Editors’ Table: The “Titanic” Disaster

Editor's Table The "Titanic" Disaster When the wireless announced on Monday morning, April 15, that the Titanic of the White Star Line, the largest and most luxurious ship in the world, had collided with an iceberg that early morning off the Banks of Newfoundland, and was sinking, the news of the terrible disaster shocked all the civilized world. The ship was bound from Southampton for New York, and carried approximately 1486 passengers with a crew of 860. The Cunard liner, Carpathia, some sixty miles away, was summoned by a wireless message of distress, and came to the scene of the catastrophe as soon as possible, and succeeded in saving some 535 of the shipwrecked passengers and 210 of the crew who had left the sinking ship in the woefully insufficient number of life boats provided. The survivors arrived in New York on the night of April 18. The heroism of the men, both crew and passengers, who faced calmly inevitable death while they aided the women and children into the life-boats, not only reflects the admirable discipline on board the stricken vessel but is an undeniable evidence that the chivalry of the race still burns brightly in the hearts of men. Among the passengers were many world-famous American financiers and busines men, as well as noted men of England — among them John Jacob Astor, Benj. Guggenheim, Isadore Strauss, William T. Stead, Henry B. Harris, John B. Thayer, George B. Widener of Philadelphia, Charles W. Hayes, president of the Grand Trunk Railway, Major Archibald Butt, Frank D. Millet, the artist, and many others — who went bravely to their death, taking their chances for life without a murmur with their poorest and most unnoted companions in distress. It is stated that Mr. Charles W. Hayes, President of the Grand Trunk Railway, the evening before the catastrophe, remarked to Colonel Gracie of the United States Army, "The White Star, the Cunard and the Hamburg-American lines are devoting their attention and ingenuity in vieing,with the other to

EDITORS' T A III. I- 647 attain supremacy in luxurious ships and in making speed records. The time will come when this will be capped by some appalling disaster." A few hours later Mr. Hayes was dead, in the disaster which he had prophesied. ( >ne cannot think of the awful calamity without deep regrets that so many lives should be sacrificed for the sake of speed. To make time was doubtless the reason that the vessel had taken the northern and dangerous course at this time of year, and also for the seemingly criminal carelessness in running the great ship at great speed into an ice held of the presence of which the officers had full and frequent warning and were therefore clearly aware. Every chance was taken for the sake of speed. Doubtless many practical lessons will he learned from the sacrifice of souls in this terrible disaster. The first and most prominent aniong them is the need of passenger ships being compelled to keep south out of the range of icebergs at such seasons of the year as there is danger of icebergs, and being among them they must be compelled to steam very cautiously; and then properly equipped life-boats and life-saving appliances should be provided in sufficient numbers to more nearly accommodate all the passengers, while the ship's search-lights should be stronger and more carefully applied. One belief, so generally entertained, that modern ships are unsinkable likewise has been disproved. Here was the largest, the latest, the best, which proved itself helpless against fatal accident and immediate destruction. It had been equipped with every known device for safety, and yet became a ready prey to the dangers of the sea. With the whole civilized world we extend our sympathy to the bereaved of both nations, and to those who have been succored but who are saved at the sacrifice of companions and loved ones dearer than all to them. May the Spirit of the living God give them comfort and consolation. Spiritually, the catastrophe teaches us that the boasts which one sometimes hears from certain sea captains and unbelieving passengers, expressed in a recent sacrilegious statement of a captain to one of the elders of our Church, "You need not give a damn for God in this kind of a ship," — are vain, unwarranted and unreasonable. It teaches with a force that should stir the

648 IMPROVEMENT ERA rankest unbeliever that mankind is still dependent upon Him "who stilleth the noise of the seas, the noise of their waves, and the tumult of the people, — -the God of our salvation, who art the confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of them that are afar off upon the sea." Joseph F. Smith.