by Brad Matsen
In the Washington Post, Admiral George Dewey, the naval hero of the Spanish-American War, said, “I think that every passenger who crosses the North Atlantic takes his life in his hands every time. The greed for money-making is so great that it is with the sincerest regret that I observe that human lives are never taken into consideration.”
Every section of every paper—News, Arts, Sports, Society, and Business—found something to write about Titanic. Money was a topic in many of them. The stock markets had plummeted but were starting to recover. The New York Times said there wouldn’t be enough capital on two continents to cover the insurance loss. The hull and machinery coverage of the ship itself would be no problem, but the liability exposure was staggering. The diamonds on the ship alone had been insured for $5 million. The Times learned that one passenger had taken out a policy worth $600,000 on a string of pearls. An insurance broker told a reporter, “See all those flags at half-mast? Action must be taken by the government!”
At three o’clock on the afternoon of April 18, Smith went to Union Station. As he made his way to the train, he was mobbed by reporters. He had hoped to keep his precipitous departure from Washington a secret, but the next best thing to secrecy was telling the truth. Smith held a walking press conference, informing the reporters about the intercepted cable from Ismay and his conversation with President Taft, and naming the members of his committee and its advisers.
Are you going to arrest Bruce Ismay, Senator? a reporter shouted.
We are not going into this matter with a club, Smith replied. The officers of the White Star Line must respond to congressional action frankly and honestly if they are to enjoy the privileges of American ports and retain the confidence of the American people. The hearings will begin tomorrow at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York. Unless Ismay is ill or incapacitated, he will be subpoenaed, and he will testify.
Senator, how can Congress have any jurisdiction over the British? another reporter asked.
We may not have jurisdiction over the individual, Smith explained, but the American Congress is not without jurisdiction over the harbors of the United States. It is for these men who make use of the harbors to meet the public demand for information in regard to the disaster. Good day, boys, Smith said as he disappeared into the train.
In England, April 18 had been a day of national mourning. Memorial services in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales had drawn hundreds of thousands of mourners. Alexander M. Carlisle, the retired Harland and Wolff director who had helped design Titanic, had fainted in a church in London and been taken to the hospital.
In Aix-en-Provence, France, plans for a grand celebration of J. P. Morgan’s seventy-fifth birthday fell apart when the news about Titanic reached him. The next day, his mood plummeted further when he received a cable from his son, Jack, in New York, telling him that the newspapers and Congress seemed to have concluded that Bruce Ismay was to blame for the disaster.
Pirrie remained in seclusion aboard Valiant and did not yet know of the tragedy. Franklin had cabled Harland and Wolff as soon as he knew for sure that the ship was gone, then later when he knew that Thomas Andrews had perished with it. At the shipyard, Edward Wilding received the news as he convened the monthly meeting of the company directors on April 16. He excused himself and discreetly sent a cable to Margaret Pirrie, for her eyes only. She decided not to tell her husband.
At 9:07 P.M., the train from Washington chuffed through the tunnel under the Hudson River into Pennsylvania Station, on West Thirty-fourth Street in New York. A delegation from the Port of New York was on the platform. Hurry, they told Smith. Carpathia was in sight, escorted by the USS Manhattan. The ship was already past the Statue of Liberty, just minutes from docking. They had cabs standing by to take Smith and his party to Cunard’s Pier 54.
In the darkness, Smith’s convoy of taxis hurtled down Seventh Avenue. Just before heading into the narrower streets of lower Manhattan, the cabs snapped a right onto West Fourteenth Street. At Eighth Avenue, they slowed to a crawl. The cobbled thoroughfare leading to the river was jammed with cars, trucks, horses, and people surging toward the waterfront.
