Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters Part 16

VOTE OF THANKS TO CARPATHIA

"On Tuesday afternoon a meeting of the uninjured survivors was called in the main saloon for the purpose of devising means of a.s.sisting the more unfortunate, many of whom had lost relatives and all their personal belongings, and thanking Divine Providence for their deliverance.

The meeting was called to order and Mr. Samuel Goldenberg was elected chairman. Resolutions were then pa.s.sed thanking the officers, surgeons, pa.s.sengers and crew of the Carpathia for their splendid services in aiding the rescued and like resolutions for the admirable work done by the officers, surgeons and crew of the t.i.tanic.

"A committee was then appointed to raise funds on board the Carpathia to relieve the immediate wants of the dest.i.tute and a.s.sist them in reaching their destinations and also to present a loving cup to the officers of the Carpathia and also a loving cup to the surviving officers of the t.i.tanic.

"Mr. T. G. Frauenthal, of New York, was made chairman of the Committee on Subscriptions.

"A committee, consisting of Mrs. J. J. Brown, Mrs William Bucknell and Mrs. George Stone, was appointed to look after the dest.i.tute. There was a subscription taken up and up to Wednesday the amount contributed totaled $15,000.

"The work of the crew on board the Carpathia in rescuing was most n.o.ble and remarkable, and these four days that the ship has been overcrowded with its 710 extra pa.s.sengers could not have been better handled. The stewards have worked with undying strength--although one was overcome with so much work and died and was put to his grave at sea.

"I have never seen or felt the benefits of such royal treatment. I have heard the captain criticised because he did not answer telegrams, but all that I can say is that he showed us every possible courtesy, and if we had been on our own boats, having paid our fares there, we could not have had better food or better accommodations.

"Men who had paid for the best staterooms on the Carpathia left their rooms so that we might have them. They fixed up beds in the smoking rooms, and mattresses everywhere. All the women who were rescued were given the best staterooms, which were surrendered by the regular pa.s.sengers. None of the regular pa.s.sengers grumbled because their trip to Europe was interrupted, nor did they complain that they were put to the inconvenience of receiving hundreds of strangers.

"The women on board the Carpathia were particularly kind. It shows that for every cruelty of nature there is a kindness, for every misfortune there is some goodness. The men and women took up collections on board for the rescued steerage pa.s.sengers. Mrs. Astor, I believe, contributed $2000, her check being cashed by the Carpathia. Altogether something like $15,000 was collected and all the women were provided with sufficient money to reach their destination after they were landed in New York."

Under any other circ.u.mstances the suffering would have been intolerable.

But the Good Samaritans on the Carpathia gave many women heart's-ease.

The spectacle on board the Carpathia on the return trip to New York at times was heartrending, while at other times those on board were quite cheerful.

CHAPTER XI. PREPARATIONS ON LAND TO RECEIVE THE SUFFERERS

POLICE ARRANGEMENTS--DONATIONS OF MONEY AND SUPPLIES--HOSPITALS AND AMBULANCES MADE READY--PRIVATE HOUSES THROWN OPEN--WAITING FOR THE CARPATHIA TO ARRIVE--THE SHIP SIGHTED!

NEW YORK CITY, touched to the heart by the great ocean calamity and desiring to do what it could to lighten the woes and relieve the sufferings of the pitiful little band of men and women rescued from the t.i.tanic, opened both its heart and its purse.

The most careful and systematic plans were made for the reception and transfer to homes, hotels or inst.i.tutions of the t.i.tanic's survivors.

Mayor Gaynor, with Police Commissioner Waldo, arranged to go down the bay on the police boat Patrol, to come up with the Carpathia and take charge of the police arrangements at the pier.

