MAJOR BUTT, MARTYR TO DUTY.
Major Butt Martyr to Duty--Woman’s Soul-Stirring Tribute--Died Like
a Soldier--Was the Man of the Hour--Assisted Captain and Officers in
Saving Women--Cool as if on Dress Parade--Robert M. Daniel Tells of
Disaster and Death of Heroes--Tiny Waifs of the Sea.
Captain E. J. Smith, the commander of the Titanic, was a guest at a
banquet which was being given by W. Bruce Ismay, managing director
of the White Star Line, when the big steamer plunged into that fated
iceberg, according to Robert M. Daniel, member of the banking firm of
Hillard-Smith, Daniel & Co., 328 Chestnut street, Philadelphia.
The fourth officer was in charge of the vessel, said Mr. Daniel,
when seen at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York, to which hotel he went
immediately after landing from the Carpathia, accompanied by his mother
and younger brother, who had come up from their home in Virginia to
meet him.
“We were about fifty miles ahead of our schedule at the time the
accident happened,” said Mr. Daniel, “and were running at about a
twenty-mile-an-hour rate. Everybody on board had been talking all along
about how we were trying to beat the Olympic’s record for the Western
trip and many pools were made on each day’s run.
“I was asleep in my berth when the collision came and so cannot
tell how we happened to hit that berg or what occurred immediately
afterwards. I got up and looked out of my stateroom door, but all
seemed to be quiet and I went back to bed again.
“A little later I heard some one crying that the boats were being
manned and I got frightened. So I wrapped an overcoat about me and
went on deck. On the way I grabbed a life belt and tied it on.
“The boat had already sunk so far down that the lower decks were awash.
I didn’t waste any time in thinking. I just jumped overboard. I clung
to the same overturned lifeboat that young John B. Thayer, Jr., swam to
later and saw him jump from the Titanic. It looked to me as though his
father pushed him off and jumped after him, but the boat sank so soon
afterwards and things were so mixed up that I couldn’t be sure about
that.
“A boat came by after a while that was full of women. They were
frightened and seeing me, pulled me aboard, saying they needed a man to
take charge. I did my best to cheer them up, but it was a poor effort
and didn’t succeed very well. Still I kept them busy with one thing and
another and so helped pass the weary hours until we were picked up by
the Carpathia.”
JUMPED AS THE LINER WAS GOING DOWN.
Mr. Daniel stated with emphasis that Colonel John Jacob Astor stayed on
the Titanic until the last second, then jumped just as the liner was
going down, and he did not see the millionaire again.
Captain Smith also stuck to the bridge, until the ship sank, said Mr.
Daniel, when the skipper also jumped, but disappeared below the waves
and apparently never came up again.
“I spoke to the fourth officer just before I went to my cabin,” said
Mr. Daniel, “and he told me he was in charge while the captain was at
dinner. Then I remembered I had heard Ismay was giving a banquet.
“The fourth officer said the skipper was coming up ‘pretty soon’ to
relieve him,” added Mr. Daniel.
On the Carpathia, Mr. Daniel said, were nineteen women who had been
made widows by the Titanic disaster. Six of them were young brides who
were returning on the steamship from honeymoon trips on the Continent.
None of them, he said, was able to obtain from the passengers of the
Carpathia mourning garb.
While on the Carpathia Mr. Daniel proved of considerable assistance to
the wireless operator. He is an amateur student of wireless telegraphy.
Following the disaster the operator on the Carpathia was compelled to
work night and day.
While the operator was engaged in the arduous task of sending to shore
the long list of those who had been snatched from the sea, Mr. Daniel
went into the operating room. He found the operator on the verge of
collapse, and, volunteering his services, sent a large part of the list
himself.
Mr. Daniel denied that all the lifeboats and collapsible rafts launched
from the Titanic had been picked up by the Carpathia.
“Only twelve boats were picked up,” he said, “while there were half a
dozen more that drifted away in other directions. There has been no
storm, and I don’t see why they should not have been located by some
other vessel.”
