RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
that length of time, and for such a purpose, without fear of any kind of unfortunate consequences. Mr. Taft's investigation and study of the situation immediately convinced him that Mr. McKinley was wrong in his expectation that the work could be done so quickly. Nor did Mr. Root have any such idea. Even with the meagre information which was then available, my husband at once saw that it would be years before the Philippine problem would begin to solve itself. So he resigned from the Bench; the hardest thing he ever did.
After sending in his acceptance he went immediately to Washington to discuss with Mr. McKinley and Mr. Root the whole situation and, especially, the names of four other men who were to be chosen to serve with him on the Commission. He had met Mr. Worcester, a member of the first Commission, and had got from him a great deal of valuable data. If Professor Shurman, the chairman of the first Commission, had become a member of the second, he probably would have been at its head, but he did not, and this position fell to Mr. Taft. He was thereafter known as President of the Commission, until civil government was organised in the Philippines and be became governor.
After he had gone to Washington I began at once to make hasty, and I may say, happy preparations for my adventure into a new sphere. That it was alluring to me I did not deny to anybody. I had no premonition as to what it would lead to; I did not see beyond the present attraction of a new and wholly unexplored field of work which would involve travel in far away and very interesting countries. I read with engrossing interest everything I could find on the subject of the Philippines, but a delightful vagueness with regard to them, a vagueness which was general in the United States at that time, and has not, even yet, been entirely dispelled, continued in my mind. There were few books to be found, and those I did find were not specially illuminating.
35
