The Caucasian. (Shreveport, La.) 1900-192?, 1912-04-21

DftclOf Ol tHe Nnlte star Line.
Is Being Held Responsible for the
Disaster.
In his story, The White Ghost Of
Disaster" published in the first
number of twice-a-m0nth Popular
Magazine for May, the author, Mayn
Clew Garnett, has declared: in ma
rine disasters the truth is mighty
hard to fathOm. There have been
many attempts to explain how the
great liner Admiral ran into an ice
berg in daylight. Chief Mate Garnett
sets forth the actual facts of the
disaster
The story is thrilling; the Admiral
has its duplicate in the Titanic.
In brief, the disaster to the Ad-
miral as to the Titanic, is traceable
to criminal recklessness.
In the case of the Admiral the
presence Of immense icebergs COW
ering miles of the sea was known to
its commander, but unheeding all
precautions he rammed His ship
into an iceberg when going at twen-
ty-twO knots an hour. The shock
was terrific. Thousands of tons of
ice fell and piled on deck, crashed
and smashed into the ship. The men
on the forward deck were swept
away and drowned, and as the ship
plowed into the mountain of ice,
tons of more ice crashed and slid on
alongside the doomed Admiral.
The panic is indescribable. Men
and women fought for places, but
order was restored through the rigid
discipline of the sea.
1t was early morning when the
Admiral sank into the sea a few
hours after the collision with the
iceberg.
AS in the case of the Admiral, the
speed mania led to the appalling
tragedy of the Titanic.
To landsmen a steamer, as the
Titanic, going to the bottom of the
sea with flags to the breeze and the
passengers and the officers and the
crew singing soul-elevating anthems
with the band playing stirring selec-
tions, is the sublime of the heroic,
but in this sacrifice of such men
the glaring Of recklessness is not
only horrifying but is criminal.
The speed of the Titanic at the
time of the collision, as admitted by
Joseph Bruce Ismay, managing di-
rector Of the White Star Line, who
with his wife are numbered with
the rescued, was twenty-six knots
an hour. 1t was Ismay's ambition
to have the Titanic make a record
that would eclipse the greatest
speed ever attained by any steamer
crossing the ocean.
Unquestionably Ismay believed
the Titanic unsuitable, and this
opinion was probably shared by
Captain Smith, the commander, and
the passengers and the crew, but as
declared by Charles A. McAllester,
engineer in chief Of the United
States Revenue Cutter Service, the
probable impact of the Titanic
against the iceberg was equivalent
to the simultaneous fire of thirty
f2-inch shots striking about the
same spot. No modern ship could
withstand such a terrific collision.
From this ramming of the iceberg
the Titanic was almost split apart,
and the realization of its doom led
the commander to do all in his
power to save the women and chill
dren.
According to the rule of the sea,
which governs in such catastrophes,
the women and children are always
first. The men must stand aside.
In the extremity of the moment
it dawned upon the passengers that
the lifeboats were limited in num-
ber .and SO were the life RATS and
the life preservers. This deficiency
is explained on the theory that as it
was believed the Titanic was un-
sinkable, greater number of life
boats and RATS and life preservers
was unnecessary.
In such catastrophe, which has
appalled, the civilized world, it has
become self-evident that this trag-
edy of the sea could have been
averted if the speed mania had not
prevailed over the ordinary rules
suggested as precautions when
ship at sea, sailor or steamer, is in
the vicinity of icebergs. But the sug-
gestions of precautions would SEEM
ingly be as an absurdity which
would have provoked the risibles of
Ismay and others of the White Star
Line if the Titanic had escaped dis
aster and came into the port of New
Nopl- xx7ifh aoIano ono II