Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage: The Titanic's First-Class Passengers and Their World (54 page)

  8
“I have come alone”
Harris, “Her Husband Went Down.”

  9
“My God!”
Engstrom,
Francis Davis Millet
, p. 6.

10
“Carelessness, gross carelessness!”
and
“The captain knew”
Brewster, “Sinking Sensation.”

11
“stalwart, sunburnt”
Snider, “With Orphaned Babe in Arms,”
Toronto Evening Telegram
, April 1912, cited in Dupuis, “And Mind You’re a Nurse.”

12
“I have a clear,” “It was my training,”
and
“If there is room”
Brewster, “Sinking Sensation.”

13
“quite equal to”
Dupuis, “And Mind You’re a Nurse.”

14
“William T. Sloper, son of”
Sloper,
Life and Times
, p. 408.

15
“Well, we might as well” New York American
, April 19, 1912.

16
“sincere grief”
and
“More than”
U.S. Inquiry, TIP and TDH, p. 2.

17
“Your conduct deserves”
U.S. Inquiry, Day 1, TIP and TDH, p. 36.

18
“nothing but a complete farce”
Lightoller, in ST, p. 304.

19
“a gentleman from” London Globe
, cited in Wade,
Titanic: End of a Dream
, p. 189.

20
“it may be humiliating”
Wade,
Titanic: End of a Dream
, p. 189.

21
“has stirred two continents” Toronto Globe
, April 18, 1912.

22
MAJOR PEUCHEN BLAMES
Toronto World
, April 20, 1912.

23
“I have never” Toronto World
, April 22, 1912.

24
“The men of our race” Toronto Globe
, April 22, 1912.

25
“those women who go”
Wade,
Titanic: End of a Dream
, p. 71.

26
“any personal or”
and
“I am here, sir”
Peuchen, U. S Inquiry, Day 4, TIP.

27
“Votes for women”
Poem by Clark McAdams, in Foster,
Titanic Reader
, p. 240.

28
“ ‘Women first’ ”
Iversen,
Molly Brown
, p. 43.

29
“They speak of the”
White, U.S. Inquiry, Day 11, TDH, p. 426.

30
“a flock of sea gulls”
Ruffman,
Titanic Remembered
, p. 28.

31
Astor’s body was found mangled
“The Two Deaths of John Jacob Astor,” George Behe’s Titanic Tidbits website.

32
“We are so used”
Letter of John Alfred Parsons Millet, cited in Behe,
“Archie,”
vo1. 3, p. 686.

33
Meanwhile, Major Blanton Winship
Blanton Winship (1869–1947) later became a major general and was appointed military governor of Puerto Rico in 1934. Winship treated nationalist demonstrators in Puerto Rico very harshly and was the subject of an attempted assassination in 1938 and removed from his post in 1939.

34
“never did I know”
and
“It always seemed to me”
Behe,
“Archie,”
vol. 3, p. 689.

35
“made her escape”
Rosenbaum,
Women’s Wear Daily
, April 19, 1912.

36
“All over the [train] station”
Duff Gordon,
Discretions
, p. 192. 261
“shuts himself in the library”
Duff Gordon letter, in OBT, p. 283. 261
“a faishionable matinee” New York Times
, May 22, 1912.

37
“the air was rent”
Duff Gordon,
Discretions
, p. 173.

38
“There were many things”
British Inquiry, Day 10, TIP.

39
“not to try,” “that you considered,”
and
“The witness’s position”
British Inquiry, Day 11, TIP.

40
“Torquemada never”
Ashmead Bartlett,
The Academy
, in Duff Gordon,
Discretions
, p. 200.

41
“the very gross charge”
British Inquiry, Final Report, TIP.

42
“A great deal of the mud”
Duff Gordon,
Discretions
, p. 203.

43
“he would merely have”
British Inquiry, Final Report, TIP.

44
“might have saved many”
Ibid.

45
“without doubt be negligence”
Ibid.

46
“there was no such thing”
Bigham and Jasper, “Broadway Dame.”

47
“practically lost her reason” Harrisburg Leader
, April 21, 1912, in Geller,
Titanic: Women and Children
, p. 59.

48
“I simply did” Denver Times
, April 21, 1912, in Iversen,
Molly Brown
, p. 38.

