"Sweet Fruit"

On Sept. 7, 1934 Captain Robert Willmott of the Ward Liner Morro Castle suddenly died. Chief Officer William Ferdinand Warms took command. That night, a few miles off Asbury Park, N. J., the Morro Castle burned, with a loss of 134 lives, in one of the greatest U. S. marine disasters (TIME, Sept. 17, 1934). Though Acting Captain Warms was the last man to leave his ship, a court presently convicted him of criminal negligence, sentenced him to two years in jail. Chief Engineer Eben Starr Abbott, who abandoned ship in the first lifeboat, was convicted on the same charge, given four years in jail. The Ward Line was fined $10,000, its Executive Vice President Henry Edward Cabaud $5,000 (TIME, Feb. 10, 1936). Mr. Cabaud and the Line paid their fines, but Warms and Abbott appealed, meanwhile stayed free on bail. Last week, from his cottage in Morristown, N. J., gaunt, sad-eyed William Warms was called to a neighbor's telephone. Few minutes later he ran back shouting: "I've won! I've won!"

"How much?" asked plump, red-haired Mrs. Warms, remembering their sweepstakes ticket.

"No, no!" whooped William Warms. "I've won in court. I'm cleared!"

Meeting in Manhattan, the U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals had unanimously set aside the convictions of both Warms and Abbott, placed the blame for the ship's unsafe condition wholly upon the Ward Line and deceased Captain Willmott. Censuring the judge who sentenced Warms, the Court held that the acting captain "had maintained the best tradition of the sea by staying on his vessel until the bridge had burned under him." For Abbott's conduct the Court had no commendation, but charitably held that his "futile" behavior was due to smoke-sickness, that in any case he was not criminally negligent, having been ordered by Captain Warms to leave the ship.

Said William Warms, who has been living on the generosity of the Ward Line since his conviction: "It was the judgment of God. I was innocent and God knew it.

While patience is bitter, it bears sweet fruit, as the Orientals say. . . . Now I am going back to the sea. It is the only work I know."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.