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| Crook & Peary Envy: the
polar controversy revived. Junior college librarian Bob
Bryce is a first time writer, not a trained historian.
Used copies are plentiful and cheap. Try bookfinder.com
for street prices: $10-15 |
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$22.95 |
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Author Bryce is such a huge fan of the felon and colossal fraud Cook that
he wrote a glowing introduction to the reprint of Crook's infamous "get
even with his critics" book. In fact, Bryce has written negative
introduction to Peary's book and Henson's as well. In the later he goes
overboard, writing 32 negatively spun pages in a work that is barely 3 times that many pages
long, trying to convince you not to even read Henson's book. Why? Because he
wants to prove Henson was too ignorant (you know, a Negro and all that...)
to have written his own book. |
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Brilliant photographic
proof.
The end of the "I climbed Mt. McKinley fraud".
Fred's coffin nailed shut! |
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Excessive drinking caught up
with Cook after prison as he degenerated
into an alcoholic daze. |
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| Out of prison, Cook boozed it up,
conning new victims, and went after his critics
with lawsuits. |
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FACTOID
The "polar controversy" ended in December 1909. You can read
that absolute conclusion from the text of this Scientific
American article dated January, 1910.
This being an historical fact, one may rightfully ask "Why
is Bryce still beating this very dead horse 90 years
later?" |
| "...one of the most
spectacular dramas of audacious imposture in the history
of geographical research." |
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"...a committee of the University of Copenhagen.
These gentlemen very quickly reported that... the documents presented were “Inexcusably lacking in
Information which would prove that the astronomical
observations therein referred to were really made;” ...
By this sweeping repudiation of Dr. Cook’s claims, the
University of Copenhagen has drawn the final curtain upon
one of the most spectacular dramas of audacious imposture in
the history of geographical research." |
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Who publishes Crook & Peary Envy
anyway? What is Stackpole
books?
They specializes in military and civil war items
like this charming new release:
Kill-Calvalry
Nicknamed
"Kill-Cavalry"... the most notorious scoundrel in the Union
army. Kilpatrick lied, thieved, and whored his way through the
Civil War, ...Kilpatrick's daughter destroyed all her father's
papers after his death... profiles one of the most interesting
soldiers..."
Nice,
another fine book from the publisher of Crook
& Peary. |
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Bryce said "...I did become
fascinated with Cook...I rather wanted him to have found
the pole." |
| "The librarian contrived
a massive biography of career criminal Fred Cook. Unbelievably there
are 900 pages only about Cook! This is not about
Peary or any "polar controversy resolution". There are only a few pages of
recycled anti-Peary arguments from the usual sources (class hatred/racism) used to
support the pretentious title. Book reviewers may have only
reiterated the publisher's remarks on the dust jacket. Why would
anyone who reviewed this nonsense actually read hundreds of
depressing pages about this misery causing fraud; Fred Cook?" |
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What does a librarian know anyway?
This librarian is not an historian. He is not a qualified to re-resolve
any "polar controversy" that con artist Cook created. He
completely ignores and sweeps aside the overwhelming proof that Henson
& Peary reached the Pole.
| Warning to teachers,
researchers, and school librarians:
Be aware of what is not in Cook & Peary.
It is only a biography of Fred Cook. |
New evidence
not in Cook & Peary:
The 1990 Navigation Foundation report
used a cold war photographic method to check Peary's 1909
photos. The sun angle shows Peary was at the North Pole.
Proved. Absolutely, positively. In fact there are two of
Peary's photos, now named photo x and photo y, that actually
show the exact position of the sun at the Pole.
New evidence not in Cook & Peary:
Henson & Peary took ocean depth soundings that match
perfectly with the now declassified (from the nuclear submarine cold
war era) Arctic Ocean floor maps.
New evidence not in Cook & Peary:
The claim that one can't navigate to the Pole as Peary
did is now a joke! Matty McNair and Paul Landry of
NorthWinds leads expeditions to
the Pole using the simple compass and shadow methods Henson employed.
One man who claimed this can't be done, Wally Herbert, had an obvious motive to discredit Peary - so he would
be the first Englishman to reach the Pole (with his gourmet food, a
bathtub, and the constant assistance of the British and Canadian Air forces).
New evidence not in Cook & Peary:
Claims by armchair theorists
that Henson & Peary traveled impossibly fast is nonsense. For years the
Cook Society critics, and Bryce appears to be one of them, said
Peary traveled too fast. But
now it has been done by Paul Landry with his Arctic huskies. Is
this new evidence in the Bryce book? No, he dismisses any such
information out. In fact, his "new introductions" to public
domain works such as Peary's
The North
Pole indicates he harbors a very negative attitude towards Peary
and Henson.
Is the truth
being told about North Pole co-discoverer Matthew Henson? NO!
