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 EL
DISEÑO
DE TODOS LOS DÍAS
COSAS
 TAMBIÉN POR
DON NORMAN

LIBROS
Memoria y Atención: Una Introducción a
Procesamiento de la información humana.
Primera edición, 1969; Segunda edición 1976

(con Peter Lindsay: primera edición, 1972; segunda edición 1977)

MONOGRAFÍAS CIENTÍFICAS
Modelos de la memoria humana
(editado, 1970)
Exploraciones en la cognición
(con David E. Rumelhart y el Grupo de Investigación LNR, 1975)

Perspectivas de la Ciencia Cognitiva

(editado, 1981)

Diseño de Sistemas Centrados en el Usuario: Nuevas Perspectivas sobre la Interacción Persona-

Computadora
(editado con Steve Draper, 1986)

LIBROS COMERCIALES
Aprendizaje y memoria, 1982
La psicología de las cosas cotidianas, 1988
El diseño de las cosas cotidianas
1990 y 2002 (libros de bolsillo de La psicología de las cosas cotidianas con nuevos prefacios)
Edición revisada y ampliada, 2013
Las señales de giro son las expresiones faciales de los automóviles, 1992
Cosas que nos hacen inteligentes, 1993
La computadora invisible: por qué los buenos productos pueden fallar, la computadora personal es
tan compleja y los dispositivos de información son la respuesta, 1998
Diseño emocional: por qué amamos (u odiamos) las cosas cotidianas, 2004
El diseño de las cosas del futuro, 2007
Una estrategia integral para una mejor lectura: cognición y emoción, 2010
(con Masanori Okimoto; mis ensayos, con comentarios en japonés, utilizados para enseñar inglés
como segunda lengua a hablantes de japonés)

Vivir con complejidad, 2011

CD-ROM
Primera persona: Donald A. Norman. Defendiendo los atributos humanos en la era de la máquina,
1994
EDICIÓN REVISADA Y AMPLIADA

LIBROS BÁSICOS
Nueva York
Copyright © 2013 por Don Norman

Publicado por Basic Books,

Miembro del Grupo Perseus Books

Todos los derechos reservados. Ninguna parte de este libro puede ser reproducida de ninguna manera
sin permiso por escrito, excepto en el caso de citas breves incorporadas en artículos críticos y
reseñas. Para obtener más información, diríjase a Basic Books, 250 West 57th Street, 15th Floor,
Nueva York, Nueva York 10107.

Los libros publicados por Basic Books están disponibles con descuentos especiales para compras al
por mayor en los Estados Unidos por parte de corporaciones, instituciones y otras organizaciones.
Para obtener más información, comuníquese con el Departamento de Mercados Especiales de
Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Filadelfia, PA 19103, o llame al (800) 810-
4145, ext. 5000, o envíe un correo electrónico a [email protected].

Datos de catalogación en publicación de la Biblioteca del Congreso

Norman, Donald A.
[Psicología de las cosas cotidianas]
El diseño de las cosas cotidianas / Don Norman.—Edición revisada y ampliada.
páginas cm
ISBN 978-0-465-07299-6 (libro electrónico) 1. Diseño industrial: aspectos psicológicos. 2.
Ingeniería humana. I. Título.
TS171.4.N672013
745.2001'9—DC23
Para Julie
 CONTENIDO

Prefacio a la edición revisada

1 La psicopatología de las cosas cotidianas

2 La psicología de las acciones cotidianas

3 El conocimiento en la cabeza y en el mundo

4 Saber qué hacer: limitaciones, capacidad de

descubrimiento y retroalimentación

5 ¿Error humano? No, mal diseño

6 Pensamiento de diseño

7 El diseño en el mundo de los negocios

Reconocimientos
Lecturas Generales y Notas
Referencias
Índice
 PREFACIO A LA EDICIÓN REVISADA

En la primera edición de este libro, entonces llamado POETA, La psicología

de las cosas cotidianas, comencé con estas líneas: “Este es el libro que
siempre quise escribir, excepto que no lo sabía”. Hoy sí lo sé, así que
simplemente digo: "Éste es el libro que siempre quise escribir".
Este es un kit de inicio para un buen diseño. Su objetivo es ser divertido
e informativo para todos: gente común, gente técnica, diseñadores y no
diseñadores. Uno de los objetivos es convertir a los lectores en grandes
observadores de lo absurdo, del mal diseño que da origen a tantos de los
problemas de la vida moderna, especialmente de la tecnología moderna.
También los convertirá en observadores de lo bueno, de las formas en que
los diseñadores reflexivos han trabajado para hacernos la vida más fácil y
fluida. En realidad, un buen diseño es mucho más difícil de notar que un
mal diseño, en parte porque los buenos diseños se ajustan tan bien a
nuestras necesidades que el diseño es invisible y nos sirve sin llamar la
atención. El mal diseño, por otro lado, grita sus deficiencias, haciéndose
muy notorio.
A lo largo del camino, expongo los principios fundamentales necesarios
para eliminar los problemas, para convertir nuestras cosas cotidianas en
productos agradables que proporcionen placer y satisfacción. La
combinación de buenas habilidades de observación y buenos principios de
diseño es una herramienta poderosa, que todos pueden utilizar, incluso las
personas que no son diseñadores profesionales. ¿Por qué? Porque todos
somos diseñadores en el sentido de que todos diseñamos deliberadamente
nuestras vidas, nuestras habitaciones y la forma en que hacemos las cosas.
También podemos diseñar soluciones alternativas, formas de superar los
defectos de los dispositivos existentes. Entonces, uno de los propósitos de
este libro es devolverte el control sobre los productos de tu vida: saber
seleccionar los utilizables y comprensibles, saber arreglar aquellos que no
son tan utilizables o comprensibles.
La primera edición del libro ha vivido una vida larga y saludable. Su
nombre se cambió rápidamente a Diseño de cosas cotidianas (DOET) para
que el título fuera menos lindo y más descriptivo. DOET ha sido leído por
el público en general y por los diseñadores. Ha sido asignado en cursos y
entregado como lecturas obligatorias en muchas empresas. Ahora, más de
veinte años después de su publicación, el libro sigue siendo popular. Estoy
encantado con la respuesta y con la cantidad de personas que me escriben al
respecto, que me envían más ejemplos de diseño irreflexivo y estúpido,
además de ejemplos ocasionales de diseño magnífico. Muchos lectores me
han dicho que les ha cambiado la vida, haciéndolos más sensibles a los
problemas de la vida y a las necesidades de las personas. Algunos
cambiaron de carrera y se convirtieron en diseñadores gracias al libro. La
respuesta ha sido increíble.

¿Por qué una edición revisada?

En los veinticinco años que han transcurrido desde la primera edición del
libro, la tecnología ha experimentado cambios masivos. Ni los teléfonos
móviles ni Internet eran de uso generalizado cuando escribí el libro. Las
redes domésticas eran algo inaudito. La ley de Moore proclama que la
potencia de los procesadores de las computadoras se duplica
aproximadamente cada dos años. Esto significa que las computadoras
actuales son cinco mil veces más poderosas que las que había cuando se
escribió el libro por primera vez.
Aunque los principios fundamentales de diseño de El diseño de las
cosas cotidianas siguen siendo tan ciertos e importantes como cuando se
escribió la primera edición, los ejemplos estaban muy desactualizados.
“¿Qué es un proyector de diapositivas?” preguntan los estudiantes. Aunque
no fuera necesario cambiar nada más, los ejemplos debían actualizarse.
 También era necesario actualizar los principios del diseño eficaz. El
diseño centrado en el ser humano (HCD) ha surgido desde la primera
edición, parcialmente inspirado en ese libro. Esta edición actual tiene un
capítulo completo dedicado al proceso HCD de desarrollo de productos. La
primera edición del libro se centró en hacer que los productos sean
comprensibles y utilizables. La experiencia total de un producto abarca
mucho más que su usabilidad: la estética, el placer y la diversión
desempeñan papeles de importancia crítica. No hubo discusión sobre placer,
disfrute o emoción. La emoción es tan importante que escribí un libro
completo, Emotional Design, sobre el papel que desempeña en el diseño.
Estos temas también se incluyen ahora en esta edición.
Mis experiencias en la industria me han enseñado sobre las
complejidades del mundo real, cómo los costos y los cronogramas son
críticos, la necesidad de prestar atención a la competencia y la importancia
de los equipos multidisciplinarios. Aprendí que un producto exitoso tiene
que atraer a los clientes, y los criterios que utilizan para determinar qué
comprar pueden superponerse sorprendentemente poco con los aspectos que
son importantes durante su uso. Los mejores productos no siempre triunfan.
Las nuevas tecnologías brillantes podrían tardar décadas en ser aceptadas.
Para comprender los productos, no basta con comprender el diseño o la
tecnología: es fundamental comprender los negocios.

