Take Back the Center by Wenz Peter S.;

Author:Wenz, Peter S.; [Wenz, Peter S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 3339485
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

8

The Social Contract

High in the crow’s-nest of the new White Star Liner Titanic, Lookout Frederick Fleet peered into a dazzling night. It was calm clear and bitterly cold. There was no moon, but the cloudless sky blazed with stars. The Atlantic was like a polished plate glass; people later said they had never seen it so smooth.

This was the fifth night of the Titanic’s maiden voyage to New York, and it was already clear that she was not only the largest but also the most glamorous ship in the world. Even the passengers’ dogs were glamorous.1

So begins A Night to Remember, Walter Lord’s classic account of the sinking of the Titanic. At about 11:40 p.m. on Sunday, April 14, 1912, the ship’s fate was sealed. The ship was going over 22 knots in an effort to reach New York in record time.

Suddenly Fleet saw something directly ahead, even darker than the darkness. At first it was small (about the size, he thought, of two tables put together), but every second it grew larger and closer. Quickly Fleet banged the crow’s-nest bell three times, the warning of danger ahead. At the same time he lifted the phone and rang the bridge.

“What did you see?” asked a calm voice at the other end.

“Iceberg right ahead,” replied Fleet.

“Thank you,” acknowledged the voice with curiously detached courtesy. Nothing more was said.

For the next 37 seconds, Fleet . . . stood quietly . . . watching the ice draw nearer. Now they were almost on top of it, and still the ship didn’t turn. The berg towered wet and glistening far above the forecastle deck. . . . Then, miraculously, the bow began to swing to port. At the last second the stem shot into the clear, and the ice glided swiftly by along the starboard side. It looked to Fleet like a very close shave.2

Of course, the ship hadn’t actually avoided collision with ice beneath the sea; instead, she received fatal damage that helped to alter received ideas about social justice.

The White Star Line’s Titanic was not just the largest ship to sail the seas, she also had fully half again the tonnage of the Cunard Lines’ Mauritania and Lusitania, which, when completed only five years earlier, were the largest and fastest vessels to date.3 The Titanic’s luxury was commensurate with her size and her first class clientele commensurate with her luxury. She carried some of the cream of American society, including John Jacob Astor, Ben Guggenheim, Martin Rothschild, Mr. and Mrs. George Widener (Philadelphia banking and streetcar interests), Henry Sleeper Harper (of the publishing family), Robert W. Daniel (another Philadelphia banker), and J. Bruce Ismay (managing director of the White Star Line). These people didn’t travel light. The Ryersons, for example, thought nothing of traveling with sixteen trunks. In addition:

The 190 families in First Class were attended by 23 maids, eight valets, and assorted nurses and governesses—entirely apart from hundreds of stewards and stewardesses.

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