Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1912-04-25
AFTERMATH OF
GREAT SEA DISASTER
Stories by Survivors of The III-Fated Titanic
Tell Of Heroic Deaths" Nearer Ny God
to Thee" Played by Band as Great
Ship Made Its Final Plunge.

| BOARD the 7O2 souls saved from the
wreck of the TitaDtic off the coast of
Newfoundland on Sunday night April
18th, arrived in New York harbor n
week ago today. The stories told by
the survivors show great bravery on the
part of the passe ngers who went down
and gross inef6ciency and lack of disci-
pline on the part of the crew of the Ii
tanic.
There was an effort on the part of the
White Star Line, owners of the Titanic.
to prevent an investigation of awful
catastrophe, but prompt action on the
part of tina Senate of the United States
prevented officers and mon of the crew
from getting away until being question
ed by an investigating committee ap-
pointed by that body. This investiga-
tion is now going on in Washington,
and will ultimately fix the responsibility
for the disaster where it properly be-
longs.
The tributes of the press to the con-
Duct OF those who now rest in their
ocean graves have been particularly pa
thetic. Men like John Jacob Astor and
MAJOR Archibald Butt, who for years
have been misunderstood, misquoted
and misrepresented, stand out, in vivid
contrast to what they have been pictur-
ed to be, bold and unafraid, and the
press, quick to appreciate the noble
traits of character exhibited by these
men following the crash of the Titanic,
have given them full credit for their
undaunted courage in this hour of awful
trial. OF Major Butt the Cincinnati
Times-Star said:
1T was not unusual six months or
year ago to hear hall sneering illusions
IN the newspapers to Major Butt. He
was too military in appearance; he was
too much impressed with the ideas of
etiquette and precedent; he was only a
chocolate soldier anyhow, they said.
People who knew practically nothing of
the man they were criticising lightly
waived aside the judgment of two pres
idents of the United States, both Of
whom knew Archie Butt and liked him
extremely well.
Talk of this sort is, of course, for
ever silenced by the sinking of the Ti-
tanic. In that awful time off the Banks,
Major Butt held to his own idea of the
eternal fitness of things. He thought
not only that the women should 90 first,
but that the little courtesies of life
should be extended to them while they
were being put into the boats. We i'm
aglne that few, even among the most
heroic of the men on the Titanic.
thought of getting blankets to put
around women's shoulders as they were
put into the lifeboats.
Archie Butt held to his ideals to the
last. He may have had an almost fem
mine gentleness, and a regard for the
formalities of life that the average male
American does not understand. But, as
everybody knows today, he also pos
sessed to an unusual degree the essen
tlal qualifications of true soldier and a
great-hearted gentleman"
Commenting on the courage of the
band that helped quell the incipient riot
on board the ship by sticking heroically
to their posts, and went down with the
Titanic playing Nearer My God to
Thee, the Philadelphia Press says:
Through all its tragic story the loss
of the Titanic has again shown how the
path of duty may be the path to glory
now and hereafter.
The ships musicians who stood to
their duty and their instruments play
ing Nearer My God to Thee, did their
share and filled their place in the roll
and record of heroism on that night. big
with fate and death. For them and for
those who heard alike in that supreme
moment, faith and trust in the Divine
awoke, as it always does when many
men together face the unknown. Doubts
come in life's common and ordinary
path; but when general peril faces men,
they instinctively turn to thu support of.
the unseen.
This came on the Titanic and it un-
derlies the calm and courage with which
this great company of doomed men met
the call of duty. Their lives were many
and various. Their days and nights had
been as the days and nights of other
men. There was about them no sign of
what they would Go when the last call
came.
But men and women live unconscious
that beneath them and about them are
the everlasting arms, that life itself day
by day brings nearer the unseen and
that each man and woman has more of
faith and trust, calm and courage, than
they know. When the hour of extreme
danger strikes, some note akin to Near
er My God to Thee sounds in all lives
that in the end meet duty like men,"
1t has perhaps occurred to many that
the rule of the sea, women and child
rem first" may not be economically
correct. That the relative value of a
person S usefulness in the world would
be better guide for the elimination of
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