Sinking of the "Titanic"

by Jay Henry Mowbray

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 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.

“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.”

“This is a man’s game, and I will play it to the end,” was the word that Benjamin Guggenheim, the millionaire smelter magnate, sent to his wife from the ill-fated Titanic.

NO CHANCE OF ESCAPING.

The message was delivered to the stricken widow by John Johnson, the room steward, to whom it was given. Guggenheim, Johnson said, realized almost from the beginning that there was no chance of escaping. He sent for Johnson, who he knew was an expert swimmer, and for his secretary, and asked them if they should be saved to get word to Mrs. Guggenheim.