Character/ Reputation

INTEGRITY

By: USA Today (4/9/97)

SCIENTISTS now say that a series of slits, not a giant gash, sank the 'Titanic'.

The opulent, 900-foot cruise ship sank in 1912 on its first voyage from England to New York. Fifteen hundred people died in the worst maritime disaster of the time.

The most widely held theory is that the ship hit an iceberg, which opened a huge gash in the side of the liner. But an international team of divers and scientists recently used sound waves to probe through the wreckage, buried in mud two-and-a-half miles deep. Their discovery? The damage was surprisingly small. Instead of the huge gash, they found six relatively narrow slits across the six watertight holds. "Everything that could go wrong did," said William Garzke Jr., a naval architect who helped the team with their analysis.

Small damage, below the waterline and invisible to most, can sink a huge ship. In the same way, small compromises, unseen to others, can ultimately sink a person's character. ~~