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.”
«- At the front of the stage