“FRANKFURT” MUCH NEARER THAN CARPATHIA.
A German steamer, the “Frankfurt,” was thirty-five miles nearer to the
Titanic than was the Carpathia at the time of the accident, but for
some reason would not come to the assistance of the stricken liner, Mr.
Daniel said.
Asked if any women had been left aboard the Titanic he said: “Only
those women who positively refused to leave their husbands and who
could not be forced into lifeboats for lack of time.
“One of the most remarkable features of this horrible affair is the
length of time that elapsed after the collision before the seriousness
of the situation dawned on the passengers. The officers assured
everybody that there was no danger, and we all had such confidence in
the Titanic that it didn’t occur to anybody that she might sink.”
As to the reports that many persons had been shot to prevent them from
rushing the lifeboats, Mr. Daniel said several shots had been fired in
the air to frighten the steerage passengers and keep them in order,
but that he did not know or hear of anyone being hit by a bullet.
Mrs. John Jacob Astor, said Mr. Daniel, had been confined to her
stateroom under the doctor’s care during her stay on the Carpathia.
“I did not lay eyes on her nor on Bruce Ismay. He stuck close to his
cabin and I don’t think he came on deck once during the trip on the
Carpathia.”
Even when the passengers finally realized that the Titanic was doomed,
there was no disorder, according to Mr. Daniel. The crew’s discipline
was perfect and the women were placed in the boats quietly and without
confusion. It was only after the ship had gone down, he added, and
the women awoke to the fact that their husbands, brothers, sons and
sweethearts, who had told them they would follow “in other boats,” had
sunk to their death, that there was any hysteria.
THE CRIES WERE HEART-RENDING.
“Then the cries were awful to listen to; some of the women screamed all
the time. For four straight hours they kept at it. First from one boat,
then from another. It was heart-rending.”
Asked why the Carpathia had refused to answer the wireless messages
relayed to her, Mr. Daniel answered that so many land stations were
trying to get the vessel that the air was full of cross currents, and
it was almost impossible to catch any one message meant for the rescue
ship, let alone trying to reply to any of them.
While Mr. Daniel was talking to the newspaper men on the pier, just
after landing from the Carpathia, a man ran up and, showing him two
newspaper photographs, asked if he remembered the face.
“It’s my brother, Mr. White, of California,” said the man. “Is he on
board the Carpathia?”
“I don’t think so,” answered Mr. Daniel. “I remember meeting this
gentleman on board the Titanic, but I have not seen him since.” Mr.
White’s brother grabbed the photographs and rushed away.
Many of the men, said Mr. Daniel, refused to jump from the Titanic
until the ship was actually disappearing beneath the waves.
“They seemed to think they were safer on board,” he said, “and by
waiting too long lost their chance of being saved, for they were
probably carried down by the suction. Howard B. Case, of New York, was
one who declined to jump. C. Duane Williams was another. He was washed
overboard, but his son, Richard Norris Williams, jumped and was saved.”
Mr. Daniel was in the water or on a cake of ice nearly an hour before
he was pulled aboard a lifeboat. He had nothing to keep him from
freezing save a light overcoat over his pajamas. While on the Carpathia
he slept on the floor of the dining saloon and was so weak when he
landed that he could hardly move.
When in Philadelphia, Mr. Daniel makes his home at the Southern Club,
though he is a native of Richmond, Va., where his mother and brother
live.
CRAWLED ON TO CAKE OF ICE.
“When I finally went on deck,” said Mr. Daniel, “the water already was
up to my ankles. I saw the women and some of the men taking to the
boats. A short distance away was a big cake of ice. I jumped for it and
crawled on it.
“John B. Thayer, Jr., came to the same ice cake later, after the
Titanic sank. Then a boat passed near and he swam to it and was pulled
aboard. A half hour afterwards another boat came by and I was pulled
aboard.
“It seemed a long time before we saw the masts of the Carpathia, but
when the straight masts and the blur of smoke from her funnels were
outlined against the horizon, we realized that it meant rescue for all
of us. When the boat finally reached us, the men in the boat did what
they could to help the women to the vessel, but most of us were almost
helpless from the cold and exposure.
