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Time Magazine
29-05-2025
- General
- Time Magazine
Unfettered Capitalism Nearly Wiped Out America's Wild Animals Once. It Just May Again
Here is an inconvenient truth: our forebears used the unrestrained free market to effect a staggering destruction of continental wildlife, an unforgivable crime against evolution in America. They believed all life was created by a deity, and therefore extinction was impossible. Biblical ideas about the utility of animals encouraged them to think of creatures like beavers, sea otters, bison, passenger pigeons, and many others as simple market commodities, without value except for the money they might bring. The end result was myopic, almost casual obliteration of one ancient species after another. As a 2018 article in the National Academy of Sciences put it, since the start of the colonial age, here and elsewhere, we have destroyed half a million years of Earth's genetics, a near 'worst case scenario.' Enacting that history, many Americans enriched themselves. Southerners who slaughtered snowy egrets on their nests for fashion industry feathers, westerners who shot down entire bison herds for tongues and hide leather, 'wolfers' who poisoned predators on behalf of the livestock industry—for their efforts, many of them joined the middle class. In a single year, market hunters in Bozeman, Mont. shipped out the body parts of about 7,700 elk, 22,000 deer, 12,000 pronghorns, 200 bighorn sheep, 1,680 wolves, 520 coyotes, and 225 bears at the time. It was a haul of wild animal parts that netted them $1.6 million in today's dollars. They told Yellowstone's superintendent that so long as the government stood aside, they planned to continue doing exactly as they wished. To be sure, the unrestrained freedom to destroy the country's wild legacy for money bought many of these people houses, islands, and ranches. John Jacob Astor, one of the country's first millionaires, became a famous and wealthy celebrity through the near eradication of beavers and otters and the vital, ancient ecologies they created. During the years after the Civil War, America embraced an economic philosophy called laissez-faire, celebrating the notion that government should stand aside and let capitalism work. Both political parties believed in it so ardently that the federal government failed to act to save bison (now our National Mammal) or passenger pigeons, both among America's most numerous and iconic species. In the 1870s, Congress twice considered bills to make the non-Native market hunt for female bison illegal. Neither attempt became law. The first successful federal law the U.S. established to halt the slaughter of wildlife was place-specific when Congress created the country's first national park, Yellowstone, and banned hunting in the area. In an environment so regulation-free, America's bison population plunged from roughly 30 million in 1800 to fewer than 10 million in 1865. At that point, railroad transport and new uses for bison leather ramped up a post-war, industrial level of animal destruction. In a too-late effort to halt the mayhem, General Philip Sheridan enlisted the departments of War, Interior, and Indian Affairs to drive market hunters off Indian lands. But few animals of any kind were left to save. In 1885, an estimate of 1,000 bison remained alive in the West, so few it was a scramble to preserve enough genetic diversity to save the species at all. When Congress in 1894 imposed stiff fines for killing bison and other animals in Yellowstone, Sheridan's troops were the only protectors a weak government could muster. Then there's the pigeon story. Of all the grim capitalist crimes against American animals (and there is competition), among them are the 1840s extinction of our northern hemisphere penguin, the great auk, and an 1886 sale in London of the skins of 400,000 American hummingbirds. But the passenger pigeon's fate occupies a special place on the shelf of historical horrors. Having thrived on the continent for 15 million years, pigeons couldn't survive a mere three centuries of the free market. By 1914, they were entirely erased. Extinction is one of those non-ideological 'objective facts' and 'truths' it's hard to deny. While I'd love to see passenger pigeons de-extincted, that wouldn't change the historical lesson. Until Congress passed a mild federal law called the Lacey Act in 1900, which banned interstate shipment of some market-killed animals and their body parts, America never stepped up to rein in capitalism's assault on the natural world. We allowed the Singer Sewing Machine company to log down the last habitat with a verified ivory-billed woodpecker population as late as the 1940s! Destroying species for money was an American freedom. Some argued it was part of our 'franchise.' In truth, it was the best example of what we mean now when we say something is 'Like the Wild West,' a place where human nature goes entirely unrestrained. Economists have long used the fate of America's bison and pigeons in particular to argue that, sans effective regulation, market forces inevitably diminish nature's diversity. The truth is, if you're an American, an often unacknowledged result of our past of unfettered capitalism is to diminish the world you get to experience. As early as the 1850s, Henry David Thoreau lamented all the species already