New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915: April-September, 1915Various
History
New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915: April-September, 1915
Various
World War, 1914-1918
This steward told me he had seen Mr. Vanderbilt on the Lusitania's deck,
shortly after the ship was struck, with a lifebelt about his body. When
the ship gave every indication that it would sink within a few minutes,
the steward said, Mr. Vanderbilt took off his lifebelt and gave it to a
woman who passed him on the deck, trembling with fear of the fate she
expected to meet. The steward said Mr. Vanderbilt turned back, as though
to look for another belt, and he saw him no more.
_Telling of his last moments on the ship and his last sight of Mr.
Vanderbilt, Mr. Slidell said:_
I saw Alfred G. Vanderbilt only a few minutes before I left the ship. He
was standing with a lifebelt in his hand. A woman came up to him, and I
saw him place the belt around the woman. He had none for himself, and I
know that he could not swim.
Only the day before we had been talking of a day and a dawn some years
ago when we went down the bay at New York in his yacht and waited to
welcome and dip our flag to the Lusitania on her maiden voyage. We saw
the first and last of her. Vanderbilt, who had given largely to the Red
Cross, was returning to England in order to offer a fleet of wagons and
himself as driver to the Red Cross Society, for he said he felt every
day that he was not doing enough.
KLEIN AND HUBBARD LOST.
_Oliver O. Bernard, scenic artist of Covent Garden, said:_
Only one or two of the shining marks which disasters at sea seem
invariably to involve have lived to tell the Lusitania's tale.
Vanderbilt, the sportsman, is gone. Genial Charles Klein, the
playwright, is gone. That erratic American literary genius, Elbert
Hubbard, is gone, and with him a wife to whom he seemed particularly
devoted. And Charles Frohman is gone.
Frohman's was the only body I could recognize in the Queenstown
mortuary, and perhaps it will interest his many friends in London and
New York to know that the famous manager's face in death gives
uncommonly convincing evidence that he died without a struggle. It wears
a serenely peaceful look.
Frohman must have found it more difficult for him to take his place in a
lifeboat than any other man on the ship. He was quite lame, and hobbled
about on deck laboriously with a heavy cane. He seldom came to the
general dining saloon, either out of sensitiveness or because of
distress caused by his leg.
I last saw Alfred G. Vanderbilt standing at the port entrance to the
grand saloon. He stood there the personification of sportsmanlike
coolness. In his right hand was grasped what looked to me like a large
purple leather jewel case. It may have belonged to Lady Mackworth, as
Mr. Vanderbilt had been much in company of the Thomas party during the
trip, and evidently had volunteered to do Lady Mackworth the service of
saving her gems for her. Mr. Vanderbilt was absolutely unperturbed. In
my eyes, he was the figure of a gentleman waiting unconcernedly for a
train. He had on a dark striped suit, and was without cap or other head
covering.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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