RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
Before this my husband had jokingly written to Secretary Root that he thought some sort of pension should be provided for the widows and orphans of the men who fell in action before the fearful onslaughts of native hospitality, but at the banquet of the Federal party there were none of those mysterious viands to which the Commissioners had been trying to accustom themselves in the provinces, and in consequence the quality of mutual enjoyment was not strained, the Filipino, unlike the Japanese, being as fond of foreign cookery as he is of his own. The speeches were all of the friendliest character and the “dove of peace,” verily, seemed to be hovering near.
The next morning, the 22nd of February, the Federal party, many thousands strong, marched through a flag-decked city to the Luneta where a speakers’ stand had been erected for the celebration of the day. There were scores of bands, each, as usual, playing its own tune in its own way regardless of what the others were doing; the populace, in its gayest attire, crowded in the wake of the procession; the spirit of festivity was rampant; and altogether it was a most interesting scene.
As close as ten thousand people could get to a speakers’ stand ten thousand people massed themselves, and they listened in respectful silence to the words of both the American and Filipino speakers, each one of whom made a spirited appeal for peaceful co-operation in the solution of the problem which America had acquired through no fault or desire of her own and which she could not, in honour, abandon. General Wright was the American speaker of the day and the frank friendliness of his speech was translated, paragraph by paragraph as he delivered it, by Mr. Arthur Fergusson, the Secretary-interpreter for the Commission, whose extraordinary command of Spanish made it possible for him not only to translate the words themselves, but to infuse into them the poetic fervour of the Spanish tongue. Never was Wash-
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