ace. There was no panic, no fighting for places in
the boats on the doomed ship. On the contrary, people refused to
believe in the imminence of danger. The idea that the ship was
unsinkable had been so borne in on them that even when summoned upon
deck and ordered to put on life-belts, many of them refused. In the
first boats gotten away from the ship, there were not many people. Some
refused to climb down through the deep blackness into the tiny craft.
They thought the tumult all an empty scare that would soon pass.

When the steady, ominous settling of the huge ship's bulk broke through
this shallow confidence, there was a solemn change. Grand and tender
scenes there were on those sinking decks; of husbands and wives parting
with the utterance of a hope, turned suddenly to terror, that they
would soon meet again; of other wives who refused to leave their
husbands and deliberately stayed to share their fate. Few of the more
noted passengers were among those saved. Bruce Ismay, director of the
steamship line, was one. The captain went down with his ship, as did
most of his officers, though some of the latter saved themselves by
clinging to the wreckage which rose after the vessel's plunge. While
she was sinking her band still played "Nearer, my God, to thee," and
other earnest hymns. Death did not find the old Saxon stock cringing
from him with hysteria and frenzy. Sudden as was his coming, wholly
unexpected as was his hideous visage, he was met with the calm courage
which is the best tradition of the race.

And what have been the consequences of this overwhelming tragedy? An
investigation was immediately begun in America by the United States
Government. Another, slower, dignified and ponderous, was afterward
undertaken by the British Government. Both of them in the end
attributed the disaster to practically the same cause, the speed mania
which has overtaken the nations, the heedlessness of man's
over-confidence which takes risks so many times successfully that it
grows to forget that risks exist.

The _Titanic's_ captain wanted to make a record on her maiden voyage.
His directors wanted him to make a record. That would mean increased
advertisement and increased traffic for their line. So in the face of
danger, knowing there were icebergs all around him, the captain rushed
his ship blindly ahead. The chance of his actually hitting an iceberg
was scarce one in a hundred. So he took the chance. The probability
that if