"We give out a good deal of money, Tremlidge and I, every year to public works and one thing or another. We buy pictures by American artists--pictures that we don't want; we found a scholarship now and then; we contribute money to build groups of statuary in the park; we give checks to the finance committees of libraries and museums and all the rest of it, but, for the lives of us, we can feel only a mild interest in the pictures and statues, and museums and colleges, though we go on buying the one and supporting the other, 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.