Mr. Clemens describes the new club which he has started, called The Human Race—Another newspaper clipping concerning the wreck of the Berlin Ⓐtextual note.
Last week I started a club. The membership is limited to four men; its name is The Human RaceⒺexplanatory note. It will lunch at my house twice a month, and its business will be to discuss the rest of the race. It is privileged to examine, criticiseⒶtextual note, and discuss any matter that concerns the race, and do it freely. In the matter of subjects and manner of treatment, there are no limitations. The reason that certain tender subjects are avoided and forbidden in all other clubs is because those clubs consist of more than four members. Whenever the human race assembles to a number exceeding four, it cannot stand free speech. It is the self-admiringⒶtextual note boast of England and America that in those countries a man is free to talk out his opinions, let them be of what complexion they may, but this is one of the human race’s hypocrisies; there has never been any such thing as free speech in any country, and there is no such thing as free speech in England or America when more than four persons are present; and not then, except the four are all of one political and religious creed.Ⓐtextual note Whenever our club meets,Ⓐtextual note its first duty will be to synopsize the performances of mankind as reported in the newspapers for the previous fortnight, and then discuss such of these performances as shall require our most urgent attention. After this stern duty shall have been accomplished the talk may wander whither it shall choose. Of a necessity, man will come in for more censures than compliments, more reproach than praise; but he will also have done some things during the fortnight of a sort to earn our commendation, and we shall confer it upon him in full and hearty measure. When we come to discuss the Larchmont Ⓐtextual note and Berlin Ⓐtextual note disasters we shall not forget the sailor-man and his wife, and their new acquaintance—great and fine characters,Ⓐtextual note all three! neitherⒶtextual note shall we forget the [begin page 443] Dutch sailor-man and his three gallant satellites; nor the Dutch life-saving crew; nor the three heroic women on the wreck; nor the soldierly little servant maid. However, the little servant maid has not appeared prominentlyⒶtextual note in the world’s fifty thousand newspapers until this morning, therefore we will insert her prominentlyⒶtextual note here, in order that future generations may still be reading about her,Ⓐtextual note and caressing her name, and saying affectionate things ofⒶtextual note her, long after she shall haveⒶtextual note finished her pilgrimageⒶtextual note and gone to her restⒶtextual note. On the shore, as will be noted, another sort of representatives of the human race were present and diligently exposing their kind; but Minna Ripler offsets them, and makes them show pallid and sallow in the white light that streams from her generous little soul. With the following cabled narrative of this morning we will close the fearful incident of the wrecked steamer.
HORRORS OF BERLIN WRECK.
WAVES BEAT MEN AND WOMEN TO DEATH ON THE DECK.
Last Survivors Nearly Crazed by Cold and Terror—
Brave Servant, Who Stood by
Her Mistress, Shows Best Progress—Heartless Throng of Gay Sightseers.
Special Cable Despatch to The Sun.
London, Feb. 24.—With the rescue, already described in the despatches to The Sun, of the three women who after exactly forty-seven hours of indescribable suffering were the last to be taken alive from the wrecked steamer Berlin, the story of this terrible wreck comes to an end. Seldom has a sea tragedy, even when the loss of life has been greater, been so full of stories of poignant anguish.
Rescue or death as a rule comes with more merciful swiftness. The heroism of the rescued and the rescuers alike shows brighter in every descriptive line that comes from the Hook of Holland. Of the three women who were left until the last two remained rather than abandon the third, Mrs. Wenneberg, who was distraught from having seen her husband swept to death before her eyes and having her baby die in her arms, and who was also physically disabled by a dislocated arm.
She begged Miss Thiele and her sixteen-year-old maid, Minna Ripler, not to leave her, so Miss Thiele and the girl remained to give what comfort they could to their friend and mistress. The maidservant showed fine courage.
“Take the other two first; I am better off than they are and I don’t mind if I am not saved if they are,” said the girl, who alone of the three women was able to speak sensibly to the brave Dutchman Sperling when he reached them.
All three, however, were saved. Their lips were cut and bleeding, their faces frostbitten and bruised and their clothes almost torn from their bodies. There seemed but little life in them. Even now Mrs. Wenneberg, realizing the loss of her husband and child, seems not to care whether she lives or dies. Miss ThieleⒶtextual note has relapsed into delirium, reiterating:
“The sea is coming over us.”
