The daily sentinel., 1912-05-28

facts which were susceptible of being
known escaped our scrutiny Energy
is often more desirable than learn
ing, and the inquisition serves a use
ful purpose to the state.
In the construction of the Titan
ic," continued the senator, no limit
OF cost circumscribed their endeayor
and, when this vessel took its place
at the head of the line, every mod
ern Improvement in shipbuilding was
supposed to have been realized: so
confident We're they that both owner
and builder We're eager to go upon
the trial trip.
When the crisis came, a state OF
absolute unpreparedness stupefied
both passengers and crew, and, in
their despair. the ship went down,
carrying as needless sacrifice of no
bic women and brave men as ever
clustered about the Judgment Seat
in any single moment of passing
time.
We shall leave to the honest
Judgment of England its painstaking
chastisement OF the British board OF
trade, to whose laXity or regulation
and hasty inspection the world is
largely indebted for this awful ia
tality. OF contributing causes there
were very many. In the face OF
warning signals, speed was increased,
and messages of danger seemed TO
stimulate her to action rather than
to persuade her to fear.
The Titanic rushed onward on
her true course--One recognized as
appropriate and agreed upon by mar
iners as the international highway
for west-bound vessels, yet danger
Gus at this season of the year, when
the Labrador current may be bear
ing vast masses of ice across the
track of ships-scores of these tow
ering glaciers planted themselves in
the very pathway OF this strip, and
We're so large and so numerous that,
in the absence of fog, they should
have been easily discernible by the
lookout, If. as he says in his testi-
mony, he had been supplied with
glasses.
Captain Smith knew the sea, and
his clear eye and steady hand had
often guided his ship through dan
gerous paths; for 40 years storms
sought in vain to veX him or menace
his craft. His Indifference to danger
was one of the direct and contribut-
ing causes of this unnecessary trag-
edy, 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 sOr-
row-file one specific charge against
him: overconlidence and neglect to
heed the oft-repeated warnings OF
his friends. But, in his horrible dis
may, when his brain was afire with
honest retribution, we can still see,
in his manly bearing and his tender
solicitude for the safety of women
and little children, some traces of his
lofty spirit.
THE mystery of his Indifference to
danger, when other and less preten-
tous vessels doubled their lookout or
stopped their engines, finds no rea-
5onable hypothesis in conjecture or
speculation: science in shipbuildiug
was supposed to have attained per-
fection and to have spoken her last
word: mastery of the ocean had at
last been achieved; but overconfi-
dence seems to have dulled the fac
ulties usually so alert With the at
mosphere literally charged with
warning signals and wireless mes
sages registering their last appeal
the stokers in the engine room fed
their fires with fresh fuel, register
ing in that dangerous place her fast
est speed.
Nature gave a warning of ap-
preaching peril so significant that
passengers in stateroom and steerage
shut out the chill and spoke to one
another of the sudden cold. Sailors
off the Grand banks know the i'm
portance of the thermometer, which
is almost as necessary to their safety
as Is the compass. Even the quar-
termaster. Hichens, who regularly
took the temperature of the water
from the sea. said: 1T suddenly be-
came bitter cold and added that the
first order received by him from Sec
end Officer Lightoller at s O'Clock