Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 April 1912 — SURVIVORS OF OCEAN TRAGEDY SAFE ON LAND [ARTICLE]

SURVIVORS OF OCEAN TRAGEDY SAFE ON LAND

341 First, 262 Second and 136 Third Class Passengers Are Saved. DEATH TOLL IS 1,700 Band Played “Nearer My God to Thee” as Vessel Goes to Bottom. ALL LIGHTS WERE BURNING Colonel Astor Refuses to Take Place in Lifeboat—Mrs.' Isidor Straus Would Not Leave Husband’s Side and Perishes—Capt. Smith Leaps Into £ea Before Ship Is Immersed. By Carlos M. Hurd. Staff Correspondent of the New York World on Board the C'arpathia. (Copyright.) New York. April 19: —Seventeen hundred lives—the figures will hardly vary in either direction by more than a few dozen —were lost in the sinking of the Titanic, which struck an iceberg at 11:45 p. m. Sunday.and was at the ocean’s bottom 2 hours and 35 minutes after.

The printed rolls of first- and second cabins, compared with the list of the survivors on the Carpathia, show that of 341 first-cabin passengers, 212 were saved, 154 of them women and children; and that of 262 secondcabin passengers. 115 were saved, 102 of them women and children, of the third-class passengers, 800 in number, 136 survive, of whom 83 are women and children.

Of 955 officers and crew, 199, including 22 women, reached the Carpathia. A few in each class doubtless escaped enumeration on the Carpathia. 1.688 Are Unaccounted For. Accepting the estimate of the Carpathia s officers that 700 survivors reached the ship, comnarison with the total. 2,388, shows that. 1,0-s are unaccounted for. There is but the faintest hc*pe that any of these reached any other ship. Reports that the California, a cattle ship, may have rescued a few persons, have given merciful respite from utter despair to some of the women. Cause, responsibility and similar questions regarding the stupendous disaster will l>e taken up in time bv the British marine authorities. No disposition has been shown by any sum ivor to question the courage of the crew, hundreds of whom saved others and gave their own lives with a heroism which equaled, hut could not exceed that of John Jacob Astor. Henry R. Harris, Jacques Futrelle and others in the long list of the first cabin missing. Ofncers Knew Icebergs Were Near. Facts which I have established by inquiries on the Carpathia. as posft lively as they could be established in \ ic\\ of the silence of the few surviving officers, are: That the Titanic s officers know-, Eeveral hours before the crash, of the possible nearnevs of icebergs. That the Titanic’s speed, nearly 23 knots an hour, was not slackened. That the number of lifeboats on the

; Titanic was insufficient to accommofdate much more than one-third of the | passengers,! to say nothing of the j crew. Most members of the crew j sa r there were 16 lifeboats and two ; collapsibles; none say there were • more than 20 boats in all. The 700 who escaped filled most of the 16 life-

ahfi the one collapsible which - ■ awry to the limit of their ity"Wcmen First" Ru!% Enforced. That the “women first” rule, in some cases, was applied to the extent o; turn' ig back men who were with :r families, even though not enough w-emrn to fill the boats were at hand r " that particular part of the deck. ?> me few boats were thus lowered wi hout being completely filled, but most of these were soon filled with aimrs and stewards, picked up out or t water, who helped man them. T: a- the bulkhead system, though probably working in the manner Intended. availed only to delay the spin’s sinking, the position and length cf the ship’s w-ound (on the starboard quarter! admitted icy water which caused the boilers to explode, aj»l 'l-.ese explosions practically broke'the ship in two.