In antic.i.p.ation of the enormous number that would, for a variety of reasons, creditable or otherwise, surge about the Cunard pier at the coming of the Carpathia, Mayor Gaynor and the police commissioner had seen to it that the streets should be rigidly sentineled by continuous lines of policemen Under Inspector George McClusky, the man of most experience, perhaps, in handling large crowds, there were 200 men, including twelve mounted men and a number in citizens' clothes. For two blocks to the north, south and east of the docks lines were established through which none save those bearing pa.s.ses from the Government and the Cunard Line could penetrate.

With all arrangements made that experience or information could suggest, the authorities settled down to await the docking of the Carpathia. No word had come to either the White Star Line or the Cunard Line, they said, that any of the t.i.tanic's people had died on that ship or that bodies had been recovered from the sea, but in the afternoon Mayor Gaynor sent word to the Board of Coroners that it might be well for some of that body to meet the incoming ship. Coroners Feinberg and Holtzhauser with Coroner's Physician Weston arranged to go down the bay on the Patrol, while Coroner h.e.l.lenstein waited at the pier. An undertaker was notified to be ready if needed. Fortunately there was no such need.

EVERY POSSIBLE MEASURE THOUGHT OF

Every possible measure of relief for the survivors that could be thought of by officials of the city, of the Federal Government, by the heads of hospitals and the Red Cross and relief societies was arranged for.

The Munic.i.p.al Lodging House, which has accommodations for 700 persons, agreed to throw open its doors and furnish lodging and food to any of the survivors as long as they should need it. Commissioner of Charities Drummond did not know, of course, just how great the call would be for the services of his department. He went to the Cunard pier to direct his part of the work in person. Meanwhile he had twenty ambulances ready for instant movement on the city's pier at the foot of East Twenty-sixth Street. They were ready to take patients to the reception hospital connected with Bellevue or the Metropolitan Hospital on Blackwell's Island. Ambulances from the Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn were also there to do their share. All the other hospitals in the city stood ready to take the t.i.tanic's people and those that had ambulances promised to send them. The Charities ferryboat, Thomas S. Brennan, equipped as a hospital craft, lay off the department pier with nurses and physicians ready to be called to the Cunard pier on the other side of the city.

St. Vincent's Hospital had 120 beds ready, New York Hospital twelve, Bellevue and the reception hospital 120 and Flower Hospital twelve.

The House of Shelter maintained by the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society announced that it was able to care for at least fifty persons as long as might be necessary. The German Society of New York, the Irish Immigrant Society, the Italian Society, the Swedish Immigrant Society and the Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation were among the organizations that also offered to see that no needy survivor would go without shelter.

Mrs. W. A. Bastede, whose husband is a member of the staff of St. Luke's Hospital, offered to the White Star Line the use of the newly opened ward at St. Luke's, which will accommodate from thirty to sixty persons.

She said the hospital would send four ambulances with nurses and doctors and that she had collected clothing enough for fifty persons. The line accepted her offer and said that the hospital would be kept informed as to what was needed. A trustee of Bellevue also called at the White Star offices to offer ambulances. He said that five or six, with two or three doctors and nurses on each, would be sent to the pier if required.

Many other hospitals as well as individuals called at the mayor's office, expressing willingness to take in anybody that should be sent to them. A woman living in Fiftieth Street just off Fifth Avenue wished to put her home at the disposal of the survivors. D. H. Knott, of 102 Waverley Place, told the mayor that he could take care of 100 and give them both food and lodging at the Arlington, Holly and Earl Hotels.

Commissioner Drummond visited the City Hall and arranged with the mayor the plans for the relief to be extended directly by the city. Mr.

Drummond said that omnibuses would be provided to transfer pa.s.sengers from the ship to the Munic.i.p.al Lodging House.

MRS. VANDERBILT'S EFFORTS

Mrs. W. K. Vanderbilt, Jr., spent the day telephoning to her friends, asking them to let their automobiles be used to meet the Carpathia and take away those who needed surgical care. It was announced that as a result of Mrs. Vanderbilt's efforts 100 limousine automobiles and all the Fifth Avenue and Riverside Drive automobile buses would be at the Cunard pier.

