Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 February 1920 — ADMIRAL PEARY, ARCTIC EXPLORER, DEAD [ARTICLE]

ADMIRAL PEARY, ARCTIC EXPLORER, DEAD

Rear Admiral Robert E. Peary, discoverer of the North Pole, died at his home Friday after a two year’s illness of pernicious anemia, during which 35 blood transfusions had been of no avail. Sailors, attaches of the naval hospitals and many former service men gave their life’s blood during that period in the vain effort to prolong the life of the country’s foremost explorer. It had been known to the explorfamily for weeks, but kept from the" public, that his life was despaired of, but no one thought the end so near, and his sudden death was unexpected. He probably will be buried in Arlington National cemetery. Admiral Peary was 64 years old and entered the navy as a civil engineer in 1881, and his, first trip to the arctic regions was made 34 years ago. It was on hte afternoon of September 6, 1909, that the following few words reported to the civilized world for the first time this crowning achievement of three centuries of effort: “Indiana Harbor, via Cape Ray, N. F„ September 6—To the Associated Press, New York: “Stars and Stripes nailed to north pole. Peary.” Peary’s actual attainment of the pole had been made just five months before. April 6, 1909. When the dispatch came, the world was, quite unknown to Peary, already praising Dr. Frederick A. Cook as the discoverer. Only four days previous to the Peary an-

nouncement, Cook, who was op his way back to Copenhagen on board a Danish steamer, had telegraphed the claim that he had reached the pole on April 21, 1908, nearly a year ahead of Peary. While Dr. Cook’s claim did not go unquestioned from the first, he had for four days at least been widely acclaimed as the discoverer of the pole. With Peary’s message there arose one of the greatest controversies of all ages over the honor of actual first discovery. There can be no one who has forgotten the dispute. Peary's assertions were not seriously questioned, but among newspaper readers there came to be two great camps, for and against Cook. Peary with his record of seven successful trips to the arctic regions -has official standing in the United States navy and in scientific circles easily held the commanding position in the controversy. But it was only after the scientific bodies one by one had sifted the evidence and pronounced Cook’s claim unfounded that Peary s title as discoverer of the pole was really won. . The bitternes of this episode is only one item in the price which Peary paid for the immortal fame that is now acknowledged to be his. He spent practically all he had in money, gave all that was in him for hard work, and suffered all that the human fame could endure from hunger, cold and disappointment. -He made eight journeys into the arctic, spent upwards of half a million of dollars and barely escaped death several times which in various forms had been the fate of more than 700 explorers before him. ' \