MR. FRANKLIN: Mr. Thom is our agent at Montreal ­ on the telephone, Mr. James Thom. We asked him to communicate with the Allen Line representatives, if he could get anybody, and ask them whether they had any information; that we had heard through the newspapers that the Titanic was in serious trouble. Mr. Thom, to the best of my knowledge and belief called up ­ it must have been after 3 o'clock ­ and said he had gotten hold of somebody in the Allen Line office and they had similar information. Therefore, when we went to the office we told the reporters of the telephone conversation with Montreal. I told them myself.
SENATOR SMITH: At what hour?
MR. FRANKLIN: I can not tell you exactly what time the reporters got there, but they were there very early. It was between 5 and 6.
SENATOR SMITH: What time would that be in London?
MR. FRANKLIN: That would be in London five hours earlier.
SENATOR SMITH: What would be the hour?
MR. FRANKLIN: Five hours earlier.
SENATOR SMITH: I ask you because you are testifying. I am not testifying. If my question seems to reveal any inability to make any deduction, I beg you to remember that I am not on oath. I want your statement in the record.
MR. FRANKLIN: That would be between 12 and 1 o'clock in the morning.
SENATOR SMITH: Then your Liverpool office had this information, all the information that you made public on Monday morning, between 6 and 7 o'clock or 5 and 6 o'clock, five hours in advance, and from you, of its publication through you here?
MR. FRANKLIN: Well, of course, the difference in time ­ have I the time wrong?
SENATOR SMITH: Five o'clock here would be 10 o'clock in London?
MR. FRANKLIN: Yes; there is five hours difference in the time. Now, if we understand each other, at 10 o'clock Monday morning after this accident­­
SENATOR FLETCHER: Have you a translation of those code words?
MR. FRANKLIN: I think we have.
SENATOR FLETCHER: It would be better to put the translation in.
MR. FRANKLIN: We will give a translation of each one of those words. That is what we will do.
SENATOR SMITH: You are satisfied that the answer you have now made is correct?
MR. FRANKLIN: No; we will have to correct that, because it is five hours later instead of five hours earlier in London.
SENATOR SMITH: What I want to show is this. Realizing we have the sun five hours later than they have ­ that is correct?
MR. FRANKLIN: That is right.
SENATOR SMITH: I want to know what time the information you communicated to your Liverpool office was received at Liverpool. I know when it was sent from here. That is all I was trying to get at about that feature. I think you have made it plain.
MR. FRANKLIN: I think we have made it plain, but of course I can only tell you the time we filed the message here. Whether that message went off promptly and rapidly I can not tell.
SENATOR SMITH: Did you receive any confirmation of its receipt at Liverpool?
MR. FRANKLIN: No, sir.
SENATOR SMITH: Did you receive any message from Liverpool that indicated that they were amazed and horrified at this information that you had given them?
MR. FRANKLIN: Yes, sir.
SENATOR SMITH: What did you receive?
MR. FRANKLIN: From Liverpool April 15 [referring to memorandum].
SENATOR SMITH: Give the hour.
MR. FRANKLIN: I can not give you the hour unless I can get a copy of the cable. Here are the cables we received from Liverpool. I will try to get the cable itself, and get the hour.
Sensational press messages being received concerning Titanic. We have nothing from her or yourselves. Telegraph immediately.
That was the telegram. Then the next telegram was this­­
SENATOR SMITH: I want to fix the hour, and we will pause a moment while your assistants find the hour.
SENATOR FLETCHER: Was your cable sent in response to that or before that?
MR. FRANKLIN: Our cable was sent without having received this at all.
SENATOR SMITH: You gave them the information you had from your Montreal agent about four hours after you got it?
MR. FRANKLIN: We did not say this information was from Montreal; we said "report."
SENATOR SMITH: I understand; but you got this information from your agent in Montreal about half past 2 o'clock in the morning?
MR. FRANKLIN: No; I said I called up Montreal about half past 2 in the morning. I had to disconnect, then, and wait until he called me, and when he called me up and I talked over the phone it must have been half past 3.
SENATOR SMITH: All right; we will take that hour. You got the information from your Montreal agent at half past 3 Monday morning, and you did not communicate with Liverpool or London until 6:15 o'clock Monday morning?
MR. FRANKLIN: That is right.
SENATOR SMITH: Why did you not communicate with them until 6:15 o'clock?
MR. FRANKLIN: As far as I was concerned, I was telephoning in all directions during that time, and then was getting down to the office.
