Wednesday, April 25, 2012

J.P. Morgan: Owner of Titanic


John Pierpont Morgan (April 17, 1837 – March 31, 1913) was a Wall Street banker and the owner of RMS Titanic.  He was the most powerful money man on Wall Street in 1912, the year that Titanic sank.

At the height of his career during the early 1900s, J.P Morgan and his partners had financial investments in many large corporations and monopolies. Morgan owned shipping companies, railroad companies, automobile companies, steel companies, electric companies, rubber companies, mining companies, life insurance companies, telephone companies, telegraph companies, copper wire companies, and even some of the Thomas Edison companies that made lightbulbs, radios, phonographs and movies.

Morgan also collected stocks, bonds, gold, silver, jewels and banks.  He especially liked owning banks.

In 1912 when Titanic sailed, J.P. Morgan was trying to convince the United States government to let him and his Wall Street friends create a monopoly on banks.  Back then another word for monopoly was a "combine" or a "trust."  Morgan was trying to convince people that control over all of the money and the banks in the United States should be combined into one big central bank or "Money Trust" where he and his partners on Wall Street would be the bosses.

This idea for a big central bank or "National Reserve Association" was proposed in a report that one of Morgan's agents, Nelson W. Aldrich, sent to Congress in January 1912, only a few months before the  RMS Titanic's maiden voyage.

Many people did not like this "Aldrich Plan" for a central bank or a bank combine.  They knew that it was actually a Morgan Plan and they did not want Morgan running a big central bank that made him the legal boss over all the little banks.

This was especially true in the small towns and rural areas of the West and Midwest.  The small-town bankers did not want to be legally forced to bundle up all of their "reserves" (the life savings of many hard-working people in the local community) and put them into the hands of J.P. Morgan or his big-city banking friends in Chicago, Denver, St. Louis and New York.

The small-town bankers were pretty sure Morgan's friends on Wall Street would simply use this huge treasure trove of reserves to make a "bubble machine" -- that is, Morgan & Co. would go off on a binge of speculative investing, making bets like drunken sailors because they would think they had the reserves of the entire nation to draw upon if they lost their bets.

Put another way: The careful bankers in lots of farming communities, who had responsibly safeguarded the local community chest for years, were afraid of these big city boys.  They were afraid the hard-earned treasure of their communities was about to be stolen.  Worse: They were afraid this huge war chest might be used to finance and start another war -- maybe even a World War.

Some of the big-city bankers on Wall Street agreed: This plan for a central bank was no good for America.  They were dead set against letting Morgan create a "Money Trust" monopoly on all the banks in the United States.  They decided they were going to fight with Morgan over his plan for a big central bank, and they were going to vote against Morgan and his political allies at the Republican National Convention of 1912.

Guess what?  Some of Morgan's biggest Republican enemies never made it to the convention. They were the millionaires who were on board the Titanic when the Titanic sank on April 15, 1912.  They were heading to New York and Philadelphia to attend the Republican "primaries" (the first round of voting) when they were killed.

Did the Titanic sink by accident when it hit an iceberg? 

The author of this weblog does not think so.  The author thinks that J.P. Morgan deliberately killed his political enemies and many of the other people on board the Titanic by telling the captain to wreck the ship on purpose.

J.P. Morgan and his friends in the newspapers made it look like a big accident.  But it wasn't

The basic claim made by this weblog is that the sinking of the RMS Titanic on 15 April 1912 was a political conspiracy to commit murder. The goal of this weblog is to prove it.

We will begin by proving that J.P. Morgan owned and controlled the Titanic.   That is done very simply by referring to the weblinks below.

J.P. Morgan's Shipping Trust: The International Mercantile Marine Co.

In 1902, J.P. Morgan organized a shipping monopoly on Wall Street called the International Mercantile Marine Co. (IMM).  That monopoly or "Shipping Trust" bought up several steamship companies in America and England, and one of the shipping companies that Morgan bought in England was called the White Star Line.