49
“evil has come with the good”
Woodrow Wilson, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1913, from
bartleby.com
.

50
“It takes a terrible warning”
Smith, U.S Inquiry, in Iversen,
Molly Brown
, p. 40.

POSTSCRIPT:
TITANIC
AFTERLIVES

  1
“one of the outstanding”
Harris, “Her Husband Went Down.”

  2
“She’s too mean”
Iversen,
Molly Brown
, p. 38.

  3
“The era of elaborate ornamentation”
Cecil Beaton,
The Glass of Fashion
, p. 162, in Bigham,
Lucile: Her Life by Design
, p. 235.

  4
“She had to learn”
Melanie Abrams, “Lady Duff Gordon: Fashion’s Forgotten Grande Dame,”
Telegraph
, February 21, 2011.

  5
“Louis, how
do
you”
Lord,
A Night to Remember
, p. 167.

  6
“Mrs. Harris was rich, racy”
Hart,
Act One
, cited in Geller,
Titanic: Women and Children
, p. 49.

  7
“I have had four”
Geller,
Titanic: Women and Children
, p. 52.

  8
“The lady was” Variety
, September 1969, cited in Bigham and Jasper, “Broadway Dame.”

  9
“immigrants of the Latin race”
Lowe, U.S. Inquiry, Day 5, TIP.

10
“Greatly upset by loss”
Strouse,
Morgan
, p. 647.

11
“the backlash of”
and
“Years after”
Brewster, “Sinking Sensation.”

12
“I’m accident prone”
Geller,
Titanic: Women and Children
, p. 74.

APPENDIX A

Frank Millet’s Letter to Alfred Parsons
ON BOARD R.M.S.
“TITANIC.”
APRIL
11, 1912

Dear Alfred:

I got yours this morning and was glad to hear from you. I thought I told you my ship was the
Titanic
. She has everything but taxicabs and theatres. Table d’ hote, restaurant à la carte, gymnasium, Turkish baths, squash court, palm gardens, smoking rooms for “Ladies and Gents,” intended I fancy to keep the women out of the men’s smoking room which they infest in the German and French steamers. The fittings are in the order of Haddon Hall and are exceedingly agreeable in design and color. As for the rooms they are larger than the ordinary hotel room and much more luxurious with wooden bedsteads, dressing tables, hot and cold water, etc., etc., electric fans, electric heater and all. The suites with their damask hangings and mahogany oak furniture are really very sumptuous and tasteful. I have the best room I have ever had in a ship and it isn’t one of the best either, a great long corridor in which to hang my clothes and a square window as big as the one in the studio alongside the large light. No end of furniture, cupboards, wardrobe, dressing table, couch, etc., etc. Not a bit like going to sea. You can have no idea of the spaciousness of this ship and the extent and size of the decks. The boat deck has an uninterrupted space as long as our tennis court almost, and the chair decks are nearly as wide as our large courtyard, or quite. 500 people don’t make a show on the decks. Queer lot of people on the ship. Looking over the list I only find three or four people I know but there are a good many of “our people” I think and a number of obnoxious, ostentatious American women, the scourge of any place they infest and worse on shipboard than anywhere. Many of them carry tiny dogs and lead husbands around like pet lambs. I tell you the American woman is a buster. She should be put in a harem and kept there.

Yes I had a devil of a time in Rome and if this sort of thing goes on I shall chuck it. I won’t lose my time and temper too. I think Mead will resign. Lily will tell you about her, the B … she makes trouble everywhere and he, poor wretch has to dangle about her day and night. I pity him.

I wrote from Paris the day we arrived. I couldn’t tell where we should stop because I didn’t know whether Lily would go to the Grand or not. We found it excellent.

Yours always
Frank

APPENDIX B

Marian Thayer’s Letter to President Taft
(from the William Howard Taft papers, Library of Congress)

Dear Mr. Taft:

In my own grief I think often of yours and feel I must write to tell you how I spent the last Sunday evening with Major Butt—for we all cherish news of last hours—and we spoke much of you.

How devoted he was to you and what a lovely, noble man he was!

We were dining in the restaurant with the poor Wideners & from the moment we met never moved from each other for the rest of the evening.

Never before have I come in such close contact immediately with anyone. He felt the same & we both marveled at the time at the strangeness of such a thing, for we both realized it while actually opening our innermost thoughts to each other.