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“Unhappily, it depends upon the attitude of a single submarine commander whether America will or will not declare war.”
And there was this: a report that plans had been completed for a ceremony to dedicate a memorial fountain to Jack Phillips, wireless operator aboard the Titanic, and to eight other Marconi operators likewise killed in maritime disasters. The article noted, “Space is left for the addition of other names in the future.”
(One popular American author who turned out a bestseller every year was named, oddly enough, Winston Churchill.)
I have a book by him on my to-read list, The Crisis.
He was born in St. Louis!
“You don’t pay much attention to the construction of ships?” “No, as long as they float; if they sink, I get out.”
Martin Niemöller.
"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me."
--Martin Niemöller after World War II. Other versions exist.
Vanderbilt was also a member of what a Minnesota newspaper called the “Just Missed It” club, a fortunate group whose roster included Theodore Dreiser, Guglielmo Marconi, and J. P. Morgan, all of whom had planned to sail on the Titanic but for one reason or another had changed their minds.
One of those who canceled citing illness was Lady Cosmo Duff-Gordon, a fashion designer who had survived the sinking of the Titanic.
“It was a beautiful sight.”
Mothers lost children and would be left forever to imagine their final moments or to wonder if somehow, miraculously, their babies had actually been saved and were now in the care of another. Norah Bretherton, the Los Angeles woman who had handed her Betty to a stranger, was spared that brand of haunting. Betty was Body No. 156. Her mother buried her in the graveyard at the Ursuline Convent in Cork. Bretherton’s son survived.
When the thing really comes, God gives to each the help he needs to live or to die.”
The Hesperian was clearly outbound, on its way to New York, and thus unlikely to be carrying munitions or other contraband. Among its cargo was the corpse of a Lusitania victim, Frances Stephens,
