University of Virginia Library

PERSONAL ANXIETY

Although Germany's and Berlin's direct interest in the passengers aboard the Titanic was less than that of London, New York or Paris, there was the utmost concern for their fate.

Ambassador Leishman and other members of the American Embassy were particularly interested in hearing about Major "Archie" Butt, who passed through Berlin, less than a month before the disaster, en route from Russia and the Far East. Vice-president John B. Thayer and family, of Philadelphia, were also in Berlin a fortnight ago and were guests of the American Consul General and Mrs. Thackara. A score of other lesser known passengers had recently stayed in Berlin hotels, and it was local friends or kinsmen of theirs who were in a state of distressing unrest over their fate.

Their anxiety was aggravated by the old-fogey methods of the German newspapers, which are invariably twelve or fifteen hours later than journals elsewhere in Europe on world news events. Although New York, London and Paris had the cruel truth with their morning papers on Tuesday, it was not until the middle of the forenoon that "extras" made the facts public in Berlin.

William T. Stead was well and favorably known in Germany, and his fate was keenly and particularly mourned. Germans have also noted that many Americans of direct Teutonic ancestry or origin were among the shining marks in the death list. Colonel John Jacob Astor is claimed as of German, extraction, as well as Isidor Straus, Benjamin

Guggenheim, Washington Roebling and Henry B. Harris. All of them had been in Germany frequently and had a wide circle of friends and acquaintances.

Only one well-known resident of Berlin was aboard the Titanic, Frau Antoinette Flegenheim, whose name appears among the rescued.