gone from his time: 'I should not like to think some demigod had come before me and picked out some of the best of the stars. I wish to know an entire heaven and an entire earth.' The past does not remain in the past for us, either. A great many charismatic creatures are missing from 21st-century America because of the actions of our ancestors. Yet as part of the Trump administration's blizzard of executive orders and business-friendly policies, in March, Lee Zeldin, the new administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, reframed the purpose of his agency, announcing 'the largest deregulatory announcement in U.S. history.' President Trump followed that with an executive order, titled Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History, that accused historians of 'a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation's history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.' Both these signal an effort to reframe our national story, emphasizing a return to the kind of unbridled economic freedom that once characterized the country's history, and coincidentally compromised many of America's most dramatic wild spectacles. Much of this history, however, is in danger of being scrubbed, canceled, or banned from libraries. If that were to happen, it would leave future generations perplexed about why a half-century ago the U.S. needed to pass legislation like the Endangered Species Act in 1973. It would also create a public consciousness that is unable to understand our country's long practice of extending rights to those who lack them. While a new, politicized version of history is bound to deny it, expanding the circle of moral inclusion and compassion has long characterized Americans as a people. It is who we are. Is this story ideological? I don't think so. It calls on an undeniable history to point out how nature will fare when governments are missing in action with respect to environmental regulation. It's an American story that urges us to be very suspicious of a future of unregulated capitalism. The purpose of history, after all, is not to make some look good and others bad. Its purpose is, or should be, to let us consult the past so we can create the future we want.
Yahoo
14-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
12 famous people who died on the Titanic — and 11 who survived
The Titanic, billed as an unsinkable ship, hit an iceberg and sank on April 15, 1912. More than 1,500 people died in the maritime disaster, while about 700 survived. Among the victims was one of the world's richest men, John Jacob Astor. As a new luxury ocean liner, the Titanic attracted some of the wealthiest and most prominent members of American society. The ship sank off the coast of Newfoundland on its maiden voyage to New York City 113 years ago, in the early hours of April 15, 1912. Some of its most famous passengers were a top fashion designer, one of the wealthiest men in the world, and a British countess. Most of the well-known people on board were first-class passengers. Researcher Chuck Anesi found that 97.22% of the 144 female first-class passengers were rescued, while only 32.57% of their 175 male counterparts were saved. Ultimately, he found that male second-class passengers fared the worst in terms of survival, with only 14 out of 168 making it out alive. The total survival rate for women was 74%, while the male survival rate was 20%, his analysis found. Here are 12 of the most famous victims of the Titanic disaster, and 11 prominent people who survived. DIED: John Jacob Astor, millionaire John Jacob Astor, 48, was a member of the prominent Astor family and helped build the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. He was also an inventor, a science-fiction novelist, and a veteran of the Spanish-American War. He was traveling with his wife, Madeleine, in Europe when she became pregnant. To ensure the child would be born in the US, the couple booked a trip home on the Titanic. The New York Times reported that Astor was last seen smoking a cigarette on the deck. His wife, who was 30 years his junior, survived the disaster. He had a fortune worth somewhere between $90 and $150 million, CNBC reported, when he boarded the fateful ship, or between $2.9 and $4.8 billion in today's dollars when adjusted for inflation. He was the richest passenger on board the Titanic. SURVIVED: Archibald Gracie IV, historian and author Gracie achieved prominence in the wake of the Titanic disaster because of his meticulous and detailed account of the tragedy. The historian and Alabama native, who had written a book on the American Civil War's Battle of Chickamauga, was on the Titanic, returning from a European vacation. He was woken up when the ship crashed into an iceberg. After escorting several women to the lifeboats, Gracie helped other passengers evacuate the ship. When the ship sank, Gracie surfaced beside an overturned lifeboat. He managed to climb on top with other men, and they spent much of the night balanced there. The historian was one of the first Titanic survivors to die after being rescued, on December 4, 1912, after a prolonged illness. He was 54. The New York Times reported at the time that Gracie's final words were "We must get them all in the boats," according to Alabama News Center. DIED: W. T. Stead, investigative journalist Stead was a highly influential editor who, in an