Current Literature Magazine

A couple of admirals weigh in as to the innocence or guilt of Bruce Ismay (1862 – 1937), Managing Director of the White Star Line. While the PITTSBURGH DISPATCH seemed to think that a debate was simply not necessary:

…But it cannot be ignored that the man who in the management of the line had sent the great steamer to sea with lifeboats for about one-third of the ship’s company, bore a responsibility that might well have been atoned by joining the gallant men who went down with the ship.

An eye-witness account from one of the survivors concerning the last minutes of Titanic Captain Edward Smith:

‘I will go down with the ship,’ he cried. He sank immediately, and although those on the collapsible boat watched for him to come up that they might drag him aboard, he never appeared.

In the final hours of the Titanic‘s life there were examples of heroic self-sacrifice; there were also examples of selfishness and cowardice.

Women and men, stokers and millionaires, crew and passengers, faced the grim enemy with unshaken fortitude and self-control. There were exceptions of course. In a company of 2,300 men and women of all sorts there must be some who show the yellow streak at such a time.

Of the 1,400 passengers, 495 were saved, of whom 202 were first cabin, 115 second cabin and 178 steerage passengers. That is, 35 percent of the passengers and 22 percent of the crew survived.

The Titanic disaster was a sad affair on a number of levels; however April 15, 1912 was a great night for the Anglo-Saxon hegemony and the values they held dear. As this piece makes clear, chivalry and other examples of good form were all in place as the great ship went down. It was remembered with pride how even the most pampered of millionaire industrialists stepped aside so that others might have a place on the lifeboats (all except J. Bruce Ismay).

It was not simply the menfolk who maintained the stiff upper lip as Titanic began to take water; many of the women also believed it was there place to suffer in order that others may live.

Many other women had to be almost forced into the boats or wheeled into them.