Right. Plus this happened in 1912. People tend to forget how different things were back then. The captain going down with his ship wasn't a quaint, old-timey tradition, it's something that was pretty much expected. If your ship went down and took a thousand people with it, you'd better just go with them and not show your face back on land, even if it wasn't your fault. J. Bruce Ismay was dragged in the press for surviving. There was a Japanese guy who survived (I forget his name). When he got back to Japan, he was treated as a national disgrace for living while so many others died.

All that to say: If you made even the slightest mistake, you'd be villainized to the point that a hundred years later people would still see you as a mustache twirling asshole who threw a baby out of a lifeboat to steal its spot. It was the early 20th Century version of being canceled, only much, much, much worse.