Arizona republican., 1910-04-14
PEARY PRIOR DIS;
 COVERER 0F HE POLE
4 Curious Story About 1t From the
 Wilds of Arizona.

That was q bad slam on Dr. Cook.
 the Arctic explorer that rarly;s not finding any records of his on the top ioi Alt. Mckinley. wasn't it? remarked Che city editor during q nIl in the night work.
 Yes spoke mp the new reporter
 ''but ir iSn't much worse than the story they have been telling, for some time. on i'eary. down in Cochise conn ivy"
 Why. whats that, asked the city rdit"r; T haven't heard il; tell il L"
 as
 We'll. there's q copper mine down
 there. about five miles oui of Gleeson. called the Vermont Arizona. The SUI
 perintend,nt of il is q man named j.
 A Collier. Hes been there eight ar
 nine years. 1 understand. Hes d man
 about sixty years of age, apparently;
 an intelligent, refined sort of man. and
 everybody that l conld find who knew
 him. and most everyone seemed t"
 know him to a reasonable extent.
 seemed Ia think his word is good. Ac-
 rording to his talk to me one day. he
 had been a rice broker in New York
 and Boston. operating in the south. for
 years. but for some reason he closed
 up his business one year and took q
 trip to Glccson. at the request of some
 nf the stockholders in this mine. to size up the property for them. and as a result he stayed, at their request. to
 manage it for them. They wouldn't let him say no.
 Well. last fall he took his annual trip to see his wife. whom he told me is q teacher in the Packer Institute in Brooklyn. New York. and his daughter. who is employed in teaching nnder the New York City board of education, and at their boarding house at go Colum- bia Heights. or street Brooklyn, he met q reporter for Bradstreets finan- cial publication. This reporter told him that 1t was fact well known or un- derStood among newspaper reporters in New York City that after one of them had finished interviewing Com mander Peary on his arrival. a gentle man who had been standing by ap- preached him as he left handed him his card. and said that if he wanted something else new and interesting about Peary, something that the latter had not todd to come to the gentle mans hotel later and he would tell him q story worth his while. The reporter did so. anG the gentleman told him that he himself was q clerk or employe in q department at Washington, friend of Peary's. member of the Peary clubs. etcetcra. and that Inc knew that Peary had discovered the north pole five years before. Asked by the reporter why Peary had not de- c!ared it. he answered that he could not say positively what might have lr.en the commanders reason. but he supposed that the fact that Mir. Peary United States government and receiv- ing other pay or perquisites from lec- lures, books. etc. might have had to do with his being willing Ia defer the announcement. The re porter returned with this story to his newspaper office. where it was decid- ed by the editors to print the story if the Washington man would sign his name to it. and on his refusal to do that, the matter was dropped by the paper: but the reporter. who believed the story was true. was determined that il should be known, and so it was being circulated in q personal way.
 "Of course I don't know anything about the truth of the Washington mans story. or whether there was any Washington man: but l do know that there was. and 1 guess is man named ]. A. Collier. and that he told this story to others and myself last fall in Gleason. I have often wondered if it had something to do with the sum mary way in which congress sat down on Peary iu regard to giving him fur liner honors. Maybe the congressman thought he had gotten all that was rishtfuily coming to him in the mat ter.
 Whether the story alleged to have been told by the Washington man is true ar not. and in it's Very nature il would he difficult ta prove il. it is n curious fact that such q. story is in cir culation from apparently reputable sources. and that to many minds it un- doubtedly explains things otherwise inexplicable Mr. Collier would not give inc name of his informant. but of Tered to write him for the privilege of doing SO H