Capt. Smith Declared to Friends He Would Sink with the Vessel
A woman living here whose husband is an officer on the White Star liner Irishman, tells an incident about the steamship Olympic, at the time commanded by Capt. Smith, who was lost on Monday, which has an application to the disaster to the Titanic.
At a gathering of the officers of the Olympic and their wives, reference was made to the fact that the Titanic would soon take the Olympic's laurels as the biggest vessel afloat. This recalled to some one the prophecy published in England that about this spring the largest vessel in the world would sink with heavy loss of live.
Capt. Smith, who at the time had been notified that he was to command the Titanic responded:
"Well, if the largest liner in the world sinks, I shall go with it."
Afterwards the wife of one of the Titanic's officers, who was then attached to the Olympic, told the narrator of this story about the conversation. It had upset her completely and called apprehension about her husband's transfer to the Titanic. The husband is supposed to have been one of the officers lost in Monday's disaster.
Chicago Tribune, Thursday, April 18, 1912, p. 4, c. 3 (By Cable to the Chicago Tribune - Newcastle, Eng., April 17)
