Titanic Quotes

[Martin Owen Cahill]

I reckon #3 is captain Smith hence the Nelson reference which would not fit Senator Smith's role in the story.

Martin

 

[Dave Gittins]

Martin, you are correct. The reference is to Captain Smith. Can anybody say who wrote the comment? Hint: he was very famous in 1912 and still is.

 

[John M. Feeney]

Dave: 'Twas none other than the illustrious George Bernard Shaw, in The [London] Daily News, 14 May 1912 (reprinted as "The Titanic: Some Unmentioned Morals", in John Wilson Foster's "The Titanic Reader".

(I cheated. I thought it might be Conrad at first, but I knew I'd definitely seen it in there somewhere.)

Cheers,
John

 

[Dave Gittins]

Good one, John! Your prize is a genuine $3 bill, drawn on the Bank of the Potomac.

Here's a slightly harder one. Who is being abused and who is doing the abusing?

"Your whole action is, to say the least of it, reprehensible and un-British, and if the Board of Trade were a real live business body, I rather think they would take stringent action without waiting for the findings of the court."

 

[Richard K. Mason]

O.K., Ladies and Gentlemen, let's see how sharp all of you really are.

The following is taken from a direct quote made by a member of the clergy in New Haven Conn. in an interview given to a New York paper on Thursday, April 18, 1912. WHO is the person the clergyman refers to?

"The death of ****** at sea in the going down of the Titanic preaches a great gospel of God's power to us all. Mr.***** and his crowd of New York associates have for years paid not the slightest attention to the laws of the church or state. But you can't defy God all the time. In another world, ***** will do penance. Without his material substenance which gave him his means for carousal, he will begin a new life! There are a lot more like him. This calamity ought to be a lesson to those like him!"

It should not be hard to figure this one out. But no clues. Sorry! Pretty strong stuff,huh?

Richard

 

[John M. Feeney]

Egads! Sometimes I even impress myself, Dave. ;^)

That mocking editorial tone ... the scathing, denouncing rhetoric ... and then it hit me:

"From the magazine John Bull ... Appearing in print on May 25, the day after the US Inquiry published its findings, but while the British Inquiry was still in progress. The Californian officers had been in court almost two weeks earlier: May 14-15th."
[Descriptive blurb from Dave Billnitzer's bombastically brilliant web site.]

The abuser, according to the letter's signature, is John Bull himself. (Was there an actual individual named John Bull?) The abused accused, of course, is our ever-popular, "prudent" Captain Stanley Lord. ;^)

Geez, I like this game. Have to come up with some myself now.

 

[Dave Gittins]

Almost correct. Captain Lord was the villain. John Bull was the paper. The writer was a remarkable character who played a peripheral role in the Titanic story. Hint: he was thrown out of Parliament after being jailed for embezzlement.

The one from Richard is familiar to me. It's the sort of thing that makes me think, "Thank God, I'm an atheist!" I'll leave it for somebody else.

 

[John M. Feeney]

Dave: I give up. The only version I seem to have access to just shows [signed] "John Bull". Maybe somebody else can pick it up from there.

(I have a sneaking suspicion I know what you're getting at with the hint, but don't want to just guess.)

Cheers,
John

P.S. Love that "Thank God I'm an atheist" line. ;-)

 

[John M. Feeney]

Dave: Coming full circle from my recent purchase and somewhat hasty "review" of Webb Garrison's "A Treasury of Titanic Tales", I feel compelled to answer the John Bull question with only a question.

Was the author of the John Bull letter in fact one Horatio Bottomley, then a member of the House of Commons? That is, is Garrison's information, in this instance -- that John Bull and Bottomley were basically synonymous -- correct?

What's the scoop on that later embezzlement ouster? (Sounds like good "dirt"!) :^)

Cheers,
John

 

[John M. Feeney]

One of my own now -- more a trivia question than a notable quotable.

What gentleman, fairly well-known in his own right, was the respondent in the following conversation? (Note: I've bleeped a lot of clues, but it still may be fairly easy.)

Q: "Do you know the wireless equipment of the Californian at this time?"

A "Yes. One of my last assignments ... was the overhauling of that apparatus. Some minor trouble had occurred at the end of the first voyage in New York, and I was asked ... to overhaul this apparatus and place it in working condition. The set on the Californian is a standard one and a half kilowatt Marconi apparatus. It is in every way a modern set, and is a very efficient set, and could work to 250 miles under any circumstances."

Q: "How far could it communicate under favorable circumstances?"

A: "Possibly, as a maximum, 500 to 800 miles."

(Small world, isn't it?)

Cheers,
John

 

[Stephen Stanger]

I don't know, but I've been told that once someone said
"I mean, it was sort of like murder, was'nt it"

Who was that then?

 

[Dave Gittins]

John, take a $3 bill for your correct answer.

Horatio Bottomley owned John Bull and wrote a good deal of it. He was nominally a Liberal Member of Parliament, but he was a populist party of one. He was a bit like Senator Smith and presented himself as the champion of the underdog. In 1910 he pointed out the lack of boats on the big new ships and called for action.