¿Que ha cambiado?
Para los lectores familiarizados con la edición anterior de este libro, aquí se
ofrece una breve reseña de los cambios.
¿Que ha cambiado? Poco. Todo.
Cuando comencé, asumí que los principios básicos seguían siendo
válidos, así que todo lo que tenía que hacer era actualizar los ejemplos. Pero
al final lo reescribí todo. ¿Por qué? Porque aunque todos los principios
todavía se aplican, en los veinticinco años transcurridos desde la primera
edición se ha aprendido mucho. Ahora también sé qué partes fueron
difíciles y por lo tanto necesito mejores explicaciones. Mientras tanto,
también escribí muchos artículos y seis libros sobre temas relacionados,
algunos de los cuales pensé importante incluir en la revisión. Por ejemplo,
el libro original no dice nada sobre lo que se ha dado en llamar experiencia
de usuario (un término que fui de los primeros en utilizar, cuando a
principios de los años 1990, el grupo que dirigía en Apple se
autodenominaba “la Oficina del Arquitecto de Experiencia de Usuario”). ).
Esto tenía que estar aquí.
Finalmente, mi exposición a la industria me enseñó mucho sobre la
forma en que realmente se implementan los productos, por lo que agregué
considerable información sobre el impacto de los presupuestos, los
cronogramas y las presiones competitivas. Cuando escribí el libro original,
era un investigador académico. Hoy en día, he sido ejecutivo de la industria
(Apple, HP y algunas nuevas empresas), consultor de numerosas empresas
y miembro de juntas directivas de empresas. Tuve que incluir mis
aprendizajes de estas experiencias.
Finalmente, un componente importante de la edición original fue su
brevedad. El libro se puede leer rápidamente como una introducción general
básica. Mantuve esa característica sin cambios. Intenté eliminar todo lo que
agregué para mantener el tamaño total aproximadamente igual (fallé). El
libro pretende ser una introducción: las discusiones avanzadas de los temas,
así como una gran cantidad de temas importantes pero más avanzados, se
han omitido para mantener la compacidad. La edición anterior duró de 1988
a 2013. Para que la nueva edición dure tanto tiempo, de 2013 a 2038, tuve
que tener cuidado de elegir ejemplos que no estuvieran fechados dentro de
veinticinco años. Como resultado, he intentado no dar ejemplos específicos
de empresas. Al fin y al cabo, ¿quién recuerda las empresas de hace
veinticinco años? ¿Quién puede predecir qué nuevas empresas surgirán, qué
empresas existentes desaparecerán y qué nuevas tecnologías surgirán en los
próximos veinticinco años? Lo único que puedo predecir con certeza es que
los principios de la psicología humana seguirán siendo los mismos, lo que
significa que los principios de diseño aquí, basados en la psicología, en la
naturaleza de la cognición, emoción, acción e interacción humana con el
mundo, seguirán siendo los mismos. permanece inalterable.
A continuación se ofrece un breve resumen de los cambios, capítulo por
capítulo.
 Capítulo 1: La psicopatología de las cosas cotidianas
Los significantes son la adición más importante al capítulo, un concepto
introducido por primera vez en mi libro Living with Complexity. La
primera edición se centró en las posibilidades, pero aunque las posibilidades
tienen sentido para la interacción con objetos físicos, resultan confusas
cuando se trata de objetos virtuales. Como resultado, las posibilidades han
creado mucha confusión en el mundo del diseño. Las posibilidades definen
qué acciones son posibles. Los significantes especifican cómo la gente
descubre esas posibilidades: los significantes son signos, señales
perceptibles de lo que se puede hacer. Los significantes son de mucha más
importancia para los diseñadores que las posibilidades. De ahí el
tratamiento prolongado.
Agregué una sección muy breve sobre HCD, un término que aún no
existía cuando se publicó la primera edición, aunque mirando hacia atrás
vemos que todo el libro trataba sobre HCD.
Aparte de eso, el capítulo es el mismo, y aunque todas las fotografías y
dibujos son nuevos, los ejemplos son prácticamente los mismos.

Capítulo 2: La psicología de las acciones cotidianas

El capítulo tiene una adición importante a la cobertura de la primera
edición: la adición de emoción. El modelo de acción de siete etapas ha
demostrado ser influyente, al igual que el modelo de procesamiento de tres
niveles (presentado en mi libro Diseño Emocional). En este capítulo
muestro la interacción entre estos dos, muestro que surgen diferentes
emociones en las diferentes etapas y muestro qué etapas se ubican
principalmente en cada uno de los tres niveles de procesamiento (visceral,
para los niveles elementales de percepción y desempeño de la acción
motora; conductual, para los niveles de especificación de la acción e
interpretación inicial del resultado; y reflexivo, para el desarrollo de metas,
planes y la etapa final de evaluación del resultado).
 Capítulo 3: Conocimiento en la cabeza y en el mundo
Aparte de ejemplos mejorados y actualizados, la adición más importante a
este capítulo es una sección sobre cultura, que es de especial importancia
para mi análisis de los “mapeos naturales”. Lo que parece natural en una
cultura puede no serlo en otra. La sección examina la forma en que
diferentes culturas ven el tiempo; la discusión puede sorprenderle.

Capítulo. 4: Saber qué hacer: limitaciones, capacidad

de descubrimiento y retroalimentación
Pocos cambios sustanciales. Mejores ejemplos. La elaboración de funciones
forzadas se divide en dos tipos: bloqueo y bloqueo. Y una sección sobre
ascensores de control de destino, que ilustra cómo el cambio puede ser
extremadamente desconcertante, incluso para los profesionales, incluso si el
cambio es para mejor.

Capítulo 5: ¿Error humano? No, mal diseño

Los conceptos básicos no han cambiado, pero el capítulo en sí ha sido
revisado en profundidad. Actualizo la clasificación de errores para adaptarla
a los avances desde la publicación de la primera edición. En particular,
ahora divido los deslices en dos categorías principales: lapsos de memoria y
basados en acciones; y errores en tres categorías: basados en reglas, basados
en conocimientos y lapsos de memoria. (Estas distinciones ahora son
comunes, pero presento una forma ligeramente diferente de tratar los lapsos
de memoria).
Aunque las múltiples clasificaciones de fichas proporcionadas en la
primera edición siguen siendo válidas, muchas tienen pocas o ninguna
implicación para el diseño, por lo que se eliminaron de la revisión.
Proporciono ejemplos más relevantes para el diseño. Muestro la relación de
la clasificación de errores, deslices y equivocaciones con el modelo de
acción de siete etapas, algo nuevo en esta revisión.
 El capítulo concluye con una rápida discusión de las dificultades que
plantea la automatización (de mi libro The Design of Future Things) y lo
que considero el mejor enfoque nuevo para abordar el diseño con el fin de
eliminar o minimizar el error humano: la ingeniería de resiliencia.

Capítulo 6: Pensamiento de diseño

Este capítulo es completamente nuevo. Analizo dos visiones del diseño
centrado en el ser humano: el modelo de doble diamante del British Design
Council y la tradicional iteración HCD de observación, ideación, creación
de prototipos y pruebas. El primer diamante es la divergencia, seguida de la
convergencia, de posibilidades para determinar el problema apropiado. El
segundo diamante es una divergencia-convergencia para determinar una
solución adecuada. Presento el diseño centrado en la actividad como una
variante más apropiada del diseño centrado en el ser humano en muchas
circunstancias. Estas secciones cubren la teoría.
Luego, el capítulo da un cambio radical de posición, comenzando con
una sección titulada “¿Qué te acabo de decir? Realmente no funciona de esa
manera”. Aquí es donde presento la ley de Norman: el día que se anuncia el
equipo de producto, está retrasado y por encima de su presupuesto.
Analizo los desafíos del diseño dentro de una empresa, donde los
cronogramas, los presupuestos y los requisitos competitivos de las
diferentes divisiones imponen severas limitaciones sobre lo que se puede
lograr. Los lectores de la industria me han dicho que acogen con agrado
estas secciones, que reflejan las presiones reales que soportan.
El capítulo concluye con una discusión sobre el papel de los estándares
(modificada a partir de una discusión similar en la edición anterior), además
de algunas pautas de diseño más generales.

Capítulo 7: Diseño en el mundo de los negocios

Este capítulo también es completamente nuevo y continúa con el tema
iniciado en el Capítulo 6 sobre el diseño en el mundo real. Aquí analizo la
“característica”, los cambios que se nos imponen mediante la invención de
nuevas tecnologías y la distinción entre innovación incremental y radical.
Todo el mundo quiere una innovación radical, pero la verdad es que la
mayoría de las innovaciones radicales fracasan, e incluso cuando tienen
éxito, pueden pasar varias décadas antes de que sean aceptadas. Por lo
tanto, la innovación radical es relativamente rara: la innovación incremental
es común.
Las técnicas de diseño centrado en el ser humano son apropiadas para la
innovación incremental: no pueden conducir a innovaciones radicales.
El capítulo concluye con análisis de las tendencias futuras, el futuro de
los libros, las obligaciones morales del diseño y el surgimiento de pequeños
creadores de bricolaje que están comenzando a revolucionar la forma en
que se conciben e introducen las ideas en el mercado: Yo lo llamo “el
ascenso de lo pequeño”.

