The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-05-28
SENATOR SMITH IN SPEECH TELLS HOW
 TITANIC WENT DOWN
Reference to Captain of Californian, Who Gave no Heed to
 Titanic's Warnings

water; that it was about to freeze , and he says he was also directed by the same officer to find the deck en- gineer and bring him the key to open
 the heaters in the corridor and officers quarters, wheelhOuSe, and chart room on account of the intense cold. He also said he took the fempera- ture of the air and water just before he went to the wheel, at 8 o'clock, and that the bucket, with which he dipped the water to make the tests "was a small paint tin,'' an old one, only improvised for the occasion; that the new one. a long piece of leather, leaded, was not furnished him; while Mrs. Walter Douglas, of Minneapolis, asserts under oath that both she and her husband saw the quartermaster Saturday afternoon attempt to reach the water with this bucket and says l that he was unable to do so and that both she and MT. Douglas saw him fill the bucket from a hydrant on the deck and take that water to be test ed.
 Hfchens then said:
 "At 10 o'clock went to the wheel I* All went along very well until 20 minutes to 12, when three gongs came from the lookout, and immed- lately afterwards report on the tele- phone, Iceberg right ahead The chief officer rushed from the wing to
 
 engines. I heard the telegraph bell ring; also give the order, Hard astar- board Repeated the order. Hard astarboard. The helm is hard over, sir The captain came back to the wheelhouse and looked at the commutator (clinometer) in front of the compass, which is little in- strument like clock to tell you how the ship is listing. The ship had list of 5 degrees to the starboard : about 5 to 10 minutes after the impact"
 At that moment the ice, resistless as steel, stole upon her and struck her in vital spot. while the last command of the officer of the watch in his effort to avert disaster, distract ed by the sudden appearance of ex- treme danger, sharply turned aside the prov, the part best prepared to resist collision, exposing the temple to the blow; at the turn of the bilge the steel encasement yielded to a glanc- ing blow so slight that the impact was not felt in many parts of the ship, although representing an energy of more than a million foot tons, said to be the equivalent of the combined broadsides of 20 of the largest guns in our battleship fleet fired at the same moment, with a blow so deadly many of the passengers and crew did not even know of the collision until tard- fly advised of the danger by anxious friends, and even then official state ments were clothed in such confident assurances of safety as to arouse no fear.
 The awful force Of the impact was well known to the master and builder, who, from the first, must have known the ship was doomed and never ut tered an encouraging sign to one an other, while to the inquiry of 'Presi- dent Ismay as to whether it was se- rious, the captain only replied, T think it is.''
 There is evidence tending to show that even the water-tigtt compart- either above or below. No general alarm was given. no ships officers formally assembled, no orderly routine was attempted, or organized system of safety begun. Haphazard, they l rushed by one another, on staircase control gathered here and there about | the decks, helplessly staring at one an other or giving encouragement to | those less courageous than them 1 selves.
 Life belts were finally adjusted to | all and the lifeboats were cleared l away, and although strangely insufh- cient in number. were only partially | loaded and in all instances unprovided 1 with compasses and only three of them had lamps. They were manned so i badly that, in the absence of prompt | relief, they would have fallen easy victims to the advancing ice foe, near ly 30 miles in width and rising Is feet above the surface of the water. | Their danger would have been as great as if they had remained on the deck of the broken hull. and if the sea had risen these toy targets with over TOO exhausted people would have been helplessly tossed about upon the waves without food or water. One witness swore that two of the three stewards in her boat admitted that they had never had an oar in their hands be- fore and did not even know what the oarlock was for. The Hfeboats- were filled so indiferently and lowered so quickly that, according to the uncon-