“I cannot pretend to explain the accident. All I can say is that we
knew for five hours before the accident that there were ice fields
about. I saw Colonel Astor after I was on the raft. He was still on
deck. The water was washing about his knees. He made no effort to get
into a boat.
“The last I saw of Major Butt,” Mr. Daniel added, “he was playing
bridge whist with Clarence Moore, of Washington, formerly of
Philadelphia, and widely known as a horse show exhibitor, and two other
men. This was just before I went to my cabin.
“When I came on deck again, I did not see him. I have no doubt he met
his death as a soldier should.”
Major Archibald Butt, U. S. A., military aid to President Taft, who
lost his life on the Titanic, met his death in a manner that fully
justified the President’s estimation of him as expressed in the eulogy
given out at the White House, in which the President tenderly referred
to his late aide as a man “gentle and considerate,” and as one who was
“every inch a soldier.”
GRAVITY OF THE TITANIC’S CONDITION.
From the moment the Titanic climbed to her death on the jagged shelf of
the great iceberg until the last boatload of women and children, and
some men, was lowered, Major Butt was to all intents and purposes an
officer not only of the American Army, but of the British mercantile
marine. He was among the first to realize the gravity of the Titanic’s
condition, and he immediately forgot self and went to the assistance of
the sorely taxed skipper and junior officers of the sinking liner.
From the moment that Captain Smith let it be known to his officers and
a few of the men passengers that the Titanic was doomed, Major Butt was
an officer of the Titanic. He was here and there and everywhere, giving
words of encouragement to weeping women and children, and uttering
when necessary commands to keep the weak-kneed men from giving in and
rendering the awful situation even more terrible.
That this was the manner in which Major Butt met death is certain.
Captain Charles E. Crain, of the Twenty-seventh United States Infantry
was a passenger on the Carpathia, and when he learned that Major Butt
was among the dead, he made it his duty to get the true tale of his
comrade’s death.
“Naturally,” said Captain Crain, “I was deeply concerned in the fate
of Major Butt, for he was not only a fellow-officer of the army, but
also a personal friend of many years’ standing. I questioned those of
the survivors who were in a condition to talk, and from them I learned
that Butt, when the Titanic struck, took his position with the officers
and from the moment that the order to man the lifeboats was given until
the last one was dropped into the sea, he aided in the maintenance of
discipline and the placing of the women and children in the boats.
AS COOL AS THE ICEBERG.
“Butt, I was told was as cool as the iceberg that had doomed the ship,
and not once did he lose control of himself. In the presence of death
he was the same gallant, courteous officer that the American people had
learned to know so well as a result of his constant attendance upon
President Taft. There was never any chance of Butt getting into any of
those lifeboats.
“He knew his time was at hand, and he was ready to meet it as a man
should, and I and all of the others who cherish his memory are glad
that he faced the situation that way, which was the only possible way a
man of his calibre could face it.”
Mrs. Henry B. Harris, of Washington, a survivor of the Titanic, said:
“I saw Major Butt just before they put me into a collapsible raft with
ever so many women from the steerage. Mr Millet’s little smile, which
played on his lips all through the voyage, had gone, but when I was put
in the boat I saw him wave his hand to a woman in another boat.
“But, oh, this whole world should rise in praise of Major Butt. That
man’s conduct will remain in my memory forever; the way he showed some
of the other men how to behave when women and children were suffering
that awful mental fear that came when we had to be huddled in those
boats. Major Butt was near me, and I know very nearly everything he did.
“When the order to take to the boats came he became as one in supreme
command. You would have thought he was at a White House Reception, so
cool and calm was he. A dozen or so women became hysterical all at once
as something connected with a lifeboat went wrong. Major Butt stepped
to them and said: ‘Really you must not act like that; we are all going
to see you through this thing.’
“He helped the sailors rearrange the rope or chain that had gone wrong
and lifted some of the women in with gallantry. His was the manner we
associate with the word aristocrat.