It is not. The librarian said in a New York Time interview that he
wanted Cook to win, that Peary was so unlikable; thus
he started with a conclusion before he wrote his book without bothering with
the true facts. He wrote a biography of Cook and only added a few pages of obsolete
Peary slander to support his pretentious title. After
suffering through almost 1,000 boring pages about the morally depraved
Cook one finds that Crook & Peary Envy offers nothing
about Peary's successful 1909 expedition. Is this class hatred,
racism, or just "fringe history"? Are we seeing, in Bob,
symptoms of the psychiatric malady known as Cook's disease? |
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| What is this genre of literature? |
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Many who have forced themselves to read this
tome of Fred Cook
idolatry realize the claim "Polar Controversy Resolved" is itself a
good ploy to boost book sales; thus a new Dr. Cook fraud.
Author Bryce may have contracted "Cook's disease"
(The psychiatric illness of wanting fame by stealing it from Peary).
Fred was an obscure milkman; Bob, an obscure librarian. Fred the criminal wanted to be famous, just like the man he spent his adult life imitating:
Naval officer, and college educated civil engineer Robert E. Peary. To get that fame he had to destroy Peary.
Now Bryce may be a victim of this disease syndrome by
attempting to destroy his hero, Fred, as Fred did to his
object of envy; Peary. In this case, Bob destroys Cook and
then tries to use old, disproved arguments to demolish
Peary. But
the secondary psychiatric illness known as "Peary envy"
is dangerously progressive. In Cook's case it led to prison, alcoholism,
and an obscure, bitter to the end death. Our librarian author may
be in the middle stages of the pathology; I think his biography of Fred is just an absurd glorification of a sociopath.
This Maryland librarian is out to rap your knuckles with his ruler!
Without any credentials as a real historian he ignores
scientific proofs and instead pastes together his own view of "truth"
from old newspaper clippings. Did he interview anyone involved in
the 1909 expedition? No. They had all died before he learned the Dewey
Decimal system.
While some may think this 1,000 page tome is definitive, it is actually
only about
Fred Cook.
There is little in it about Peary, save 5 pages of arguments that trace back to Cook's days of slandering Peary.
Journalists who reviewed this book may have never
actually read it. Bob's book contains
only a tiny amount of material from the many books and magazine articles
Peary or Henson authored. It pales beside books written by 1909
North Pole teammates Bartlett, MacMillan, Borup, and Dr.
Goodsell. It is simply the longest, most detail plagued biography ever written about
the North Pole hoaxer. The author simply ignores all documentation from the team that actually
reached the North Pole in 1909 in the same manner earlier Cookites
(fanatical supporters of Fred Cook) did.
Take, for example, "nut
case" Thomas Hall. In Hall's unbelievably rabid 1917 book he begins
his introduction by stating that he will scientifically and impartially
examine the records of Cook and Peary. Within a page he reveals that
he doesn't like Peary and doesn't believe him. So much for Hall's
impartiality. In fact, the author of Crook & Peary Envy,
as I call it, may suffer from
the same dishonesty as these earlier, pro-Cook books. It should be pointed
out that this is merely the latest of a long line of Peary bashing
books. Learn more at:
Vetters
Vendetta.
One example,
Peary at
The Pole: Fact or Fiction?, even plagiarizes parts of Hall's Has
The North Pole Been Discovered? Scotsman Wally Herbert also rode on these old Cookite
arguments. His big book,
Noose of Laurels, was soundly disproved with the
publication of scientific proof in
New Evidence Places Peary at The Pole
by Admiral Davies.
The borderline anti-establishment authors care no more for facts than the
Imperial Wizard of the KKK does about being called a "deceitful hate
monger." Consider the 1917 Hall book. His work is often cited
because it is hilariously illogical. With a blinding hatred for Peary he proves how the
con artist Cook somehow stretched his tiny sled load of food to feed
a team of dogs and three men for over 1200 miles. This is the equivalent
of driving your family car across America on one tank of gas. It is
impossible. But Hall details a day by day menu to prove that Cook
could have miraculously stretched his supplies like the "loaves
and fishes" at the Sermon on The Mount. Yet Hall also "proves"
that Peary, with 24 men, 133 dogs, tons of food, teams of trail makers,
etc. could not have reached the Pole. But
Hall doesn't stop there.
After declaring that Peary hid on an island
(?!) instead of even attempting to reach the North Pole he then quibbles
for hundreds of pages as to how close Peary was to the Pole. It is
truly amazing how Hall produces carefully drafted diagram after diagram
created from Peary's published records trying to determine if Peary
was at the Pole or was he really 5 miles from it, or was he 8 miles
to the West? And so on. But Hall's insanity was derived from the stunning (as to be hit on the
head and "stunned") 1911 book by clan chief Dr. Cook. In
his My Attainment of Peary's Pole Fred pulled out all the stops.
Don't take my word for it. Buy a used copy ($5 to $15) and check it
out for yourself. Cooks "ill logic" is not simply vicious,
it is insanity. As in "criminally insane".