SENATOR SMITH: But here was a ship valued at about $7,000,000 and filled with passengers, Britishers as well as Americans, and the chief managing director of your company was aboard the ship?
MR. FRANKLIN: Right.
SENATOR SMITH: Why did you not communicate what information you had, so that they might receive it in the very early morning hours, rather than wait until 10 o'clock?
MR. FRANKLIN: Because I was doing what I thought was best at the time, to get the best possible information, and get to the office as soon as I could, so I could cable.
SENATOR SMITH: I do not want you to infer that I am criticizing you, but I am asking these questions for information.
MR. FRANKLIN: It was a question of expediency. I had no idea of sending a cable until I got to the office, and no means of doing so.
SENATOR SMITH: But you did give your Liverpool office the first information that it had, and the first information that you had?
MR. FRANKLIN: Yes, sir; and as quick as I could get to the office and collect what information was drifting in from the telephone and by Associated Press reports and otherwise.
SENATOR SMITH: I take it you did not sleep very much Sunday night after you got that telephone message from your agent in Montreal?
MR. FRANKLIN: I spent the entire time from 2:20 o'clock until I left the house on the telephone, and then I went to the office; and then I immediately, as promptly as we could, got off these cables and other things.
SENATOR SMITH: As a matter of fact, however, if that was the only cable you sent to London or Liverpool office, you held that information you did have about three hours before you let go of it?
MR. FRANKLIN: Well, I did not hold it in the sense of the word­­
SENATOR SMITH: I did not mean suppressed it; no.
MR. FRANKLIN: I did not cable Liverpool until after we got to the office, and got the offices opened and the people there to cable.
SENATOR SMITH: I have not seen any telegram from your London office or Liverpool office asking particularly about the safety of passengers on the Titanic. Have I overlooked it?
MR. FRANKLIN: They cabled here
We have nothing from here or yourselves. Telegraph immediately.
The object of that was to telegraph all the information we could regarding everybody.
SENATOR SMITH: What time was that?
MR. FRANKLIN: The message here shows that it was received at 20 Broad Street at 5:33 a.m.
SENATOR SMITH: Then it was received at 20 Broad Street in New York about an hour before you sent the information to Liverpool?
MR. FRANKLIN: Yes. But you must remember this, that until we go down to the office and sent messages to each one of the cable companies they would not deliver to us cables until a regularly appointed hour, which is about 8 o'clock. Our important cables and the cable addressed to me, might be delivered to our representative, but it would not be delivered to the office, and no other cables would be delivered to the office until about 8 or 8:30 o'clock, and what we did is that we sent around to each cable and telegraph office that we knew was open.
SENATOR SMITH: Go ahead.
MR. FRANKLIN: All that took a considerable amount of time.
SENATOR SMITH: Now I will ask you, with no disposition whatever to affront you, had you advised the cable offices in New York not to deliver those messages to any one but yourself?
MR. FRANKLIN: Never.
SENATOR SMITH: Had you advised them to whom they might deliver them?
MR. FRANKLIN: Never. Cables and telegrams were coming in all the time, from every source.
SENATOR SMITH: But they were not coming in very fast until after the cable company had a right to deliver them at 8 o'clock?
MR. FRANKLIN: They would not, because they would not have delivered them to us.
SENATOR SMITH: You mean it is the custom of the cable office not to deliver messages which they receive until a certain hour of the morning?
MR. FRANKLIN: I think if you will go to the cable management here you will find that the messages for down­town people addressed to cable addresses, which they know perfectly well what they are, are not delivered until they think the offices will be open.
SENATOR SMITH: Then important messages are held by the cable company to suit the convenience of business men who may not desire to be annoyed until they arrive at their offices?
MR. FRANKLIN: I would not like to say that, Senator.
SENATOR SMITH: That is the effect of it?
MR. FRANKLIN: No; I do not think that is the effect of it.
SENATOR SMITH: That was the effect of it on this morning, was it not?
MR. FRANKLIN: Of course, so far as the cable companies are concerned, they would be delivering the messages at our offices all night if they pursued a different policy.
SENATOR SMITH: Oh, no; though I do not want to take issue with you on that.
MR. FRANKLIN: The question is this. The cables are coming in from all parts of the world at all hours.
SENATOR SMITH: Are any of the officers or directors of the International Mercantile Marine Co., or any of its constituent companies, officers or directors of the cable company?
MR. FRANKLIN: I am not sure. I think Mr. Waterbury is a director of some of the telegraph companies and possibly of the cable company; but I am not sure.