The little maidservant, however, is recovering. She has seen some of her relatives for a few minutes, and given a short account of her last hours on the wreck. She said: “At the end we did not want to live; only to die. Hope had gone completely.”
[begin page 444]From the words of other survivors, who are now able to give some account of what they saw and felt, it is possible to picture the horror of those awful hours. They describe how men and women were dashed up and down the deck like pieces of cork. Some were caught in the tackle and hammered to a pulp. The women, some of whom were subsequently saved, were knocked all over the deck by the big seas, sometimes being carried forward, and again pitched with a thud against the woodwork. Within a few minutes several were stripped of their clothes and their naked forms were lashed by the waves.
One passenger, a Liverpool man of the name of Young, had a quarrel with a Frenchman in the face of death. He got to a part of the deck where the best shelter was afforded, and the Frenchman called out, asking him to give place for a lady. Young moved and the Frenchman took his place. Violent words followed, ending with Young slapping the Frenchman’s face and threatening to throw him overboard.
A woman describes her hunger as being so intense that she was obliged to have something in her mouth. So she ate some paper and for drink tried to catch the sleet, snow and raindrops.
One of the stewards tells how the German ladies kept together in a little knot, taking quarter hour turns in sitting in each other’s laps for warmth. He saw one old man washed overboard. Then a great wave dashed him back on deck, head first, and the top of his skull was literally sliced off. Some of the people were killed by wreckage that was carried back by the waves, striking like great spears.
Turning from the tale of suffering and heroism, which has not yet and never will be adequately told, it is somewhat of a shock to realize how throughout the day its scenes were converted into what might have been expected if a national holiday were being celebrated at the Hook of Holland. Every five minutes excursions trains arrived at the station discharging hundreds of sightseers.
The happy, laughing crowd for the most part were bent on enjoyment. All kinds of people arrived at the spot, which, as a rule, is a mere stage of arrival or departure. Even beggars arrived, the first for many years, who thought it a profitable adventure. The demand for refreshments was enormous and prices were doubled.
The office of the Great Eastern Railway Company was as thickly besieged as if lottery tickets were being sold. It was here that permits were given for admission to the temporary morgue. Nearly all the arrivals were armed with telescopes or racing glasses. Ladies brought opera glasses.
Helter skelter they made for the breakwater, which all day was a black ribbon of humanity. They ventured as far as possible along the slippery surface. Beyond was the storm swept area, with the dismembered wreck standing out in eloquent barrenness. Others, having secured permits, made a mad rush to the morgue, outside of which there was a queue like that at a theatre.
To-day the morgue was beautiful with flowers, including a large wreath from Queen Wilhelmina and her husband, Prince HenryⒺexplanatory note. The walls were hung with black drapery. The strictest precautions were taken to prevent the incursion of the curious to the hotel, where the survivors are being cared for, and the crowds, despairing of any gratification of their curiosity there, proceeded to the jetty, where a steamboat left every half hour for the scene of the wreck.
Then, everything having been “done,” there were mad rushes back for the trains.
I started a club . . . its name is The Human Race] On 6 February 1907 Clemens composed an invitation to William Dean Howells, George Harvey, and Finley Peter Dunne, summoning them to the first meeting of The Human Race on 15 February (CtHMTH). The club’s full name was “The God Damned Human Race,” as is shown by Clemens’s inscription, on 7 February, of a copy of Christian Science to Isabel Lyon in her capacity as “Hon. Sec. G. D. H. R.” (NN-BGC).
Queen Wilhelmina and her husband, Prince Henry] Wilhelmina (1880–1962), daughter of King William III of the Netherlands, was married to Prince Henry of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1876–1934). She reigned from 1890 (at first under a regency) until she abdicated in 1948.
Source documents.
Sun Facsimile of the New York Sun (the original clipping that Hobby transcribed is now lost), 25 February 1907, 2: ‘HORRORS OF . . . the trains.’ (443.11–444.47).TS1 Typescript carbon (the ribbon copy is lost), leaves numbered 1839–44, made from Hobby’s notes and the Sun and revised.
TS1 (a carbon copy) was made by Hobby from her notes and the article in the New York Sun, and revised by Clemens. For the article text we follow a facsimile of the newspaper printing.