Did John Pierpont Morgan sink the Titanic?

It’s Valentine’s Day. A day full of love. A day that makes me think of the film Titanic, which tells the love story of Jack and Rose and the greatest ship disaster in history. But then it also raises a question: was the iceberg the issue? Just for Valentine’s Day, here is a different version of the love story of Titanic thanks to the History Nerd. This is a story I hadn’t heard before, but the gist is that the original J. P. Morgan – John Pierpont Morgan – not only sank the Titanic, but also made a bogus insurance claim on it, and killed off his key competitors in the process. Have you heard this one?

The theme of the meme begins with the idea that the Titanic had a sister ship called the Olympic, which had a serious collision the year before the Titanic sailed. Both ships were owned by J. P. Morgan and his company, the White Star Line, so the first claim is that the Titanic was switched with the damaged ship to claim the insurance. This was done with premeditated knowledge that it would sink but making sure it was fully insured beforehand. Was this the greatest insurance fraud in history?

Then it posits the fact that J. P. Morgan was meant to be on the Titanic but missed the ship at the last minute, whilst three of his arch-rivals were on board. Benjamin Guggenheim (mining magnate), Isidor Straus (co-owner of Macy’s) and John Jacob Astor IV (one of the richest men in the world) were allegedly opposed to J. P. Morgan’s plans to create the Federal Reserve central bank. None of them survived.

Meanwhile, J.P. Morgan had a first-class ticket but cancelled his trip at the last minute and, the following year, created the Federal Reserve to make himself the most powerful banker in history.

If you stumble across this meme, it is interesting but probably NOT TRUE. After doing a factcheck, Reuters claim that this conspiracy theory is clearly false and have done quite a bit of fact checking.

First, J. P. Morgan had a first class ticket for the Titanic’s  maiden voyage, but missed the boat because he was sorting out his affairs in France and, additionally, had caught a bug and wanted to get some R&R in a French spa resort as a result.

Second, it is true that J. P. Morgan’s company owned the Titanic and Isidor Straus, John Jacob Astor and Benjamin Guggenheim died, there is no surprises here. There were many millionaires and well-known names on the boat. Equally, there is no evidence that the three gentlemen mentioned opposed J. P. Morgan’s plans for the creation of a central bank.

Equally, there’s no evidence that the sinking of the Titanic was planned. It was just an accident …

… or was it? After all, who could imagine Elon Musk blowing up a SpaceX just because his rival was inside?

BTW, this story expands upon my recent trawls of history, such as the forgotten story of Clarence Saunders.