April 26, 1913

THE LITERARY DIGEST

937

in addition to the suppression of the sale of fraudulent securities the business of legitimate dealers is interfered with to an almost prohibitive extent. They see no reason why reputable firms of stock-brokers should be made to submit full details regarding the financial status of every new security they offer for sale in the State. Certain publicity features seem too drastic, and, in Mr. Franklin's opinion, would enable the public or a newspaper to get access to confidential information which ought to be the exclusive possession of responsible heads of firms. Another objection is thus stated by the New York Chamber of Commerce: "The distributers of the lowest grade securities to which consent of the examiner had been obtained would give the of the approval all publicity possible. The marketing of weakest securities approved, particularly among the small inexperienced investors, would be materially facilitated." the fact the and

FRUITS OF THE "TITANIC" DISASTER

HE TRAGIC MEMORIES invoked last week by the first anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic raise the^ question: To what extent, in these twelve months, have governments and steamboat companies applied the lessons driven home by that appalling disaster? While some editora detect a tendency on the part of the public to forget those lessonsand to relax the pressure of its demand for reforms, all agree that ocean travel is safer to-day because of that terrible sacrifice of 1,503 men, women, and children in the icy waters of the North Atlantic in the early morning of April 14, 1912. " T h e com-

So the Investment Bankers' Association of America, after a committee had communicated with a score of Kansas bank cashiers and presidents and learned that the principle of the law was generally favored, have prepared a model'' blue-sky law.'' They have drawn the measure, as they believe, in such a way that if enacted into State law, it "would have the effect of preventing the sale of fraudulent securities, at the same time placing no considerable diffioulties in the path of the legitimate dealer." Copies of the model bill have been sent to all banking commissioners and to the State legislatures. Its features, we learn from the New York Evening Post's financial comment, "include, first, the provision that all banking houses or institutions dealing in securities shall file with the Superintendent of Banks the names and addresses of all partners or officers; second, a statement from two officers of savings-banks, national banks, State banks, or trust companies testifying to the good repute of the bankers; third, a designation, by a non-resident house, of some attorney within the State for legal service; fourth, authority by the Superintendent of Banks to require, if need be, a statement from bankers describing in detail the character of any security offered; fifth, authority by the Superintendent of Banks (subject to review by the courts) to order a banker not to sell or offer any objectionable security, and, sixth, exempting State and public securities, commercial paper running not more than nine months, and stocks and bonds put out by certain wellestablished corporations." Since the experience of Kansas is being used as an argument both for and against the enactment of "blue-sky laws" in other States, it may be well to note what State Bank Commissioner Dolley has to say. According to a statement which the Springfield Republican quotes on its editorial page, he is firmly convinced of the worth of the Kansas law, but concedes that it has imperfections and should be amended. According to the Commissioner: "The Kansas law has saved the Kansas people more money during the time it has been in operation than it takes to run our entire State government, and this money was largely saved to a class of citizens who can least afford to lose it, whose knowledge of business is limited, and they are more or less at the mercy of the dishonesty and shrewdness of this class of confidence men and thieves. I beheve that any law which accomplishes such results should be upheld by our citizens " I believe that the Kansas law is founded on exactly the right principles, with the exception that special provision should be made for the investment banker, or any other person, firm, or corporation dealing exclusively in stocks and bonds. The Kansas legislature when it meets next month will be asked to amend the law so as to provide for a special blanket permit for the investment banker and others dealing exclusively in stocks and bonds, requiring them to file the statements, etc., required by law in regard to their own bank or firm, so that the banking department may investigate their reputation, both as to the class of securities they handle and along other lines. When they satisfy the banking department that they handle nothing but first-class securities, and their reputations along other lines are found sa.tisfaetory, the bank commissioner may issue them a permit. .. . . With this provision in the law I see no reason why anv legitimate investment banker should object to the law."

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Showing the construction of the New inner sldn put in the OlymImperator's double hull, a feature pic, sister ship to the Titanic, at a also of her two sister ships. cost of over $1,000,000.
ONE LESSON THE "TITANIC" TAUGHTTHE DOUBLE HULL.

parative safety of those who now go upon the sea in the great liners is the service done for them by the 1,500 souls lost with the Titanic," says the Springfield Republican; and in the Brooklyn Eagle we read: "Some good comes out of every great calamity and some good has come out of this. We have abandoned as a fallacy the theory of the unsinkable ship. The preaching of many marine architects in favor of the double hull would not in a dozen years have carried the conviction at once brought home to shipbuilders when the full story of the wreck became known. The agitation of legislative 'reformers' all over the world would not have forced owners to increase their equipment of life-boats and life-rafts so promptly as they themselves increased it without compulsion when need for the increase was tragically demonstrated. Marconi himself could not have argued so forcefully for the perfection of wireless service at sea as did the want of a perfected system on ships that answered the Titanic's call for help. If the catastrophe of April 14, 1912, is recalled with grief for those who perished bravely and uncomplainingly, it will be remembered also that the dead died not in vain." Perhaps the most important development in steamship building since the loss of the Titanic, says the New York Times, has been the double-skinned steamship, the ship within a ship, with transverse bulkheads extending between skins to the upper deck. The new Hamburg-American liner Imperator, the largest vessel afloat, was designed and built on this principle, while the White Star hner Olympic, originally built with a single hull, has been