The cabdrivers leaned on their horns, but it took them twenty minutes to cover five blocks, reaching Pier 54 at 9:32. Policemen held thousands of people behind a rope barrier hung with flickering green gas lanterns. A strong west wind blew off the river, carrying a light mist that threatened to become a chilly rain. Carpathia was already tied to the pier. Smith took off on his own, pushed his way through the crowd to the police gate, told the guard who he was, and ran for the canopied gangway. Passengers were leaving the ship. Murmuring Excuse me, he moved past the descending men, women, and children. None of them said a word as they stood aside. None looked Smith in the eye. All of them seemed timid. Damaged.
At the top of the gangway, Smith caught his breath and squared up in front of one of the two officers helping passengers from the ship. I am Senator William Alden Smith, and I am here to see Mr. J. Bruce Ismay, he said. One of the officers shrugged at the other, then nodded to Smith.
Follow me, he said. The officer escorted Smith into the ship, up a stairway, and along a corridor that smelled of sweat, stale kitchen aromas, and cigarette smoke. He stopped in front of a door on which was a hand-lettered sign:
PLEASE DO NOT KNOCK.
Thirteen
INVESTIGATION
Smith had seen a newspaper photograph of Bruce Ismay, who was rabbitlike, with a thin face and small eyes. The man who answered the stateroom door aboard Carpathia was beefy and florid. He introduced himself as Phillip Franklin and told Smith that Ismay was far too ill to receive a guest.
Smith shouldered his way past Franklin, who put up no resistance. The stateroom smelled worse than the corridor, a combination of must, vomit, and cologne. Ismay was slouched in a chair, his hair matted. It was obvious that he had not washed in several days. He was shaking visibly and did not make eye contact with Smith.
Smith recited the command he had practiced on the train: “I am empowered by the Congress of the United States to demand that you refrain from leaving my country until my committee has the opportunity to question you about the events surrounding the sinking of Titanic. If necessary, I will issue a subpoena to detain you.”
In a voice that was weak but surprisingly clear, considering his disheveled condition, Ismay told Smith that a subpoena would not be necessary. He would cooperate in any way he could.
Smith asked about the surviving crew members, still afraid that Ismay would spirit them out of the country before he could interview them.
Most of the crew died, Ismay said. The ones who did not die were at the Institute of the Seamen’s Friend. He told Smith to let Franklin know whom he wanted to interview, and Franklin would make it happen. Ismay said he had considered taking his crew to England immediately only because he wanted to reunite them with their families as soon as possible.
Smith had relaxed after Ismay agreed to cooperate with him, and his obviously genuine concern for his crew softened Smith even further. He offered his hand. Ismay remained seated, reached up, and stiffly shook it once.
Smith told him that the hearings would begin at ten the following morning at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel. Ismay would be the first witness.
“And after that?” Franklin asked.
“That will be determined by tomorrow’s developments,” Smith said.
Smith left the stateroom for the boat deck and some fresh air. He stood at the rail, watching Titanic survivors and Carpathia’s passengers flow from the gangplank into the crowd. Each arrival triggered a surge of sobbing or laughing, a mingling of joy and sorrow that chilled Smith like nothing he had ever expected to hear in his life.
The following morning, the chairman of the White Star Line looked better but not good when he walked into the East Room of the Waldorf-Astoria. Ismay was carefully groomed, wearing a dark blue suit, starched white shirt, and black tie. His eyes moved around constantly, like those of a prey animal.
The formal reception hall, with brocade drapes, floral-print wallpaper, and sparkling glass chandeliers, had been arranged so that the only furniture was a large conference table in its center and straight-backed chairs against the walls. The room had been opened to reporters and onlookers at nine A.M. and had filled up in minutes. An hour later, it was a fog of cigarette smoke. The tone inside verged on that of a mob rather than a hearing of the United States Senate.
As Ismay walked in, trays of photoflash powder added the stench of burning magnesium to the air. Smith, who was sitting at the conference table, yelled, “Get those cameras out of here.”
“Mr. Ismay,” Smith began, with no preliminary remarks, “will you kindly tell the committee the circumstances surrounding your voyage and, as succinctly as possible . . . your place on the ship on the voyage, together with any circumstances you feel would be helpful to us in the inquiry?”
