The Titanic Plan (61 page)

While Morgan appeared to be in good spirits after his congressional appearance, it was obvious that the ordeals he was going through exhausted him. He left for a trip to Egypt in late January. Within weeks, his health took a precipitous dive. Morgan began suffering fevers, nightmares, depression, and then paranoid delusions. From Egypt he traveled to Rome, where he was ensconced in his usual suite at the
Grand Hotel
. He would get no further. J. Pierpont Morgan died on March 31, 1913, at the age of 75. His funeral took place in New York two weeks later, on April 14 – one year to the day that the
Titanic
struck the iceberg. In his honor, the New York Stock Exchange remained closed until noon.

With Astor and Morgan both dead and his money woes growing, George Vanderbilt spent most of his time devising new schemes to raise funds for his first love,
Biltmore
. Nearly two years after the
Titanic’s
sinking, in March of 1914, Vanderbilt traveled to Washington D.C. where he entered a local hospital for an appendectomy. He had a heart attack after the operation and died at the age of 51. After his death, Vanderbilt’s widow, Edith, negotiated the sale of 80,000 acres of forest surrounding
Biltmore
to the federal government. With that land America’s first national forest was created.
Biltmore
continues to be a privately held family estate, but it is now open to the public as one of North Carolina’s most popular tourist destinations, operating as a hotel and available for tours, weddings, and special corporate events.

Morgan’s death brought uncertainty to Belle da Costa Greene and her status with the library; the decision to retain her was entirely up to Morgan’s son, Jack. Initially, he asked her to stay on for only a short time to take inventory and suggest works that might be sold. After a year, Belle and Jack decided to go forward together – she would have almost complete autonomy in shaping and growing the library and he would reap the benefits of being its titular head. The library became her life’s work. Belle remained at her position until her retirement in 1948 at age 65. By that time, she was recognized as the premier librarian in America.
Time
magazine featured her in an article in 1949 entitled
Belle of the Books
. Belle da Costa Greene died of cancer on May 10, 1950. The secret of her heritage and the fact that she was the daughter of one of the most prominent African-Americans of the late 19th Century never became known during her lifetime, only to be uncovered and revealed nearly 50 years after her death.

Madeleine Astor gave birth to a son in August, 1912, four months after the sinking of the
Titanic
. The boy was christened John Jacob Astor VI. In his will, John Astor left Madeleine a 5 million dollar trust fund and the right to live at the Astor mansions in New York and Newport, but only on the condition that she remain unmarried. In 1916 Madeleine married her former fiancée, William Dick, annulling her inheritance. After a tumultuous life in which she married and divorced twice after Astor’s death, Madeleine died of a heart attack at the age of 45 and was buried at New York’s
Trinity Church Cemetery
near the Astor family vault and her first husband, John.

The bulk of John Astor’s $100 million estate went to his son Vincent, who became an accomplished businessman and, to the surprise of everyone, a passionate humanitarian – an Astor with a social conscience. He sold the Astor slum dwellings and tenements and contributed a good portion of his vast fortune to philanthropic causes. He died a venerated man in 1959. His widow, socialite Brooke Astor, carried on his philanthropic work until her death in 2007.

John Astor’s grand hotel, the original
Waldorf-Astoria
, was sold in 1931 and torn down to make way for a new building at 33rd Street and Madison Avenue. Its developers had such lofty aspirations for the planned skyscraper, they named the building after the entire state of New York – the Empire State.

Emma Goldman continued to be at the forefront of radical politics, joining forces with Margaret Sanger to advocate for a woman’s right to contraceptives and then agitating against conscription during World War I. A new, assertive young agent at the Justice Department named J. Edgar Hoover led an effort to arrest her for conspiracy under the Espionage Act of 1917. She was convicted and served two years at the Missouri State Penitentiary. Upon her release she was deported to her native Russia – even though she had lived in America for 30 years and was, by marriage, a U.S. citizen. Emma quickly became disappointed by the repressive Bolshevik style of socialism and spoke out against it, upsetting the new Soviet regime. Disillusioned, she left Russia and continued to travel the world, lecturing, writing and promoting her anarchist ideals. She died on May 14, 1940 after suffering a series of strokes.

Like Emma Goldman, Big Bill Haywood actively opposed the draft that conscripted young Americans to fight in World War I. And like Emma, Haywood was arrested under the Espionage Act with 100 other activists. Because of his celebrity, he remained out of jail on bail during his trial, in which he was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in prison. After three years of appeals and facing the rest of his life behind bars, Haywood jumped bail and fled to the “workers paradise” of the Soviet Union. He initially became an advisor to Lenin, but with Lenin’s death and the ascension of Stalin, Haywood fell out of favor. He married a Russian woman, drank heavily and ended his days homesick and severely depressed. Bill Haywood died on May 18, 1928. Half of his ashes are buried in the cemetery at the Kremlin wall, the other half near the Haymarket Martyr’s Monument in Chicago, the most hallowed spot of the American workers movement.

