The Sentinel=record., 1912-05-29
FLAMES CREW
 OF TITANIC
SENATOR SMITH IN COMMITTEE REPORT SEVERELY cRlTi.
 ciSES SHIPS OFFICERS.
BIames Captain Lord for Failing to Respond to Distress Signals Loud in Praise Of Captain
 Rostron and Operators.

Washington, May 2S.-The formal
 thanks of congress to the steamer
 Caraathias officers and crew for the rescue of the Titanic survivors were expressed in 8 joint resolution, which
 was passed today by the senate. The house will take prompt action. The resolution is the first of three meas ures introduced by Senator William Alden Smith after his speech in the senate today and the presentation of | his report for the commerce commit ! tee on the investigation of the disas- | ter.
 The resolution provides that Cap tain Rostron shall be presented with a gold medal inscribed to show that he has been thanked by congress for saving the lives of 374 women and children and S30 men, and that 1000 be appropriated for the medal
 Two other measures were intro- duced and referred to the commerce committee. One was a bill requir ing that every steel vessel carrying 100 or more passengers must have "a water tight skin from the forward collision bulkhead over not less than two-thirds of the length of the ves- sel, and the bulkheads so spaced that any two adjacent compartments may be flooded without destroying the flntability or stability of the vessel"
 Every ocean or coastwise seagoing steam vessel allowed to carry more han 50 passengers must have on board life boats of an aggregate car rying capacity, computed in cubic feet, equal to ten times the total number of her crew plus the total number of her passengers.
 There are minute details of tech nical requirements as to the efficien- cy of the lifeboats Every vessel ex- cept river craft would have to carry one life preserver for each person allowed to be carried on the vessel, including the crew At least four members of the crew must be assign ed to each lifeboat and drilled at stated intervals.
 A resolution introduced would pro- vide for creation of a commission un- der a $10000 appropriation for ex- penses to investigate the laws and regulations relating to construction, equipment and navigation of vessels and to report to congress, through the president, it's findings and recom- mendations, together with a draft of legislation and regulations it shall propose by January 1, 1913.
 Rlames Ships Officers.
 At the outset, Senator Smith defend ed the course of his committee in hold ing British subjects to secure their tes- tlmony without delay, and briefly an swered criticism of his lack of nautical knowledge
 Our course was simple and plaln-to gather the facts relating to this disas ter while they were still vivid realities. :" Tn the construction of the Titanic, " continued the senator. no limit of cost circumscrihed their endeavor and when this vessel took it's place at the head of | the line, every modern improvement In shipbuilding was supposed to have been realized; so confident were they that both owner and builder were eager to go | upon the trial trip.
 When the crisis came a state of ab- solute unpreparedness stupefied both pas sengers and crew and. in their despair the ship went down, carrying as need less a sacrifice of noble women and brave men as ever clustered about the Judgment Seat ia any single moment of
 
 eWe shall leave to the honest judg- ment of England its painstaking chastise-
 ment of the British Board of Trade, to whose laxity of regulation and nasty inspection the world Is largely indebted for this awful fatality. Of contributing causes there were very many. In the face of warning signals speed was in- creased and messages of danger seemed to stimulate her to action rather than to persuade her to fear.
 hA VsfrE r1 f.r, hnp true course-one recognized as appro- priate and agreed upon by mariners as the international highway for westbound vessels. yet dangerous at this season of the year. when the Iiboiador current may he bearing vast masses of ice across the track of ships-scores of these tow ering glaciers planted themselves in the very pathway of this ship and were so large and numerous that, in the ab sence of fog. they should have been cas- ily discernible by the lookout, if as he says in his testimony, he had been sup piled with glasses
 Captain Smith knew the sea and his
 clear eye and steady hand had often
 guided his ship through dangerous paths | for 70 years storms soughA in vain to vex | him or menace his craft. His indiffer- ence t0 danger was one of the direct and ! contributing causes of this unnecessary l tragedy, while his own willingness to die was the expiating evidence of his fit-
 ness to live; those of us who knew him
 well-not in anger, but in sorrow-file one specific charge against him, over l confidence and neglect to heed the oft | repeated warnings of his friends: but, in 1 his horrible dismay. when his brain was afire with honest retribution. we can l still see. in his manly bearing and his
 tender solicitude for the safety of wem-
 en and little children, some traces of
 his lofty spirit
 The mystery of his indifference to dan ger when others and less pretentious | vessels doubled their lookout or stopped
 their engines. finds no reasonable hy- 1 pothesis In conjecture or speculation,
 science in shipbuildng was supposed to have attained perfection and to have
 spoken her last word mastery of the
 ocean had at last been achievedi but over-confidence seems to have duied the
 faculties usually so alert With the at
 mosphere literally charged with warm
 ing signals and wireless messages regis
 tering their last appeal, the stokers in