Ismay shut his eyes, opened them, and spoke. His tone was firm, his accent so crisp that it sounded like a theatrical parody of the way an upper-class Englishman spoke.
“In the first place, I would like to express my sincere grief at this deplorable catastrophe. I understand that you gentlemen have been appointed as a committee of the Senate to inquire into the circumstances. So far as we are concerned, we welcome it. We have nothing to conceal, nothing to hide. The ship was built in Belfast. She was the latest thing in the art of shipbuilding; absolutely no money was spared in her construction.”
Smith let Ismay talk for ten minutes without interruption. He described Titanic’s sea trials and the departure from Southampton, leaving out the incident with SS New York. Without notes, Ismay recited the speed of the ship and number of propeller revolutions at which the engines were turning for each day of the voyage. It was immediately obvious to Smith that he was responding to criticism about the speed of the ship that had surfaced in the newspapers. Ismay bluntly stated that a full-speed test of the ship had been tentatively scheduled for the day after the disaster, but that Titanic had never in its life reached its top speed. He had in no way encouraged Captain Smith to increase speed to reach New York ahead of schedule.
Senator Smith had mentally sketched his agenda for the investigation on the train north from Washington, and through the night at the hotel in New York. Stories help people make sense of the world. Smith wanted to write the story of Titanic in his report to the nation so it would not seem like random death, which was far too difficult to understand. He was sure that the iceberg alone did not account for the magnitude of the tragedy.
The facts had to be right. Smith wanted to know what had happened: Why did an unsinkable ship go down so quickly? Why were there not enough lifeboats for all the passengers? Why were more people not saved? Who was to blame?
Titanic sailed under the British flag, but it was owned by J. P. Morgan. Smith had been an enemy of Morgan’s and an opponent of trusts and monopolies. Whatever conclusions his committee reached, they had to emerge from a scrupulously transparent and unbiased process. Smith knew that the British would conduct their own inquiry, but on their home soil, where the invisible forces of their internal politics were much more likely to govern their conclusions.
Smith recognized that it was also his duty to give Ismay a chance to respond to the accusations by the press and others who had vilified him. Most of what had been written about Ismay centered on the simple fact that he had left the sinking ship while 1,504 men, women, and children who held tickets on his magnificent ocean liner died horribly in the freezing water. Smith had allowed Ismay to turn his opening testimony into a defense against accusations that Titanic was running at full speed through the ice field. Now it was time to find out why he got into the lifeboat.
“Will you describe what you did after the collision?” Smith asked.
Ismay recalled the terrible night. The impact woke him up. Captain Smith told him the ship had hit an iceberg. He never mentioned sinking. Ismay went to the engine room. Chief Engineer Joseph Bell said he, too, thought the ship had suffered major damage, but he was confident that it would stay afloat.
One of Smith’s aides brought in a profile of Titanic on an easel. Smith asked questions about speed, the extent of the damage to the ship, and the scene on the boat deck, and arrived at the ultimate moment. Ismay used the profile to show where he was at various times after Titanic hit the iceberg.
“What were the circumstances of your departure from the ship?” Smith asked.
“The lifeboat was there. The officer called out asking if there were any more women, and there was no response. There were no passengers left on deck.”
“There were no passengers on deck?” Smith repeated, unable to stifle an incredulous note in his voice that sent a wave of murmuring through the crowd.
“No, sir,” Ismay said. “As the boat was being lowered away, I got into it.”
Smith led Ismay through Titanic’s final moments. Ismay said he was facing away from the ship when it went down, that he was grateful that he had not seen it sink, that Titanic was in one piece the last time he looked at it. Ismay shut his eyes in mid-sentence and stopped talking. Smith changed the subject.
“Do you know whether the ship was equipped with its full complement of lifeboats?”
“If she had not been,” Ismay said, sounding exasperated with Smith’s interrogation tactics, “she could not have sailed.”