uncanny twist, may have foreseen his death on the Titanic. As the editor of The Pall Mall Gazette, the newspaperman published an explosive and controversial investigative series about child prostitution, Britannica reported. He is credited with helping to invent investigative journalism. A devoted spiritualist, Stead also established a magazine dedicated to the supernatural and a psychic service known as Julia's Bureau. He also wrote a fictional story in 1886 that resembled the real-life events of the Titanic in unsettling ways. "How the Mail Steamer Went Down in Mid Atlantic by a Survivor" tells a story of an ocean liner that sinks in the Atlantic. In the story, only 200 passengers and crew members of the original 700 people on board survive the disaster because of a lifeboat shortage. His website reported that Stead didn't hang around on deck as the Titanic sank. Instead, he reportedly spent his final hours reading in the first-class smoking room. He was 62 years old. SURVIVED: Noël Leslie, countess and philanthropist Leslie, the Countess of Rothes, was one of the Titanic's most famous passengers. A popular figure in London society, Leslie became a countess after marrying Norman Evelyn Leslie, the Earl of Rothes, in 1900. Leslie and her cousin Gladys Cherry booked a trip on the Titanic. When Leslie made it into a lifeboat, she reportedly found it understaffed and volunteered to help row it away from the sinking ship. The countess reportedly helped take care of her fellow survivors on board the Carpathia and was dubbed "the plucky little countess" in the press. After surviving the Titanic disaster, Leslie became a prominent philanthropist and worked as a nurse during World War I. DIED: Thomas Andrews, architect of the Titanic Andrews was no ordinary Titanic victim. The longtime Harland & Wolff employee designed the ship itself. He traveled on the Titanic's maiden voyage to observe the ship and make recommendations on areas where the ship could be improved. When an iceberg damaged the Titanic's hull and he learned that five of its watertight compartments had holes in them, Andrews immediately knew the ship was going to sink, the BBC reported. The 39-year-old shipbuilder then began helping women and children into the lifeboats. He made no attempt to exit the ship and was last seen in the first-class smoking room not wearing a lifebelt. SURVIVED: Margaret Brown, socialite Brown, a socialite and philanthropist, is best known for surviving the Titanic disaster. Biography reported that she was born in Missouri to Irish immigrants. She married James Joseph Brown in New York City. The couple became fabulously wealthy when Brown's mining business struck ore. Margaret Brown became a well-known socialite with a penchant for dramatic hats and social activism on behalf of women and children. She was returning from a voyage around Europe when she decided to book a trip on the Titanic. During the disaster, she reportedly helped row the lifeboat and demanded that the group of survivors row back to the spot where the ship went down to look for survivors. This earned her the nickname "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" — though her friends and family reportedly called her Maggie. Brown's life was immortalized in the Broadway musical "The Unsinkable Molly Brown," which was later adapted into a Hollywood film. Kathy Bates also portrayed her in the award-winning film "Titanic." DIED: John Thayer, railroad executive Thayer was well known in 1912 as both a former cricket player and a Pennsylvania Railroad Co. executive. The railroad company vice president was traveling on the Titanic with his wife and son following a trip to Berlin. After the ship struck an iceberg, Thayer made certain that his wife and their maid boarded a lifeboat. According to Encyclopedia Titanic, Gracie's account of the events reported seeing Thayer looking "pale and determined" on deck before the ship sank. Thayer's body was never found. His son survived by diving into the water and swimming to an overturned lifeboat. SURVIVED: J. Bruce Ismay, White Star Line executive Ismay may have survived the sinking of the Titanic, but he never lived down the public scorn he received in the wake of the disaster. The White Star Line managing director was the highest-ranking company official to survive the disaster. He boarded a lifeboat 20 minutes before the ship sank into the Atlantic. He later said he turned away as the Titanic slipped beneath the surface of the water, saying, "I did not wish to see her go down. I am glad I did not," The Telegraph reported. Ismay received a lot of flak for boarding a lifeboat before other passengers. He was ostracized in society and ultimately resigned from his post and kept a low profile. The BBC reported in 2012 that Ismay's family said the press unfairly maligned him and that he never fully recovered from the ordeal. DIED: Isidor Straus, co-owner of Macy's, and his wife, Ida Isidor and Ida Straus first met after the Civil War when a penniless Straus moved to New York City. Isidor and his brother later acquired Macy's, and he eventually became a powerful businessman and a member of the US House of Representatives. Straus was reportedly offered a spot on a lifeboat while the ship was sinking. He declined, saying he wouldn't board a raft until every woman and child had gotten off the ship. Ida then refused to leave her husband. When her husband urged her to evacuate the ship, she reportedly responded, "I will not be separated from my husband. As we have lived, so will we die, together." She then ordered her maid to board a lifeboat and gave her a mink coat, quipping that she wouldn't need the garment anymore. The couple was last seen together on the deck of the Titanic. Isidor's body was recovered from the ocean, but Ida was never found. Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York, memorialized Isidor and Ida Straus with a cenotaph bearing a line from the "Song of Solomon." "Many waters cannot quench love — neither can the floods drown it," it reads. SURVIVED: Cosmo and Lucy Duff-Gordon, landowner and fashion designer Cosmo Duff-Gordon and his wife, Lady Lucy Duff-Gordon, were two of the most prominent passengers on board the Titanic. Cosmo Duff-Gordon was a major landowner and society figure in the UK known for his fencing skills. His wife was a top British fashion designer whose innovations included the precursor to the modern-day fashion show. The Duff-Gordons booked a trip on the Titanic to travel to New York City on business. When disaster struck, they both escaped on the first lifeboat that embarked off the ship. Vogue reported that Lady Duff-Gordon described the scene on the Titanic, saying, "Everyone seemed to be rushing for that boat. A few men who crowded in were turned back at the point of Capt. Smith's revolver, and several of them were felled before order was restored. I recall being pushed towards one of the boats and being helped in." In the wake of the tragedy, Cosmo Duff-Gordon received criticism for not adhering to the ship's "women and children first" evacuation policy. A few years later, in 1915, Lady Duff-Gordon escaped death again after canceling her voyage on the doomed Lusitania. DIED: Benjamin Guggenheim, mining magnate Guggenheim was a member of the powerful Guggenheim family, which earned its fortune in the mining industry. He was traveling on the ship with his mistress, Léontine Aubart, and staffers. Guggenheim was initially optimistic about the ship's prospects, telling his maid: "We will soon see each other again. It's just a repair. Tomorrow the Titanic will go on again," according to "Life Titanic: The Tragedy That Shook the World," Britannica reported that Guggenheim, whose body was never recovered, dressed in his best evening attire and quipped, "We've dressed up in our best and are prepared to go down like gentlemen." He later passed on a message for his estranged wife to a Titanic survivor. "If anything should happen to me, tell my wife in New York that I've done my best in doing my duty," he said. SURVIVED: Dorothy Gibson, actor After getting her start as a young girl in vaudeville, Gibson became a model and launched a career as a silent film star. She was 22 years old when she booked a passage on the Titanic. Gibson reportedly heard the ship crash into an iceberg. She grabbed her mother, and together they escaped the ship on the first lifeboat. "I will never forget the terrible cry that rang out from people who were thrown into the sea and others who were afraid for their loved ones," Gibson told a newspaper reporter shortly after the disaster, The History Press reported. Gibson subsequently appeared as herself in a now-lost 1912 film about her experience called "Saved From the Titanic." The History Press reported that Gibson sported the same clothes in the film as she had on during the disaster. Gibson quit acting shortly afterward. After that, Gibson's life is a bit cloudy. Her affair with a prominent film producer was a scandal in America and prompted Gibson to move to Paris. As World War II began, there were allegations that she was a Nazi sympathizer — the veracity of those rumors is unclear. Later, while living in Italy in the 1940s, the former actor was imprisoned by fascists. She survived prison but died shortly after the war ended. DIED: George Dennick Wick, steel magnate The industrialist was the founding president of Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co., a now-defunct steel-manufacturing business. Wick had been traveling in Europe to improve his health. Unfortunately, he booked a trip on the Titanic to return to the US. Encyclopedia Titanica reported that he was last seen on the ship's deck waving to his wife, daughter, cousin, and aunt as they escaped on a lifeboat. SURVIVED: Elsie Bowerman, lawyer Bowerman survived the sinking of the Titanic and went on to have an extraordinary career. Biography reported that the British suffragette and Cambridge graduate booked a trip on the ocean liner with her mother to visit friends living in America and Canada. They both survived the catastrophe by getting on the same lifeboat as Margaret Brown. When WWI broke out, Bowerman served in a traveling hospital unit that moved across Europe. Later, in 1923, she was admitted to the bar and became the first woman barrister to practice in the Old Bailey, the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales. Biography said that later in life, Bowerman headed the establishment of the UN's Commission on the Status of Women. DIED: Charles Melville Hays, railroad executive Hays started in the railway business as a teenage clerk. He went on to become the president of the Grand Trunk Railway, which operated in Canada and the Northeastern US. The American railway magnate