Immigration Commissioner Williams said that he would be at the pier when the Carpathia came in. There was to be no inspection of immigrants at Ellis Island. Instead, the commissioner sent seven or eight inspectors to the pier to do their work there and he asked them to do it with the greatest possible speed and the least possible bother to the shipwrecked aliens. The immigrants who had no friends to meet them were to be provided for until their cases could be disposed of. Mr. Williams thought that some of them who had lost everything might have to be sent back to their homes. Those who were to be admitted to the United States were to be cared for by the Women's Relief Committee.

RED CROSS RELIEF

Robert W. de Forest, chairman of the Red Cross Relief Committee of the Charity Organization Society, after conferring with Mayor Gaynor, said that in addition to an arrangement that all funds received by the mayor should be paid to Jacob H. Schiff, the New York treasurer of the American Red Cross, the committee had decided that it could turn over all the immediate relief work to the Women's Relief Committee.

The Red Cross Committee announced that careful plans had been made to provide for every possible emergency.

The emergency committee received a telegram that Ernest P. Bicknell, director of the American Red Cross, was coming from Washington. The Red Cross Emergency Relief Committee was to have several representatives at the pier to look out for the pa.s.sengers on the Carpathia. Mr. Persons and Dr. Devine were to be there and it was planned to have others.

The Salvation Army offered, through the mayor's office, accommodation for thirty single men at the Industrial Home, 533 West Forty-eighth Street, and for twenty others at its hotel, 18 Chatham Square. The army's training school at 124 West Fourteenth Street was ready to take twenty or thirty survivors. R. H. Farley, head of the White Star Line's third cla.s.s department, said that the line would give all the steerage pa.s.sengers railroad tickets to their destination.

Mayor Gaynor estimated that more than 5000 persons could be accommodated in quarters offered through his orders. Most of these offers of course would have to be rejected. The mayor also said that Colonel Conley of the Sixty-ninth Regiment offered to turn out his regiment to police the pier, but it was thought that such service would be unnecessary.

CROWDS AT THE DOCKS

Long before dark on Thursday night a few people pa.s.sed the police lines and with a yellow card were allowed to go on the dock; but reports had been published that the Carpathia would not be in till midnight, and by 8 o'clock there were not more than two hundred people on the pier. In the next hour the crowd with pa.s.ses trebled in number. By 9 o'clock the pier held half as many as it could comfortably contain. The early crowd did not contain many women relatives of the survivors. Few nervous people could be seen, but here and there was a woman, usually supported by two male escorts, weeping softly to herself.

On the whole it was a frantic, grief-crazed crowd. Laborers rubbed shoulders with millionaires.

The relatives of the rich had taxicabs waiting outside the docks. The relatives of the poor went there on foot in the rain, ready to take their loved ones.

A special train was awaiting Mrs. Charles M. Hays, widow of the president of the Grand Trunk Railroad. A private car also waited Mrs.

George D. Widener.

EARLY ARRIVALS AT PIER

Among the first to arrive at the pier was a committee from the Stock Exchange, headed by R. H. Thomas, and composed of Charles k.n.o.blauch, B.

M. W. Baruch, Charles Holzderber and J. Carlisle. Mr. Thomas carried a long black box which contained $5000 in small bills, which was to be handed out to the needy steerage survivors of the t.i.tanic as they disembarked.

With the early arrivals at the pier were the relatives of Frederick White, who was not reported among the survivors, though Mrs. White was; Harry Mock, who came to look for a brother and sister; and Vincent Astor, who arrived in a limousine with William A. Dobbyn, Colonel Astor's secretary, and two doctors. The limousine was kept waiting outside to take Mrs. Astor to the Astor home on Fifth Avenue.

EIGHT LIMOUSINE CARS

The Waldorf-Astoria had sent over eight limousine car to convey to the hotel these survivors: