Sinking of the "Titanic" : $b most appalling ocean horror; with graphic descriptions of hundreds swept to eternity beneath the waves ...Mowbray, Jay Henry
History
Sinking of the "Titanic" : $b most appalling ocean horror; with graphic descriptions of hundreds swept to eternity beneath the waves ...
Mowbray, Jay Henry
Shipwrecks -- North Atlantic Ocean -- History -- 20th century; Titanic (Steamship)
The one alleviating circumstance in the otherwise unmitigable tragedy
is the fact that the men stood aside and insisted that the women and
the children should first have places in the boats.
There were men whose word of command swayed boards of directors,
governed institutions, disposed of millions. They were accustomed
merely to pronounce a wish to have it gratified.
Thousands “posted at their bidding;” the complexion of the market
altered hue when they nodded; they bought what they wanted, and for
one of the humblest fishing smacks or a dory they could have given the
price that was paid to build and launch the ship that has become the
most imposing mausoleum that ever housed the bones of men since the
Pyramids rose from the desert sands.
But these men stood aside--one can see them--and gave place not merely
to the delicate and the refined, but to the scared Czech woman from the
steerage, with her baby at her breast; the Croatian with a toddler by
her side, coming through the very gate of Death and out of the mouth of
Hell to the imagined Eden of America.
HARDER TO GO THAN TO STAY.
To many of those who went it was harder to go than to stay there on the
vessel gaping with its mortal wounds and ready to go down. It meant
that tossing on the waters they must wait in suspense, hour after hour
even after the lights of the ship were engulfed in appalling darkness,
hoping against hope for the miracle of a rescue dearer to them than
their own lives.
It was the tradition of Anglo-Saxon heroism that was fulfilled in the
frozen seas during the black hours of that Sunday night. The heroism
was that of the women who went, as well as of the men who remained.
The most adequate story of the terrible disaster is told by a trained
newspaper man, who was on the Carpathia. He says:
Cause, responsibility and similar questions regarding the stupendous
disaster will be taken up in time by the British marine authorities.
No disposition has been shown by any survivor to question the courage
of the crew, hundreds of whom saved others and gave their own lives
with a heroism which equaled, but could not exceed, that of John Jacob
Astor, Henry B. Harris, Jacques Futrelle and others in the long list of
the first cabin missing.
Facts which I have established by inquiries on the Carpathia, as
positively as they could be established in view of the silence of the
few surviving officers, are:
That the Titanic’s officers knew, several hours before the crash, of
the possible nearness of icebergs.
That the Titanic’s speed, nearly twenty-three knots an hour, was not
slackened.
INSUFFICIENT LIFE-BOATS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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