Archie Butt was mourned and honored immediately after his death. Reports of his heroic efforts during the last hours of the
Titanic
, some accurate, some fictional, were featured in newspapers around the country. A memorial service took place in Augusta, Georgia on May 2. Over 1500 people attended. President Taft wept openly and had difficulty maintaining his composure. “If Archie could have selected a time to die he would have chosen the one God gave him,” Taft said, choking back tears. “Everybody who knew him called him Archie. He was loyal to my predecessor, Mr. Roosevelt, who selected him to be his military aide, and to me he had become as a son or a brother... Never did I know how much he was to me, until he was gone.”

A fountain honoring Archie and Frank Millet was installed near the White House grounds, on the Ellipse. There is a marker dedicated to him in
Arlington National Cemetery
, a bronze plaque in the
National Cathedral
, and a bridge,
The Butt Memorial Bridge
, in Augusta, that was dedicated by Taft in 1914.

The Roosevelt-Taft drama continued to play out through 1912. Roosevelt defeated Taft in 9 of the 12 state primaries the Republican Party held. But after a tremendous battle on the convention floor, the party bosses’ held sway and the nomination fell to Taft. Roosevelt was furious and, after much soul searching, bolted the Republicans to create a new party, The Progressive Party – nicknamed the “Bull Moose Party” after Roosevelt declared that he felt “as strong as a Bull Moose.”

The election of 1912, perhaps more than any other election in history, reflected the vast divisions in American society. There were four high profile candidates: the Republican incumbent, William Howard Taft; his predecessor, Theodore Roosevelt; the Democrat governor of New Jersey, Woodrow Wilson; and the perennial representative of the Socialist Party in America, Eugene Debs. Taft (23%) and Roosevelt (27%) split the vote that together would have given the Republicans another victory. Wilson emerged victorious with just 42% of the vote, and Debs polled the highest percentage a Socialist had ever received (6%).

Taft returned to his first love, the law, becoming a professor of constitutional law at Yale. In 1921, President Warren Harding nominated him to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court – the position he had coveted his entire life. He happily served on the court until 1930, when he retired only months before his death.

There were two major hearings regarding the
Titanic
disaster. The U.S. Senate hearing began April 19, 1912 – only 5 days after the sinking – at the
Waldorf-Astoria
. Senator Smith questioned the first witness, Bruce Ismay, with the ferocity of a prosecutor cross-examining a murderer. Next to give testimony were the chief officers who escaped alive, including most of the men who were in the ship’s wheelhouse at the time of the collision, including Second Officer Lightoller, Fourth Officer Boxhall, and the man who was at the wheel and steered the ship into the iceberg, Helmsman Robert Hichens.

The reports from both the American and British hearings cited “reckless and unnecessary speed through the iceberg region” as the primary cause of the disaster. The insurance settlement to the
White Star Line
for the
Titanic
was approximately $5 million, two-thirds of the ship’s construction cost.

Legends, stories, theories and mysteries about the
Titanic
and its sinking continued to grow with the passing decades. On September 1, 1985, after years of unsuccessful attempts, a joint American-French team, led by Dr. Robert Ballard and Jean-Louis Michel, located the wreckage of the
Titanic
more than two miles below the ocean’s surface. While the discovery of the
Titanic
was hailed as a spectacular event and gave rise to a new interest and lucrative merchandising industry (including a hit film), the physical presence of the ship did little to answer the puzzle of exactly how and why the
Titanic
came to lie in its watery grave.

There is no one left to tell the story first hand. Milvinna Dean, the last survivor of the
Titanic
, died at age 97 on May 31, 2009. It was the 98th anniversary of the launching of the
Titanic’s
hull from the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, where Bruce Ismay and J. Pierpont Morgan, along with thousands of other celebrants, watched two rockets filled with fireworks explode over the
Titanic’s
bow as the ship slipped into the water for the first time.

End

FINAL NOTE

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I
met Ron Freeman for the first time in July of 2005. A robust, energetic man, the first thing he said was that he had a “great idea” for a book that he had been researching and developing for almost a decade. His “great idea” turned out to be the focus of my life since that first meeting. Ron made insightful contributions and offered enthusiastic support as I delved deeper into the facts of the story and began shaping a narrative. Unfortunately, Ron never lived to see his vision fully realized. Cancer took his life in late 2006. THE TITANIC PLAN is dedicated to Ron, without whose passion, enthusiasm and “great idea,” this book would not exist. I would also like to thank the Freeman family for their understanding, support and patience throughout the writing process.

An endeavor such as writing a historical novel should only be undertaken by those whose sanity can legitimately be questioned, as it is a long, grueling, and often thankless process. I was fortunate to have wonderful people in my life who would reel me back to sanity when I strayed a little too far and who provided much needed support in body and soul. To those people I offer my deepest gratitude.