Resumen
Con el paso del tiempo, la psicología de las personas sigue siendo la misma,
pero las herramientas y objetos del mundo cambian. Las culturas cambian.
Las tecnologías cambian. Los principios del diseño aún se mantienen, pero
es necesario modificar la forma en que se aplican para tener en cuenta
nuevas actividades, nuevas tecnologías, nuevos métodos de comunicación e
interacción. La psicología de las cosas cotidianas era apropiada para el siglo
XX: el diseño de las cosas cotidianas es apropiada para el siglo XXI.

Don Normando
valle del silicio, california
www.jnd.org
 CAPÍTULO UNO

LA PSICOPATOLOGÍA DE LAS COSAS

COTIDIANAS

Si me colocaran en la cabina de un avión moderno, mi

incapacidad para desempeñarme bien no me sorprendería ni me molestaría.
Pero ¿por qué debería tener problemas con las puertas, los interruptores de
la luz, los grifos de agua y las estufas? “¿Puertas?” Puedo escuchar al lector
decir. “¿Tienes problemas para abrir puertas?” Sí. Empujo puertas que
deben ser jaladas, tiro puertas que deben ser empujadas y camino hacia
puertas que ni jalan ni empujan, sino que se deslizan. Es más, veo que otros
tienen los mismos problemas, problemas innecesarios. Mis problemas con
las puertas se han vuelto tan conocidos que las puertas confusas a menudo
se llaman “puertas normandas”. Imagínese volverse famoso por puertas que
no funcionan bien. Estoy bastante seguro de que eso no es lo que mis padres
planearon para mí. (Escriba “Puertas normandas” en su motor de búsqueda
favorito; asegúrese de incluir las comillas: es una lectura fascinante).
¿Cómo puede ser tan confuso algo tan simple como una puerta? Una
puerta parecería ser el dispositivo más sencillo posible. No hay mucho que
puedas hacer con una puerta: puedes abrirla o cerrarla. Supongamos que
estás en un edificio de oficinas, caminando por un pasillo. Llegas a una
puerta. ¿Cómo se abre? ¿Deberías empujar o tirar, hacia la izquierda o hacia
la derecha? Quizás la puerta se deslice. Si es así, ¿en qué dirección? He
visto puertas que se deslizan hacia la izquierda, hacia la derecha e incluso
hasta el techo. El diseño de la puerta debe indicar cómo funciona sin
necesidad de señales, y menos aún sin necesidad de prueba y error.

FIGURA 1.1. Cafetera para masoquistas. El artista francés Jacques Carelman en su serie de libros
Catalog d’objets introuvables (Catálogo de objetos imposibles de encontrar) ofrece deliciosos
ejemplos de cosas cotidianas que son deliberadamente inviables, escandalosas o mal formadas. Uno
de mis artículos favoritos es lo que él llama "cafetera para masoquistas". La fotografía muestra una
copia que me regalaron mis colegas de la Universidad de California en San Diego. Es uno de mis
objetos de arte más preciados. (Fotografía de Aymin Shamma para el autor).

Un amigo me contó la vez que quedó atrapado en la puerta de una

oficina de correos en una ciudad europea. La entrada era una imponente
hilera de seis puertas batientes de cristal, seguida inmediatamente por una
segunda hilera idéntica. Se trata de un diseño estándar: ayuda a reducir el
flujo de aire y así mantener la temperatura interior del edificio. No había
herrajes visibles: obviamente las puertas podían girar en cualquier
dirección: todo lo que una persona tenía que hacer era empujar el costado
de la puerta y entrar.
Mi amigo empujó una de las puertas exteriores. Se giró hacia adentro y
él entró en el edificio. Luego, antes de que pudiera llegar a la siguiente fila
de puertas, se distrajo y se dio la vuelta por un instante. No se dio cuenta en
ese momento, pero se había movido ligeramente hacia la derecha. Entonces,
cuando llegó a la puerta de al lado y la empujó, no pasó nada. "Hmm",
pensó, "debe estar cerrado". Entonces empujó el costado de la puerta
adyacente. Nada. Desconcertado, mi amigo decidió salir nuevamente. Se
dio la vuelta y empujó contra el costado de una puerta. Nada. Empujó la
puerta adyacente. Nada. La puerta por la que acababa de entrar ya no
funcionaba. Se dio la vuelta una vez más y volvió a intentar abrir las puertas
interiores. Nada. Preocupación, luego un ligero pánico. ¡Estaba atrapado!
En ese momento, un grupo de personas al otro lado de la entrada (a la
derecha de mi amigo) pasó fácilmente por ambos juegos de puertas. Mi
amigo se apresuró a seguir su camino.
¿Cómo podría suceder tal cosa? Una puerta batiente tiene dos lados.
Uno contiene el pilar de soporte y la bisagra, el otro no está soportado. Para
abrir la puerta, debe empujar o tirar del borde no apoyado. Si empujas por el
lado de las bisagras, no pasa nada. En el caso de mi amigo, estaba en un
edificio donde el diseñador buscaba la belleza, no la utilidad. Sin líneas que
distraigan, sin pilares visibles, sin bisagras visibles. Entonces, ¿cómo puede
el usuario común saber de qué lado presionar? Mientras estaba distraído, mi
amigo se había movido hacia el pilar de soporte (invisible), por lo que
estaba empujando las puertas en el lado con bisagras. No es de extrañar que
no haya pasado nada. Puertas atractivas. Elegante. Probablemente ganó un
premio de diseño.
Dos de las características más importantes de un buen diseño son la
capacidad de descubrimiento y la comprensión. Descubribilidad: ¿Es
posible siquiera descubrir qué acciones son posibles y dónde y cómo
realizarlas? Comprensión: ¿Qué significa todo esto? ¿Cómo se supone que
se debe utilizar el producto? ¿Qué significan todos los diferentes controles y
configuraciones?
Las puertas de la historia ilustran lo que sucede cuando falla la
capacidad de descubrimiento. Ya sea que el dispositivo sea una puerta o una
estufa, un teléfono móvil o una central nuclear, los componentes relevantes
deben ser visibles y deben comunicar el mensaje correcto: ¿Qué acciones
son posibles? ¿Dónde y cómo se deben hacer? Con puertas que empujan, el
diseñador debe proporcionar señales que indiquen naturalmente dónde
empujar. Estos no tienen por qué destruir la estética. Coloque una placa
vertical en el lado a empujar. O hacer visibles los pilares de soporte. La
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 “Well, when you got the distress message from the Titanic Sunday night,
how did you get it?” “I called the Titanic myself, sir.”
SENDING MESSAGES TO THE TITANIC.

“Who told you to call the Titanic?” “No one, sir. I did it of my own free
will. I asked the Titanic operator if he was aware that Cape Cod had been
sending messages for the Titanic.”
“What was the answer?” “ ‘Come at once’ was the message, sir,” said
Cottam.
“Was that all of it?” “No, the operator said, I think, ‘come at once—this
is a distress message. C. Q. D.’ ” Cottam testified.
When word of the Titanic’s distress was received, Operator Cottam said
he immediately sent them the position of the Carpathia and added that they
would hurry to the rescue.
“Get any reply to that?” asked Senator Smith. “Yes, sir; immediately.
They acknowledged receipt of it.”
The witness said the next communication with the Titanic was four
minutes later, when he confirmed the position of both vessels. At this
juncture the Frankfurt, of the North German Lloyd Line, broke in on the
communication, having heard the Titanic’s call for help. Later the steamship
Olympic also replied.
“What did you do then?” asked Senator Smith. “I called the attention of
the Titanic to the Olympic’s efforts to raise it,” answered the witness. “The
Titanic replied it could not hear because of the rush of air and the noise
made by the escaping steam.”
Immediately after telling the Titanic of the Olympic’s attempt to get in
communication with her, the former, the witness said, sought the Olympic’s
aid, reporting that it was “head down” and giving its position. The Baltic
broke in at this time, but its efforts to reach the Titanic were without avail.
“I was in communication with the Titanic at regular intervals until the
final message,” said Cottam. “This was ‘come quick; our engine room is
filling up to the boilers.’ ”
“What was your condition?” asked Senator Smith. “I was desperately
tired. I was worked out,” answered Cottam, who was then excused.
 The committee adjourned at 10.20 o’clock to meet at 10 o’clock the next
morning.
 CHAPTER XX.

