THE LOSS OF JAMES CLINCH SMITH

Amid the maelstrom of mourning in connection with the recent disaster, (which was indeed "Titanic,") the city press seems to have overlooked the loss of one of our most estimable citizens.

I refer to Mr. James Clinch Smith, a brother of Mrs. Stanford White, and a member of the Union Club, who seems to have gone to his death with the quiet modesty that marked his life.

Upon inheriting great wealth, he maintained the same conservatism as before, in spite of many examples of display that marked many of the "gay social set" of which he was a respected member.

There are no stories of heroics concerning his conduct during those awful final hours.  He seems to have stood aside in the terrific struggle, with the same dignity that marked him at all times, and he must have fulfilled the law of "Women and children first", going silently into eternity with the greatest sacrifice humanity can give.

He has left a broken-hearted widow across the sea, a woman whose brilliant personality and graceful hospitalities have put the most representative classes of both American and European society under deep obligation.

His death is peculiarly pathetic, because he was journeying to arrange his elaborate home for his family in their native land again.  He was of no relation to the writer, but the prolonged friendship of both Mr. and Mrs. Clinch Smith for very dear members of my family for several years abroad has occasioned a most touching development of yesterday - a letter from which the following is an extract:

"Jim sails today on the great Titanic for New York to get ready the old home for Bertha, who follows in October."

Thus, he has been cut down in the health and strength of hs life and hopes, and like the great Moses of old, has gone "to a grave that no man shall know."

It is fitting that these humble words bear their modest testimony of sorrow for the great loss not only to those who knew him, but also for the loss of such an exemplary life to the community

GEORGE STUART SMITH

New York, April 22, 1912