On the southwest corner of Washington, DC, at 4th and P Street, is one of the least visited National Monuments: the statue honoring the men of the titanic. The 13-foot-tall red granite statue stands silently alone with its arms outstretched in a pose that was imitated in the 1997 film. titanic by Kate Winslet standing on the bow of the fated ship.
It was just before midnight on April 14, 1912 that the titanic crashed into an iceberg in the frigid Atlantic. More than 1,500 people, mostly men, died that night. There was only one “duty” for the men of the titanic… The women and children first. So it was.
There was no action or momentum in Congress to recognize these heroic actions or honor the men who gave their lives. More than nine years later, the Women’s Titanic Memorial Association, led by Helen Herron Taft, widow of President Taft, erected the statue at the foot of New Hampshire Ave, NW in Rock Creek Park along the Potomac. The statue, designed by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, bore the inscription on the front that read:
TO THE BRAVE MEN
WHO PERISHED
IN THE SHIPWRECK
OF THE TITANIC
APRIL 14, 1912
THEY GAVE THEIR
LONG LIVE THAT WOMAN
AND KIDS
CAN BE SAVED
CHOSEN BY HIM
WOMEN OF AMERICA
The women gathered each year on the anniversary to lay flowers and give thanks and prayers to the spirit of these men. Today, the women no longer gather and there are no flowers or prayers of thanks. In 1966, the statue was put into storage for two years to make way for the Kennedy Center. When it was moved to its current location in 1968, it was done without ceremony. No one seemed to know or even care. Recently, the Titanic Men’s Society, made up of a handful of journalists, gathered at midnight on the anniversary to toast the memory of those brave men with champagne.
“Tonight, we pay tribute to some of the people on that legendary ship, people who acted gracefully under pressure, people who kept the lights on, people who kept the music playing, and people who gave up their seats so that the women and children could be saved. To those brave men! Listen, listen!
Is that kind of gallantry gone from our society? Did he begin to die with the death of King Arthur and Don Quioxte? Did RIP do with the Women’s Liberation Movement? The women’s movement definitely skewed the lines of gender obligation. Certainly, there is now a conflict in the traditional values of men and women. The “duty” of both has become the same.
Men are pulled in many directions, torn by the dichotomy of whether their actions will be perceived as gallant or condescending; gallant or condescending; gallant or sexist. There are different sets of rules that pertain to social situations, romantic situations, and the work environment. Simple actions like opening doors, carrying a heavy object, or stopping to fix a flat for a stranded woman become leaps of faith. The inherent danger is that if our young men are not taught the values of chivalry and gallantry, then they will not come to the aid of a woman in need. There is a subconscious knowledge, in the unsavory among us, that just around the corner or next door or nearby is a man who still believes in those traditional values. That is the silent protection that all women and children have without knowing it.
Somewhere in our nature we find comfort and closure when in the struggle between good and evil, truth and justice prevail. Our humanity knows its vulnerabilities. Is gallantry dead? I think more than not. When a statue erected by the Women of America in gratitude for the ideals of gallantry is abandoned by those same women; when a nation only temporarily cares about acts of bravery before moving on to the next celebrity scandal; when mothers and fathers stop instilling those values in their children; then we have all become diminished. What I do hope is that the memory of gallantry still lives somewhere within us and that it doesn’t take moments of extraordinary danger for it to breathe again. However, I wonder if a Titanic episode were to happen again today, how different would the results be?