Arizona republican., 1911-08-13
Dr. Cook Still } a Rural Hero ]
AS MARTYR AND BOOK AGENT THE EXPLORER WINS coUN-
 TRY CROWDS.
Devoid of Personal Magnetism and Pleasant Manners the Lecturer New ertheless Gets Earnest Applause.
 Pugnacious Attacks On Peary.

Pugnacious Attacks On Peary.
 There is a man travelling through the middle west, speaking to great crowds 1 daily and gathering in thousands of good. hard earned country dollars, who | Is the physiological wonder of the age | That man is Frederick A (the A for Albert, not Ananias) Cook, explorer. | who is living, breathing refutation of the theory that nervous system is an essential part of the human anatomy, | says the Kansas City Star. Unless all signs are deceptive. the doctor is de- void of anything resembling pride. sen sitiveness or susceptibility to mental 1 irritation commonly attributed to the ! possession of feelings"
 | Since the announcement in 1909 that | he had discovered the long sought north pole and was entitled to the hOnOrs and eulogies that subsequently, were show cred upon him for a time. he has been figuratively flayed alive and drawn and quartered by the public that he duped He has been called the worlds great est liar. and most monumental imposter of history. a Colossus of fake-s. The wrath and resentment and vengeance of an outraged world were of an intensity to wither their victim to a cinGer Did the doctor curl up and expire? Not lnoticeably
 As he travels about a middle west ern chautauqua circuit today he is lsmiling. confident, assertive, self satls- flied and patronizing in his manner to- ward those with whom he comes in lcOntact. Gone is all sembance of the cringing meekness manifested in con fessiOns" published in Hamptons Mag azine early this year. In it's stead is an aggressive. imperative pose that de mands his recognition, not as the per
 petratOr of a brazen, gigantic fraud
 but as the greatest martyr that eyer lived. Equivocal and qualifying terms
 have been discarded from his vOcabu-
 lary. and he now is emphatically as
 sorting that he is the discovercr of tn,
 Great Nail'-nO ifs" or "ands' abou
 lit.
 And the doctor is getting away witt 1. it. Great audiences assemble to heal 1 him, cheer his utteranCes, struggle {, . grasp his hand. Representative men 1T
 the communities he visits are eager tC . appear in photographic groups of whicl , he is the central figure. His auto q graph is worth money. Instead O , branding him despised outcast. tn
 hero- worshipping public to which h appeals is restoring him to a pedestal . If Robert F.. Peary. generally accepte, as the real discoverer of the pole should appear at some of Doctor Cook lchautauqua meetings at the close O
 the doctors lecture. there would b
 grave danger of mob violence-and tn
 doctor wouldn't be the sufferer
 Did I get to the north pole?" Doc l. tor Cook asked himself in his publishe, 1. confessions. Perhaps I made mis d take in thinking I did. After matur e thought I confess do not know ab 10 lsolutely whether I reached the pole O -e not" But that was seven months ago 1r Nothing of that uncertainty now. 60 s reached the pole" the doctor is tellin! y his rural audiences today. If yol
 don't believe it. read my book, to be of
 the press in just a few weeks now"
 Thus the doctor is not only gathering
 in the dollars as he goes. but is havins his expenses paid as advance agent fol the volume that a short time ago would 1 have been regarded as the modern sue cessor to the fabulous narratives O
 Baron Munchusen.
 There is no compelling elOquence 1T the lecture Doctor Cook is using or
 chautauqua audiences-no inspiring
 bursts of oratory to sweep his hearers
 off their feet and convince them 1T
 spite of their better judgment. The
 doctor is not eloquent. and he is not ar
 orator. He merely is playing in {
 clumsy but effective fashion on tn,
 constitutional weakness of the Ameri-
 can public-to De rabidly partisan anC to set up heroes. His audiences may l be neutral or even mildly antagOnistiC 5 in sentiment when they assemble tC hear him, but they cannot remain i'm
 passive in the face of his bold state !. ments. They either must accept him
 at his own generous valuation, or jeel him off the platform So far the doctor smilingly asserts he has not teen in- terrupted in his talks by skeptical cOm- ments, but has been considerably de- loved frequently by earnest applause
 The first part of his chautaUqua lec- ture is plain recital of his alleged ad ventures in the famous dash to the pOle"-practiCally the same as his orig