I should like to say here, by way of explanation, which may or may not be necessary, that I am not trying in this narrative to pose as a woman endowed with an especial comprehension of such problems of state as men alone have been trained to deal with. I confess only to a lively interest in my husband's work which I experienced from the beginning of our association and which nothing in our long life together, neither monotony, nor illness, nor misfortune, has served to lessen; and it would be practically impossible for me to write a record of memories in which he did not figure very largely.
In the settlement of American control in the Philippine Islands Mr. Taft, first as President of the first legislative Commission and, later, as Civil Governor, had to contend with a varied and complex resistance which it would be difficult for one not experienced in politics to comprehend. If it had been Filipino resistance only it would have been fairly easy to overcome, but Filipino resistance was indirectly sanctioned and directly assisted by a strong opposition in the United States to what seemed to us who were on the ground to be the only sensible and really patriotic measures possible under the circumstances.
For reasons which I have tried to convey, as clearly as I am able, my husband was not in favour of a continuation of military rule in the Islands beyond the time when military activity was imperative, nor was he in favour of abandoning a problem which grew daily more difficult and more complicated. So he and his colleagues persisted in the tremendous task of settling a whole people under a sane and sensible form of government.
The trip through the southern islands was particularly
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