SURVIVING OPERATOR’S
EXPERIENCES.
Surviving Operator’s Experiences—Tells Senator How He Escaped—Tale
of Suffering and Death—Managing Director’s Flight Balked—Long
Hours and Low Wages for Wireless Men—Refused Help from Frankfurt
—Called Its Operator a Fool—Laxity of Wireless—Denies Sending
“Saved” Message—Gave Warning of Ice.
With J. Bruce Ismay, managing director, and P. A. S. Franklin, general
manager of the White Star Line, Harold Thomas Cottam, wireless operator
on the Carpathia; Harold Bride, surviving operator of the Titanic, the five
surviving officers from the ill-fated ship and thirty of her seamen in the
custody of the sergeant-at-arms of the United States Senate, Senator Smith,
of Michigan, and Francis G. Newlands, of Nevada, brought their
investigation of the greatest sea horror of modern times to a close so far as
New York was concerned.
When the men of the Titanic, British seamen, had been heard under oath
by the committee they were allowed to return to their homes, where they
were subject to the call of their own government.
“We must hear the Englishmen first,” said Chairman Smith, a few
minutes before he and Senator Newlands left shortly after midnight for
Washington, “because they need to get back home as soon as possible. We
will be able to get the Americans whenever we want them.”
It had been suggested to Chairman Smith that the British Government
might offer objections to the keeping of British seamen in this country
under the circumstances.
“I am proceeding,” said Mr. Smith, “just as if there was not the slightest
possibility of such a protest. Should one come we will deal with it at that
time.”
 The committee had in mind the drafting of important legislation as the
result of its hearing. Regulation of the use of the air by wireless operators so
as to prevent interference in times of wreck at sea is one law that seemed
almost sure to be enacted. Another was legislation requiring not only
American, but all foreign vessels using American ports to be equipped with
enough lifeboats to take off every passenger and every member of the ship’s
crew if need be. Patrol of the steamship lanes for icebergs was another.
It seemed likewise not at all unlikely that the committee would
recommend and Congress enact a law requiring ships, at least those under
American registry, to carry two operators so that one may be on duty while
the other sleeps. The President seemed likely to be asked by a joint
resolution of Congress to open negotiations with foreign powers to establish
a new and much more southerly steamship lane across the Atlantic by
international agreement.
SENATE TO PROBE FALSE MESSAGE.

It developed that the Senate Committee intended to make one of the

most important features of its probing work and examination in the false
messages that were given out by the White Star Line office in New York on
Monday when it was said that the Titanic had struck an iceberg, but that she
was in tow of the Virginian, which was taking her to Halifax and that all on
board were safe.
Incident to the sudden close of the hearing was the story of Harold S.
Bride, the second and only surviving wireless operator of the Titanic. His
tale was one of suffering and of death.
He told of the final plunge of the vessel to its ocean burial. Its captain’s
end also was revealed. He leaped from the bridge when the waters were
closing over his ship.
In connection with the transfer of the hearing to Washington it was
intimated that the power of the Senate on federal territory would be
undisputed in getting at the real facts and no question of State rights could
arise to interfere.
Throughout the hearing, also, officials of the White Star Line had
portrayed the dangers of sailors’ boarding houses in New York as a reason
why those detained by the committee should be allowed to sail on the
Lapland, which left today.
 Throughout the hearing Wireless Operator Bride, crippled as a result of
his experiences and seated in an invalid’s chair, told his story of the last
moments of the Titanic.
His narrative, drawn from him piecemeal by Senator Smith, of
Michigan, chairman of the committee, held enthralled the committee and
the audience.
When his ordeal was ended he was almost on the verge of collapse.
THE LAXITY OF THE WIRELESS

Another phase of the laxity of the wireless, so far as man is concerned,

was developed by the chairman. He drew from the witness an
acknowledgment that on Sunday evening Bride was sitting, the telephonic
apparatus strapped to his ears, adjusting his accounts, while the steamship
Californian, seeking to warn the Titanic that icebergs were invading the
lanes of ocean travel, called incessantly.
Bride said he heard the call but did not answer because he was “busy.”
It was not until a half hour later that the Californian, striving to reach the
steamship Baltic, reached also the Titanic, whereupon the warning that
three huge icebergs had been sighted, was noted by Bride and verbally
communicated to the liner’s captain.
“At this time, however, neither of us worried a bit. When we heard the
confusion on deck I went out to investigate and when I returned I found Mr.
Phillips sending out a “C. Q. D.” call, giving our position.
“We raised the Frankfurt first and then the Carpathia and the Baltic. As I
have said, we did not try for the Frankfurt for any length of time, but
concentrated our messages on the Carpathia, which had answered that she
was rushing to our aid.”
“From time to time either Mr. Phillips or I would go on deck to observe
the situation. The last time I went on deck I found the passengers running
around in confusion and there was almost a panic.
“They were seeking lifebelts. All of the large lifeboats were gone, but
there was one liferaft remaining. It had been lashed on the top of the
quarters on the boat deck. A number of men were striving to launch it.
“I went back to the wireless cabin then. Mr. Phillips was striving to send
out a final ‘C. Q. D.’ call. The power was so low that we could not tell
exactly whether it was being carried or not, for we were in a closed cabin
and we could not hear the crackle of the wireless at the mast.
BOTH CARED FOR A WOMAN

Phillips kept on sending, however, while I buckled on his lifebelt and put
on my own. Then we both cared for a woman who had fainted and who had
been brought into our cabin.
“Then, about ten minutes before the ship sank, Captain Smith gave word
for every one to look to his own safety. I sprang to aid the men struggling to
launch the liferaft and we had succeeded in getting it to the edge of the boat
when a giant wave carried it away.
“I went with it and found myself underneath. Struggling through an
eternity, I finally emerged and was swimming one hundred and fifty feet
from the Titanic when she went down. I felt no suction as the vessel
plunged.
“I did not see Mr. Ismay at all. Captain Smith stuck to the bridge and,
turning, I saw him jump just as the vessel glided into the depths. He had not
donned a life belt, so far as I could see, and went down with the ship.”
The witness showed so plainly the mental and physical strain under
which he was laboring that both Senators Newlands and Reed urged
Senator Smith to excuse him. After a few more interrogations Senator
Smith did so.
“I regret extremely having had to subject you to such an ordeal,” he said,
addressing Bride, “because of your condition. I would have avoided it, if
possible, but the committee thanks you most heartily for the forbearance
you have shown and the frankness of your testimony.”
Senator Smith then called what he evidently expected to be one of the
most important witnesses, Harold S. Bride, the sole surviving wireless
operator of the Titanic.
Crippled as a result of his experiences, he was wheeled in an invalid’s
chair to the table where the committee sat.
“Contrary to the usual procedure,” said Senator Smith, rising in his
place, “I must place you under oath. Raise your right hand.”
SENATE REPEATS THE OATH.
 The witness, hand uplifted, listened while the Senator repeated the oath.
Then he bowed in assent. Bride said he was a native of London, was 22
years old and had learned his profession in a British school of telegraphy.
“What practical experience have you had?” asked Senator Smith.
“I have crossed to the States three times and to Brazil twice,” said Bride.
Bride remembered receiving and sending messages relative to the speed
of the Titanic on its trial tests. After leaving Southampton on the Titanic’s
fatal trip he could not remember receiving or sending any messages for
Ismay. Senator Smith asked particularly about messages on Sunday.
“I don’t remember, sir,” said Bride. “There was so much business
Sunday.”
He was asked if Captain Smith received or sent any messages Sunday.
“No, sir,” was the reply.
“How do you know he did not?”
“Because I see the messages Mr. Phillips takes when they are made up.”
“Were those for Sunday made up?”
“No, they never were.”
After testifying he made no permanent record of the iceberg warnings,
Bride insisted he gave the memorandum of the warning to the officer on the
watch. The name of the officer he could not tell.
“I know the officers by sight but not by name,” he said. He did not
inform Captain Smith.
Bride said he was in bed when the impact came. He was not alarmed at
the collision and remained in bed about ten minutes. He saw Phillips in the
operating room.
“He told me he thought the boat had been injured in some way and he
expected it would have to go back to the builders,” said Bride.
BETTER SEND OUT A CALL FOR ASSISTANCE.

The witness said that according to arrangement he relieved Phillips.

“Immediately the captain came in and said we had better send out a call for
assistance,” testified Bride. “Phillips asked if he wanted to send a distress
call. The captain said he did. I could read what Phillips sent—C. Q. D.”
“How soon did he get a reply?”
 “As far as I know, immediately. I could not hear what he received,
however.”
The witness told of having intercepted a message from the Californian
intended for the Baltic, which told of the presence of three huge icebergs in
the vicinity of the former vessel.
“I gave the message to the captain personally,” he said.
Bride did not take down the message and could not give its precise form.
“The Californian was seeking out the Baltic, and I merely noted that it was
an ice report and told the captain,” he said.
Under a fire of questions Bride acknowledged that a half hour
previously, or at 4.30 Sunday afternoon, he was working on his accounts in
the wireless room when he heard the Californian trying to raise the Titanic.
He did not respond, he said, because, he was “busy.”
“You had the telephone apparatus at your ear?” inquired Senator Smith,
in surprise.
“Yes, sir.”
“And you did not respond to the call?”
“No, sir.”
“Then a half hour later on, about five hours before the disaster, you took
the message when it was intended for another vessel, the Baltic?”
“Yes, sir.”
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.
MEANING OF DIFFERENT CALLS.

“The C. Q.,” said Mr. 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’.”
Senator Smith then resumed the direct examination of Bride, who has
said the North German Lloyd was the first to answer the Titanic’s distress
signal.
“Have you heard it said that the Frankfurt was the ship nearest to the
Titanic?” the senator asked.
 “Yes, sir; Mr. Phillips told me that.”
“How did he know?”
“By the strength of the signals,” said the witness, who added that the
Carpathia answered shortly after.
The witness said that twenty minutes later the Frankfurt operator
interrupted to ask “what was the matter?”
“What did you reply?” the senator inquired.
“Mr. Phillips said he was a fool and told him to keep out.”
There was no further effort to get the Frankfurt’s position.
Time after time Senator Smith asked in varying forms why the Titanic
did not explain in detail 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.”
“Ask him if it would have taken longer to have sent ‘You are a fool, keep
out,’ than ‘we are sinking?’ ” suggested Senator Reed.
“Was your object in dismissing the somewhat tardy inquiry of the
Frankfurt due to your desire to hang on to a certainty, the Carpathia?”
inquired Senator Smith.
The witness said it was. “But under the circumstances could you not
with propriety send a detailed message to the Frankfurt?” Senator Smith
insisted.
“I did not think we could under the circumstances.”
BRIDE INTERROGATED.