MAJOR BUTT A MAN TO BE FEARED.
“When the time came for it, he was a man to be feared. In one of the
earlier boats fifty women, it seemed, were about to be lowered when a
man, suddenly panic-stricken, ran to the stern of it. Major Butt shot
one arm out, caught him by the neck and pulled him backward like a
pillow. His head cracked against a rail and he was stunned.
“‘Sorry,’ said Major Butt; ‘women will be attended to first or I’ll
break every bone in your body.’
“The boats were lowered away, one by one, and as I stood by my husband
he said to me: ‘Thank God for Archie Butt.’ Perhaps Major Butt heard
it, for he turned his face toward us for a second.
“Just at that time a young man was arguing to get into a lifeboat, and
Butt had hold of the lad by the arm like a big brother and appeared to
be telling him to keep his head.
“I was one of three first cabin women in our collapsible boat, the rest
were steerage people. Major Butt helped those poor frightened people so
wonderfully, tenderly, and yet with such cool and manly firmness. He
was a soldier to the last.”
“If anything should happen to me, tell my wife in New York that I’ve
done my best in doing my duty.”
This was the last message of Benjamin Guggenheim, of the famous
banking family, dictated to a steward only a short while before the
banker sank to his death with the Titanic.
It was not until several days later that the message was received by
Mrs. Guggenheim.
It was delivered by James Etches, assistant steward in the first cabin
of the Titanic, to whom Mr. Guggenheim communicated it. Etches appeared
at the St. Regis Hotel and inquired for Mrs. Benjamin Guggenheim. He
said that he had a message from Benjamin Guggenheim, and that it had to
be delivered in person.
Mrs. Guggenheim was in the care of Daniel Guggenheim, whose apartments
are at the St. Regis. The steward was admitted, but was not permitted
to see Mrs. Guggenheim, who is prostrated with grief. He insisted that
he must see her personally, but finally consented to transmit the
message through her brother-in-law.
TOGETHER ALMOST TO THE END.
“We were together almost to the end,” said the steward. “I was saved.
He went down with the ship. But that isn’t what I want to tell Mrs.
Guggenheim.”
Then the steward produced a piece of paper. He had written the message
on it, he said, to be certain that it would be correct. The message was
as given.
“That’s all he said,” added the steward, “there wasn’t time for more.”
Little by little Mr. Guggenheim got the account of his brother’s death
from the steward. It was the first definite news that he had received
of his brother.
“Mr. Guggenheim was one of my charges,” said the steward anew. “He had
his secretary with him. His name was Giglio, I believe, an Armenian,
about twenty-four years old. Both died like men.
“When the crash came I awakened them and told them to get dressed.
A few minutes later I went into their rooms and helped them to get
ready. I put a life preserver on Mr. Guggenheim. He said it hurt him in
the back. There was plenty of time and I took it off, adjusted it, and
then put it on him again. It was all right this time.
“They wanted to get out on deck with only a few clothes on, but I
pulled a heavy sweater over Mr. Guggenheim’s life belt, and then they
both went out. They stayed together and I could see what they were
doing. They were going from one lifeboat to another helping the women
and children.
“Mr. Guggenheim would shout out, ‘Women first,’ and he was of great
assistance to the officers.
“Things weren’t so bad at first, but when I saw Mr. Guggenheim about
three quarters of an hour after the crash there was great excitement.
What surprised me was that both Mr. Guggenheim and his secretary were
dressed in their evening clothes. They had deliberately taken off their
sweaters, and as nearly as I can remember they wore no life belts at
all.
“‘What’s that for?’ I asked.
“‘We’ve dressed up in our best,’ replied Mr. Guggenheim, ‘and are
prepared to go down like gentlemen.’ It was then he told me about the
message to his wife and that is what I have come here for.
“Well, shortly after the last few boats were lowered and I was ordered
by the deck officer to man an oar, I waved good-bye to Mr. Guggenheim,
and that was the last I saw of him and his secretary.”