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Show REFORM IN WIRELESS The wireless telegraph system, curiously curi-ously enough, has come under the searching Investigation of the Senate committee which is Inquiring into the facts of the Titanic disaster. Prom the investigation made, ii appears that the wireless men held back information as to the rescue of those found by the-Car' pathia, ami determined to make ' tour figures" out of the sale of their news. This kept the country on the keen edge of anxiety for four das, and probably iiuisp who Injected the mercenary prop' osition into the ease ot their money, for the stress and anxiety of the public became so keen that almost nii kind of money would be paid for definite and authentic new-. it has developed also thai the wire lesv service bn the ships is not generally gen-erally a twenty-four-hour service; that the wireless operator in the Californian was- asleep, or he would have caught the call from the Titanic and the Californian. Califor-nian. being then but a few miles from the doomed ship, could have cot there far ahead of any other rescuer if a wireless operator had been awake and no duty. The lesson of this evidently is thai there must beat, least two wirclesa operators on overy ship, and that the attention of an operator Bball be constant, con-stant, both day and night. Il is found, further, thai somp of the wireless oquip ineuts in the ship- are antiquated and feeble. But anv BniP "iat l,,,s wireless uppu ra 1 n - like I hat b hould be denied clearance The law should require thnt up-to-date wireless equipment be had in ovor.) passenger ship. The great puzzle of the Titanic disaster dis-aster was the reassuring news received during the daj Bftor the Titanic wenl down. It will be remembered that for hours reassuring dispatches came to the effocl that the passengers on the Titanic were all saved, and that the Titanic was being towed Into harbor al Halifax, A good deal of pain- and ingenuity have been expended by waj of finding out how s-.o-ii dispatcher eama to be BOnt, It was staled that the Olympic had seal out such a wireless wire-less notice. This was promptly denied b. the captain of that ship, and 10 every direction the blank wall of denial de-nial hemmed in the inquiry. But now comefl a plausible explanation to the effect that the Olympic rccoived a qnostion, "Are all the Titanic passengers passen-gers saved!" The Olympic also rc-ueived rc-ueived a long message from the Asian telling oi messages from the Titanic during Sunday evening followed by the lasl distress call at midnight, and ending end-ing ''Asian then 300 mile west of Ti taoic ami towing oil tanks bo Halifax." Hali-fax." 1 aptain Haddock of the iym-pic iym-pic suggests that some amateur shore operator picked Up fragments Of these two messages and pierced them into the message, "All Titanic passengers, saved; bowing to Halifax." It is easy to see from the quoted messages as given that by Icaviu;; out some of the words, an amateur wireless operator might patch up such a message as came, and last quoted Now it is asked, suppose the l arpatlna had re-ceived re-ceived thia last message telling of the Bafet) "i the passengers, and that the Titanii was being towed to Halifax;' She would then very naturally have re-sumed re-sumed her course to the Mediterranean, Mediterra-nean, and probably all of the Titanic passengers woqld have been lost and the destruction of the essel would have been the greatest mystery of the seas Again, suppose the Carpatbia bad not picked up the message which she did and which brought her to the re-lief re-lief of Ihe Titanic passengers at the time, she did, but that the message had been delayed until after midnight when the ( urpat hia s wireless messenger messen-ger went off duty for the night. Here are two dreadful possibilities. In discussing this matter a few days aco. The Tribune indorsed the proposition proposi-tion that the wireless telegraphy should be put under Governmental control, con-trol, and eventually under international interna-tional control by a common agreement of the great powers. Such control would provide necessarily for constant service day and night, on passenger ihipa at least, and would also pre'vent all tampering with messages by irresponsible irre-sponsible amateurs or bunglers. The conjecture, of ''aptain Haddock of the Olympic that the two messages which ho suggests were joined together, and mangled in the manner described, is probably the solution of the misleading news received. But that it should be. possible for irresponsible persons to pick up messages like this and send them out, is one of the dangers that must be eliminated from the system of wireless telegraphy; for it would be impossible either to know what was being be-ing sent b wireless telegraphy or the nlueo from whence ii come, it this sort of meddling is to be allowed The dreadful effect of it can easilv be imagined im-agined iii the case of the Titanic; for, if that message had been caught generally, gen-erally, by ihe Carpatbia and other ships, the Titanic would unquestion ably have been left to her fate, aud her paaseagers most likely would ail have been drowned. ft was only by their waiting near bv that the Carpatbia Car-patbia war able to rescue them; but suppose the Carpatbia had not come. and that her failure to come had beep because of this false and misleading telegram The situation is one oi such imminent peril thai the governments ol the world oannol act too soon iii getting at the regulation of the system sys-tem of wireless telegraphy. |