“Would you still make the same reply if you were told that the Frankfurt
was twenty miles nearer to you than the Carpathia?”
Bride replied that the Carpathia was then on its way with its lifeboats
ready.
Mr. Marconi testified to the distress signals and said the Frankfurt was
equipped with Marconi wireless. He said the receipts of the signals 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.
 “Why did you not send the messages to the Frankfurt as well as to the
Carpathia?” asked Senator Smith.
“He would not have understood.”
The witness said that before leaving the cabin ten minutes before the
ship went down Phillips sent out a final C. Q. D. There was no response,
Bride saying the spark was then so weak that it probably did not carry.
When Bride and Phillips stepped out on the beatdeck he said they found
persons rushing around in confusion. They were seeking life belts.
“There were no big lifeboats aboard at that time,” said Bride. “There was
a life raft over the officers quarters, which later was lost over the side.”
The witness then told of his experience in following with a small boat
beneath which he nearly was drowned before he could extricate himself.
With a number of other survivors he clambored on the overturned boat.
“One of these was Phillips,” said the witness. “He died on the way to the
Carpathia and was buried later at sea.”
When Bride gained the bottom of the boat he found between 35 and 40
men already there.
THE LAST MAN ABOARD.

“I was the last man invited aboard,” said Bride.

“Did any others seek to get on?”
“Yes, sir, dozens. We couldn’t take them.”
The witness said he did not see J. Bruce Ismay, and that the last he saw
of Captain Smith he was in the act of jumping from the bridge just as the
ship went down. He said he was swimming within 150 feet of the ship when
it went down and that he felt no suction.
Long before the hearing was resumed in the afternoon crowds besieged
the Waldorf-Astoria rooms, but few who had not been sought by the
committee were admitted.
C. P. Neil, commissioner of labor of the Department of Commerce and
Labor, and Representatives Levy and Livingston, of New York, were among
the visitors.
Senators Smith and Newlands conferred after luncheon for more than an
hour, and it was nearly 4 o’clock when they reached the committee room.
 “Is Mr. Bride, the operator of the Titanic, here?” Senator Smith asked of
Mr. Marconi and Mr. Sammis, of the Marconi Company.
They told him that Mr. Bride had been sent to a physician, but could be
brought back later. The senator said he wanted to ask the operator several
additional questions, but could postpone them.
The second officer of the Titanic, C. H. Lightoller, was called by Senator
Smith, but was not present, and the third officer of the Titanic, Herbert John
Pittman, took the stand.
“Do you know of your own knowledge whether the Titanic’s ship’s log
was preserved or taken from the Titanic?” asked Senator Smith.
“I do not.”
After the hearing adjourned Senator Smith made a statement to the press
in which he explained the intentions of the committee. He said:
“The object of the committee in coming to New York coincidental with
the arrival of the Carpathia was prompted by the desire to avail itself of
first-hand information from the active participants in this sad affair. Our
course has been guided solely by this purpose—to obtain accurate
information without delay.”
 CHAPTER XXI.

THE FUNERAL SHIP AND ITS DEAD.

116 Buried at Sea—Nearly All Sailors—No Prominent Men Buried—No
Bullet Wounds Found—Halifax’s Bells Toll For Dead—Astor’s Body
Identified—Death Ship’s Voyage—The Captain’s Story—Canon Hind’s
Narrative.
The cable ship Mackay-Bennett which had been sent out to recover as
many as possible of the Titanic’s dead, reached her pier in the dockyard at
Halifax, Nova Scotia, the nearest port, at 9.30 on the morning of April 30,
almost exactly two weeks after the disaster.
Down the gangway to the pier in the sunlight of a perfect April day they
carried 190 of those who had started forth on the maiden voyage of the
biggest ship afloat.
In her quest the Mackay-Bennett had found 306 of the Titanic’s dead, but
only 190 were brought to shore. The rest, the 116, were buried at sea. And
57 of those 116 were among the identified dead.
Of those who were brought to shore, 60 lay unnamed at the curling rink
on the edge of the town. It was believed that the 60 were all members of the
Titanic’s crew, but the slender hope that their own dead might be among
them sent many to the rink.
One of the sixty was a little baby girl. Five of them were women, but
none of the women that were found were from the first cabin passengers.
There was no hope that the body of Mrs. Straus was among them. There
was practically no hope that Major Butt was among the unnamed sixty. The
quest of the Mackay-Bennett bore greater results than were anticipated, and
Capt. Lardner believed that his ship recovered about all of those who did
not go down in the Titanic.
The search was continued over five days, sometimes with the ship
drifting without success amid miles and miles of wreckage, tables, chairs,
doors, pillows, scattered fragments of the luxury that was the White Star
liner Titanic.
At other times the bodies were found close together, and once they saw
more than a hundred that looked to the wondering crew of the Mackay-
Bennett like a flock of sea gulls in the fog, so strangely did the ends of the
life belts rise and fall with the rise and fall of the waves.
Those whose dead the Mackay-Bennett brought to shore came forward
with their claims, and from the middle of the afternoon the rest of the day
was filled with the steps of identification and the signing of many papers.
The first to be claimed was John Jacob Astor and for his death was
issued the first “accidental drowning” death certificate of the hundreds who
lost their lives in the wreck of the Titanic.
Vincent Astor and Nicholas Biddle started for New York with the body
the next night.
THE BODY OF ISADORE STRAUS IDENTIFIED.

The second identified was Isidor Straus. The start for New York was
made early the next morning. Three went on the same night. These were
George E. Graham, Milton C. Long, and C. C. Jones. Lawrence Millett has
identified his father.
Friends quickly took charge of the bodies of E. H. Kent, W. D. Douglass,
Timothy McCarty, George Rosenshine, E. C. Ostby, E. G. Crosby, William
C. Porter, A. O. Holverson, Emil Brandies, Thomas McCafferty, Wykoff
Vanderhoef, and A. S. Nicholson.
Sharp and distinct in all the tidings the Mackay-Bennett brought to shore
the fact stands out that fifty-seven of those who were identified on board
were recommitted to the sea. Of the 190 identified dead that were recovered
from the scene of the Titanic wreck only 130 were brought to Halifax.
This news, which was given out almost immediately after the death ship
reached her pier, was a confirmation of the suspicion that in the last few
days had seized upon the colony of those waiting here to claim their dead.
Yet it came as a deep, a stirring surprise. It stunned the White Star men
who have had to direct the work from Halifax.
They had been confidently posting the names of the recovered as the
wireless brought the news in from the Atlantic. When the suspicion arose
that some of the identified might have been buried at sea the White Star
people said that they did not know, but they were working on the
assumption that Capt. Lardner would bring them all to port, and that only
the unidentifiable had been recommitted to the sea.
THE UNNAMED DEAD.

Then they learned that the Mackay-Bennett had brought in sixty

unidentified. The hallway of the curling rink where the dead were removed
from the cable ship was thronged all afternoon with friends and relatives
eager beyond expression to see those unnamed dead, but the attention of the
embalmers was turned to those already identified, for whom the claimants
were waiting. For the most part the unidentified could not be viewed until
the next morning.
One of them was thought to be Arthur White, a member of the Titanic’s
crew.
The suspense was acute. Yet those who were most anxious for the
morrow to come knew that hope was of the slenderest. They knew that the
nameless sixty were almost all members of the crew. Capt. Lardner said that
he was sure of it. He knew it by the clothes they wore.
As to the fifty-seven identified dead that were buried at sea, the whole
colony was stirred by pity that it had to be, and not a few wonder if it really
had to be, a wonder fed by the talk of some of the embalmers. Yet few were
immediately concerned, most of those in Halifax were waiting for men who
sailed first cabin of the Titanic. It appears that only one of these was among
the ones who were buried at sea. This was Frederick Sutton, of
Philadelphia. The large majority were either members of the Titanic’s crew
or steerage passengers.
Of the 116 that Capt. Lardner thought best to return to the sea, he
explained that the unidentified seemed unidentifiable, that the identified
were too mutilated to bring to shore.
“Let me say first of all,” he announced when the reporters gathered
around him, “that I was commissioned to bring aboard all the bodies found
floating, but owing to the unanticipated number of bodies found, owing to
the bad weather and other conditions it was impossible to carry out
instructions, so some were committed to the deep after service, conducted
by Canon Hind.”
 Capt. Lardner explained that neither he nor any of his people had
dreamed that so many of the Titanic’s dead would be found floating on the
surface of the Atlantic.
ONLY 106 BODIES PRESERVED.

