After the tragedy, an American senator (Alden Smith of Michigan) sponsored an American inquest into the sinking. His investigation was denounced as stupid by the British press-his questioning of the ship’s officers was criticized as being incredibly stupid.
An example: (Q) “What is an iceberg made of”? (A) “Ice, I should think”!
Yet others (even British sources) have defended Smith’s inquiry as being necessary to expose the basic weaknesses of ship control, rescue/evacuation procedures, as they existed in 1912.
Later, there was a UK investigation (Lord Mersey), that reached pretty much the same conclusions as Smith’s.
So, was Sen. Smith a naive bumpkin? Or was his inquiry conducted in a very clever way (asking simple questions) so as to prevent any evasion?
I’ve been unable to find comments on the crew by Joseph Conrad.
His opinion: If you can’t get more boats, then sell less tickets.
Good link-Conrad was also a valued consultant to the Royal Navy. His observation about cramming more people into bigger ships is still valid.
The interesting thing: these great trans-Atlantic steamers (the Cunard, Hapag-Lloyd, French Lines, etc.) were actually dinosaurs at the end of an era-they were not financially viable without the (one-way) immigrant trade. Basically, the $20 pound immigrant tickets paid the bills-the rich (in their 1000 pound staterooms) made the profits.
Immigration dropped off rapidly in the mid-1920’s, and when the Depression (1929) hit, these ships ran at big losses.
There’s a book, The Titanic: End of a Dream, by Wyn Craig Wade that goes in depth into the two inquiries. As I recall, Wade’s conclusion was that Senator Smith was an intelligent man and dogged investigator who, though a “landlubber” was the right man for the investigation because he was willing to “pin down” the owners and managers of Gilded Age conglomerates when need be rather than defer to them.
The British press and entertainment industry – mocking Senator Smith mercilessly was a cottage industry for the music-hall comics – went after Sen. Smith at least partially on the grounds that “how dare an American official investigate the sinking of a British ship with British captain and crew!” As Wade points out, a big chunk of the passenger list was American, and the ultimate ownership of the White Star Line was an American corporation. Indeed, it was the American corporate connection that weighed heavily in Sen. Smith pushing for a Senate investigation.
As to the specific question of what an iceberg was made of, the British inquiry asked essentially the same question and got a non-sarcastic answer to the effect that people had reported seeing rocks and even boulders in icebergs. IIRC, the general public was reluctant to believe that “mere ice” could sink a modern steel-hulled ship and thus at least entertained the possibility that the damage was done by rocks and boulders imbedded in the ice, like a steel razor blade in a plastic handle.
The grandparents of one of my best friends in high school were on the Titanic and lived to tell about it (they were in First Class).
My friend said they rarely spoke about it, but had been summoned to DC to testify about it at least twice. I believe they had to testify on what they had seen, who helped and didn’t help, and any other first hand information. They got into a half-full lifeboat and were told, “don’t worry - there are plenty of lifeboats for the others…”.