By Cliff Dunn
Photo: PRESIDENT TAFT (LEFT), ARCHIBALD BUTT (RIGHT)
This weekend, Leonardo Di Caprio fans—not all of them teenage girls—and history buffs alike will mark the centennial anniversary of one of the most widely-known and depicted disasters in modern history, the sinking of RMS Titanic.
I enjoyed the 1997 James Cameron film: I thought that it succeeded in capturing the gargantuan size of the “unsinkable” ocean liner and was able to convey that sense of dread and insignificance that must have been experienced in their final minutes by those unfortunate 1,514 souls who lost their lives in the disaster. The movie also did an admirable job of depicting the Edwardian Era conspicuous consumption that was represented by the ship’s luxurious amenities (and by the presence on the passenger list of such Gilded Age titans as J.J. Astor, Benjamin Guggenheim, and Macy’s owner Isidor Straus, all of whom died in the tragedy).
Although he cast Academy Award winner Kathy Bates in the role of the “Unsinkable” Molly Brown, a millionaire women’s rights advocate and one of that era’s most colorful figures, Cameron did not fill the role of two of the most interesting period luminaries aboard the Titanic: One of these was Maj. Archibald Butt, who served as a presidential aide in a capacity that would roughly equate to National Security Advisor in the job’s modern sense. The other was Butt’s longtime partner, artist Francis (“Frank”) Millet.
Butt, who was 47 years old when the Titanic sank, had been a news correspondent before embarking upon a military career that took him to war zones in Cuba and the Philippines. His military service brought him to the attention of President Theodore Roosevelt, who promoted Butt to the Army rank of major and assigned him as military adviser and aide-de-camp, a position to which he was reappointed by Roosevelt’s successor, President William Howard Taft. Butt and Millet—who was 19 years older than his partner—had gone to Europe for some R&R after a bitter public political split between Roosevelt and Taft began to take its toll on the loyal aide.
As the ocean liner began its slow death in the early hours of April 15, 1912, Butt was witnessed escorting female passengers to the lifeboats and conducting himself— as described by one woman whose life he saved—with gentlemanly care and concern for the safety of all around him.
When the final lifeboat was adrift, the Spanish American War veteran was seen standing on deck. No one recalled seeing Millet at the end (although it was Millet’s remains and not Butt’s that were recovered after the ship sank).
Millet, a Harvard graduate who had served as a surgical assistant for the Union during the Civil War and was an international war correspondent before becoming a painter, was described by his friend, novelist Henry James, as “magnificent,” “manly,” and “irradiating beautiful gallantry,” and by his partner, Butt, as “Millet, my artist friend who lives with me.” The couple lived together in a relationship that was more-or-less an open secret, holding famous Washington, DC parties that were attended by cabinet members, Supreme Court justices, military leaders, ambassadors, and President Taft himself. “People come early to my house and always stay late and seem merry while they are here,” wrote Butt after one successful party.
This being just a few years after the sexual hypocrisy of the Victorian Age, Butt and Millet’s “friendship” was viewed through the prism of an early version of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, with Washington society accepting the men’s mutual affection while not digging too deeply into the details. The two men left together in March 1912, bound for Europe on board the steamship Berlin. They returned to America together, as well, and although the passenger list records that they had separate cabins on the Titanic, it probably had something to do with the luggage and volume of gifts and accessories they had acquired while overseas: Butt alone boarded the ship with seven steamer trunks filled with clothes and items he had purchased in Europe. 1912 or 2012: some things never change.
President Taft was said to weep when he learned of Butt’s death, and he joined most of official Washington in grieving for his adjutant. Wrote one period journalist: “The name of Maj. Archie Butt, once synonymous of laughter and jest, now symbolic of heroism, was repeated while eyes blurred and voices became queerly strained.”
Several monuments and memorials were built in memory of Maj. Archibald Butt. One is a plaque in the Washington National Cathedral (which, through a quirk of modern architecture, is located upon a wall in the gift shop). Another is a memorial fountain erected in the Ellipsis area of the President’s Park in Washington, DC named after both men, the Butt-Millet Fountain.
Because Butt’s remains were lost at sea, a cenotaph (or empty tomb) was built in Arlington National Cemetery to honor the late presidential aide. A memorial service was held in the Butt family home in Georgia on May 2, 1912. It was attended by 1,500 mourners, including President Taft, who said:
“If Archie could have selected a time to die, he would have chosen the one God gave him. His life was spent in self– sacrifice, serving others. His forgetfulness of self had become a part of his nature. Everybody who knew him called him ‘Archie.’ I couldn’t prepare anything in advance to say here. I tried, but couldn’t. He was too near me. He was loyal to my predecessor, Mr. Roosevelt, who selected him to be military aide, and to me he had become as a son or a brother.”
There’s a film I would love to watch.
