovered the pole he was half
| mad.
Cook declares that it would be i'm
possible for any man to demonstrate
that he had been to the north pole. He
characteriZes the far north as region
of insanity, where one cannot believe
the evidences gathered by ones own
eyes"
| He says he had always looked upon
| the discovery of the pole as an
achievement for his own personal sat
| iSfac tion-for the satisfaction of a
craving and desire that was greater
| than any other factor in his life. When
he found how tremendous a sensation
| his statement that he had attained the
pole created he was overcome with be-
| wilderment.
One of the facts brought out by his
story is that in all the time he has
been away, with the shrewdest news
paper men in the world on his trail
he has never worn disguise and has
never taken any unusual precaution to
conceal his identity.
Part of the time his wife has been
with him and part of the time his chill
dren too. The children are now in a
retreat in France, and DR.. Cook and
us WlIe are Ill EUROPE. MOST Oh Ine
time during his exile he has been in
London.
With the opportunity for thought
that his exile has given him-he says
he never even had time to sleep more
than three or four hours a night be-
tween his arrival in Copenhagen and
his disappearance from New York-he
was found growing stronger and
stronger in the desire to return to his
own country to be understood by his
countrymen.
81 have been called the greatest liar
in the world, the most monumental
impostor in history" he says in start
ing his story. Il believe that in very
undesirable way | stand unique, the
object of sSch vituperatiOn and suspi-
cion as have assailed few men,"
Cook will return to the United States
with his wife and children Dec. % in
order to spend Christmas among his
relatives.