United labor bulletin., 1912-04-25
COMMENT ON TIMELY TOPICS

ison The officers insisted that the passengers take
so the boats, but said, Women and children first.
The passengers thought that the loading of the boats
was more of precautionary measure than of actual
necessity, and few could be found to take places in
the first several boats that cut loose in fact
the first boat carried but sixteen when it could have
taken sixty-five. After but few boats remained to
be filed the passengers discovered it was a serious
collision and that the Titanic sinking rapidly.
IL was then that all desired to go in the boats, but
the officers forbade any but the women and children
with sufficient number of sailors to the boats
There were twenty lifeboats the Titanic, and in
these $1,000 passengers could have been foated but
they contained less than hundred, and two
hundred of those members of the crew While
the passengers did the Alfonso and CASTOR act on
the boat the members of the quietly stepped
into the boats and set adrift.
There nothing for the Astors and Guggen-
helms to do The boats were gone and these men
who have been proclaimed the greatest heroes of the
time found themselves trapped
One of the great newspaper heroes John
Jacob Astor, the tenement house landlord of New
York, who denied his allegiance the United States
and swore allegiance to England The condition of
the tenements in New York is a national disgrace
They congested and i'll ventilated that in the
hot summer nights the occupants forced to take
TO the parks to escape suffocation Deaths in them
are frequent.
The list of dead contained the names of the heads
of the Pennsylvania Railroad company, the Grand
Trunk Railway, the Smelter trust the Philadelphia
Traction Co.. and other mammoth concerns The in
stitutions headed by these rich have done more
TO enslave the of today than most any other
influence. Is it possible that these could have
wronged men, women and children all their lives
and then be made heroes at the last moment by the
lack of feboats to take them off the Tanicg These
men have had the chance to assist women and chill
dren all their lives.
The government is taking the correct position in
the matter; but the activity of the government in
this plainly shows its laxty in dozens of former
occasions when hundreds of men have been killed
In mine and railroad disasters, and hundreds of
women made widows and children fatherless. In
these numerous disasters hundreds of heroes have
been made but few of them have had sufficient
money to make them popular heroes. So many
men, women and children killed in the industrial
world each year that the Titanic wreck dwarfs into
insgnificance.
! The leaders among the passengers would really
have been heroes had they insisted of the officers
that all boats be loaded TO capacity; that wives and
husbands and children be forced to take to the
boats that old like Isador Straus be allowed to
accompany his aged wife. We could not call man
a hero who would stand idly by and see women re-
fuse to themselves while boats being sent
away half filed and then these same men give
up their lives to the elements because the fool
hardy that refused TO take to the boats still
remained on board. Wise. sane men set precedent,
and precedent makes law-even displaeng the Su-
perstitious law of the sea- What was needed on the
Titanic was men of nerve to displace men with too
much champagne. Men We're needed to say to the
women, you must get into the lifeboats. You will
not be permitted to stay and force brave to say
they will not leave the ship while woman remains
on board. For every woman that refused to take
to the hfeboats when they were first lowered.
later gave up his life Many woman because she
would not get into of the first hfeboats widowed
herself-in fact, murdered her husband-because
she later took his place in of the remaining
boats.