r, because we think that
somehow it is right for us to do it. I'm afraid we are men more of
action than of art, literature, and the like. Tremlidge is, I know. He
wants facts, accomplished results. When he gives out his money he wants
to see the concrete, substantial return--and I'm not sure that I am not
of the same way of thinking.

"Well, with this and with that, and after talking it all over a dozen
times--twenty times--we came to the conclusion that what we would most
like to aid financially would be a successful attempt by an
American-built ship, manned by American seamen, led by an American
commander, to reach the North Pole. We came to be very enthusiastic
about our idea; but we want it American from start to finish. We will
start the subscription, and want to head the list with our checks; but
we want every bolt in that ship forged in American foundries from metal
dug out of American soil. We want every plank in her hull shaped from
American trees, every sail of her woven by American looms, every man of
her born of American parents, and we want it this way because we believe
in American manufactures, because we believe in American shipbuilding,
because we believe in American sailmakers, and because we believe in the
intelligence and pluck and endurance and courage of the American sailor.

"Well," Campbell continued, changing his position and speaking in a
quieter voice, "we did not say much to anybody, and, in fact, we never
really planned any expedition at all. We merely talked about its
practical nature and the desirability of having it distinctively
American. This was all last summer. What we wanted to do was to make the
scheme a popular one. It would not be hard to raise a hundred thousand
dollars from among a dozen or so men whom we both know, and we found
that we could count upon the financial support of Mr. Garlock's society.
That was all very well, but we wanted the _people_ to back this
enterprise. We would rather get a thousand five-dollar subscriptions
than five of a thousand dollars each. When our ship went out we wanted
her commander to feel, not that there were merely a few millionaires,
who had paid for his equipment and his vessel, behind him, but that he
had seventy millions of people, a whole nation, at his back.

"So Tremlidge went to work and telegraphed instructions to the
Washington correspondents of his paper to sound quietly the temper of as
many Congressmen as possible in the matter o