SENATOR SMITH: Any other office or director of your company?
MR. FRANKLIN: Not that I know of.
SENATOR SMITH: Mr. Morgan or Mr. Griscom?
MR. FRANKLIN: I do not know, at all.
SENATOR SMITH: Mr. Steele?
MR. FRANKLIN: Not to my knowledge.
SENATOR SMITH: Your answer refers to­­
MR. FRANKLIN: That is all the information I have.
SENATOR SMITH: Your answer refers to the telegraph companies as well as the cable companies?
MR. FRANKLIN: Quite.
SENATOR SMITH: And does it refer to the wireless companies as well as the telegraph and cable companies?
MR. FRANKLIN: It does.
SENATOR SMITH: Who is Mr. Waterbury?
MR. FRANKLIN: Mr. John I. Waterbury is one of our directors. He was president of the Manhattan Trust Co. until recently. He is interested, I think, in some of the telegraph companies, but which companies and how much I have not the slightest idea.
SENATOR SMITH: Have you any idea how heavily he is interested in your company?
MR. FRANKLIN: No, sir.
SENATOR SMITH: What office does he fill with your company?
MR. FRANKLIN: Director.
SENATOR SMITH: Of the parent company?
MR. FRANKLIN: The International Mercantile Marine Co.
SENATOR SMITH: Any of the constituent companies?
MR. FRANKLIN: No, sir.
SENATOR SMITH: Do you know whether Mr. Ismay or any of his associates in the business organization are officers or directors of the cable, telegraph, or wireless companies?
MR. FRANKLIN: Not to the best of my knowledge and belief.
SENATOR SMITH: Do you know whether Mr. Burlingham or Mr. Kirlin is an officer of the cable, telegraph, or wireless companies, or whether they are counsel for any of those companies?
MR. FRANKLIN: Not to my knowledge. But of course they are here, and you can ask them.
SENATOR SMITH: So far as your observations go, Mr. Franklin, you want to be understood as saying there is no community of interest of the senior company or its constituent companies, and the telegraph, cable, or wireless companies?
MR. FRANKLIN: Absolutely none; and we do not discriminate between any interests at all, in our business.
SENATOR SMITH: Have you ever given any directions to the cable offices in New York that cable messages addressed to your company or yourself shall not be delivered until 8 o'clock, or thereabouts in the morning?
MR. FRANKLIN: I could not reply to you definitely on that. It is purely a routine matter. We have certain people, or a certain man, set aside to receive communications during the night and on Sundays and holidays. Just exactly what cable messages would go to him, and what hour they would go to him, and when they would be delivered at the offices, and when the telegraph companies understand they are to be delivered at the offices, I do not know; I am not prepared to testify, but it is a matter of detail arrangement. We called that man up that night and asked whether he had any information, and he had nothing.
SENATOR SMITH: How did you happen to call up Mr. Thom, of Montreal?
MR. FRANKLIN: Because the report that I got over the telephone was that this information had reached Halifax and Montreal from the steamer Virginian. Knowing that the steamship Virginian's agents, or the heads of the offices, lived in Montreal, and we having our own representatives in Montreal, I thought I might get some authentic information more quickly and directly by communicating with Montreal than in any other way. That is the reason I called him up.
SENATOR SMITH: I do not quite understand your answer to my question as to how you happened to communicate with Mr. Thom. I will detail what I understand it to be, to see if I am correct. You say you communicated with Mr. Thom at Montreal because the steamer Virginian's officers lived in Montreal­­
MR. FRANKLIN: (interrupting). Her owners live at Montreal.
SENATOR SMITH: Her owners live at Montreal, and you telephoned to Montreal about 2 o'clock Monday morning?
MR. FRANKLIN: I would say it was after 2, Senator.
SENATOR SMITH: After 2 o'clock Monday morning?
MR. FRANKLIN: Yes, sir.
SENATOR SMITH: But at that time you had not received any communication regarding the steamship Virginian? How did you know at that time that the Virginian was related to this matter?
MR. FRANKLIN: The very first message or communication that I received was from the newspapers, and I then called up our dock and tried to confirm, and then called up the Associated Press offices. All these reports connected the Virginian with the rumor; that is, the newspapers and Associated Press offices all connected the steamship Virginian with the rumor that they had heard.
SENATOR SMITH: I understand.
SENATOR PERKINS: You testified yesterday that you telephoned Montreal, and that the report was given to you by the newspapers was confirmed by Montreal.
