William Alden Smith - RMS Titanic Investigation

RMS Titanic Investigation

After the luxury liner Titanic sank in the North Atlantic on April 15, 1912, with more than 1,500 lives lost, Smith chaired Senate hearings that began at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City the day after the survivors landed. Senators and spectators heard dramatic testimony from the surviving passengers and crew. Smith's subcommittee issued a report on May 28 that led to significant reforms in international maritime safety. Smith achieved some notoriety for being more colorful than knowledgeable, even being called "Watertight Smith" by the British press for asking whether watertight compartments, actually meant to keep the ship afloat, were meant to shelter passengers. In his book on the investigation "The Other Side of the Night" Daniel Allen Butler notes that Smith had toured Titanic's sister RMS Olympic and knew full well what the watertight bulkheads did, but understood that the general public might not. Other questions were intended to force the officers and crew to answer in simple terms and not attempt to obfuscate with technical jargon.