Smith excused Ismay, telling him to remain available in the United States for recall. The reporters broke for the exits to launch extra editions of their papers with the excuses of the man who’d fled his sinking ship, leaving hundreds of innocents to die.
After lunch, Smith called Carpathia’s captain, Arthur Rostron, to the witness chair, knowing that the testimony of the disaster’s most obvious hero would be a dramatic counterpoint to that of its villain. After rising to greet Rostron as he entered, Smith let the captain roam at will through his account of racing to Titanic to pick up the survivors in lifeboats.
“The whole thing was absolutely providential,” Rostron said. “I will tell you this, that the wireless operator was in his cabin at the time, not on official business at all, but just simply listening as he was undressing. He was unlacing his boots. He had his listening apparatus on his ear, and the message came. That was the whole thing. In ten minutes he would have been in bed, and we would not have heard the message.”
A few in the audience were so moved by Rostron’s tale of his lucky Marconi operator that they applauded. Then the mood changed from one of relief at that bit of good luck to one in which the stark reality of what Rostron saw dragged the crowd into a place so dark it dismantled the pretensions of order they trusted the hearing to maintain.
“By the time we had the first boat’s people, it was breaking day. I could see the remaining boats within an area of about four miles. I saw icebergs all around me. I maneuvered the ship and we gradually got all the boats together. There was hardly any wreckage, only small pieces of broken-up stuff.” Rostron paused. “By eight-thirty, all the people were on board. I asked for the purser, and told him that I wanted . . .” Rostron stopped, stifled a sob, and began to weep. “I wanted a short prayer of thankfulness for those rescued, and a burial service for those who were lost.”
The hearing was transformed from an inquisition into a funeral service. Many wept openly, including Smith, who leaned across the table and grasped Rostron’s forearm.
Rostron went on: “I then got an Episcopal clergyman, one of our passengers, and asked if he would do this for me, which he did willingly. While they were holding the service, I was on the bridge, of course, and I maneuvered around the scene of the wreckage. We saw nothing except one body.”
“Floating?” Smith said hoarsely.
“Floating.”
The room was absolutely quiet for a long minute. Smith broke the silence with a line of questioning about the authority of Titanic’s captain. Rostron said he knew Captain Smith, and knew without a doubt that he would never have taken o
rders to increase speed or anything else from Ismay or any official of the company who happened to be aboard.
“At sea, immediately I leave port until I arrive at port, the captain is in absolute control and takes orders from no one,” he said. “And neither would E. J. Smith.”
Ismay, who was sitting inconspicuously against the wall, slumped with relief. Rostron had effectively refuted the charge for which Ismay had been tried and convicted by Hearst and the rest of the American press. He had not ordered Captain Smith to fire all boilers to break a speed record, because after thirty years in the shipping business, he would know that Smith would never have obeyed such an order.
“One more question,” Senator Smith said. “Some complaint has been made because the message of the president of the United States which was sent to the Carpathia was not answered. Do you know anything about that?”
“I heard last night that there was a message about a Major Butt,” Rostron said. “I asked my purser about it. He said, Yes, Olympic sent a message asking if Major Butt was on board. It was answered, ‘Not on board.’ That is the only thing I know about it.”
Smith thanked Rostron, shook his hand, and called a break.
Charles Lightoller, the highest-ranking member of Titanic’s surviving crew, appeared in the hearing room wearing the blue working uniform in which he had left the ship. Ismay and Rostron had been dramatic, but one of them was not a mariner, and the other had not been aboard Titanic. Smith hoped Lightoller would be a willing and expert eyewitness. Lightoller’s first few answers to Smith’s questions revealed him to be terse and guarded.
“When did you board Titanic?” “In Belfast.” “When?” “March 19 or 20.” “Did you make the so-called trials?” “Yes, sir.” “Of what did they consist?” “Turning circles and adjusting compasses.”
If Lightoller wanted to play criminal defendant with Smith, then Smith would happily oblige him with a grilling he would never forget. For two hours without a break, Smith peppered Lightoller with questions. Lightoller parried with vague and evasive answers.