A Night to Remember

As the sea closed over the Titanic, Lady Cosmo Duff Gordon in boat 1 remarked to her secretary Miss Francatelli, ‘There is your beautiful nightdress gone.’

A lot more than Miss Francatelli’s nightgown vanished that April night. Even more than the largest liner in the world, her cargo and the lives of 1,502 people.

Never again would men fling a ship into an ice field, heedless of warnings, putting their whole trust in a few thousand tons of steel and rivets. From now on Atlantic liners took ice messages seriously, steered clear, or slowed down. Nobody believed in the ‘unsinkable ship’.

Nor would icebergs any longer prowl the seas untended. After the Titanic sank, the American and British governments established the International Ice Patrol, and today Coast Guard cutters shepherd errant icebergs that drift towards the steamer lanes. The winter lane itself was shifted further south, as an extra precaution.

And there were no more liners with only part-time wireless. Henceforth every passenger ship had a twenty- four-hour radio watch. Never again could the world fall apart while a Cyril Evans lay sleeping off duty only ten miles away.

It was also the last time a liner put to sea without enough lifeboats. The 46,328-ton Titanic sailed under hopelessly outdated safety regulations. An absurd formula determined lifeboat requirements: all British vessels over 10,000 tons must carry sixteen lifeboats with a capacity of 5,500 cubic feet, plus enough rafts and floats for seventy-five per cent of the capacity of the lifeboats.

For the Titanic this worked out at 9,625 cubic feet. This meant she had to carry boats for only 962 people. Actually, there were boats for 1,178—the White Star Line complained that nobody appreciated their thoughtfulness. Even so, this took care of only fifty-two per cent of the 2,207 people on board, and only thirty per cent of her total capacity. From now on the rules and formulas were simple indeed—lifeboats for everybody.

And it was the end of class distinction in filling the boats. The White Star Line always denied anything of the kind—and the investigators backed them up—yet there’s overwhelming evidence that the steerage took a beating: Daniel Buckley kept from going into first class… Olaus Abelseth released from the poop deck as the last boat pulled away… steward Hart convoying two little groups of women topside, while hundreds were kept below… steerage passengers crawling along the crane from the well deck aft… others climbing vertical ladders to escape the well deck forward.

Then there were the people Colonel Gracie, Lightoller and others saw surging up from below, just before the end. Until this moment Gracie was sure the women were all off—they were so hard to find when the last boats were loading. Now, he was appalled to see dozens of them suddenly appear. The statistics suggest who they were—the Titanic’s casualty list included four of 143 first-class women (three by choice)… fifteen of ninety-three second-class women… and eighty-one of 179 third-class women.

Not to mention the children. Except for Lorraine Allison, all twenty-nine first- and second-class children were saved, but only twenty-three out of seventy-six steerage children.

Neither the chance to be chivalrous nor the fruits of chivalry seemed to go with a third-class passage.

It was better, but not perfect, in second class. Lawrence Beesley remembered an officer stopping two ladies as they started through the gate to first class. ‘May we pass to the boats?’ they asked.

‘No, madam; your boats are down on your own deck.’

In fairness to the White Star Line, these distinctions grew not so much from set policy as from no policy at all. At some points the crew barred the way to the boat deck; at others they opened the gates but didn’t tell anyone; at a few points there were well-meaning efforts to guide the steerage up. But generally third class was left to shift for itself. A few of the more enterprising met the challenge, but most milled helplessly about their quarters—ignored, neglected, forgotten.

If the White Star Line was indifferent, so was everybody else. No one seemed to care about third class— neither the Press, the official inquiries, nor even the third-class passengers themselves.

In covering the Titanic, few reporters bothered to ask the third-class passengers anything. The New York Times was justly proud of the way it handled the disaster. Yet the famous issue covering the Carpathia’s arrival in New York contained only two interviews with third-class passengers. This apparently was par for the course—of forty-three survivor accounts in the New York Herald, two again were steerage experiences.

Certainly their experiences weren’t as good copy as Lady Cosmo Duff Gordon (one New York newspaper had her saying, ‘The last voice I heard was a man shouting, “My God, my God!”’). But there was indeed a story. The night was a magnificent confirmation of ‘women and children first’, yet somehow the loss rate was higher for third-class children than first-class men. It was a contrast which would never get by the social consciousness (or news sense) of today’s Press.

Nor did Congress care what happened to third class. Senator Smith’s Titanic investigation covered everything under the sun, including what an iceberg was made of (‘Ice’, explained Fifth Officer Lowe), but the steerage received little attention. Only three of the witnesses were third-class passengers. Two of these said they were kept from going to the boat deck, but the legislators didn’t follow up. Again, the testimony doesn’t suggest any deliberate hush-up—it was just that no one was interested.

The British Court of Inquiry was even more cavalier. Mr W. D. Harbinson, who officially represented the third-class interests, said he could find no trace of discrimination, and Lord Mersey’s report gave a clean bill of health—yet not a single third-class passenger testified, and the only surviving steward stationed in steerage freely conceded that the men were kept below decks as late as 1.15 a.m.

Even the third-class passengers weren’t bothered. They expected class distinction as part of the game. Olaus Abelseth, at least, regarded access to the boat deck as a privilege that went with first- and second-class passage… even when the ship was sinking. He was satisfied as long as they let him stay above decks.

A new age was dawning, and never since that night have third-class passengers been so philosophical.

At the opposite extreme, it was also the last time the special position of first class was accepted without question. When the White Star liner Republic went down in 1908, Captain Sealby told the passengers entering the lifeboats, ‘Remember! Women and children go first; then the First Cabin, then the others!’ There was no such rule on the Titanic, but the concept still existed in the public mind, and at first the Press tended to forestall any criticism over what a first-class passenger might do. When the news broke that Ismay was saved, the New York Sun hastened to announce, ‘Ismay behaved with exceptional gallantry… no one knows how Mr Ismay himself got into a boat; it is assumed he wished to make a presentation of the case to his company.’

Never again would first class have it so good. In fact, almost immediately the pendulum swung the other way. Within days Ismay was pilloried; within a year a prominent survivor divorced her husband merely because, according to gossip, he happened to be saved. One of the more trying legacies left by those on the Titanic has been a new standard of conduct for measuring the behaviour of prominent people under stress.

It was easier in the old days… for the Titanic was also the last stand of wealth and society in the centre of public affection. In 1912 there were no movie, radio or television stars; sports figures were still beyond the pale; and cafe society was completely unknown. The public depended on socially prominent people for all the vicarious glamour that enriches drab lives.

This preoccupation was fully appreciated by the Press. When the Titanic sailed, the New York Times listed the prominent passengers on the front page. After she sank, the New York American broke the news on 16 April with a leader devoted almost entirely to John Jacob Astor; at the end it mentioned that 1,800 others were also lost.

In the same mood, the 18 April New York Sun covered the insurance angle of the disaster. Most of the story concerned Mrs Widener’s pearls.

Never again did established wealth occupy people’s minds so thoroughly. On the other hand, never again was wealth so spectacular. John Jacob Astor thought nothing of shelling out 800 dollars for a lace jacket some dealer displayed on deck when the Titanic stopped briefly at Queenstown. To the Ryersons there was nothing unusual about travelling with sixteen trunks. The 190 families in first class were attended by twenty-three handmaids, eight valets and assorted nurses and governesses—entirely apart from hundreds of stewards and stewardesses. These personal servants had their own lounge on C deck, so that no one