Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-03-15
PEARY IMPRESSED
; GOV. PENNYPACKER
Former Executive Tells of Sew
eral Meetings With Discoverer
of North Pole
rENNYrAckER AuronIoGRArny--No. Ioi


fCopvri0ht, 1918. bv PubLc Ledger Compdnp)
ON the 11th of December, 1909. I dlncd
~ in New York with the Pennsylvania
Society Of that city at the Waldorf.Astoria
1t was a great dinner given to Phlander &.
Knox, Franklin MacVeagh and Wicker.
sham. the three Pennsylvanlans in the
cabinet of President Taft. The two United
States Senators. Ponrose and Oliver; Gov.
ernor Stuart; Horace Howard Furness
the Shakcspearean scholar; the former
Governor. James A. Beaver; Won Mosch
zisker, the coming Supreme Court Justice:
Lloyd c., Griscon. John Wanamaker and
many others were among the guests
Andrew Carnegie presided and did IL we'll
IL was my fortune to sit alongside OF
Robert L. Peary for the greater part OF
the evening. A few evenings before in
tho Academy Of Music. 7 had heard his
first lecture since the discovery of the
North Pole, and once before / had dlIrcd
with him, when he was not SO famous
Center of Interest
lie received much of the attention shown
to the celebrities throughout the evening
"nu Hiuue lile llGSt speech. IL was a merl
torious speech brief and with thought
in it. lie said in substance that he had
been born along the Susquehanna, reared
in Maine and supported by the contribu.
tions Of New York and therefore was un.
der special obligations to the people of
three States; that for hundreds of years
explorers had striven to find the North
nd fn anl
two great oceans and in our day both tasi;s
had been accomplished. That was all he
said tall slim man with stecl.blue
eyes, mustachc. a sandy complexion,
While the rcd in his hair was not all OF
color. but tendency, alone pointing to
some more or less remote ancestor, and a
self.contained manner indicating strength
of will and poso. He was not obtrusiye
or cifusive; neither was he deprecatory.
and when he spoke there was not the
slightest symptom of nervousness.
"Copmander when heard you the other
night 1t was all clear to me except your
getting across those stretches Of water yo,,
called leads ] should not have liked TO
depend upon chipping off cakes Of ice and
zigzagging them across. A man on the
far side Of lead might be in confounded
trap"
A smile crept slowly over his face.
The danger is not SO great. Generally
they arc not very wide. They freeze over
The effort to reach the Pole was made at
the lowest temperature, when this danger
is the least. On one occasion. however,
realized what 1t meant. We came to a lead
two miles wide. I thought out the situa.
tion and concluded to wait until it should
be frozeH over and we waited three days
Then my Eskimos reported II crossing two
or three miles away. We went over on
snowshoes fifty PAGES apart and singly, but
it was very dangerous and I feared we
should never reach home to tell the tale"
would it not be possible to take some
light kind of canoe along?"
NO, the only hope of success lay In
transporting as little as possible. We had
to run the risks
To another query put by Mr.. Lloyd C.
Griscom, he said in reply:
I'VE lived altogether upon compressed
goods. No coffee was permitted. Under
the excitement Of the advance coffee would
have resulted in loss of sleep and that
would have meant loss of vital force. We
needed it all. The ration was a quart of
tea morning and evening, but no coffee.
Coffee is a drink for the tropics but not for
the poles. We would not have u movement
OF the bowels for perhaps a week. There
was no trouble to keep comfortably warm
in a temperature sixty degrees below zero.
tn
erton to cause perspiration. That also
meant a loss of force"
Refers to Doctor Cook
He, himself, made IA reference to Cook
Commander" said I, II had no conf
dence in Cook from the time of his initial
| telegram. which did not say he had found
| the Pole, but that he had been successful.
! II, however, he did get there 1t was partly
| an accident and has not the merit OF a
man who has planned and abored for the
| result"
Governor there is no III in the propo-
| stion. ] knew the two Eskimos who were
| with him from their childhood. They are
very keen about directions and distances.
| They could not be mistaken about where
| they went. He wandered about the coun.
| try. but he was never far from land. The
Eskimos are savages. II the wife of one
Of them for any reason cannot go hunting
| with him and the wife of his friend can,
they trade wives and think nothing of It.
but about many things they know better
than we do"
"Are you going to let that man shackle-
ton capture the South Pole?" inquired.
lie replied with earnestness:
"If had a hundred thousand dollars
| should go there
This was interesting because it had been
reported that he would never undertake
anything of the kind again.
| why don't you seize upon Andy?" and
I|pointed to Carnegie only few feet from