The White Star Line and its executive officer, J. Bruce Ismay, took charge of building and operating the RMS Titanic and its sister ships, the RMS Olympic and RMS Britannic. Ismay certainly was in charge of day-to-day operations on board the Titanic because he was the White Star Line's managing director.

But Ismay was not the owner.  He was not the top boss. There was a level of management above him:  the team of Titanic's financial investors.  As with most businesses, the investors have the final say. They call the shots. Who was the top man on the investment totem pole? J.P. Morgan. 

Was J. Bruce Ismay to Blame for the Wreck?

People were very angry at Mr. Ismay after Titanic sank. They hated him. Many newspapers seized on the fact that Ismay got into a life boat while Titanic was sinking.  He survived while other men drowned.  This was considered cowardly and unchivalrous of him.  Consequently, when people wanted to assign blame for the "accident" most decided to assign the blame to Ismay.

The movies and books about Titanic all suggest that J. Bruce Ismay told the Titanic's captain, E.J. Smith, to run at full speed through an ice field. They suggest Mr. Ismay was a vain and stupid man who wanted to set a speed record and get headlines in the newspapers.

But the newspapers, books and movies all ignore the fact that J.P. Morgan owned White Star Line. He was the boss of J. Bruce Ismay, as the links below will prove.

In other words, it may be true that Ismay ordered Captain Smith to maintain full steam in a dangerous ice field. But it is also possible that the original order did not come from Ismay at all.  The order to run at full speed through an ice field may very possibly have come from Ismay's boss: J.P. Morgan.


Owners of the RMS Titanic

International Mercantile Marine Co.(IMM)

   Wikipedia: "International Mercantile Marine Co."
   Wikipedia "International Navigation Company" (INC)
   Wikipedia: "Pennsylvania Railroad"

   Sapphire, William B. "The White Star Line and the International Mercantile Marine Company"

IMM Founders

    J.P. Morgan, Lead Financier
       Wikipedia:  "J.P Morgan "
       Wikipedia: "George Peabody" and "Junius Spencer Morgan"
       Wikipedia: "J.S. Morgan & Co." of London
       Wikipedia: "Morgan, Grenfell & Co." of London and New York
       Wikipedia: "Morgan, Harjes & Co" of Paris
       Wikipedia: "Panic of 1893" and "Rothschild Family"
       Wikipedia: "Anthony Joseph Drexel" of Philadelphia
       Wikipedia: J.P. Morgan & Co. 
       Wikipedia: "United States Steel Corp."
       Wikipedia: "Panic of 1907"
       Wikipedia: "Nelson W. Aldrich" agent of J.P. Morgan
       Wikipedia: "Aldrich-Vreeland Act" of 1908
       Wikipedia: "National Monetary Commission"
       Wikipedia: "Henry Pomeroy Davison" agent of J.P. Morgan

   Clement Griscom, American Line and Red Star Line
       Wikipedia:  "Clement Griscom"
       Wikipedia:  "Mark Hanna"
       Wikipedia:  "William McKinley"

   Bernard N. Baker, Atlantic Transport Line
        Wikipedia:  "Bernard N. Baker"

   John Ellerman, Leyland Line
        Wikipedia: "Sir John Ellerman, 1st Baronet"

   J. Bruce Ismay, White Star Line
        Wikipedia: "Joseph Bruce Ismay"
       Encyclopedia Titanica: "Mr. Joseph Bruce Ismay"

White Star Line

   Wikipedia:  "White Star Line"
   Wikipedia: "List of White Star Line Ships"
   See Also:  Sapphire, William B. "The White Star Line and the International Mercantile Marine Company"

Founder of White Star Line:  Thomas Henry Ismay
   Wikipedia: "Thomas Henry Ismay" 

Chairman of White Star Line:  J. Bruce Ismay
   Wikipedia: "Joseph Bruce Ismay"


Builders of the RMS Titanic

   Wikipedia: "Harland and Wolff"