It was more than his embalmer could handle, for, although the material
for embalming seventy bodies, which was all that Halifax sent out with the
Mackay-Bennett, was supplemented at sea by materials borrowed from the
Minia, the number of dead so preserved for the return to shore was only
106.
He did not know how long he would have to stay at his grim work on the
scene of the wreck. He did not know how long bad weather would impede
the homeward voyage.
He did not know how long he could safely carry the multitude of dead. It
seemed best to recommit some to the sea, and so on three different days 116
were weighted down and dropped over the edge of the ship into the
Atlantic.
Then rose the question as to why some were picked for burial at sea and
others left on board to be brought home to the waiting families on shore.
The reporters put the question to the Captain, and he answered it:
“No prominent man was recommitted to the deep. It seemed best to
embalm as quickly as possible in those cases where large property might be
involved. It seemed best to be sure to bring back to land the dead where the
death might give rise to such questions as large insurance and inheritance
and all the litigation.
“Most of those who were buried out there were members of the Titanic’s
crew. The man who lives by the sea ought to be satisfied to be buried at sea.
I think it is the best place. For my own part I should be contented to be
committed to the deep.”
To emphasize the uncertainty of the task he directed, Capt. Lardner
pointed silently to the forward hold, where an hour before those on the pier
had seen the dead lying side by side on the floor, each in the wrapping of
tarpaulin.
“They were ready for burial,” the Captain said. “We had the weights in
them, for we didn’t know when we should have to give them up.”
A FEW MORE BODIES RECOVERED.
 To those who hoped to find their own among the unidentified in the
curling ring to-morrow Capt. Lardner held out little encouragement except
the prospect that the quest of the Minia may result in a few more bodies
being recovered. He believed that his own ship gathered in most of those
who were kept afloat by the lifebelts.
Almost all of the rest, in his opinion, went down with the rush of waters
that closed over the Titanic, driving them down in the hatchways and
holding the dead imprisoned in the great wreck.
Survivors told of many pistol shots heard in those dark moments when
the last lifeboats were putting off, and though the pier on the night the
Carpathia landed was astir with rumors of men shot down as they fought to
save their lives, not one of the bodies that were recovered yesterday had any
pistol shots, according to Capt. Lardner and the members of his crew.
The mutilations which marked so many were broken arms and legs and
crushed skulls, where the living on the Titanic were swept against the
stanchions by the onrush of the sea.
The little repair shop on the Mackay-Bennett was a treasure house when
she came to port. Fifteen thousand dollars in money was found on the
recovered bodies and jewelry that will be worth a king’s ransom. One of the
crew related his experience with one dead man whose pockets he turned
inside out only to have seventeen diamonds roll out in every direction upon
the littered deck.
It was a little after 9.30 that the Mackay-Bennett was sighted by those
waiting for her since the break of day. For it was in the chill of 6 o’clock on
a Canadian Spring morning that the people began to assemble on the pier in
the dockyard.
They were undertakers for the most part, mingling with the newspaper
men who hurried to and fro between the water’s edge and the little bell tent
set up a few yards back to guard the wires that were to flash the news to the
ends of the continent.
WATCH FOR MEN WITH CAMERAS.

The dockyard was patrolled by twenty members of the crew and four
petty officers from H. M. C. S. Niobe and by a squad of men from the
Dominion police, who were instructed to keep out all without passes
countersigned by the commandant, and who were particularly vigilant in the
watch for men with cameras.
Just as the death ship reached her pier, and in the midst of the eager
movement forward to learn what news she brought from the scene of the
Titanic’s wreck, a little tug was spotted near by, and Commander Martin, in
charge of the dockyard, scented a moving picture man.
In a very few moments he was putting out for the tug in the little patrol
launch. Again a few moments and he was standing on the pier with a
complacent smile on his face.
“I have the films,” he said in explanation, so the privacy was guarded.
The friends and relatives of those who were lost when the great liner
went down were urged not to assume the ordeal of meeting the Mackay-
Bennett. Almost without exception they followed this advice, and only a
scattering few could be seen among those waiting on the pier.
In all the crowd of men, officials, undertakers, and newspaper men, there
was just one woman, solitary, spare, clasping her heavy black shawl tightly
around her.
This was Eliza Lurette, for more than thirty years in the service of Mrs.
William August Spencer, who was waiting at her home on East Eighty-sixth
Street, New York, while Miss Lurette had journeyed to Halifax to seek the
body of Mr. Spencer, who went down with the Titanic.
So the crowd that waited on the pier was made up almost entirely of men
who had impersonal business there, and the air was full of the chatter of
conjecture and preparation.
Then, warned by the tolling of the bells up in the town, a hush fell upon
the waiting people. The gray clouds that had overcast the sky parted, and
the sun shone brilliantly on the rippling water of the harbor as the Mackay-
Bennett drew alongside her pier.
THE DEAD LAY EVERYWHERE.

Capt. Lardner could be seen upon the bridge. The crew hung over the
sides, joyously alive and glad to be home. But in every part of the ship the
dead lay. High on the poop deck coffins and rough shells were piled and
piled.
Dead men in tarpaulins lined the flooring of the cable-wells both fore
and aft, so that there was hardly room for a foot to be put down. And in the
forward hold dead men were piled one upon another, their eyes closed as in
sleep, and over them all a great tarpaulin was stretched. Those that pressed
forward to see were sickened and turned back.
The business of moment was to discharge that freight, and this was done
with all possible dispatch.
The uncoffined dead were carried down in stretchers, placed in the rough
shells that were piled upon the pier, and one by one driven up the slope and
into the town in the long line of hearses and black undertaker’s wagons that
had been gathered from every quarter. It was speedily done, but quietly and
without irreverent haste.
For two hours this business proceeded before anyone could go upon the
pier and the sounds were like the hum of a small factory. There were the
muffled orders, the shuffling and tramping of feet, the scraping as of
packing boxes drawn across the rough flooring and the eternal hammering
that echoed all along the coal sheds.
Two hours it was before any one could go on board, and then came
another hour when the coffins were swung down from the deck and piled up
on the wharf ready for the removal that took until well into the middle of
the afternoon.
Few of the relatives were allowed to pass beyond the cordon that
stretched all about the pier at which the dead were landed.
One of the first to get through the lines and the first of all the waiting
crowd to make his way aboard after the ship reached her pier was Capt.
Richard Roberts, of the Astor yacht, who was filled with a great concern at
the news that had come from the Widener party.
NOT MR. WIDENER.

For long before the Mackay-Bennett reached her pier it was established
as definitely as it may ever be established that the man who was picked up
at sea for George D. Widener was not Mr. Widener, but his man-servant
Edward Keating.
Although the name was sent in by wireless, a later examination of the
dead man’s clothing and effects proved that it was Keating’s body. A letter
in the pocket was addressed to Widener, but the coat was labeled “E. K.”
and the garments were of an inferior quality. Identification by features was
out of the question, for the dead man had been struck by some spar or bit of
wreckage, and the face was mutilated past recognition. He was buried at
sea, and the news sent on to the waiting family.
Young Mr. Widener, who had been waiting here for a week with a
private car to carry the body of his father home to Philadelphia, had heard
of the uncertainty, and in a fever of impatience he met the Mackay-Bennett
at Quarantine, went over the effects with Captain Lardner, and was satisfied
that it was Keating whose body was found and who was later committed to
the deep.
The haunting fear that this same error might have been made in the case
of Colonel Astor had possession of the whole Astor party and grew acute as
the Widener story went out. That was what sent Captain Roberts hurrying to
the ship. He was admitted and saw for himself. The coffin top was removed
on board.
The plain gold ring with the two little diamonds set deep, the gold
buckle on the belt that Colonel Astor always wore, and a sum amounting to
nearly $3000 in the pockets settled the uncertainty. Twenty minutes after he
had boarded the ship Captain Roberts was hurrying through the crowd to
reach the nearest telephone that he might speed the news to waiting Vincent
Astor.
QUESTIONS OF IDENTITY.

Beyond these two cases the questions of identity were taken up at the
Mayflower Curling Rink at the edge of the town, where the line of hearses
had been trundling since the Mackay-Bennett landed. As they passed the
crowds were hushed, men bowed their heads, and officers saluted.
At the rink the great main floor was given over to the coffins and shells
containing the identified dead, and as soon as the embalmers had done their
work the friends and relatives came forward and claimed their own.
Upstairs in the large, bare room the packets of clothing were distributed
in rows upon the floor.
There the oak chests of the Provincial Cashier were opened for the
sorting of the canvas bags that contained the valuables, the letters and the
identifying trinkets of the dead. It was all very systematic. It was all very
much businesslike, and while a lunch counter served refreshments to the
weary workers, and while the Intercolonial set up a desk for railway tickets,
the Medical Examiner was busy issuing death certificates, and the Registrar
was issuing burial permits, all to the accompanying click, click of several
typewriters.
A satisfactory arrangement was reached as to the disposition of the
personal effects. A man would claim his dead, take the number, make his
way to the representatives of the Provincial Secretary, and there claim the
contents of the little canvas bag by making affidavit that he was the duly
authorized representative of the executor or next of kin.
The little crimson tickets that are the death certificates were printed for
the tragedies of every day in the year. Their formal points and dimensions
seemed hopelessly inadequate for even the briefest statement of the tragedy
of the Titanic.
CERTIFICATE FOR THE DEAD.

