The Washington herald., 1913-10-20
HEROIC STORIES OF
LATEST TRAGEDY
In Reading Details Of Hsror We
Learn that World Has Full Quota
Of Tue-Hearted Folk.
By FRANCES sHAFFER.

By FRANCES sHAFFER.
As the stories come in. day after day.
from the latest tragedy of the sea there
lis the same beautiful thread Of heroism
running all through that always char
acterizes such disasters and softens the
horror-at least. for those who>sit on the
outskirts
Nothing in this world 50 inspires ones
faith In the great heart Of mankind as
the certainty that when perils are press
4 ing close and hard there always are
some whd magnihcentiy rise to the oc-
casion. whatever the price they pay.
And perhaps one looks rather more
admiringiy at those heroic figures and
listens more intently to the recital Of
| their splendid calmness and resourceful-
ness because she wonders what might
happen to herself ard her courage out
there where the fre and the sea were
conspiring to do their worst Do you
every try to answer the question?
Nobody knows exactly. because those
depths never are stirred except in the
sorriest happenings. when. in the words
of one Of the sailors: "Your money Is
no good now; what you need Is cour-
I age"
.
through. to read of the men, all the way
from stoker to captain, who were heroes.
every inch OF them, big, stern. and brave
one minute. tender and ministering the
next. For. much as one must admire
the trained officers who stood over all,
commanding. counselling, ever encourag-
Ing, and faithful to the last. the bravery
was nowise measured by rank or sta
tion-, When the call came for volun-
teera men came tumbling out from the
steamers depths. oilers. stokers, scuI-
lery men and the like, no less than the
eyer-ready officers. II there were a few
who forgot Or who never knew the way
to be brave and lion-hearted, they were
oyershadowed by the many, who, what
ever else they did, helped to strengthen
ones faith in the valor of men.
Have, Their Troubles.
And one is minded to scnd her thoughts
drifting to the families of these men, the
women whose husbands and sons. fathers
and brothers follow the sea and All its
perils. They have their troubles, for they
never can forget that "they that 90 down
to the sea in ships may never come back
4 again.
But when tragedies come close. as they
can to the men they love, without quite
stealing theh lives away, and when the
Taftermath is all aglow with thrilling
stories Of courage undaunted and OF lead
ership supreme-weli, those women must
| be proud of their menfolk. And they
must feel recompensed for the long Pc
RODS when they sit at home. waiting and
fearful
Indeed, one never quite knows the man.
ner OF man or woman until the hard
test comes, and yet, as one thinks of
those she knows and their way Of going
hofr At.
TO guess who would be the unassuming
heroes and ready helpers, who the ones
to slip away to the first haven offered.
Hard to Call Them cowards.
In times Of pressing danger when life
Is dear to all, IL seems a bit herd to
call men towards IL they think Of them
selves, first Of all, particularly when the
surging, fear-stricken folk around them
are nothing more than strangers.
brought close by the sudden calamity.
And II they look out for themselves
without brushing others aside, they only
respond to 'the first law of nature" Bur
when they do more than that, when they
deliberately put up their lives against
the might of the flames and the sea-
well. isn't 1t good once in a while to see
what man may do when he is a man
clear through?
1t is all very wen to say that a ship's
officers and crew are expected to remem-
ber their duty, are expected to be brave
and true in the widest OF times. But
they are men before they are officers
and sailors and stokers. the first and the
last on board; and the courage OF some
OF them is sublime.
1t is hard enough to remain firm one
self in the face of the worst Of dan
gers, but the heights are reached when
men are found following their manifest
duties. then going about burning ship,
heartening, calming and saving the weak
est-and some of the stokers did that
As for US, it is well to read, the de-
tails, because in the reading We learn
atresh what We sometimes forget-that
the world has its full quota Of true-heart-
| cd folk.