Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1912-04-17
1850 PEOPLE DROWNED
Worlds Largest Steamship Sinks OFF
Coast of Newfoundland.
GREATEST MARINE DISASTER.
Great Vessel Crashes Into Iceberg
and Goes to the Bottom With
1,35O Passengers.

Monday morning. when, within four
hours after it crashed into an ice
berg, the mammoth White Star Line
steamer Titanic, bound from Liver
pool to New York on its maiden
voyage, went to the bottom off the
Newfoundland banks.
OF the approximately 2,20O per-
sons on board the giant liner, some
of them of worldwide prominence,
only S6S are known to have been
saved.
The disaster is the greatest in the
marine history of the world. Nearest
approaching it in magnitude were the
disasters to the steamer Atlantic in
1873, when 574 lives were lost, and
to La Bourgogne in 1898, with a
fatality list of 571.
News of the sinking of the liner
and the terrible loss of life in conse-
quence came with all the greater
shock because hope had been bouyed
up all day by reports that the steam
ship, although badly damaged, was
not in sinking condition and that all
| its passengers had been safely taken
eff. The messages were mostly un-
official, however, and none came di-
fear remained of possible bad news
to come.
Shortly after 700 o'clock there
came flashing over the wires from
Cape Race, within 400 miles of
which the liner had struck the ice
berg, word that at 2:20 o'clock Mon
day morning, hours and SO minutes
after receiving it's death blow, the
Titanic had sunk.
The news came from the steamer
lCarpathia, relayed by the White Star
liner Olympic, and revealed that by
the time the Carpathia, outward
bound from New York and racing
for the Titanic on a wireless call,
reached the scene the doomed vessel
had sunk.
Left on the surface, however, were
lifeboats from the Titanic, and in
them were S6S survivors of the dis
aster. These, according to the ad-
vices, the Carpathia picked up and is
now on it's way with them to New
York.
For the rest the scene as the
Carpathia came up was one of DESC
lation. All that remained of the
S10,0O0,000 floating palace, on which
nearly 1,400 passengers had been
voyaging luxuriously to this side of
the Atlantic, was some bits of wreck
age. The biggest ship in the world
had gone down, snuffing out in it's
downward plunge, hundreds of
human lives.
A significant line in the Cape Race
dispatch was the announcement that
of those saved by the Carpathia near
ly all We're women and children.
Should it prove that no other vessel
picked up any passengers of the sink
ing liner this might mean that few
as the proportion of women and chill
dren among the passengers was
large. The same facts would like
wise spell the doom of practically
the entire crew of 500.
In the cabins were $50 women and
children. but it is not known how
many there were among the 740
third class passengers.
In the first cabin there were 12S
women and Is children, and in the
second cabin 70 women and chill
dren. Is
Notable persons, travellers on the
Titanic, whose fate was in doubt In
the lack of definite advices as to the
identity of the survivors were Mr..
and Mrs. John Jacob Astor, Major
Archibald Butt, aid to President
Taft; Charles Nj. Haye, president of
the Grand Trunk Pacific of Canada,
his wife and daughter; w. T. Stead,
Benjamin Guggenheim. F. ID. Millet,
the artist; j. G. Widener of Phila-
delphia. Mr.. and Mrs. Isidor Straus,
! j. b. Thayer, vice president of the
/ Pennsylvania railroad; j. Bruce Is
may. Henry B. Harris and Colonel
Washington Roebling, builder of the
Brooklyn bridge.
Wednesday-The news this morn
ing is only confirmation of the
early dispatches of yesterday. 1t Is
now practically certain that 1880
human souls went to watery grave
when the great ship sunk, and that
only S6S were saved, mostly women
and children, which Is the unwritten
rule of the sea. 1t is indeed the
greatest ocean disaster in the history
of the world.