stewards.”
Thomas Cottam, of Liverpool, the Marconi operator on the Carpathia, was the next witness.
Cottam said that he was about ready to retire Sunday night, having partially removed his clothes, and was waiting for a reply to a message to the Parisian when he heard Cape Cod trying to call the Titanic. Cottam called the Titanic operator to inform him of the fact, and received the reply. ‘Come at once; this is a distress message. C. Q. D.’ “
“What did you do then?”
“I confirmed the distress message by asking the Titanic if I should report the distress message to the captain of the Carpathia.”
“How much time elapsed after you received the Titanic’s distress message before you reported it to Captain Rostron?”
“About a couple of minutes,” Cottam answered.
When the committee resumed the investigation on April 20th, Cottam was recalled to the stand.
Senator Smith asked the witness if he had received any messages from the time the Carpathia left the scene of the disaster until it reached New York. The purpose of this question was to discover whether any official had sought to keep back the news of the disaster.
“No, sir,” answered Cottam. “I reported the entire matter myself to the steamship Baltic at 10.30 o’clock Monday morning. I told her we had been to the wreck and had picked up as many of the passengers as we could.”
Cottam denied that he had sent any message that all passengers had been saved, or anything on which such a report could be based.
Cottam said he was at work Monday and until Wednesday. He repeated his testimony of the previous day and said he had been without sleep throughout Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and until late Wednesday afternoon when he had been relieved by Bride.
“Did you or Bride send any message declaring that the Titanic was being towed into Halifax?”
“No, sir,” said the witness, with emphasis.
In an effort to determine whether the signal “C. Q. D.” might not have been misunderstood by passing ships, Senator Smith called upon Mr. Marconi.
“The ‘C. Q.,’” said Marconi, “is an international signal which meant that all stations should cease sending except the one using the call. The ‘D.’ was added to indicate danger. The call, however, now has been superseded by the universal call, ‘S. O. S.’”
Harold S. Bride, the sole surviving operator of the Titanic, was then called.
Bride said he knew the Frankfurt was nearer than the Carpathia when he called for assistance, but that he ceased his efforts to communicate with the former because her operator persisted in asking, “What is the matter?” despite Bride’s message that the ship was in distress.
Time after time Senator Smith asked in varying forms why the Titanic did not explain its condition to the Frankfurt.
“Any operator receiving ‘C. Q. D.’ and the position of the ship, if he is on the job,” said Bride, “would tell the captain at once.”
Marconi again testified to the distress signals, and said that the Frankfurt was equipped with Marconi wireless. He said that the receipt of the signal “C. Q. D.” by the Frankfurt’s operator should have been all-sufficient to send the Frankfurt to the immediate rescue.
Under questioning by Senator Smith, Bride said that undoubtedly the Frankfurt received all of the urgent appeals for help sent subsequently to the Carpathia.
The first witness when the investigation was resumed in Washington on April 22d was P. A. S. Franklin, vice-president of the International Mercantile Marine Company.
Franklin testified that he had had no communication with Captain Smith during the Titanic’s voyage, nor with Ismay, except one cable from Southampton.
Senator Smith then showed Mr. Franklin the telegram received by Congressman Hughes, of West Virginia, from the White Star Line, dated New York, April 15th, and addressed to J. A. Hughes, Huntington, W. Va., as follows:
“Titanic proceeding to Halifax. Passengers probably land on Wednesday. All safe.
“I ask you,” continued the senator, “whether you know about the sending of that telegram, by whom it was authorized and from whom it was sent?”
“I do not, sir,” said Franklin. “Since it was mentioned at the Waldorf Saturday we have had the entire passenger staff examined and we cannot find out.”
Asked when he first knew that the Titanic had sunk, Franklin said he first knew it about 6.27 P.M., Monday.
Mr. Franklin then produced a thick package of telegrams which he had received in relation to the disaster.
“About twenty minutes of two on Monday morning,” said he, “I was awakened by a telephone bell, and was called by a reporter for some paper who informed me that the Titanic had met with an accident and was sinking. I asked him where he got the information. He told me that it had come by wireless from the steamship Virginian, which had been appealed to by the Titanic for aid.”
Mr. Franklin said he called up the White Star docks, but they had no information, and he then appealed to the Associated Press, and there was read to him a dispatch from Cape Race advising him of the accident.
“I asked the Associated Press,” said Mr. Franklin, “not to send out the dispatch until we had more detailed information, in order to avoid causing unnecessary alarm. I was told, however, that the story already had been sent.”
The reassuring statements sent out by the line in the early hours of the disaster next were made the subject of inquiry.
“Tell the committee on what you based those statements,” directed Senator Smith.
“We based them on reports and rumors received at Cape Race by individuals and by the newspapers. They were rumors, and we could not place our finger on anything authentic.”
“At 6.20 or 6.30 Monday evening,” Mr. Franklin continued, “a message was received telling the fateful news that the Carpathia reached the Titanic and found nothing but boats and wreckage; that the Titanic had foundered at 2.20 A.M. in 41.16 north, 50.14 west; that the Carpathia picked up all the boats and had on board about 675 Titanic survivors—passengers and crew.
“It was such a terrible shock that it took me several moments to think what to do. Then I went downstairs to the reporters, I began to read the message, holding it high in my hand. I had read only to the second line, which said that the Titanic had sunk, when there was not a reporter left—they were so anxious to get to the telephones.
“The Titanic’s equipment was in excess of the law,” said the witness. “It carried its clearance in the shape of a certificate from the British Board of Trade. I might say that no vessel can leave a British port without a certificate that it is equipped to care for human lives aboard in case of accident. It is the law.”
“Do you know of anyone, any officer or man or any official, whom you deem could be held responsible for the accident and its attendant loss of life?”
