f making an appropriation
toward such an expedition. It was not so much the money we wanted as the
sanction of the United States. Anything that has to do with the Navy is
popular just at present. We had got a Congressman to introduce and
father an appropriation bill, and we could count upon the support of
enough members of both houses to put it through. We wanted Congress to
appropriate twenty thousand dollars. We hoped to raise another ten
thousand dollars by popular subscription. Mr. Garlock could assure us
two thousand dollars; Tremlidge would contribute twenty thousand dollars
in the name of the Times, and I pledged myself to ten thousand dollars,
and promised to build the ship's engines and fittings. We kept our
intentions to ourselves, as Tremlidge did not want the other papers to
get hold of the story before the Times printed it. But we continued to
lay our wires at Washington. Everything was going as smooth as oil; we
seemed sure of the success of our appropriation bill, and it was even to
be introduced next week, when the news came of the collapse of the
English expedition--the Duane-Parsons affair.

"You would have expected precisely an opposite effect, but it has
knocked our chances with Congress into a cocked hat. Our member, who was
to father the bill, declared to us that so sure as it was brought up now
it would be killed in committee. I went to Washington at once; it was
this, and not, as you supposed, private business that has taken me away.
I saw our member and Tremlidge's head correspondent. It was absolutely
no use. These men who have their finger upon the Congressional pulse
were all of the same opinion. It would be useless to try to put through
our bill at present. Our member said 'Wait;' all Tremlidge's men said
'Wait--wait for another year, until this English expedition and its
failure are forgotten, and then try again.' But we don't want to wait.
Suppose Duane _is_ blocked for the present. He has a tremendous start.
He's on the ground. By next summer the chances are the ice will have so
broken up as to permit him to push ahead, and by the time our bill gets
through and our ship built and launched he may be--heaven knows where,
right up to the Pole, perhaps. No, we can't afford to give England such
long odds. We want to lay the keel of our ship as soon as we can--next
week, if possible; we've got the balance of the summer and all the
winter to prepare in, and a year from this month we want our Amer