RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
on the Commission with an invitation to the banquet. Only three of the Commissioners were in town, but these, after making careful inquiry as to the nature of the entertainment and discovering that no incendiary speech-making was to be allowed, decided to accept the invitation. Paterno was in high feather and nothing but the fiesta and the banquete was talked about for days. But gradually information began to reach the ears of Mr. Taft that all was not as it should be. He learned that arches were being erected across certain streets bearing inscriptions that were insulting to the American flag. One arch, in front of Malacañan Palace, where General MacArthur lived, had a picture of President McKinley on one side and a picture of Aguinaldo on the other, and it was said that General MacArthur had ridden under this arch without noticing it. That would be taken for sanction by an ignorant Filipino. But as soon as notice was called to them all the objectionable features of the arches were removed and preparations went on. But rumours kept coming in about the speeches until Mr. Taft became curious. He went to General MacArthur and asked who was doing the censoring.
"Why, Pedro Paterno," said the General; as much as to say, "What more could you ask?"
Mr. Taft went back to the office and straightway set about to get copies of those speeches. And, he got them. Some of them were already in type at a local newspaper office and were to be printed in full the next morning. This was the day of the fiesta and it was proving a very quiet affair. There was little enthusiasm on the streets, but there was plenty of interest in the coming banquete. The Commissioners looked over all the speeches and found them, without exception, seditious in the extreme. So, of course, they could not go to the banquet. They could not sit by and listen to misrepresentations without getting up immediately and making vigorous denial and protest and they could not lend the
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