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THE WORLD'S ADVANCE 



of the women passengers passed ; she had 

 no life preserver. Kuehn insisted that 

 she take his. He adjusted it for her and 

 helped her into a lifeboat. This boat 

 was among the last ones to get away, 

 and a few minutes later the survivors it 

 carried saw the young operator slip on 

 the tilted deck and fall into the water. 

 With the life preserver to keep him afloat 

 he would have been saved. Willingly, he 

 had sacrificed his life that another might 

 live. 



Kuehn was a popular boy in New 

 York and a graduate of the Bronx High 

 School. Many of his former compan- 

 ions looked on as the sailors blew "taps" 

 over the shaft which bears his name. In 

 the silent crowd, too, were a number of 

 his later friends of the sea; for in defer- 

 ence to the occasion the Marconi offices 

 closed at noon, enabling all Kuehn's fel- 

 low workers to be present at the unveil- 

 ing. 



Chiseled on the shaft of honor close 

 beside this record of a brief career is 

 the name of Walter E. Reker, another 

 twenty-year-old boy, lost in the wreck 

 of the Admiral Sampson off Seattle, 

 Wash., on April 25, 1914. These two 

 disasters, occurring less than three 

 months apart, had several similar fea- 

 tures. The Sampson received her death 

 blow in a collision and sank in fog-bound 

 waters soon after. An added horror in 

 this case was brought on by the cargo of 

 oil igniting and enveloping the ship in 

 a sheet of flame. Reker sent out his 

 appeal for aid and stood by his post of 

 duty until the vessel which had dealt the 

 fatal blow advised him' by wireless that 

 she was sending for assistance and there 

 was no need for him to operate his in- 

 struments any longer. The time was 

 growing short, but the wireless operator 

 refused to abandon the ship, taking his 

 place instead beside the crew and assist- 

 ing the passengers into the boats. Ignor- 

 ing repeated appeals to save himself, he 

 waited until the last boat had left and all 

 but two of the fifty-four passengers had 

 gone to safety. Then he reported to the 

 bridge and sank with the ship to his 

 death, standing beside his captain. 



Two names complete the record on the 

 fountain shaft. Side by side in life, Clif- 

 ton J. Fleming and Harry F. Otto are 



immortally paired in the inscription 

 which relates their heroism when the 

 steam schooner Francis H. Leggett filled 

 and sank in the Pacific, sixty miles south 

 of the mouth of the Columbia River. 

 This was on September 19, 1914. For 

 two days she had been pounded unmer- 

 cifully by the heavy seas and finally a 

 particularly vicious wave tore loose a 

 hatch and a torrent of water poured into 

 the hold. Fleming sent out the distress 

 call as the vessel began to list and two 

 steamships started to the rescue. Ef- 

 forts to launch the lifeboats proved fu- 

 tile ; as soon as they struck the water 

 they capsized. Suddenly the vessel 

 lurched as her lumber cargo shifted, and 

 she disappeared beneath the waves. Otto, 

 the junior operator, was carried down 

 by the suction. Fleming clung to a piece 

 of wreckage and gave aid to those strug- 

 gling in the water about him. One of 

 the survivors later told how this seven- 

 teen-year-old boy pulled him to safety 

 and then grasped a floating railroad tie 

 for his own preservation. Just then a 

 woman lost hold of the wreckage which 

 was keeping her afloat and was washed 

 against Fleming. He reached out for her 

 and helped her to the tie which he was 

 gripping, and then, realizing that it would 

 not support the weight of both, let go and 

 sank. 



Simple and supreme courage in time 

 of peril, faithful devotion to duty in the 

 face of tremendous odds and a brave un- 

 selfishness that causes all men to experi- 

 ence a thrill of pride and an elevation of 

 spirit, is the story the nine inscriptions 

 on this newest monument tell to human- 

 ity. New York and the country at large 

 will specially reverence this beautiful me- 

 morial, erected at a time of strife and 

 combat so at variance with the spirit of 

 its conception. For it typifies those qual- 

 ities so essential to the world in the great 

 period of reconstruction which is to fol- 

 low the dawn of peace, the qualities 

 which, by the strange coincidence of 

 words, make possible shall we say it? 

 THE WORLD'S ADVANCE. 



The August issue will contain many 

 feature articles in the Radio Section. 

 Don't fail to read them. 



