Slow and Steady Wins the Race to the North Pole
President John F. Kennedy announced in a speech before the joint Congress on May 25, 1961 that America would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. On July 20th, 1969, Neil Armstrong walked on the lunar surface. Eight years is a long time for Americans to stay focused on a goal these days, you have to wonder if we'd set out to reach the moon in 2001, would Congress have defunded the project to buy more Viagra for retirees before it got off the ground? Exploration has always been a costly and slow moving process, costly in terms of both dollars and lives. When Peary set out to reach the North Pole in the 1893, he took an incremental approach, though he never expected it would take four expeditions and an act of Congress to guarantee his place in history, one that's still questioned by some historians. Peary invested 16 years in reaching his goal, twice as long as it took America to reach the moon in the 1960's. Today, the expeditions may actual be more famous for the presence of his servant, Matthew Henson, a black man who receives much attention in African-American history courses, than for the deed itself. That Peary got off to a rough start is witnessed by this low key article to appear in the Washington Post 110 years ago today.
The World to-morrow will publish a statement made by Mrs. Josephine Peary, to the effect that the steamship Portia will leave Brooklyn Saturday, June 23, carrying members of the Greenland scientific expedition of 1895 to St. John's N. F. They will board the steam barkentine Kite there, and will sail for Greenland about July 1. The expedition will be under the direction of Emil Diebitsch, of Washington, DC, the brother of Mrs. Peary, and the party will be composed of Prof. Rollin D Salisbury of Chicago University,; Prof. L. L. Dyche, of Kansas State University; Theodore Le Boutillier, of Philadelphia, and Dr. John E. Walsh of Washington.
The expedition has two principal objects in view. First, to reach Anniversary Lodge, Bowdoin Bay, in North Greenland, in order to communicate with Mr. Peary, his companion Hugh J. Lee of Meridan Conn., and his servant, Matthew Hepston. Second, to afford the scientists who accompany the expedition opportunities to study the geology and glaciers of the country, as well as the flora and fauna of the region to be visited.
The misspelling of Henson's name as Hepston is faithfully reproduced from the original article. It would be 14 more years before Peary and Henson would reach the North Pole and live to tell the tale, be it tall or true. The important thing is they didn't shunt the task off on the next generation, tired as their legs must have been, and they didn't leave their children a multi-trillion dollar bill to pay for rented Huskies and dog food.
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