may have had some reservations about embarking on the Titanic's maiden voyage. Encyclopedia Titanica reported that he told his companions that the trend toward large boats might end in tragedy. Hays' wife, Clara, and their daughter, Orian, were evacuated from the ship on lifeboats. After Charles and Clara were separated, she called out to every other lifeboat they came across, hoping that he had made it on one of them. But Hays had died when the Titanic sank — his body was later recovered and buried in Montreal. SURVIVED: Helen Churchill Candee, author An author and a single mother, Candee wrote the early feminist work "How Women May Earn a Living" in 1900. The American writer traveled extensively and befriended several prominent people, including Theodore Roosevelt and William Jennings Bryan. She booked a passage on the Titanic to return to the US to care for her son who'd been injured. The writer teamed up with Margaret Brown to operate the oars of the lifeboat. Even after surviving the Titanic, Candee continued to travel the world, undaunted. She also spoke of the men aboard's bravery during the disaster. "The men were the heroes, and among the bravest and most heroic, as I recall, were Mr. Widener, Mr. Thayer, and Colonel Astor," Candee said in a 1912 interview, Titanic Archive reported. "They thought only of the saving of the women and went down with the Titanic, martyrs to their manhood." DIED: Henry B. Harris, Broadway producer Harris was a major player on Broadway when he died on the Titanic. He was returning to the US after a business trip to London. He went down with the ship after ensuring his wife, Renee, who had previously broken her elbow after falling down the ship's grand staircase, got on a lifeboat. "Harry lifted me in his arms and threw me into the arms of a sailor and then threw a blanket that he had been carrying for me through the hours," his wife said, according to the author Charles Pellegrino's website. Renee achieved prominence by taking up her husband's line of work and becoming one of the first female theatrical producers in the US. SURVIVED: Karl Behr, tennis player The Independent reported that Behr, a banker and tennis star, booked a trip on the Titanic only to pursue his future wife, Helen Newsom. Behr survived the disaster because he was asked to help row one of the lifeboats. Encyclopedia Titanica reported that he may have asked Newsom for her hand in marriage while they were adrift in a lifeboat. Behr went on to continue his successful tennis career, The New York Times reported. DIED: Jacques Futrelle, mystery writer Futrelle achieved success as a mystery author before dying on the Titanic. The Georgia native started out as a journalist, working for the New York Herald and The Boston Post — two now-defunct papers. Futrelle is best remembered for his fictional stories. He wrote a series about the fictional detective professor Augustus S.F.X. Van Dusen. His most famous story was "The Problem of Cell 13." Futrelle and his wife dined with Henry and Renee Harris on the night the ship sank. Futrelle ensured that his wife got on a lifeboat and was last seen speaking on deck with Astor. SURVIVED: Edith Rosenbaum, stylist Rosenbaum was a stylist, fashion buyer, and journalist who was returning to the US on the Titanic after embarking on a reporting assignment in Paris. The Telegraph reported that a year before the Titanic disaster, Rosenbaum had "survived a car accident the year before in which her fiancé, a German gun manufacturer, had been killed." Following the accident, her mother purchased her a small musical toy pig as a good-luck charm. As the ship went down, the stylist would play the toy's tune to calm and distract the crying children on her lifeboat, The Daily Mail reported. "The children were crying and whimpering," Rosenbaum said, The Huffington Post reported. "And I said, I believe I'll play music and maybe the children would be diverted. ... And the poor children were so interested, most of them stopped crying." DIED: Archibald Butt, presidential aide Butt led a distinguished — and varied — career before dying during the Titanic disaster. Arlington National Cemetery's website said that Butt started out as a reporter but enlisted in the US Army during the Spanish-American War. He served in Cuba and the Philippines. In 1908, he became President Theodore Roosevelt's military aide and served Roosevelt's successor, William Taft, in the same capacity. Butt's "health began to deteriorate in 1912 because of his attempts to remain neutral during the bitter personal quarrel" between Roosevelt and Taft, which may have prompted his decision to travel to Europe. There are a number of unverified accounts of Butt's behavior during the sinking — with many sensationalized stories of the military officer leading the evacuation or threatening male passengers who tried to ignore the ship's "women and children first" protocol. "If Archie could have selected a time to die, he would have chosen the one God gave him," Taft said in a private memorial service, according to the Smithsonian. "His life was spent in self-sacrifice, serving others." He added: "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." Taft then said: "To me, he had become as a son or a brother." The president later broke down weeping while delivering the eulogy at Butt's funeral. Read the original article on Business Insider