Bulkheads Rendered Ineffective. Had the ship struck the iceberg head-on. at whatever speed, and w-ith whatever resulta*% shock, the bulkhead system of water-tight qompartments would probably have saved the vessel. As one man expressed it, It was the “impossible” that happened when with a shock unbelievably the ship’s side was torn for a length, which made the bulkhead system ineffective..-';-".’ The Titanic was 1,799 miles from Queenstown and 1,191 miles from Nev. York, speeding for a maiden voyage record. The night was starlight, the sea glassy. Lights were out in most of the staterooms, and only two or tlyee congenial groups remained in the public rooms. In to a crow’s nest, or lookout, and ‘ CB bridge, officers and members of the .crew were at their places, av nming relief at midnight from their J two hours' watc,h. Danger Warning Sounded. At 11:45 came the sudden sound of two gongs, a warning of immediate danger The crash against the iceberg which had been sighted at only a quarter of a mile, came almost sinfciltaneously with the click of the levers operated by those bn the bridge, which stopped ftp engine*s and closed the water- ; tight doors. Captain Smith was on the bridge a moment later giving orders for the summoning of all on board, and for the putting cn of life-preservers and the lowering of lifeboats. Many Men in First Boats. The first boats lowered contained more men than the latter ones, as the men were on deck first and not enough women to fill them. - When, a moment later, the rush of frightened women and crying children to the deck began, enforcement of the “women first” rule became rigid. Officers loading scene of the boats revolvers, but in most cases the men. both passengers and crew, be- , havc'l in a way that called for no such ; restraint.

Report Captain Shot Self. Revolver shots, heard by many persons shortly before the end of the Titanic, caused many rumors. One was that Captain Smith shot himself, another was that First Officer Murdock ended his life. Smith, Murdock and S’.xth Officer Moody are known to have been lost. The surviving officers. Lightoller, Pitman. Rothall and . Lowe bavy made no statement, j Members, of the crew discredit all ! reports of suicide, and, say Captain Smith remained on the bridge until Just before the ship sank, leaping only after those on the decks had been Mashed away. It is also related that, : when a cook later sought to pull him aboard a lifeboat he exclaimed: I * Let me go!" and, Jerking away, went I down.

Life-Preservers Effective. . 1 What became of the men with lifepreservers is a question asked since the disaster by many persons. The preservers did their work of supporting their wearers in the water until the ship went down. Many of those drawn into the vortex, despite the preservers, did • not come up again. Dead bodies floated on the surface as the last boats moved away. Band Plays as Ship Sinks. To relate that the shfp’s string band gathered in the saloon, near the end, and played - “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” sounds like an attempt to give an added solemn color to a scene which was in itself the climax of solemnity. But various passengers and survivors of the crew agree In the declaration that they heard the music. To some of the hearers, with husbands among the dying men in the water and at the ship’s rail, the strain brought in thought the words;

"So, by my woes I’ll be Nearer, my God, to thee, Nearer to thee.” “Women and children first,” was the order in the filling of the, Titanic’s lifeboats. How well tha*t order was fulfilled the list of missing first and second cabin passengers bears eloquent witness. “Mr.” is before almost every name. Chose Death With Husbands. .Mrs, Isidor Straus, who chose death rather than to leave her husband's side; Mrs. Allison, who remained below with her husband and daughter, and others who, in various ways were kept from entering the line of those to be saved, are striking examples of those who faced the disaster calrnly. To most of the passengers the midnight crash did not seem of terrific force. Bridge players in the smoking room kept on with their game.. Once on deck, many hesitated to enter the swinging lifeboats. The glassy sea, the starlit the absence* in the first few minyths, of intense excitement, gave them the feeling that thebe was only some slight mishap—that those who got into the boats would have a chilly half hour below, and might later be laughed at. ?•; Refuse Place in First Boat. It was such a feeling as this, from all accounts, which caused John Jacob Astor and his wife to refuse the places offered them in the first boat and to retire to the gymnasium. In' the same ,way H. J. Allison, Montreal banker, laughed at’ the warning, and his wile, reassured by him, took her time about dressing. They and their daughter did not reach the Carpathia. Their son, less than tw-o years old, was carried into a lifeboat by his nurse and was taken in charge by MaJ. Arthur Peuchen. The admiration felt by passengers and crew f6r the matchlessly appointed vessel was translated. In those first few moments, into a confidence which, for some, proved deadly. Lifeboats Are Lacking. In the loading of the first boat, restrictions of sex were not made, and it seemed to the men who piled in beside the women that there would be boats enough for all. But the ship’s officers knew better than this, and as the spreading fear caused an earnest advance toward the suspended craft the order, “Women first!* was heard, ar.d the men were pushed aside.