The first body claimed and removed from the rink was that of John
Jacob Astor. The certificate, the first issued for one of the Titanic dead,
reads:
 Name of deceased—John Jacob Astor. Sex—M. Age—47. Date of death
—April 15, 1912. Residence, street, etc.—840 Fifth Av. N. Y. C.
Occupation—Gentleman. Married. Cause—Accidental drowning. S. S.
Titanic at sea. Length of illness—Suddenly. Name of physician in
attendance.
Such details as these filled the day.
After the greater part of the Titanic’s dead had been shifted from the
Mackay-Bennett to the pier, Captain Lardner descended to the dining
saloon, and with the reporters from all over the country gathered around the
table, he opened the ship’s log and, slowly tracing his fingers over the terse
entries, he told them the story of the death ship’s voyage.
Lardner is English by birth and accent, and tall and square of build, with
a full brown beard and eyes of unusual keenness.
“We left Halifax,” he began, “shortly after noon on Wednesday, April 17,
but fog and bad weather delayed us on the run out, and we did not get there
till Saturday night at 8 o’clock.
“We asked all ships to report to us if they passed any wreckage or
bodies, and on Saturday at noon we received a communication from the
German mailboat steamship Rhein to the effect that in latitude 42.1. N.
longitude 49.13, she had passed wreckage and bodies.
“The course was shaped for that position. Later in the afternoon we
spoke to the German steamship Bremen, and they reported having passed
three large icebergs and some bodies in 42 N. 49.20 W.
“We arrived on the scene at 8 o’clock Saturday evening, and then we
stopped and let the ship drift. It was in the middle of the watch that some of
the wreckage and a few bodies were sighted.
“At daylight the boats were lowered, and though there was a heavy sea
running at the time, fifty-one bodies were recovered.”
The Rev. Canon K. C. Hinds, rector of All Saints’ Cathedral, who
officiated at the burial of 116 bodies, the greatest number consigned to the
ocean at one time, tells the story of the Mackay-Bennett’s trip as follows:
OUR JOURNEY SLOW.

We left Halifax shortly after noon on April 17, and had not proceeded far
when fog set in so that our journey was slow. We reached the vicinity of the
wreckage on Saturday evening. Early on Sunday morning the search for
bodies began, when the captain and other officers of the ship kept a lookout
from the bridge.
Soon the command was given “Stand by the boat!” and a little later the
lifeboat was lowered and the work begun of picking up the bodies as they
were pointed out in the water to the crew.
Through the day some fifty were picked up. All were carefully examined
and their effects placed in separate bags, all bodies and bags being
numbered.
It was deemed wise that some of them should be buried. At 8 P. M. the
ship’s bell was tolled to indicate all was in readiness for the service.
Standing on the bow of the ship as she rocked to and fro, one gazed at the
starry heavens and across the boundless deep, and to his mind the psalmist’s
words came with mighty force:
“Whither shall I go then from Thy spirit, or whither shall I go then from
Thy presence? If I ascend up to heaven Thou art there, I make my bed in the
grave, Thou art there also. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in
the uttermost part of the sea, even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy
right hand shall hold me.”
In the solemn stillness of the early night, the words of that unequaled
burial office rang across the waters: “I am the resurrection and the life, saith
the Lord. He that believeth in Me shall never die.”
When the time of committal came these words were used over each
body:
COMMIT HIS BODY TO THE DEEP.

“Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God to take up to Himself the

soul of our dear brother departed, we, therefore, commit his body to the
deep to be turned to corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body
(when the seas shall give up her dead) and the life of the world to come,
through Jesus Christ Our Lord, who shall change our vile body, that it may
be like unto His glorious body, according to the mighty working whereby
He is able to subdue all things to Himself.”
The prayers from the burial service were said, the hymn “Jesus, Lover of
My Soul,” sung and the blessing given.
 Any one attending a burial at sea will most surely lose the common
impression of the awfulness of a grave in the mighty deep. The wild
Atlantic may rage and toss, the shipwrecked mariners cry for mercy, but far
below in the calm untroubled depth they rest in peace.
On Monday the work began again early in the morning, and another day
was spent in searching and picking up the floating bodies and at night a
number were buried. On Tuesday the work was still the same until the
afternoon, when the fog set in, and continued all day Wednesday.
Wednesday was partly spent in examining bodies, and at noon a number
were committed to the deep. Thursday came in fine and from early morning
until evening the work went on.
During the day word came that the cable ship Minia was on her way to
help and would be near us at midnight.
“Early on Friday some more bodies were picked up. The captain then
felt we had covered the ground fairly well and decided to start on our
homeward way at noon. After receiving some supplies from the Minia we
bid good-bye and proceeded on our way.
“The Mackay-Bennett succeeded in finding 306 bodies, of which 116
were buried at sea, and one could not help feeling, as we steamed
homeward, that of those bodies we had on board it would be well if the
greater number of them were resting in the deep.
“It is to be noted how earnestly and reverently all the work was done and
how nobly the crew acquitted themselves during a work of several days
which meant a hard and trying strain on mind and body.
“What seems a very regrettable fact is that in chartering the Mackay-
Bennett for this work the White Star Company did not send an official
agent to accompany the steamer in her search for the bodies.
 CHAPTER XXII.

INQUIRY BY UNITED STATES SENATE.

Loading at the Rail—Inadequate Life-saving Appliances—No Extra
Lookout—Searchlights Blinding—Wireless Rivals Not All Aroused—
Went to Death in Sleep—Scratch Seamen—Cries of Agony—A Pitiful
Story—Senators Ascertain Pertinent Facts—Much Good Accomplished.
What has been accomplished by the Senatorial inquiry into the loss of
the Titanic with sixteen hundred lives?
For more than a week of the two that have elapsed since the Titanic
made a record on her maiden voyage—a record never paralleled in marine
history for its horrors, its sacrifice of life and material property—an earnest
body of United States Senators has been at work conscientiously striving to
uncover the facts, not alone for the purpose of placing the responsibility for
what has now become one of the most heart-rending chapters of all ocean
history, but also in the hope of framing remedial legislation looking to the
prevention of its recurrence.
To attempt to draw conclusions as to the value of the work of a
committee which is yet upon the threshold of its task would be
presumptuous, but it is not too soon to present and formulate some of the
pertinent facts which its researches have established in the light of sworn
evidence.
Any attempt at systematic analysis of the facts deduced from the many
thousand of pages of testimony already taken naturally divided itself into
two departments:
Were the Titanic’s equipment and her general state of preparedness such
as to justify the broad claims made in her behalf before the crisis arose, that
she represented the acme of human possibility not only in ocean going
comfort and speed but also in safety at sea?
 Were the personnel and discipline of her officers and crew of such a
standard that, after the supreme crisis confronted them, they utilized to the
best advantage such facilities for the safeguarding and preservation of life
as remained at their disposal?
With ten thousand families on both sides of the Atlantic mourning the
untimely death of relatives and friends who went down into the depths from
the decks of a brand new ship, widely proclaimed the greatest and the safest
that ever ploughed the sea, these are, after all, the most pertinent questions
that may be asked by a sorrowing world as it looks to the future rather than
the past.
LIFE-SAVING APPARATUS INADEQUATE.

It has been demonstrated—and frankly conceded by the company’s

managers and officers in the light of after knowledge—that the Titanic’s
life-saving appliances were woefully inadequate to the safeguarding of even
one-half her complement of passengers and crew. On the day after the
disaster was known to the world it was shown that the ship’s equipment of
lifeboats complied with the requirements of the English Board of Trade, but
that those requirements were so obsolete and antiquated that they dated
back to 1898 and were drafted to provide for vessels of less than one-
quarter the gross tonnage of the mammoth craft of 46,000 tons of
displacement.
The Titanic carried on her boat deck—sometimes referred to as her sun
deck—fourteen of the largest regulation size lifeboats, seven on her port
side and seven on the starboard. Each of these had a carrying capacity,
according to the Board of Trade’s established method of computation, of
65.5 persons. Their aggregate capacity when afloat, therefore, was 917. The
ship carried, in addition, four of the so-called collapsible boats and two
others known as emergency boats-comparatively small craft employed in
occasional duty—as when a man falls overboard.
The combined capacity of these six when afloat was hardly more than
sufficient to care for two hundred persons. At the most liberal estimate,
therefore, the entire equipment of boats aboard the great White Star liner
might have afforded refuge, in the most favorable conditions, to less than
1,200 persons, or not quite half the number actually aboard the ship, on her
maiden voyage.
 In stating the lifeboat capacity the term “when afloat” has been used
advisedly. One of the points which each of the Titanic’s surviving officers
has emphasized in evidence is the vast difference between loading with its
human freight a boat that has been already placed in the water and loading
one “at the rail,” from a deck seventy feet above the water, with the
subsequent perils of lowering it by means of the tackles sustaining its
weight from bow and stern. Several of the officers have said that, in
lowering loaded boats from the rail of the Titanic’s boat deck, they would
consider it unwise and even dangerous to fill the boats to more than one-
half their rated capacity.
All the lifeboats that went away from the Titanic were loaded and
lowered from the rail. Some of the smaller collapsible and emergency boats
did not get away at all until the ship was so low in the water that they were
simply pushed overboard, and one of them went over bottom up.
BOAT CARRIES 58 PERSONS.

