More than to any other one man, the aquatic-minded people of these aquatic-minded land owe a debt of gratitude to Commodore Wilbert E. Longfellow. The Commodore was among the first to see, some 75 years ago, that the rapidly mounting toll of death from drowning, unless soon curbed, would assume the proportions of a nation tragedy. He saw the need for a nationwide program of swimming and lifesaving instruction. His vision, plus his aquatic skills, teaching abilities, showmanship, and enthusiasm, made him the natural leader for the enterprise.

For the first 13 years of this century, Commodore Longfellow engaged in a virtual one-man crusade. In 1914 he enlisted the full participation of the American Red Cross to assure the success of his aim, "the waterproofing of America."

During the next 33 years--until the time of his retirement and his death 3 months later, on March 18, 1947--Longfellow worked with devotion and enthusiasm in the nation-wide water safety program of the Red Cross. The results were astonishing: in the prevention of death by drowning and in the growing participation of millions who were being taught how to enjoy the water in safety. Within his near half-century of crusading, the Commodore witnessed a tremendous upsurge in he popularity of swimming, boating, and other water activities to the point where an estimated 80 million Americans were participating in some form of aquatic recreation. He saw the nation's drowning rate cut in half--from 10.4 per 100,000 to 5.2. Thanks to the dedication and untiring efforts of those who followed his example and continued his work, by 1979 the drowning rate dropped further--to 3 per 100,000.

After some 65 years, the American Red Cross water safety program, whose early history is largely the story of the Commodore's contribution through the Red Cross, can point to a proud record: water safety instruction authorizations issued to trained and qualified persons who, in turn, conducted courses enabling the Red Cross to issue well over 60 million certificates in swimming and 5 million in lifesaving and small craft safety to individuals successfully completing its courses.

A Remarkable Man

The life story of the Commodore is just as remarkable as the results he helped the Red Cross to achieve in so short a time.

At the turn of the century, Bert Longfellow, a husky lad just out of high school, was covering the waterfront as a staff member of the Providence, Rhode Island, Telegram. Many of his news stories were tragic accounts of drownings, which, he felt, were not so much faults of the swimming places as of the swimmers, faults stemming from a lack of swimming ability, lifesaving knowledge, and adequate supervision.

Keenly interested and anxious to do what he could to prevent needless loss of life, Longfellow carefully studied available literature on aquatic trends, activities, and safety procedures, wrote features on water safety, and reported waterfront rescues and steps taken to safeguard swimmers. He became highly proficient in the various swimming styles and lifesaving skills. He also offered his spar-time services to the U.S. Volunteer Life Saving Corps, a young organization with headquarters in New York City, and began sharing his aquatic knowledge and skills with other swimmers. Soon he was organizing his more outstanding pupils into volunteer crews for safeguarding the lives of bathers. The work gradually spread, under his direction, to nearby towns and cities.

In 1905, in recognition of his already noteworthy achievements, Longfellow was awarded the title of "Commodore" by the U.S. Volunteer Life Saving Corps and was appointed state superintendent of the organization in Rhode Island.

Through the efforts of interested friends in the state legislature, which he covered for the Providence News and the Providence Journal in succession, he received a grant of $2,000 to be used to purchase equipment for staging lifesaving demonstrations throughout Rhode Island. The result of the demonstrations was a state-wide reduction in the number of drownings by 50 percent.

Personal Tragedy and Courageous Comeback

In the spring of 1907, the Commodore was stricken with tuberculosis of the spine, just as his work was beginning to show concrete results. Immobilized and in a plaster cast from hips to armpits, he was obliged to resign from he Journal, but, by means of bedside conferences, telephone calls, and correspondence, he managed to continue his lifesaving work. His condition, however, was rapidly deteriorating, and by the end of the year medical opinion allowed him less than a month to live.

It was then that Longfellow decided to take matters into his own hands. Convinced that he was not going to improve while bedridden, he obtained permission to get out into the sunshine, where he reclined for hours in a big armchair. By an effort of will born of desperation, he dismissed thoughts of his condition and hopeless future and kept himself occupied with ambitious plans for what he termed "the waterproofing of Rhode Island." The moth allotted him went by, and other months followed. Not only was he still alive, but, to the amazement of his physicians, he showed a slight, and then a gradually marked, improvement in his condition.

By early spring 1908, though still wearing a plaster cast, the Commodore occasionally was walking to the doctor's office and now and then was giving an aquatic lecture. By early summer he was touring the Narragansett Bay area in a specially outfitted lifesaving launch wand was staging lifesaving demonstrations with the aid of an assistant. By the end of the summer he had hinges on the cast and was able to remove it for brief intervals to enter the water, where he took mild swimming exercises to restore strength to atrophied muscles. In the winter he devised a substitute for the cast--two wide leather belts supported and held in place by four upright rods--that he was to wear for the next 4 years.

