But I, who am not a sentimentalist,
think it would have been finer if the band of the _Titanic_ had been
quietly saved, instead of being drowned while playing--whatever tune they
were playing, the poor devils. I would rather they had been saved to
support their families than to see their families supported by the
magnificent generosity of the subscribers. I am not consoled by the
false, written-up, Drury Lane aspects of that event, which is neither
drama, nor melodrama, nor tragedy, but the exposure of arrogant folly.
There is nothing more heroic in being drowned very much against your
will, off a holed, helpless, big tank in which you bought your passage,
than in dying of colic caused by the imperfect salmon in the tin you
bought from your grocer.
And that's the truth. The unsentimental truth stripped of the romantic
garment the Press has wrapped around this most unnecessary disaster.
PROTECTION OF OCEAN LINERS {8}--1914
The loss of the _Empress of Ireland_ awakens feelings somewhat different
from those the sinking of the _Titanic_ had called up on two continents.
The grief for the lost and the sympathy for the survivors and the
bereaved are the same; but there is not, and there cannot be, the same
undercurrent of indignation.
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