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THE LITERABY

DIGEST

April 26, 1913

reconstructed at a cost of a million and a quarter dollars, the principal change being the addition of an inner skin. Another result of the Titanic disaster, says The Times, has been to check the speed mania that had taken possession of both the traveling pubho and the steamship companies. Moreover, an ice patrol has been estabUshed on the North Atlantic steamship lanes, the life-saving equipment of the Uners has been increased, and in some cases two or more captains have been allotted to each ship, in order that the safety of the passengers shall not depend upon the judgment and alertness of an overworked offtoer. The Imperator, for example, carries a commodore and three staff captains, one of whom will be always on the bridge. In the New York World Mr. George Uhler, Supervising Inspector-General of the United States Steamboat Inspection Service, bears witness as follows to the increased precautions against disaster at sea: "Since the Titanic went down I have inspected many transatlantic liners, and I know of my own personal knowledge that nearly every steamship landing at the port of New York now carries a sufftoient number of hfe-boats and rafts to care for every passenger on board in case these boats were called into use. I also know that the officials of the big lines have cut down the number of passengers to be carried in order to fulfil promises made regarding a suffloient number of life-boats for passengers and crew. " I t is likewise true that every large steamship now carries two wireless operators, one of whom shall be on duty constantly. As to the number of drills on the part of the crew, I also have knowledge that the companies are doing everything in their power to have the crews so trained that all Mfe-boats and rafts may be.properly manned and operated in cases of emergency. Just how frequently these drills take place I cannot state. "Before the Titanic disaster, the question of boatage was

regulated by the tonnage of the ship, without regard for the number of the passengers. That has been changed; the number of boats now depends solely on the number of p-sons carried. I may add that every American vessel engaged in overseas trade is equipped with boats and rafts to accommodate every person on board. " I n the lake, bay, and sound trade passenger vessels are required to have lifeboats and rafts for all passengers only between May _ 15 and September 15, the season .when the passengercarrying trade is greatest. At other seasons they are required to have boats for but 60 per cent, of their passenger capacity. This is suffteient, for our coastwise passenger trade in the winter months is very light." On July 23, 1912, the United States Congress passed a law forbidding any passenger ship, American or foreign, carrying fifty or more passengers, to leave any American harbor without a wireless apparatus capable of transmitting and receiving messages a distance of one hundred miles, with an auxiliary power-plant sufficient to operate it for four hours if the main machinery is disabled, and not less than two skilled men to send messages. In July of this year an International Maritime Conference is expected to assemble in London to bring about an international agreement "for a system of reporting and disseminating information relating to aids and perils to navigation, the estabhshment of lane routes to be followed by the transatlantic steamers," and other matters affecting the safety of ocean travelers. Says The Times: "Within the year so many measures have been taken to guard against a repetition of this disaster that we may be sure that it will not be repeated. No ship in the plight of the Titanic will be lost again under similar conditions."

TARIFF TALK
T H E sugar growers want a sugar-coated tariff bill.Memphis Commercial Appeal. WHAT appears to be needed most is a downward revision of the middleman.A^eu; York Press. IF Government expenses could be cut $80,000,000 a yearAh! That la a different matter!Brooklyn Eagle. SCHEDULE K will soon be able to appear in a hobble sliirt without looking ridiculous.New York Evening Sun. THE reduction of the duty on mirrors is expected to reflect favorably on the Democratic tariff.Jacksonville Florida Times-Union. PKOBABLY the tariff won't be so perfected that we shall be deprived of the pleasure of blaming it for things that are really our Own fault.Columbus Ohio State Journal. NONE of the protected interests that complain of the proposed reduction of the tariff express any sympathy for what the consumers have siiflered all these long years.New York World. AGAIN these fatal three "Bs"Revision, Reduction, and Ruction. New York Press. WOOD pulp on the free list should reduce the cost of breakfast foods. Baltimore Evening Sun. IT begins to be evident that the discussion of free wool will reveal a good many black sheep.Chicago Record-Herald. WHY should mere Congressmen rewrite Schedule K, the literary masterpiece of the woolen manufactiu"ers?Baltimore Sun. THE removal of the tariff on typewriters and newsprint paper ought to give the needed impetus to literary art.Brooklyn Eagle. THE clause in the Wilson Bill prohibiting the importation of plumes may save the lives of a lot of egrets and cranes, but it'll deprive a whole heap of roosters of their tall feathers-Boston Transcript. THE same Mr. Wilson who is represented as concerned about the situation resulting from the flood in the Middle W^est, Is arranging to tear down the levees and let in a flood from Europe.Pittstmrg Gazette-Times.

I OPERATING ROOM ^ LTi^R-IFF PATIENX5

'YOU F I R S T ! '

Bartholomew m the Mmneapolia Journal.

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