Unless we were caught in the situation of a sinking ship, we do not know how we would act to a disaster in which death will be the result. So, I do not pretend that I would act any different than the passengers on the Titanic. However, I have always wondered why some male passengers who got into life boats were hailed as heroes when others were deemed cowards. Maybe it was their class. As we all know, the British has a thing about the classes. I'm better than you because I have a title. British men on the doomed ship were expected to behave as gentlemen. And several of them sure did. Isidor Straus, Benjamin Guggenheim, Major Archibald Butt, Thomas Andrews, John Jacob Astor, Archibald Gracie and others worked hard to load women and children into the life boats and most of them ended up dying in the accident. The boiler room crew worked until the last moments keeping the ship's lights on to aid in the rescue of as many passengers as possible. 90% of them died. The ship's band kept playing on the deck to try to keep the passengers calm as the life boats were loaded. There would be no life boat for them, they all died.

A very few of the male passengers survived because they climbed into life boats and used the excuse that no women or children were in sight. But there were still many women and children on board and most of them would die also. The two most well known cases are those of J. Bruce Ismay and Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon. Was it because these men were 1st class passengers and expected to simply die in the disaster? J. Bruce Ismay helped load life boats for over an hour before he left the ship.

Lawrence Beesley was a teacher traveling in 2nd class. So, of course, he had no "title" other than mister. I've always thought it very wrong for any society to have one class better than others. I don't care how much money a person has. So why was Lawrence Beesley hailed when other men were branded? It had to be the class in which they were traveling. The very rich were expected to be upright and simply die when the ship went down. And they did just that. And Lawrence Beesley and many other men survived. I guess it was good to be middle class. Of course, 3rd class passengers faired much worse. No one cared if they were women and children. Most of the 3rd class perished.