Next, the only witness to Cook’s McKinley climb, Edward
Barrill, swore out
an affidavit saying that the doctor’s claimed 1906 ascent of
McKinley was
merely a hoax arranged by Cook with his complicity. The
New York Globe,
a paper controlled by one of Peary’s major backers, broke the
news.
The next day it printed Barrill’s entire Alaskan diary, the
crucial parts
of which Barrill said had been dictated to him by Cook.  Cook
maintained
that Barrill had been induced to make his statement through a large sum
of
money provided by Peary’s backers. In this he was
right. Barrill
and four others had been paid a total of $5,000 for affidavits against
Cook,
though this was denied at the time. |
