12/04/03

First-Class Tribute to Men of Titanic

Ken Ringle 

Washington Post

Eighteen years ago, two TV producers and two directors at NBC were having a drink when Jim Silman mentioned his latest discovery in Washington. It was a memorial to the men on the RMS Titanic who had surrendered their places in the liner's too few lifeboats so that women and children could be saved when the great ship went down on April 15, 1912.

The memorial, at a seldom-visited site on the Washington Channel near Fort McNair, had been erected in 1931 by "the women of America" in the spirit of "lest we forget," with a program of annual wreath-layings on the anniversary of the Titanic's sinking. But the women had forgotten, Silman said. Now nobody remembered those brave men. Hell, you could barely even find the memorial.

The anniversary of the Titanic's sinking was just days away. Maybe we should go down there, the men decided, and drink a toast to the stuff those guys were made of.

Sunday night the Men's Titanic Society, its numbers now swollen to 15, gathered once again on the anniversary of the ship's sinking to once again honor "those brave men."

Dressed in black tie (Titanic passenger Benjamin Guggenheim, realizing death was inevitable, had donned evening dress in order "to die like a gentleman"), they ate a ceremonial dinner mimicking the last consumed in the Titanic's first-class dining room. Then, in the early morning hours when the great ship foundered, they adjourned to the Washington waterfront with champagne to wistfully toast the sort of manhood Alan Alda wouldn't recognize.

"Chivalry, gallantry, bravery and grace -- in these times those ideals seem to have all but disappeared," said writer David Blomquist, raising his glass in the darkness to the floodlighted statue with its outstretched arms. "But by our remembrance they are born again. And in our lives they can live again."

If those words aren't the sort you hear much on radio or television these days, maybe that's part of the point. Most members of the MTS are TV producers or directors from more ambitious days in the broadcast news industry, and there's a faint wagon-circling quality to an organization that meets just once a year, is more social than historical and views its annual observance as more a private commemoration than a public event.

"I think that first year it was a kind of tongue-in-cheek thing for the four of us," said Don Elder, now a TV producer with the Federal Trade Commission. "The anniversary fell on an Easter Sunday, and we picked up some daffodils across from WRC and went down there in the afternoon with a glass of champagne."

But like so many others, they found that the closer they got to the Titanic story, the more it started to mean to them. The next few years their toast to "those brave men" occasioned a preliminary lunch at Hogate's or the Flagship. Soon they had added a few members and were contemplating a more authentic, time-appropriate wreath-laying at night. In dress that Benjamin Guggenheim might approve of.

"It has to do with so many of us being directors," mused Chris Cavas, an independent formerly with NBC. "It's become theater without an audience. We don't take it too seriously. Or rather, we take the sacrifice of the men on the Titanic seriously, but we don't take ourselves very seriously. Except at the memorial. Oh, who knows why we do this. Maybe you'll figure it out and tell us."

"All I know is I always leave feeling much better," said Bob Vitarelli, formerly of CBS. "And not just because of the wine."

Among the dozens of organizations around the world fixated on the metaphoric resonance of the Titanic as the last symbol of human extravagance and hubris before the global reckoning of World War I, the Men's Titanic Society may be remarkable for its relative lack of interest in Titanic trivia and politics.

No one at the meeting could be found who cared much one way or the other about the recent marketing of Titanic coal lumps dredged up from the ocean floor, or of purported plans to launch luxury cruise ships to witness the salvage of a portion of the great liner's hull.

"I happen to be a ship buff," said Cavas, "but that's not really what this organization is about. It's about courage and sacrifice and grace under pressure. And about who remembers and who forgets."

There were only 16 lifeboats. Three hundred sixteen women were saved, with 57 children. More than 1,300 men -- passengers and crew -- went down with the ship after a relatively orderly evacuation of "women and children first."

"Let us remember what they faced and what they gave in those last hours," Asman concluded.

After some brief picture-taking, they lined up in front of the memorial with their glasses and their wreath of red carnations and raised their individual toasts.

"To their dignity, grace and style, but most of all tonight we toast their courage. . . . To those brave men."

"Hear! Hear!"

"To the stewards, the men who stoked the boilers, the crew who shared that bravery as much as any man in a tuxedo. . . . To those brave men."

"Hear! Hear!"

"To the young and old, the rich and the poor, the ignorant and the learned, all who gave their lives nobly to save women and children. To those brave men."

"Hear! Hear!"

"In these days of air disasters, death is sudden. . . . They had time to think and choose. . . . To those brave men."

"Hear! Hear!"

Finally, Max Schindler of NBC raised his glass. "We'd like to apologize for the women who have forgotten," he said.

....

% of men saved 20% 
% of women saved 74% 
% of children saved 55%

...

Yep; a greater percentage of women was saved than even children.

Now, you might think that this was just a coincidence - a happenstance - but you would be wrong.

For example, just take a look at the table below to see how much concern there is throughout the internet for the welfare of men, women and children. You will surely notice that 'women' hog the agenda when it comes to the issue of human rights to an almost unbelievable degree - and this, despite the fact that men are more often than women the victims of just about anything that you can think of.

 (You can check the links yourself.)

One only has to look at the selfless way that men sacrificed their lives on the Titanic, where 'women and children first' was the order for escape and safety, to appreciate just how valuable the female gender was regarded by men in the recent past. This was the reality then, no matter what feminists will tell you about the 'oppression' and the 'low status' of women in those days.

Indeed, if women had been truly oppressed and seen to be of low status, then they would have been oppressed right back into their cabins while the men escaped into the lifeboats.

It is absolutely inconceivable that women would have been given priority for the lifeboats if their welfare was considered to be less important than the welfare of men.

The feminist-inspired myth that women were treated as second-class citizens in recent history is a downright lie - like so many other myths that feminists promulgate. 

And these myths - and there are hundreds of them - are designed with one aim in mind - to stir up hatred towards men.

This is what you will discover, if you look closely at what feminists say and do.

Titanic Memorial, Washington DC

The inscription reads ...

To The Brave Men Who Perished In The Wreck of The Titanic, April 15, 1912. 
They Gave Their Lives That Women and Children Might Be Saved. 

Erected By The Women Of America, 1931