The arrival of the Carpathia with the survivors of the Titanic disaster did not diminish the crowds of anxious-faced persons at the White Star offices in Bowling Green yesterday.
Many went there refusing to believe that the published lists of survivors were complete and hoping to find that relatives and friends might by chance have been on the rescue ship.
(New York Call, 20 April 1912)
ACUTEST MISERY INFLICTED UPON SURVIVORS OF TITANIC’S STEERAGE
While great physical suffering was endured by all of the survivors of the Titanic, the most acute privation fell to the lot of the steerage passengers, many of whom lost not only husbands, fathers, children and relatives but all their worldly belongings, to be thrust penniless upon a foreign shore. That much of the misery inflicted upon the poor third-class passengers was preventable was made apparent by the stories told by the steerage survivors landed by the Carpathia.
Of the thrilling stories of the disaster one had a happy ending. It was told by Mrs Leah Aks, who is on her way to Norfolk, Virginia, with her eight-month-old baby, Philip, to join her husband, Samuel Aks, a tailor. The father has never seen the baby.
Mrs Aks says that when the alarm was given she ran into her room to arouse other women sleeping there and to get her baby. Carrying her child wrapped in a shawl, she tried to make her way up the stairs leading to the boat deck, but the jam of struggling humanity was too great for her to get past. Four sailors who saw her told her they would lift her and the baby to the boat deck from the outside. One of the sailors climbed the rail and swung himself to the deck above, and the other three formed a human ladder, passing the woman and her child from one level to another.
Nadji Narsani, an Armenian peasant, died with the Titanic. Maria Narsani, his widow, is about to become a mother.
No greater in death was John Jacob Astor than Nadji Narsani, who kissed his wife, placed her in the small boat and said: ‘Maria, perhaps we may never meet again: but some day you tell our child how I died.’
Perhaps the master of millions and the peasant stood together at the rail as the sea carried off their hopes and loves, but that chapter in the Titanic tragedy will never be written, the story of just what happened when the small boats floated off and left millionaire and peasant, savant and deckhand to wait for death.
When Maria Narsani stepped off the steerage gangway of the Carpathia she was at once the ward of charity.
The jewels, a king’s ransom, of Madeline Force Astor, went down with the ship, but Maria Narsani lost everything she had in the world, the linens she had made against the day of her marriage, and Nadji had saved up $100 in addition to the price of the steamship tickets, and this, too, was lost.
C. M. Hays, president of the Grand Trunk Line, and Jim Hawkins perished. Six months ago old man Hawkins died in Ireland and left his son and widow a little farm and a home. They sold these and mother and son started for America. They were going to the northwest. Jim was to work as a farmhand.
‘And we were going to have a farm ourselves some day,’ said his mother. ‘Jim was a strapping boy. He could have been saved, but he gave his place to a lady.’
(New York Call, 20 April 1912)
Some of the survivors’ accounts as reported in the jingoistic American press were wildly inaccurate. Blaming Britain for the loss of so many American passengers, newspapers revelled in the opportunity to depict the British officers as little more than callous murderers. A typical story was that attributed to Ellen Shine, a twenty-year-old steerage passenger from Cork in Ireland who had been on her way to visit her brother in New York.
Those who were able to get out of bed went to the upper decks, where they were met by the members of the crew, and first and second class passengers, who endeavoured to keep them in the steerage quarters. However, the women rushed by the officers and crew, knocking them down, and finally reached the upper decks. There the women, when they saw the excitement and when informed that the boat was sinking, got down on their knees and started to pray.
I saw one of the lifeboats and made for it. In it were four men from steerage. They were ordered out by an officer and they refused to leave. Then one of the officers jumped into the boat and, drawing a revolver, shot them dead. Their bodies were picked out from the bottom of the boat and thrown into the water. In this boat there were about forty women and men, and we were drifting about for more than four hours before we were picked up.
(New York Call, 20 April 1912)
The ‘Unsinkable’ Molly Brown’s reported story also had a number of holes in it.
