The sinking of the Titanic

WHEN HMS Titanic went down on the night of April 14–15, 1912, with the loss of some 1,500 lives, it immediately became the subject of moralization and symbolization. We can propose many meanings of the disaster, but one must be ruled out immediately: there was nothing fundamentally wrong with the great ship itself, a masterpiece of marine engineering. To blame the ship is libelous. The disaster was the product of inexcusable human error.

Captain Edward Smith, for all his years at sea, did not understand the ship with whose command he was rewarded just before he was to have retired. Before the fatal voyage, Smith had experienced close calls with the Titanic, as its displacement threatened nearby vessels with loss of control and serious damage. None of this seems to have left any impression on him or his officers. They behaved as if the Titanic were just another ocean liner, and did not begin to understand that its size made a radical difference in its performance.

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Jeffrey Hart

Jeffrey Hart is a contributor to National Review.

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WHEN HMS Titanic went down on the night of April 14–15, 1912, with the loss of some 1,500 lives, it immediately became the subject of moralization and symbolization. We can propose many meanings of the disaster, but one must be ruled out immediately: there was nothing fundamentally wrong with the great ship itself, a masterpiece of marine engineering. To blame the ship is libelous. The disaster was the product of inexcusable human error.

Captain Edward Smith, for all his years at sea, did not understand the ship with whose command he was rewarded just before he was to have retired. Before the fatal voyage, Smith had experienced close calls with the Titanic, as its displacement threatened nearby vessels with loss of control and serious damage. None of this seems to have left any impression on him or his officers. They behaved as if the Titanic were just another ocean liner, and did not begin to understand that its size made a radical difference in its performance.