Part of Cook’s lectures was an appeal for his auditors to
petition Congress
for a hearing of his case. Cook got many of his hearers to
sign petitions and send form letters to their
congressmen. He then hired Ernest Rost as his lobbyist to
work Capitol
Hill. Rost wrote a number of pro-Cook and anti-Peary speeches
that
were introduced into the Congressional Record under the signatures of
sympathetic
lawmakers. 
Rost’s critiques of Peary’s claim were masterly and
began
to undermine Peary’s own story of his conquest of the
Pole. The situation
became so serious for Peary that he hired his own lobbyist to counter
Rost
and introduce speeches of his own into the official records of
Congress.
As a result, all Cook ever obtained was an informal meeting of the
Education
Committee of the House, which heard testimony from several pro-Cook
witnesses,
but never convened a formal hearing of his case. This was the
result
of a brilliant counter-stroke by Peary’s lobbyist in the form
of a broadside
casting doubt
on Cook’s methods and warning Congressmen that they were
risking ridicule if they backed Cook’s “cheap
vaudeville act.”
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