A story shockingly brutal in contrast with the tales of heroism and sacrifice that have come from the Titanic disaster was told by Mrs J. J. Brown of Denver, Colorado, one of the survivors who is stopping at the Ritz-Carlton.
Col. Astor and Isidor Straus and Mrs Straus would have been saved had it not been for the officers in command of the first lifeboat, Mrs Brown declares. In addition to this, she accused the officer of having made Mrs Astor row the lifeboat for two hours and also says she was compelled to handle the oars for four hours herself.
‘We’ll teach these rich Yankee wives we’re running things,’ the officer sneered, she says, when the women in the boat pleaded with him to save a man who was drowning close to the boat, and he refused. Mrs Brown’s story follows:
I was in one of the lifeboats – the first to be made ready – when Col. Astor and his wife came out. The colonel helped Mrs Astor in the boat, then got in himself, as there was plenty of room. ‘Get out!’ shouted the officer. ‘All right, sir,’ Col. Astor replied politely. And he got out of the boat.
Col. Astor was very nice about it. He told the officer there was plenty of room in the boat, and he would like to be with his wife, if possible, because she was ill. Then he lit a cigarette he had taken from his pocket and walked into the saloon. That was the last I saw of him.
It was only a minute or so later when almost the same scene was repeated, Mrs Brown said:
Mr and Mrs Straus came out of the saloon, and both took seats in the boat, in which there was still plenty of room. ‘Get out of this boat: it’s for the women,’ the officer said. All the ladies in the boat protested that Mr Straus should remain. They pointed to the empty seats.
Mr Straus, however, said of course he would get out and did so. It was then that Mrs Straus, saying that she would not leave his side, started to follow him out of the boat, despite his protests. He begged her to retain her seat, saying he would get in another boat.
‘No, if you get out I will follow you,’ Mrs Straus said, and clambered out of the boat. The ladies again protested to the officer, who was firm in his refusal to allow Mr Straus in the boat. Mrs Straus walked away with her husband clinging to her. After the Titanic had sunk, the officer started to bulldoze the women, Mrs Brown says, and commanded them to man the oars.
‘I rowed until my arms ached as though they would fall off,’ she continued. ‘It must have been fully four hours. Mrs Astor was compelled to row, too. She was rowing about half as long as I was.’
There was ample room in the lifeboats for all the first and second cabin passengers, Mrs Brown declares. She saw several leave the ship with plenty of room in them.
(New York Call, 20 April 1912)
Stoker William Jones was quoted as claiming that many passengers and crew were killed on impact.
I was on watch in the steerage with about 100 other members of the crew when the first crash came. It was almost immediately followed by the explosion of the forward boiler, which controlled the turbines.
I rushed on deck and was told with two firemen to man lifeboat no. 8. About sixty women were crowded into the little craft with us, and we put off immediately, pulling with all the strength that we could muster because we knew that the ship was doomed, and that if we did not get far enough away from her we would be pulled down by the suction.
Of the 300 members of the crew that were in the quarters forward but 47 that I know of managed to get away. They were crus
hed when she struck. The same death came to the first cabin passengers that were quartered forward. Practically none of those that were in that section of the ship managed to get out of the wreckage in the crash. Those that were not killed outright remained where they were pinned and went down with the ship.
(New York Call, 20 April 1912)
LITTLE BOY’S STORY OF LOSS OF TITANIC
Little Arthur Olsen, eight years old, the only Titanic child left unclaimed after the Carpathia’s arrival Thursday night, said yesterday that America was a pretty good place, and that he was going to like it.
Arthur came to that conclusion because so many people had been good to him. First there was Fritzjof Madsen, one of the survivors, who took care of him in the lifeboat. Then Miss Jean Campbell gave him hot coffee and sandwiches and propped him comfortably against some clothing while she busied herself with others.
Mrs William K. Vanderbilt Jnr next appeared with two nice big men, put him in a taxi with Miss Campbell and sent him to a hot bath and bed at the Lisa Day Nursery, No. 458 West 20th Street. And the next morning Miss Florence Hayden taught him kindergarten songs and dances with her class.
