The Penn's Grove record., 1912-04-26
TITANIC COULD HAVE BEEN SAVED,
LOOKOUT SWEARS, IF HE'D HAD GLASSES
No General Alarm Was Sounded after the Collision and 800 Were
Sacrificed as They Struggled in the Water, ShrednS for Aid.
EVEN LIFE BELTS APPEARED TO Be ENTIRELY WORTHLESS

Boats which could have carried fifty
persons, probably sixty, in that calm
sea, scarcely ruff1ed except by the
struggles of the dying, were loaded
with from twenty-four to thirty, and
only n taxed her capacity after thir-
ty additional survivors had been res
cued from the bottom of the capsized
collapsible boat.
Only the agonized passengers ap-
pear to have given serious considera-
ton to the rescue of those less fortu-
nate than themselves. Pitman testi-
fled that he gave the order to return
with the idea of picking up others,
but he was easily dissuaded by those
who pleaded their w safety and the
risk which would be incurred.
Pitman said it was the passengers
who made this plea, and thus far
there is hone to contradict him. But
Major Peuchen, testifying as to what
wears that the quartermaster in
charge of the lifeboat in which he was
, ordered the rowing stopped in order
to listen to a command from the ship,
explained that it was a command to
return and take on others, but disre-
garded that command and the plead
ing of the ome and scuttled away,
like the others, to a distance believed
to be remote at least from immediate
danger, abandoning shipmates and
passengers to their fate,
And when morning came no bodies
were to be seen. Life preservers, pre-
sumptively amply capable of floating
the heaviest body until it should fall
apart, had failed in the few short
hours between the sinking of the ship
and dawn, and all that remained Of
the Titanic's safety appliances was a
mass of broken cork.
These are among the important
questions suggested by the testimony
given before the investigating commit
tee of the Senate:
Where was j. Bruce Ismay during
that awful hour when the wall of the
dying passengers of the Titanic, cast
into the icy waters of the North Allan
tic, abandoned to their fate and strug-
Cling in their death agony, filled with
lifeboats, when "groans and means
and prayers for help" made the night
so hideous that none who heard it will
ever forget it, their chorus of lamenta-
tions dying away only as they gave up
their lives beneath the pitiless waves?
INhu did 7 prInn Tcnnou offor fho
chief engineer had told him the acct
dent was serious" seek to allay the
fears of Major Peuchen, saying, "Peu-
chen, this boat is good for eight hours
yet, and before that time We'll have
assistance" and then take one of the
lifeboats himself? And how many
went down to their death as a result
of like assurances from Ismay, return
ing to their staterooms, so that, when
he was ready to get into a %lifeboat,
there was not a m or the deck.
nor any passenger of any class, so far
as we could see or hear" as he says
in his signed statement?
Why was no general alarm sounded
on the Titanic, and how far does the
failure to sound such alarm account
for the lack of women and children to
fill the lifeboats, so that the president
of the company and other men were
saved, while hundreds of ome went
to the bottom?
Why did the International Mercan,
tile Marine Company, with a capital OF
500, 000, 900, common and preferred,
and bonded for $S1, 000, 900, fail to pro-
vide marine glasses for the lookouts
and of Major Peuchen, a yachtsman of
experience, the S of such glasses
would have averted the fatal collision?
Why was the Titanic permitted to
sail with 1920 persons on board, com
mitted to the care of "a scratch crew.
which had never been drilled in it's du-
ties and which gave no evidence of
ability to act together?
Why had a man like Hitchens-who
refused to obey the order to return to
the ship to take on more passengers,
who gave as his reason for not doing
SO, in the presence of the women
whose husbands and brothers and
friends were going down with the ship,
that there's a lot of 'stiffs' there;
who refused to row the boat, COMPEL.
ing women to do SO; who demanded
of one m a bottle of brandy and
of another her wrap-been shipped as
a petty officer, a quartermaster, later
to be placed in command of a lifeboat:
Why was not this great floating
city, the Titanic, provided with bulk
heads above a few of the lowest decks
which could be operated from the
bridge in the event of collision, and
how far above the keelson did the
bulkheads which could be so operated
J extend?