Now on the way to recovery, the Commodore devoted his time to his lifesaving crusade. As part of his plans for the waterproofing of Rhode Island, he began to teach a new method of artificial respiration that he considered superior to all other methods then in use in the United States. The new method had been devised by Edward Sharpey Schafer, an anatomist at the University of Edinburgh, who later was knighted for his contribution to the saving of life. The Schafer method called for placing the victim in a prone position and applying pressure to his back just below the diaphragm. With modifications, this method became known as the prone-pressure method and, because of its simplicity and ease of application, was readily accepted by the public.

In 1910 the U.S. Volunteer Life Saving Corps appointed Longfellow to the salaried post of Commodore in Chief and designated him as general superintendent of the organization in further recognition of his abilities and achievements.

The Waterproofing of America

Proceeding with a large-scale program of water safety and lifesaving education in and around New York City, where the Corps' activities, chiefly financed by the city of New York, were centered, the Commodore began planning his most ambitious program, "the waterproofing of America." However, the Life Saving Corps decided against a nation-wide expansion of its activities because it would require the raising of large additional funds.

Looking for a way to accomplish his great purpose, Longfellow presented his plan to the American Red Cross in 1912. A committee representing a number of national organizations was established to prepare and submit a definite program for consideration by the Red Cross. The committee's plan for a nation-wide program was adopted by the Red Cross in January 1914, and the following month the Red Cross Life Saving Corps, forerunner of the present-day Red Cross water safety program, came into being. Longfellow was appointed to organize the lifesaving program and, at the same time, was awarded Red Cross Lifesaving Certificate Number One and the lifesaving emblem that has since been won and proudly worn by millions.

In the succeeding months of 1914, at beaches and swimming pools all over the country, the big fellow with the Rd Cross emblem on his swimsuit began to appear. Everywhere he was recognized as a man experience and well versed in aquatic arts and lifesaving skills.

The Commodore's first step in putting the lifesaving plan into operation was simplicity itself. In each community, he gathered a group of good swimmers, trained them in the methods of lifesaving and resuscitation, organized them into a volunteer corps, and asked them to accept responsibility for supervision of bathing activities in the community.

He then persuaded owners and operators of swimming facilities to man their beaches and pools with trained lifeguards.

The next step--more difficult and perhaps more important--was to provide sound, large-scale instruction in swimming. Longfellow accomplished this by selecting outstanding swimmers from each corps that he organized, by giving them additional training, and, in each community, by authorizing these individuals to teach swimming on a voluntary basis. In this way sound swimming instruction was multiplied many times over.

Finally there came the business of consolidating public interest and support. This the Commodore did with amazing success. He gave talks and demonstrations, wrote for newspapers and periodicals, created and produced water pageants, and, with the advent of radio in the twenties, put his message on the air. The water pageants perhaps best illustrate the Commodore's philosophy of teaching, which was to entertain the public hugely, while educating them gently. Under Longfellow's guidance, a pleasurable activity for participants and spectators alike became a solid education experience.

Soon the Commodore was joined by other highly trained men who were added to the Red Cross staff as public demand for swimming and lifesaving instruction spread. Meanwhile, other organizations, awakened to a sense of water safety responsibility, began to participate in the undertaking. The toll of lives lost through drowning began to recede, even as the number of participants in aquatic activities increased.

By the time the country entered World War I, in April 1917, the groundwork for the program was well laid and training was gathering momentum. The Commodore and his coworkers moved into the army camps and naval stations. The setting was different, but the problem was the same. Scores of thousands of fighting men were taught to swim, and men who were already good swimmers were taught the skills of lifesaving.

During the years between the two world wars the Red Cross water safety program was extended, through hundreds of Red Cross chapters, to every part of the nation. Water safety consciousness became a part of American life.

There have been innovations in the he program. In 1922 two Red Cross national aquatic schools, for the training and qualifying of water safety and first aid instructors, were started. At present there are more than 25 aquatic schools conducted at centrally located points throughout the country. Student enrollment has multiplied from 200 to more than 3,000 annually. In addition, 115,000 persons are trained annually at various instructor levels by chapter volunteer and professional staff. In the largely amphibious world War II, the Red Cross developed a new kind of swimming, called functional or combat swimming, for the protection and efficiency of the armed forces. Functional swimming was in full use throughout the country in the he months following Pearly Harbor and was used extensively in the he United States and overseas all throughout the conflict.

A Lifetime of Service

In all aspects of the Red Cross water safety program, and in the closely allied fields of first aid and accident prevention, the Commodore continued, until the day of his retirement, to play a vital and amazingly active part. Visiting Red Cross chapters and are headquarters, national aquatic schools, and staff training conferences, meeting with an training instructors, and giving lectures, radio talks, interviews, and demonstrations, the Commodore traveled an average of 25,000 miles a year to reach an estimated 100,000 persons annually.

He was always the cheerful crusader, the self-styled "amiable whale," the man whose terrestrial mission was luring Americans to the water in order to teach them how to be at home in it, how to have fun in it, and how not to drown.

"Water is a good friend or a deadly enemy," the Commodore was wont to tell his pupils. "After you have been properly introduced to it, keep on good terms with it. Don't slap it, try hugging it--an armful at a time!"

They did. And how they loved him for so pleasantly teaching them how!