Later Arthur’s stepmother, Mrs Esther Olsen, of No. 978 Hart Street, Brooklyn, appeared and clasped him in her arms. Her husband, Arthur’s father, Charlie Olsen, perished in the wreck.
Mrs Olsen had never seen Arthur, because after Charlie Olsen’s first wife died in Trondhjem, Norway, leaving the little baby Arthur, he had come to America, where he married again. A while ago Olsen crossed to see about the settlement of his estate and to bring his son home. He and the boy were in the steerage of the Titanic.
Arthur is a sturdy, quiet-faced little chap with red hair, freckles and a ready smile. He speaks only Norwegian, but Mrs Olsen translated for him when he told his story.
I was with papa on the boat, said the youngster timidly, and then something was the matter. Papa said I should hurry up and go into the boat and be a good boy. We had a friend, Fritzjof Madsen, with us from our town, and he told me to go too.
The ship was kind of shivering and everybody was running around. We kept getting quite close down to the water, and the water was quiet, like a lake. Then I got into a boat and that was all I saw of papa. I saw a lot of people floating around drowning or trying to snatch at our boat. Then all of a sudden I saw Mr Madsen swimming next to the boat and he was pulled in. He took good care of me.
In our boat everybody was crying and sighing. I kept very quiet. One man got very crazy, then cried just like a little baby. Another man jumped right into the sea and he was gone.
It was awful cold in the boat but I was dressed warm, like we dress in Norway. I had to put on my clothes when my papa told me to on the big ship. I couldn’t talk to anybody, because I don’t understand the language. Only Mr Madsen talked to me and told me not to be afraid, and I wasn’t afraid.
(New York World, 20 April 1912)
LOST LINER’S TRAGEDY
The largest ship in the world went to sea from Southampton harbour on the tenth of April, 1912. People spoke of the tenth of April as a great day in the history of Southampton, for many fathers of families had found employment on the Titanic, many women’s faces were lightened because the shadow of need and poverty had been banished from their homes.
It was a day that no one who stood upon the quayside will ever forget. We who saw it saw a sight that will be unforgettable until our eyes are turned to dust. We saw the sight of the mightiest vessel in the world upon her solitary and uncompleted voyage. She was named Titanic and she has been Titanic in her sorrow. We saw her, the mightiest, finest product of human brains in the matter of ships to sail the sea, a gigantic vessel that realized in her being a floating city of treasured glories, riches, and luxury, as she first ploughed the grey fields of the ocean.
And her displacement of water, the foam, and the rush of her passage was so tremendous that the stern ropes of another mighty liner parted and the New York, but for the ready aid of holding tugs, would have swung out aimlessly into the fairway.
We paused in our cheering then, chilled to a sudden silence at this first evidence of the great ship’s untested powers for evil as for good. And our cheering now is hushed into sobbing, for within a week of her majestic passage from Southampton harbour, the displacement of the Titanic has been so tremendous that she has drenched the bosom of the world in an ocean of tears.
Those of us who had come to wish the vessel ‘Good speed’ – in the dark wisdom of Providence to wish ‘Good speed’ and ‘a fair journey’ to those loved ones who were going out upon the longest and loneliest voyage in Eternity – were up ‘by times’ on that pleasant Wednesday morning, long before the stroke of noon when we knew Captain Smith would climb into his lofty perch on the navigating bridge and give the order to ‘let go’ from the Trafalgar landing stage.
The air was busy with chatter, with ‘goodbye for the present’ and good wishes. We lived that morning in an atmosphere of pride. All these happy-faced Southampton women were proud that their men had entered into service on the greatest vessel ever built by man. They prattled of the Titanic with a sort of suggestion of proprietorship.
Rumours and legends and tales of her glories and luxuries and powers were bandied about in every street in Southampton. She was a caravanserai of marvels; a mighty treasure house of beauty and luxurious ease. In the phrase of the people, she was ‘the last word’. The phrases of the people are often true, because they are double edged.
