September 7 Tuesday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote on letterhead of The Robert Fulton Monument Association to Harry Windsor Dearborn, listed as “Ass’t Secretary” of the association.
Dear Mr. Dearborn: / By compulsion of age, I am barred from witnessing the Fulton-Hudson pageantries in person, but I am going to send my daughters Clara & Jean secretary, Albert Bigelow Paine to represent me. I know you & General Woodford would take good care of me, & so I will beg you to do the same by them, for my sake, / Sincerely Yours/ ... [MTP],
Sam also wrote a brief “MEMORANDUM” which he curiously included in the Lyon-Ashcroft MS, about the discovery of the North Pole:
September 7, 1909, Six days ago Dr. Cook sent a telegram from the Arctic regions announcing his discovery of the North Pole on the 21st of April 1908, & his name has been thundering around the whole globe ever since. During the past five days he has been the guest of the King of Norway, while the newspapers of all Christendom have been shouting his glories, not in columns, but by whole pages of costly telegraphic clatter.
And now, last night comes a telegram from Commander Perry, from up among the icebergs, saying he has discovered the North Pole! Discovered it a year later than Cook, according to the dates.
Half the world believed Cook, the other half didn’t. But the entire world believes Perry. I believe both are speaking the truth,
Well, it is a pity that two men did it. While it was the achievement of one man it placed him alongside of Columbus, away up in the very sky—apparently to remain there forever—discoverers whose feat could never be repeated, there being no more worlds to discover & no more poles worth discovering. But now that the honor is divided—well, the bulk of the value is gone,
Apparently Dr. Cook sat down among the icebergs to waste a year—in writing about about the discovery? If he really was so foolish as all that, he deserves to take second place—along with Adams, who didn’t push his discovery of Neptune, but let Leverrier get in ahead of him & take first place for good & all.
Paine adds a paragraph about Clemens’ reaction to the North Pole discovery:
September 7. To-day news of the North Pole discovered by Peary. Five days ago the same discovery was reported by Cook. Clemens’s comment: “It’s the greatest joke of the ages.” But a moment later he referred to the stupendous fact of Arcturus being fifty thousand times as big as the sun [MTB 1517].