Unlike Senator Smith, he was thoroughly dishonest. Shortly after the Titanic disaster, he was suspended from parliament because he was the subject of bankruptcy proceedings. Somehow he recovered and during WW I he advocated proper care for the soldiers who were suffering so much on the western front.

After the war, some fool put him in charge of a fund for the asssistance of returning soldiers. Bottomley was caught with his fingers in the till. He got seven years and was thrown out of parliament for good, thus going from MP to HMP.

His secret was his ability to charm people and suck them into his schemes. Also, as in the matter of the boats, he wasn't always wrong.

 

[Dave Gittins]

Stephen, the exact quotation was, "It was almost like murder, wasn't it."

Hint. It's in a fascinating book that everybody should have, or you may find it on a recording.

 

[Dave Gittins]

We seem to have more questions than answers. Nobody has spotted Richard Mason's nasty clergyman yet, or John Feeney's radio man.

To keep the thread going, Here's a relatively easy one.

Who probably wishes that he did not issue this statement to the news media?

"The Titanic itself lies in 13,000 feet of water on a gently sloping alpine-like countryside overlooking a small canyon below.

It's bow faces north and the ship sits upright on the bottom. Its mighty stacks point upwards."

 

[Richard K. Mason]

Dave;

I guess since nobody wants to answer my question, I'll answer it myself. The person that the clergyman refers to in the newspaper quote is "John Jacob Astor". Your question is answered with the name of "Dr. Robert Ballard" at the press conference upon his return to Woods Hole after his first Titanic expedition. John's question is a mystery. I'm going to guess either Mr. Marconi, himself, Jack Binns, or W.G. Balfour.

Have a good day,
Richard

 

[Dave Gittins]

The clergyman in question was George Chalmers Richmond, of St John's episcopal Church, Philadelphia. Richmond had preached against the marriage of Astor and Madeleine Force.

Dr Ballard was indeed the author of that stack of trash. Bet he regrets it.

Now, folks, which of the four radio men Richard listed was the one who checked Californian's radio?

 

[Tracy Smith]

I've got something a little different for all of you.

My son loves rap music and I'm unfortunately stuck having to listen to it on a fairly frequent basis. But one night while he was playing a particular song, one line in it suddenly reminded me of someone on the Titanic. Here is the rap lyric, followed by the quote attributed to this person on the Titanic:

"Ain't no way I'm a-bustin' my ass and getting no pay" --- Tupac Shakur

"****** said he wouldn't work for nobody for nothing".

Name the person on the Titanic who said the second thing and the book the quote came from.

 

[Richard K. Mason]

Tracy; How are you?

I can't believe I got to this before anyone else did! Well, here ya' go! I first read this "quote" long ago in a book called "A Night To Remember" by the late Walter Lord. He is refering to 5th officer Harold G. Lowe of the Titanic. Lowe's daddy wanted to apprentice him to some other line of work but young Lowe was a rebel and ran off to sea. Now, could Dave G. or John F. PLEASE tell us who the radio man is in his above question? And where did he find that particular exchange?

Take care,
Richard

 

[Dave Gittins]

Walter Lord was drawing on Lowe's evidence in the US inquiry. He actually said---

"I ran away from home when I was about 14, and I went in a schooner. I was in seven schooners altogether, and my father wanted to apprentice me but I said I would not be apprenticed; that I was not going to work for anybody for nothing, without any money; that I wanted to be paid for my labor."

As for the radio man, there's a song about him that begins

'"There's a hole in the side of the ship **** *****,"
The captain above him cried.
Send a message at once to the wandering winds,
"Aye, Aye, sir," **** ***** replied.'

 

[John M. Feeney]

Richard wrote: "I'm going to guess either Mr. Marconi, himself, Jack Binns, or W.G. Balfour."

Hi, Richard: Sorry, I meant to get back to you earlier on that and got tied up. Anyway, "Give that man a third of a cigar!" (Hey, one out of 3 ain't bad!) :^)

The radio man in question is none other than the illustrious John Robinson ("Jack") Binns, himself renowned as the Marconi operator aboard the stricken Republic. The full quote can be found on page 1035 of the U.S. Hearings (Day 13).

I was fairly tickled when I stumbled upon that bizarre coincidence a while back. It seems our Mister Binns was sort of an "expert witness for all seasons" -- newspaper man, seasoned Marconi operator (personally involved in a maritime distress situation), key figure in the attempts to gather early information from the Carpathia, *and* a guru on Californian's wireless set, to boot. (Now that *is* a small world!)

I thought JJ Astor was probably the subject of your own quote, but only vaguely recalled seeing that somewhere. So who the righteous "man of the cloth" might be eluded me entirely.


Dave: Gotta love that 4-liner above. It's a "salty" rhyme, if ever I heard one.


One really far afield now, though some will doubtless know it immediately: What Titanic passenger once dedicated a published work "To all those ... who labor through necessity and not caprice"? And what was the actual publication? [Note: The winner will receive a fabulous FREE link to the online version -- a graphic reproduction of the original work.) ;^)

Cheers,
John