Without realizing
it Fred was detailing all his psychiatric problems from imitation-envy
to the obvious symptoms of a paranoid. In fact, Dr. Cook was unequivocally
a sociopath. But the point
is that if you want to read about "Peary Bashing" you have
to go back to the source of it, 90 years ago, to Dr. Cook himself.
While many readers think that the contemporary literature about the
Polar Controversy are legitimate they are simply reading Dr. Cook's
1911 ranting reiterated. In fact, I find Dr. Cook's ranting far nastier
and more hilariously self serving. These modern versions are too tame;
they try to appear scholarly.
Why is there a seemingly endless stream of Cookite literature? That
is a fascinating sociological phenomena. The Cookites are fueled with a family trust
fund, the well known (and as I call it) The Vetters Vendetta Trust
Fund. Cash is available to carry
on the hate campaign, that is why. And why is that? Why indeed. Why
was there World War 1? Why was there World War 2? Why is the Klu Klux
Klan still active today? Why is the Nazi Party still producing literature,
still attracting members? Basically it is because Cook's daughter
picked up the "hatchet" her father handed her, and with
the money he stashed from his stock frauds carried on the
vendetta.
Why do cookies hate Peary? There is no official theory from the public or media. (Decent people
simply ignore this sort of nonsense.) But some see racism at the heart.
Possible theory #1
Peary is hated because his
field assistant was a Negro. Peary also fathered Eskimo children as
did the Negro. Peary can not, therefore, be the discoverer of the
North Pole. He had 5 helpers but none of them white. A Negro and 4
"Mongol race" Eskimos are Peary's only witnesses? Where is this
documented? In Cook 1911 book! He went so far as to show the photograph
of Peary's Mongol "love child". Cook called the child a
savage and made much of the fact that Peary had abandoned it to the
fate of the north. Cook supporters hated Negro Henson and attended
Henson's lecture tour. From the audience they harassed him while spreading
vile slurs that Matt "...he
was an "ignorant Negro" who would blindly accept "Massah
Peary's" word that they had reached the (Pole)."
Possible theory #2
Cook was of German
descent and therefore a likely Aryan race candidate to claim the North
Pole. In fact, Aryan race member Amundsen wanted the North Pole prize
but Peary "stole it". Amundsen then claimed the South Pole.
But Amundsen later flew over the North Pole in an airship. So the
recent attempt to rewrite history focuses on replacing the "nigger
loving, Mongol fornicating Peary" with pure blooded Aryan Amundsen
as first to reach both poles. (But,
you protest, didn't Byrd fly over the Pole first? Yes, he did. No
one claimed any of this was logical.)
Possible theory #2
Want another theory? Same motive Cook had. MONEY. Cook made millions of dollars with his
phony exploring scams. Authors have made impressive amounts of cash
from Cook by simply plagiarizing the public domain Cookite literature
into contemporary versions. One author wanted to make a name for himself
but instead made a fool of himself. One wanted to be the first to
reach the Pole if he could discredit Peary. He made some cash for
his retirement fund, but lost a lot of friends. Others simply want
attention.
So why write a biography of Fred Crook?
Some argue that somebody has to document the mass murderers
and criminals of society. Someone had to write Hitler's life story.
But why Cook & Peary Envy? In my opinion this book must
be a projection of obscure librarian Bob's self loathing. This is
best explained by psychiatrists. Perhaps Bob is unable to accept himself
as a junior college librarian. Perhaps he has, like Cook, sought personal
fame by bashing Peary with a book so huge only a librarian could love
it. (It is, in fact, dedicated to librarians)
The psychological
profiles are amazingly similar: Fred was an obscure milkman who fraudulently
claimed he discovered new land in the Arctic; obscure Bob claims he
discovered a new answer to the "Polar Controversy".
Without any credentials as an historian one can claim anything about history
they want whether it is right or wrong. A professional historian can't
do that as they face peer review. The librarian's
hero committed numerous frauds, and one could observe the same about this
ridiculous waste of 1,152 sheets of paper. I believe it's claim to have re-resolved
a 90 year old fact of history is a new fraud in the tradition of Fred
Cook. "Like Father, like biographer?"
Bob's book of Fred is a regurgitation of every scrap of old news about one
of the most repulsive sociopaths of the early 20th century. Nothing
new has been added to history.
The "polar controversy" was
settled in Peary's favor 90 years ago. In the meantime several new
pieces of evidence have surfaced which additionally prove Peary &
Henson reached the North Pole in 1909. But this librarian's attempted grab for fame ignores the real expertise
of people who get out of the book stacks once in a while. (Armchair
experts are rather silly when confronted with real facts from real
experts) Bob will have no more of the truth than Fred would 90 years
ago. In fact, Fred continued to con people with his ridiculous Pole
story until he died. (Then his relatives carried on the game, but
that is another story)
Bradley Robinson December 22, 2000
(1) Edward F. Dolan jr.'s book Matthew Henson (1979)
(2) Kevin McManus, Baltimore Magazine |
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