Another phrase sticks now in the puzzle of a darkening mind: ‘They’re breaking all records this time.’ And so they were. It had been determined that the Titanic should excel in luxury and equipment her sister vessel, the Olympic, which had sailed for New York a week before.
And in a sort of desperate endeavour to achieve this we who had come to take temporary parting from dear ones and friends were shown a new and latest marvel on the promenade deck of the Titanic. It was called the Café Parisien. Its walls were covered with a delicate trellis work around which trailed cool foliage. We looked at the soft-cushioned chairs, we regarded the comfort of the whole scene, and, feeling the suggestive atmosphere of the place, thought of those who would be taking coffee there after dinner with music lulling every sense, melting into the gentle roll and rhythm of the open sea. What a place in which to dream! – perhaps if one were young to hold a little romantic dalliance – what a place in which to forget the trials and harass of the world! What a place in which to sleep!
Some of us looked into the private suites that were to cost a mere trifle of £870 a voyage, and here we found snug dining rooms, bedrooms that looked in themselves like little enchanted palaces of slumberous rest, and private promenade decks.
Let us note that everyone spoke of ‘dining rooms’ and ‘bedrooms’. The word ‘cabin’ would have been an anachronism in this floating citadel of luxurious beauty. We examined the delicate glass and napery, the flowers and the fruit, the baths and the playing-courts, and the innumerable mechanical appliances that seemed to make personal effort or discomfort the only human impossibility on board.
There was one thing that no one looking even for a brief half-hour on this cushioned lap of luxury ever thought of giving a cursory glance or a thought. No one looked at the boats.
Punctually at noon Captain E. J. Smith, a typical figure of an English sailor as we knew him and imagined him in pre-Titanic days, took up his post of captainship on the navigating bridge. And as the bells sounded, the cheers of the multitudes went upward and hands and handkerchiefs were waved from quay and ship’s side, and kisses were blown across and last familiar greetings exchanged.
So she went away with her human freight of 2,208 souls. We cheered to the last and waved our salutations, and that night I think there was not an unhappy woman in all Southampton. And tonight – who is to count the tear-stained faces or to cast a reckoning over the travail of these broken hearts, some here, some 2,000 miles away, but all united beyond the cleavage of the pitiless s
eas, by the sacred companionship of sorrow!
So the Titanic went her way, and we went ours, and thought perhaps little about her, save thoughts of remembered joy in her strength and beauty, until on Tuesday morning came the news that smote our hearts with the thunder of doom. These were, of course, the first indefinite rumblings that woke fear in every human breast.
She had struck an iceberg; she had been rent; but she was unsinkable. She was heading slowly for shore, a great giant wounded thing in the wake of the Virginian. How our hopes died down until it seemed that the heart was burnt into a heap of dead cold ashes, only to rise, Phoenix-like, in jubilant and hopeful expectancy. Human lips have sobbed out strange prayers before today, but what volume of prayer went up to heaven in thankfulness to the Lord of Hosts who had brought the new wonder of wireless telegraphy out of the slow womb of time.
We thought of that unforgettable message speeding through the viewless air that is marked upon the chart sheets SOS. We picked up the common phrase of the operator and repeated to ourselves: ‘Save Our Souls’, and thanked Providence for their salvation.
We pictured the scene. The lonely operator, composed with that old English valiance that has turned the blood of history into wine, calmly tapping out the cry of help. We saw the realization of that message in the operator’s cabin on other vessels. We saw the wonderful chain composed of those three words, stronger than wind or sea, suddenly dragging all the vessels within the sphere of hearing away from their allotted course, and sending them on the great adventure of succour and mercy. We pictured them racing along the railless roads of the open sea, rushing with insensate speed towards the spot of the catastrophe. We had leisure to imagine the scene, because we were told there had been a great deliverance; because we felt that man had fought his battle with the ocean and had won.
Voices from the Titanic Page 32
