Buxton, in discussing the utterly inadequate life-saving equipment of the big liner, declared that the committee of the board in charge of life-saving precautions had recently recommended increased life-boats, rafts and life-preservers on all big ships, but that the requirements had been found unsatisfactory and had not been put in force. He frankly admitted the necessity for increased equipment without delay.
The board, he said, was utterly unable to compel the transatlantic vessels to reduce their speed in the contest for “express train” ships. He also said the board could not force ships to take the southerly passage in the spring to avoid ice.
The regulations under which the Titanic carried life-boat accommodations for only about one-third of her passengers and crew had not been revised by the committee since 1894. At that time the regulations were made for ships of “10,000 tons or more.” The Titanic’s tonnage was 45,000, for which the present requirements are altogether insufficient.
Several foreign governments telegraphed to the British Government messages of condolence for the sufferers. The King sent a donation of $2625 to the Mansion House fund. Queen Mary donated $1310 and Queen Alexandra $1000 to the same fund.
Oscar Hammerstein proffered, and the lord mayor accepted, the use of his opera house for an entertainment in aid of the fund.
The Shipping Federation donated $10,500 to the Mayor of Southampton’s fund, taking care to explain that the White Star Line was not affiliated with the Federation.
Some public institutions also offered to take care of the orphaned children of the crew.
Large firms contributed liberally to the various relief funds, while Covent Garden and other leading theaters prepared special performances to aid in the relief work.
All Germany as well as England was stunned and grieved by the magnitude of the horror of the Titanic catastrophe. Anglo-German recriminations for the moment ceased, as far as the Fatherland was concerned, and profound and sincere compassion for the nation on whom the blow had fallen more heavily was the supreme note of the hour.
The Kaiser, with his characteristic promptitude, was one of the first to communicate his sympathy by telegraph to King George and to the White Star Line. Admiral Prince Henry of Prussia did likewise, and the first act of the Reichstag, after reassembling on Tuesday, was to pass a standing vote of condolence with the British people in their distress.
The German laws, governing the safety appliances on board trans-oceanic vessels, seem to be as archaic and inadequate as those of the British Board of Trade. The maximum provision contained in the German statutes refers to vessels with the capacity of 50,000 cubic metres, which must carry sixteen life-boats. The law also says that if this number of life-boats be insufficient to accommodate all the persons on board, including the crew, there shall be carried elsewhere in the vessel a correspondingly additional number of collapsible life-boats, suitable rafts, floating deck-chairs and life-buoys, as well as a generous supply of life-belts.
A vessel of 10,000 tons was a “leviathan” in the days when the German law was passed, and it appears to have undergone no change to meet the conditions, imposed by the construction of vessels twice or three times 10,000 tons, like the Hamburg-American Kaiserin Auguste Victoria, or the North German Lloyd George Washington, to say nothing of the 50,000-ton Imperator, which is to be added to the Hamburg fleet next year.
The German lines seem, like the White Star Company, to have reckoned simply with the practical impossibility of a ship like the Titanic succumbing to the elements
Although Germany’s and Berlin’s direct interest in the passengers aboard the Titanic was less than that of London, New York or Paris, there was the utmost concern for their fate.
Ambassador Leishman and other members of the American Embassy were particularly interested in hearing about Major “Archie” Butt, who passed through Berlin, less than a month before the disaster, en route from Russia and the Far East. Vice-president John B. Thayer and family, of Philadelphia, were also in Berlin a fortnight ago and were guests of the American Consul General and Mrs. Thackara. A score of other lesser known passengers had recently stayed in Berlin hotels, and it was local friends or kinsmen of theirs who were in a state of distressing unrest over their fate.
Their anxiety was aggravated by the old-fogey methods of the German newspapers, which are invariably twelve or fifteen hours later than journals elsewhere in Europe on world news events. Although New York, London and Paris had the cruel truth with their morning papers on Tuesday, it was not until the middle of the forenoon that “extras” made the facts public in Berlin.
William T. Stead was well and favorably known in Germany, and his fate was keenly and particularly mourned. Germans have also noted that many Americans of direct Teutonic ancestry or origin were among the shining marks in the death list. Colonel John Jacob Astor is claimed as of German, extraction, as well as Isidor Straus, Benjamin Guggenheim, Washington Roebling and Henry B. Harris. All of them had been in Germany frequently and had a wide circle of friends and acquaintances.
Only one well-known resident of Berlin was aboard the Titanic, Frau Antoinette Flegenheim, whose name appears among the rescued.
CHAPTER XX. BRAVERY OF THE OFFICERS AND CREW
IN the anxious hours of uncertainty, when the air cracked and flashed with the story of disaster, there was never doubt in the minds of men ashore about the master of the Titanic. Captain Smith would bring his ship into port if human power could mend the damage the sea had wrought, or if human power could not stay the disaster he would never come to port. There is something Calvinistic about such men of the old-sea breed. They go down with their ships, of their own choice.
Into the last life-boat that was launched from the ship Captain Smith with his own hand lifted a small child into a seat beside its mother. As the gallant, officer performed his simple act of humanity several who were already in the boat tried to force the captain to join them, but he turned away resolutely toward the bridge.
That act was significant. Courteous, kindly, of quiet demeanor and soft words, he was known and loved by thousands of travelers.
When the English firm, A. Gibson & Co. of Liverpool, purchased the American clipper, Senator Weber, in 1869, Captain Smith, then a boy, sailed on her. For seven years he was an apprentice on the Senator Weber, leaving that vessel to go to the Lizzie Fennell, a square rigger, as fourth officer. From there he went to the old Celtic of the White Star Line as fourth officer and in 1887 he became captain of that vessel. For a time he was in command of the freighters Cufic and Runic; then he became skipper of the old Adriatic. Subsequently he assumed command of the Celtic, Britannic, Coptic (which was in the Australian trade), Germanic, Baltic, Majestic, Olympic and Titanic, an illustrious list of vessels for one man to have commanded during his career.
It was not easy to get Captain Smith to talk of his experiences. He had grown up in the service, was his comment, and it meant little to him that he had been transferred from a small vessel to a big ship and then to a bigger ship and finally to the biggest of them all.
“One might think that a captain taken from a small ship and put on a big one might feel the transition,” he once said. “Not at all. The skippers of the big vessels have grown up to them, year after year, through all these years. First there was the sailing vessel and then what we would now call small ships—they were big in the days gone by—and finally the giants to-day.”