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Francis Bacon - "Essays"

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Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters

L >> Logan Marshall >> Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters




Senator Newlands suggested that the telegrams, some
signed by the name of Mr. Sammis and some with the name
of Marconi, directing Cottam to "keep his mouth shut"
and hold out for four figures on his story, was sent only as
the Carpathia was entering New York harbor, when there
was no longer need for sending official or private messages
from the rescuing ship. There had been an impression before,
he said, that the messages had been sent to Cottam when
the ship was far at sea, when they might have meant that
he was to hold back messages relieving the anxiety of those
on shore.


SAW DISTRESS ROCKETS

Ernest Gill, a donkey engineman on the steamship Californian,
was the first witness on April 26th. He said that Captain
Stanley Lord, of the Californian, refused later to go to the aid
of the Titanic, the rockets from which could be plainly seen.
He says the captain was apprised of these signals, but made no
effort to get up steam and go to the rescue. The Californian
was drifting with the floe. So indignant did he become, said
Gill, that he endeavored to recruit a committee of protest
from among the crew, but the men failed him.

Captain Lord entered a sweeping denial of Gill's accusations
and read from the Californian's log to support his contention.
Cyril Evans, the Californian's wireless operator,
however, told of hearing much talk among the crew, who
were critical of the captain's course. Gill, he said, told him
he expected to get $500 for his story when the ship reached
Boston.

Evans told of having warned the Titanic only a brief time
before the great vessel crashed into the berg that the sea was
crowded with ice. The Titanic's operators, he said, at the
time were working with the wireless station at Cape Race,
and they told him to "shut up" and keep out. Within a
half hour the pride of the sea was crumpled and sinking.

Members of the committee who examined individually
the British sailors and stewards of the Titanic's crew prepared
a report of their investigations for the full committee. This
testimony was ordered to be incorporated in the record of the
hearings.

Most of this testimony was but a repetition of experiences
similar to the many already related by those who got away
in the life-boats.

On April 27th Captain James H. Moore, of the steamship
Mount Temple, who hurried to the Titanic in response to
wireless calls for help, told of the great stretch of field ice
which held him off. Within his view from the bridge he
discerned, he said, a strange steamship, probably a "tramp,"
and a schooner which was making her way out of the ice.
The lights of this schooner, he thought, probably were those
seen by the anxious survivors of the Titanic and which they
were frantically trying to reach.


WOMEN AT HEARING WEEP

Steward Crawford also related a thrilling story in regard
to loading the life-boats with women first. He told of several
instances that came under his observation of women throwing
their arms around their husbands and crying out that they
would not leave the ship without them. The pathetic recital
caused several women at the hearing to weep, and all within
earshot of the steward's story were thrilled.


ANDREWS WAS BRAVE

Stories that Mr. Andrews, the designer of the ship, had
tried to disguise the extent of danger were absolutely denied
by Henry Samuel Etches, his bedroom steward, who told
the committee how Mr. Andrews urged women back to their
cabins to dress more warmly and to put on life-belts.

The steward, whose duty it was to serve Major Butt and
his party, told how he did not see the Major at dinner the
evening of the disaster as he was dining with a private party
in the restaurant. William Burke, a first class steward, told
of serving dinner at 7.15 o'clock to Mr. and Mrs. Straus,
and later Mrs. Straus' refusal to leave her husband was
again told to the committee. A bedroom steward told of a
quiet conversation with Benjamin Guggenheim, Senator
Guggenheim's brother, after the accident and shortly before
the Titanic settled in the plunge that was to be his death.

On April 29th Marconi produced copies of several messages
which passed between the Marconi office and the
Carpathia in an effort to get definite information of the
wreck and the survivors.

Marconi and F. M. Sammis, chief engineer of the American
Marconi Company, both acknowledged that a mistake
had been made in sending messages to Bride and Cottam on
board the Carpathia not to give out any news until they had
seen Marconi and Sammis.

The senatorial committee investigating the Titanic disaster
has served several good purposes. It has officially established
the fact that all nations are censurable for insufficient, antiquated
safety regulations on ocean vessels, and it has emphasized
the imperative necessity for united action among
all maritime countries to revise these laws and adapt them to
changed conditions.


The committee reported its findings as follows:

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

No particular person is named as being responsible, though attention
is called to the fact that on the day of the disaster three distinct warnings
of ice were sent to Captain Smith. J. Bruce Ismay, managing director
of the White Star Line, is not held responsible for the ship's high speed.
In fact, he is barely mentioned in the report.

Ice positions, so definitely reported to the Titanic just preceding the
accident, located ice on both sides of the lane in which she was traveling.
No discussion took place among the officers, no conference was called to
consider these warnings, no heed was given to them. The speed was not
relaxed, the lookout was not increased.

The supposedly water-tight compartments of the Titanic were not water-
tight, because of the non-water-tight condition of the decks where the
transverse bulkheads ended.

The steamship Californian, controlled by the same concern as the Titanic,
was nearer the sinking steamship than the nineteen miles reported by her
captain, and her officers and crew saw the distress signals of the Titanic
and failed to respond to them in accordance with the dictates of humanity,
international usage and the requirements of law. Had assistance been
promptly proffered the Californian might have had the proud distinction
of rescuing the lives of the passengers and crew of the Titanic.

The mysterious lights on an unknown ship, seen by the passengers on
the Titanic, undoubtedly were on the Californian, less than nineteen miles
away.

Eight ships, all equipped with wireless, were in the vicinity of the Titanic,
the Olympic farthest away--512 miles.

The full capacity of the Titanic's life-boats was not utilized, because, while
only 705 persons were saved, the ship's boats could have carried 1176.

No general alarm was sounded, no whistle blown and no systematic
warning was given to the endangered passengers, and it was fifteen or
twenty minutes after the collision before Captain Smith ordered the
Titanic's wireless operator to send out a distress message.

The Titanic's crew were only meagerly acquainted with their positions
and duties in an accident and only one drill was held before the maiden
trip. Many of the crew joined the ship only a few hours before she sailed
and were in ignorance of their positions until the following Friday.

Many more lives could have been saved had the survivors been concentrated
in a few life-boats, and had the boats thus released returned to the
wreck for others.

The first official information of the disaster was the message from
Captain Haddock, of the Olympic, received by the White Star Line at
6.16 P. M., Monday, April 15. In the face of this information a message
reporting the Titanic being towed to Halifax was sent to Representative
J. A. Hughes, at Huntington, W. Va., at 7.51 P. M. that day. The
message was delivered to the Western Union office in the same building as
the White Star Line offices.

"Whoever sent this message," says the report, "under the circumstances,
is guilty of the most reprehensible conduct."

The wireless operator on the Carpathia was not duly vigilant in handling
his messages after the accident.

The practice of allowing wireless operators to sell their stories should
be stopped.


RECOMMENDATIONS.

It is recommended that all ships carrying more than 100 passengers
shall have two searchlights.

That a revision be made of steamship inspection laws of foreign countries
to conform to the standard proposed in the United States.

That every ship be required to carry sufficient life-boats for all passengers
and crew.

That the use of wireless be regulated to prevent interference by amateurs,
and that all ships have a wireless operator on constant duty.

Detailed recommendations are made as to water-tight bulkhead construction
on ocean-going ships. Bulkheads should be so spaced that any
two adjacent compartments of a ship might be flooded without sinking.

Transverse bulkheads forward and abaft the machinery should be
continued watertight to the uppermost continuous structural deck, and
this deck should be fitted water-tight.

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