"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" on the Titanic

As anyone who is LGBT well knows, we've existed throughout history and from time to time in more enlightened cultures ranging from Classical Greece to some American Indian cultures, we have not been forced to hide who we are and who we love. Edwardian England and America in that time period did not rate as enlightened cultures in terms of LGBT acceptance and, as a result, all too often LGBT individuals had to live under a form of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." A case in point is a couple of great achievement: Maj. Archibald Butt (pictured at left), a military adviser to Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, and Francis Davis Millet (portrait below), a renown American painter and artist, both of whom perished during the sinking of the R.M.S. Titanic. The Daily has an article on this ill-fated couple. Here are highlights:

When the Titanic sank, Maj. Archibald Butt, a military adviser to President William Howard Taft and former aide-de-camp to his predecessor, Theodore Roosevelt, was among the heroes of the hour. Amid the disaster on the night of April 14-15, 1912, Butt fulfilled all the archetypes of manly courage, escorting women from their cabins to lifeboats, standing back to let them live and facing death with selflessness. One of the women he helped to save — he had known her when she gave music lessons to the Roosevelt children in the White House — later testified that after he helped her into the lifeboat, he tucked a blanket around her with careful nonchalance, as if she was going for a breezy ride in an open car.

Taft wept when it was confirmed that Butt was lost in the freezing Atlantic Ocean. Much of Washington grieved. In the press rooms of the White House and the War, State and Navy buildings, as one reporter wrote at the time, “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.” Ever since 1912, writers have depicted Butt as an archetypal Southerner and military officer. They have not noticed, or have shrunk from mentioning, that his was also love story, a story involving another man, Frank Millet.

Butt shared a house in an old-fashioned district of Washington, D.C., with Millet, his devoted partner. Born in Mattapoisett, Mass., in 1846, Millet served as a drummer boy and surgical assistant with Union troops in the Civil War. After a shining career at Harvard, he became an international war correspondent before settling into a peaceable life as a painter. His friend Henry James, the novelist, wrote of Millet’s “magnificent manly self … irradiating beautiful gallantry.”

“Millet, my artist friend who lives with me” was Butt’s designation for his companion. (Their only recorded quarrel was over Millet’s choice of decoration for their home. Butt complained that the wallpaper, crammed with red and pink roses, from buds to full-blown flowers, made him feel giddy.) They held great Washington parties. “People come early to my house and always stay late and seem merry while they are here,” Butt wrote. At his New Year’s Eve party — attended by Taft, Cabinet members, ambassadors, generals, Supreme Court judges and “the young fashionable crowd” — he served nothing more elaborate than 11 gallons of eggnog, whipped by his Filipino houseboys, with hot buttered biscuits and ham served by his black washerwoman.

After the last lifeboat had been lowered, and the liner was tilting and about to plunge to the bottom of the ocean, Butt was noticed standing to one side on the deck. Millet was not a famous or recognizable man. No one remembered seeing him. But it is unthinkable that he was not near Butt at the end. When there are calamitous accidents or natural disasters that grab the headlines, reporters always seize on tragic stories involving families torn apart — or holding together against great odds. But the experiences of gay people are often written out of the narrative.

The enduring partnership of Butt and Millet was an early case of “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” Washington insiders tried not to focus too closely on the men’s relationship, but they recognized their mutual affection. And they were together in death as in life. The memorial fountain erected in the Ellipse area of the President’s Park in Washington is called the Butt-Millet Fountain.

Wikipedia also notes the following concerning Butt's memorial service:

As Archibald Butt's remains were not recovered, a cenotaph was erected in Section 3 of Arlington National Cemetery. On May 2, 1912, a memorial service was held in the Butt family home with 1,500 mourners, including President Taft, attending. Taft spoke at the service where he 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."^[5]

In 1913, The Millet-Butt Memorial Fountain was constructed near the White House in the Ellipse. In Augusta, Georgia, the Butt Memorial Bridge was dedicated in 1914 by Taft.

The Washington National Cathedral contains a large plaque dedicated to Major Archibald Butt. It can be found on the wall in the Museum Store.

It is also noteworthy that both Butt and Millet - who had served as a war correspondent in Europe - were both recognized during their life times for their heroism. Millet also was noteworthy because he was made a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and sat on the advisory committee of the National Gallery of Art. He was decorations director for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, where he is credited with having invented the first form of spray paint. His career included work with a number of worlds' fairs, including Vienna, Chicago, Paris, and Tokyo, where he made contributions as a juror, administrator, mural painter/decorator, and adviser. Their story is yet another example of the hidden gay history of America. I would argue that both contributed far more to this nation than most self-congratulatory professional Christians - or Rick Santorum.