Harold G. Lowe, the fifth officer, commanded a boat which carried fifty-
eight persons aboard. This, so far as is known, is the largest number of
passengers carried in any of the lifeboats. Mr. Lowe testified that as his
craft was lowered away from the davits he feared momentarily that, as a
result of the tremendous strain upon her structure, she would buckle
amidships and break before she reached the sustaining surface of the water,
dropping all into the sea. “Had one more person leaped aboard her
amidships as she was going down past the other decks,” he said, “it might
well have proved to be the last straw.”
Mr. Lowe feared this might happen, as he saw steerage passengers
“glaring at the boat” as it was lowered past the decks whereon they stood. It
was for that reason, he explained to the investigating committee, that he
discharged his revolver three times into the air as he and his boatload were
dropping past the three lower decks. His purpose, he said, was to show that
he was armed and to prevent any effort to overload the craft beyond a point
which he already considered perilous.
C. H. Lightoller, second officer and ranking surviving officer of the
Titanic, expressed the opinion that, in filling lifeboats from the Titanic’s
boat deck, “at the rail,” it was involving serious risk to load them to more
than half their rated capacity for filling while afloat. H. G. Boxhall, fourth
officer, expressed a like view, but added that in an extreme emergency one
man might take more chances than another.
In view of these expert opinions, it will be seen that, when it came to
loading the Titanic’s passengers into lifeboats “from the rail,” the actual
life-saving capacity of her available equipment was far less than the one
thousand or eleven hundred that might have been carefully packed away
into boats already resting safely on the surface of a calm sea.
A PUZZLING QUERY.

And this consideration naturally suggests the query, Why were the
Titanic’s lifeboats all loaded “from the rail” of the topmost deck, at a point
fully seventy feet above the sea? Why were they not lowered empty, or with
only the necessary officers or crew aboard, and then filled with their quota
of passengers, either from some lower deck, or else after they had reached
the sustaining surface of the water?
It is evident that course was contemplated. Three of the surviving
officers have testified that the available force of seamen was depleted after
the ship struck, because a detail of men had been sent below to open up the
gangway doors, for the purpose of embarking the passengers into the
lifeboats from those outlets. There is nothing in evidence as yet to show that
this purpose was ever accomplished, or to reveal the fate of the men sent to
do the work.
Whether the men were unable or incompetent to force open the gangway
doors, from which the lowered boats might easily have been filled, as the
sea was as smooth as a mill pond; whether these outlets were jammed as a
result of collision with the berg, or stuck because the ship’s mechanisms
were new, has not been revealed and may never be known.
Certain it is that all the lifeboats were loaded “from the rail,” and their
safe capacity was thereby reduced one-half in the judgment of the officers
to whom their command was entrusted.
The inadequacy of the Titanic’s lifeboat appliances is not disputed.
Steamship companies are already vying with one another to correct in this
respect the admitted shortcomings of the past. The sole excuse offered is
that collision bulkheads, watertight compartments and other like devices
have been regarded until now as making the marvelous vessels of the
present day “their own best lifeboats.” The Titanic and many of her sister
ships of the ocean fleets have been called “unsinkable.” They were
generally believed to be so, and it is only since this greatest of disasters has
shattered many illusions that marine engineers have confessed ruefully that
the unsinkable ship has never yet been launched.
PERILS MINIMIZED.

Since the day of the watertight compartment and of the wireless

telegraph sea perils have been so minimized that in the most extreme of
likely emergencies the function of the lifeboat had come to be regarded as
that of an ocean ferry capable of transferring passengers safely and leisurely
from an imperilled vessel to another standing by and co-operating in the
task.
That was all the lifeboat had to do when the Republic sank. That was all
they had to do years ago, when the Missouri, under Captain Hamilton
Murrell’s expert management, took off a thousand persons from a
foundering ship without the loss of a single life. So it had come to be
believed that the lifeboats would never be called upon to do more than that,
and least of all in the case of the Titanic, latest and most superb of all the
vessels built by man since the world began.
So deep rooted was this conviction in the minds of seagoing men that
when Senator Smith, of Michigan, chairman of the investigating committee,
asked one of the surviving officers: “What was the purpose of the Titanic
carrying her fourteen full-size lifeboats?” he naively replied; “To comply, I
suppose, with the regulations of the London Board of Trade.”
There has been no evidence to indicate that the Titanic lacked the proper
number of life jackets, or life belts—one for every person aboard the ship—
and it has not been proven that these life belts were not new and of proper
quality and strength. Major Peuchen, of Toronto, one of the surviving
passengers, however, in the course of his testimony, made two significant
comments. He said that when the Carpathia, on the morning after the
disaster, steamed through a lot of the Titanic’s floating wreckage, he was
surprised to note great quantities of broken bits of cork, such as are used in
life preservers. He was astonished also that he did not see a larger number
of floating bodies.
“I have always supposed,” said Major Peuchen, who is an experienced
yachtsman, “that a life preserver in good condition would sustain a dead
body as well as a live one.”
STEAMING AT 21 KNOTS.

It has been demonstrated by ample evidence that at the time the Titanic
hit the iceberg she was steaming at the undiminished speed of twenty-one
knots an hour into a zone littered with icebergs and floating ice fields,
warning of which her officers had received hours before by wireless from
several other ships, including the Amerika, of the Hamburg-American Line.
When day broke on Monday, according to Mr. Lane, at least twenty
icebergs surrounded the Carpathia, the largest of which was 150 feet high.
They were within a six-mile radius.
In the chart room, tucked into the corner of a frame above the table
where the navigating officers of the Titanic did their mathematical work,
was a written memorandum of the latitude and longitude wherein two large
icebergs had been reported directly in the track. Mr. Boxhall had worked
out this position under Captain Smith’s instructions. Mr. Lightoller, the
second officer, was familiar with it, and when his watch ended at 10 o’clock
Sunday night and he surrendered the post on the bridge to the first officer,
Mr. Murdock, the remark was made that they would probably “be getting
up into the ice during Mr. Murdock’s watch.”
Despite all this the Titanic was rushing on, driving at railroad speed
toward the port of New York and “a record for a maiden voyage.”
It was a cloudless and starlit night with no sea running. No extra lookout
was posted in the “ship’s eyes,” the most advanced position on the vessel’s
deck. Up in the crow’s nest Fleet and Lee, both experienced lookouts, were
keeping a sharp watch forward. They had been duly warned of ice by the
pair of lookouts whom they had relieved.
UNAIDED BY SEA GLASSES.

But the men in the crow’s nest had to depend entirely upon the vision of
the naked eye. They had no glass to aid them. Fleet had occupied a similar
post of responsibility four years on the Oceanic without mishap. His
testimony before the committee was that he never before had been without
the aid of a glass. He had a pair of binoculars when the ship made her trial
trip from Belfast, but they had been mislaid, and when the Titanic steamed
out from Southampton he asked Mr. Lightoller for another pair and was told
that there was no glass for him. Fleet’s warning was too late to prevent the
impact. His testimony was that with a glass he would have reported the berg
in time to have prevented the ship striking it.
When Quartermaster Hitchens came on watch at 10 o’clock the weather
had grown so cold that he, experienced seaman that he was, immediately
thought of icebergs, though it was no part of his duty to look out for them.
The thermometer showed thirty-one degrees, and the first orders he
received were to notify the ship’s carpenter to look to his fresh-water supply
because of the freezing weather, and to turn on the steam-heating apparatus
in the officers’ quarters.
Still no extra lookout was placed and the men in the crow’s nest were
straining their tired eyes ahead without the help of a lens.
Captain Arthur Rostrom, of the Carpathia, testified that when he was
rushing his ship to the aid of the stricken Titanic, taking unusual chances
because he knew lives were at stake, he placed a double watch on duty.
Each of the surviving officers, when he was questioned as to the
Titanic’s speed at a time when the proximity of dangerous ice was definitely
reported and clearly indicated by the drop in temperature, said that it was
“not customary” to slacken speed at such times, provided the weather was
clear. The custom is, they said, “to go ahead and depend upon the lookouts
in the crow’s nest and the watch on the bridge to ‘pick up’ the ice in time to
avoid hitting it.”
Mr. Lowe, the fifth officer, who was crossing the Atlantic for the first
time in his life, most of his fourteen years’ experience at sea having been in
the southern and eastern oceans, yawned wearily in the face of the examiner
as he admitted that he had never heard that icebergs were common off the
Banks of Newfoundland and that the fact would not have interested him if
he had. He did not know that the Titanic was following what is known as
“the southern track,” and when he was asked, ventured the guess that she
was on the northerly one.
MIGHT HAVE BEEN SAVED BY SEARCHLIGHT.

Questions framed by Senator Smith several times have suggested that

the use of a searchlight might have saved the Titanic. War ships of all
nations make the searchlight a part of their regular equipment, as is well
known. The Titanic’s surviving officers agreed that it has not been
commonly used by vessels of the merchant marine. Some of them conceded