CHAPTER IX.
HOW ASTOR WENT TO DEATH.
How Astor Went to Death—“I Resign Myself to My Fate,” He Said—Kissed Wife Fond Farewell—Lifted Cap to Wife as Boat Left Ship—Crushed to Death By Ice—Famous Novelist’s Daughter Hears of His Death—Philadelphia Millionaires’ Heroism—Last to See Widener Alive—Major Butt Dies a Soldier’s Death.
The heroism of the majority of the men who went down to death with the Titanic has been told over and over again. How John Jacob Astor kissed his wife and saluted death as he looked squarely into its face; the devotion of Mrs. Isidor Straus to her aged husband and the willingness with which she went to her doom with his loving arms pressed tenderly around her, the tales of life sacrificed that women might be saved brought some need of comfort to the stricken.
G. A. Brayton, of Los Angeles, Cal, says: “John Jacob Astor went to one of the officers and told them who he was, and asked to go in the lifeboat with his wife. The officer told him he could not go in the lifeboat. Astor then kissed his wife good-bye and she was put in the lifeboat. Astor said: ‘I resign myself to my fate’ and saluted in farewell.”
“Colonel Astor and Major Archibald Butt died together on the bridge of the ill-fated ship,” said Dr. Washington Dodge, of San Francisco, one of the survivors. “I saw them standing there side by side. I was in one of the last boats, and I could not mistake them. Earlier during the desperate struggle to get the boats cleared I had seen them both at work quieting passengers and helping the officers maintain order.
“A few minutes before the last I saw Colonel Astor help his wife, who appeared ill, into a boat, and I saw him wave his hand to her and smile as the boat pulled away.”
Before the lifeboats left the ship, not far from the woman who would not let her husband meet death alone, Colonel Astor stood supporting the figure of his young bride, says another survivor. A boat was being filled with women. Colonel Astor helped his wife to a place in it. The boat was not filled, and there seemed no more women near it. Quietly the Colonel turned to the second officer, who was superintending the loading.
“May I go with my wife? She is ill,” he asked. The Officer nodded. The man of millions got into the boat. The crew were about to cast off the falls. Suddenly the Colonel sprang to his feet, shouting to them to wait. He had seen a woman running toward the boat. Leaping over the rail, he helped her to the place he had occupied.
TRIED TO CLIMB FROM THE BOAT.
Mrs. Astor screamed and tried to climb from the boat. The Colonel restrained her. He bent and tenderly patted her shoulder.