NEW YORK, April 18, 1912 (UP) -- Because Bruce Ismay, managing director of the White Star line, refuses permission, the story of the Titanic disaster is withheld from the world.
Ismay, who was saved with the women and children, has plainly established a censorship over the Carpathia's wireless.
Today the commander of the scout cruiser Chester reported officially to Washington that when he asked the Carpathia for the story of the disaster he was curtly refused. This, too, in the face of the fact that he explained that the president of the United States whose friend and military aid, Maj. Archibald Butt, went to the bottom with the Titanic, wanted to know.
This has resulted in bitter criticism of Ismay and the fear that when the real story does finally become known it will show that the accident might have been avoided had the Titanic slowed down in the ice.
Navigators here are anxious to know what orders Capt. Smith received from the owners regarding the time he was expected to dock his charge on this side.
The Titanic had been advertised as the "express train" boat which would leave and arrive on schedule and with whose operation "nothing could interfere."
The condition of the survivors is unknown. All messages received by relatives are uniform in their wording, indicating that they were penned by the same hand. They simply contain the information that the sender is safe.
There are various rumors which can not be run down that some, at least, of the women who lost their loved ones are on the verge of insanity as result of shock. It becomes evident as the Carpathia approaches nearer and nearer to port that the story of horror to be told will eclipse anything ever known in history.
Every arrangement has been made to expedite the landing of the survivors. Gen. Nelson H. Henry, Surveyor of the port, and Commissioner of Immigration Williams, with a large part of their office force, will be in personal charge on the dock.
The steamship company officials have reserved accommodations at several hotels for those survivors who want to go to them. They also have arranged that relatives shall be admitted to the dock, and grouped in alphabetical sections in hope that there will be no confusion to mar reunions.
Besides relatives, only press associations will be admitted to the dock, and by order of Mayor Gaynor the streets in the vicinity are to be roped off by the police and all photographers are rigidly excluded.
New York is in mourning today. Flags on every building and steamers in the harbor are flying at half staff. Relief funds for the survivors and for dependents of the crew who lost their lives have been started, and within a few hours total more than $5,000. The municipal lodging house has been set aside by order of mayor Gaynor for the use of steerage refugees should it be desired.
As the day wore on apprehension increased. Vague stories of the condition of some of the saved on the Carpathia passed from person to person. These tender women and children, most of them insufficiently dressed, had been exposed to freezing temperature in open boats for several hours. Then there was the shock of the awful realization that those that they had loved best were gone from them forever, and they would hardly have been human had they not collapsed.
It is known that Col. John Jacob Astor and his bride were returning to this country so that an expected heir might be born on this soil.
The great Astor townhouse on Fifth-av had been in readiness for the event. To it the widow will be taken, and there was a vague rumor here today that she is now in the hospital on the Carpathia very ill. Her father and mother said they had no knowledge that this was so, and that they were hoping for the best.
Among those who went down with the ship, one report today said, was "Doc" Owens, the most noted of ocean gamblers. Owens and five companions were reported to have booked on the Titanic, in the hope of a big "cleanup."
A request from the Carpathia that the White Star line send men to take charge of the 13 Titanic lifeboats at quarantine suggests that only 13 of the 20 lifeboats were available when the crash came.
