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The Life and Death of the " Titanic." 



THE IGNORANCE OF SENATOR SMITH AND THE KNOWLEDGE 



OF MR. ISM AY. 



WE prefer the ignorance of Senator Smith to the 

 knowledge of Mr. Ismay ! But let us 

 explain our meaning. When the giant liner 

 Titanic charged at full speed into the fatal iceberg on 

 April 14, she not only shattered herself, but shattered 

 absolutely the sense of security in ocean travel 

 amongst the travelling public. And nowadays the 

 travelling public is practically synonymous with the 

 human race, and every year makes it more so. 

 Terrible though the disaster was in immediate loss of 

 life, it may be thought even more terrible in its 

 removing of one of the most firmly held beliefs which 

 the world cherished — the safety of ocean travel. 

 Passengers on ocean vessels, especially upon the most 

 modern liners, have taken it for granted that their 

 safety had been given full consideration. They never 

 thought or dreamed that tiie wonderful luxuries of 

 modern ocean travel were not an additional indication 

 of security. People believed that the Titanic could 

 not sink. 



THE BELIEF IN UNSINK4BILITY. 



This belief in the unsinkability of modem vessels 

 had been growing stronger and stronger for years. 

 As early as 1838 transversal bulkheads were intro- 

 duced sufficiently to allow of steamers being divided 

 into five sections, any three of which it was believed 

 would suffice to keep the vessel afloat. During the 

 seventy odd years since then everything has been 

 done to strengthen this belief in the minds of the 

 public. The Press articles on the Olympic^ the Titanic, 

 and other of the monster liners of to-day all tended 

 in the same direction, and passengers would wait over 

 in order to sail by a larger, newer vessel and have 

 greater security and comfort. 



EFFECT ON OFFICERS AND OFFICIALS. 



Gradually the idea of the unsinkability of ships 

 grew into an obsession, shared by the public and 

 those who were in charge of the vessels. To a certain 

 extent also the builders and managers became 

 dominated by this obsession, even against their 

 better knowledge and common sense. If captains 

 and presidents of steamship lines believed the ships 

 unsinkable, or only slowly sinkable, is it to be 

 wondered at that everyone else did so? It is not 

 saying too much that the majority of passengers never 

 thought about it sufficiently to see if there was boat 

 accommodation, so completely had all idea of sinking 

 been exorcised. As vessels increased in size and 

 carrying capacity, the boat or other life-saving 

 acconunodalion made small change. It would almost 



seem as if the boats were carried more by force of 

 habit, for miscellaneous uses, but with no concrete 

 idea of use for saving the human freight in case 

 of disaster. The larger the vessel, the less attention 

 seems to have been paid to boat stations or boat 

 drill. There was nothing in the nature of the 

 measures adopted on Japanese liners, where each 

 passenger finds in his cabin the number of his boat 

 and the number of his place in that boat. Naturally 

 nothing of the kind could be done on one of the 

 great British liners, because it would have been a 

 declaration that there were only boats for a third of 

 the whole — besides, the ship " could not sink ! " 



CONFIDENT EVEN IN DISASTER. 



And even when the crash came, when the unseen 

 iceberg had ripped the side out of the leviathan, the 

 unsinkable Titan, last word in shipbuilding art, the 

 obsession remained dominant. Passengers went back 

 to bed, sailors and officers joked, wireless operators 

 did not take it seriously. The captain and the officers 

 even did not at first realise the possibility of sinking, 

 certainly not to the extent of admitting that thel 

 vessel could sink before help arrived. Even wheni 

 they knew they still doubted. The launching of the| 

 boats proceeded on no remembered plan, there was 

 no order in embarking the few, just as there were nci 

 boats for the many — all was dominated by tha 

 obsession, that fatal belief in unsinkability. \% 

 would seem that even the builders of these modern 

 vessels, who know that they are sinkable, allow theiJ: 

 knowle,dge to be clouded over by the common belief. 



IF OWNERS DID KNOW ! 



If we do not admit some such an explanation foa 

 those responsible,- we are confronted by the grim faci.^ 

 that, knowing the public to be deceived, shipowncri 

 have continued to build and send to sea ships whicll 

 they knew would sink — ships they knew did not carrj 

 enough emergency boats. If this is so, a heavy 

 responsibility for lost lives lies at the doors of ship-j 

 owners, builders, and those who frame regulations 

 for such vessels. If, further, knowing that the ship| 

 they owned and built could sink, they knew that iftij 

 was possible to build i)ractically unsinkable shipij 

 those responsible have added a negative crime to 

 positive one — and, if so, the reckoning will be \ 

 heavy one. 



A PUBLIC INTERRpGATlON NOTE. 



The obsession has disappeared as completely froti 

 ihc mind of the public as the Titanic has disaijpcanj,'" 



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