Recollections of Full Years/Chapter 13
To illustrate what seems to me to be rather widely contrasted views of the position of Secretary of War for the United States, I think I must relate two experiences I had in the beginning of Mr. Taft's career in that office.
Before we left Manila his appointment had been announced and as we passed through Japan en route to Washington we were received with all the ceremony and official dignity that the Japanese naturally would consider proper to the entertainment of the War Minister of a great and friendly foreign power. This was experience number one.
It was just before the outbreak of hostilities between Russia and Japan, and General Kuropotkin, the Russian Minister of War, had very recently been in Tokyo and had been accorded a welcome so elaborate that it became historic. It satisfied the Japanese conception of courtesy to an exalted foreign visitor and we discovered that it was to serve as a model for our own reception, though our time was so short that the programme had to be considerably modified.
Had we remained with our ship to Yokohama there would have been no opportunity to entertain us at all, but a special train was sent to meet us at Nagasaki, the first port of call on the homeward voyage, and nearly the whole length of the Empire from Tokyo, and we were whisked through ahead of everything two or three days in advance of our ship, which had to make two more stops before proceeding to Yokohama.
We were the guests of the nation and were conducted from one function to another with the greatest honour and official formality. Among other arrangements made for our entertainment was a luncheon at the Palace with the Emperor and Empress, and Mr. Taft was permitted, in his capacity of a war secretary, to witness the evolutions of a crack Japanese regiment, of 3,000 troops ready for the field massed on a single great parade ground.
The Japanese Minister of War, General Terauchi, was a soldier—which seems fitting, and which is usual in most countries I believe—and he assumed at once, in common with all the other Army officers whom he encountered, that Mr. Taft was a soldier, too. This has nothing to do with immediate story, but I remember it as one of the most amusing circumstances of that visit to Japan. Whatever Mr. Taft may be he is not martial, but these Japanese warriors proceeded to credit him with all manner of special knowledge which he had never had an opportunity to acquire and to speak to him in technical terms which, it must be admitted, strained his ability for concealing his ignorance. He finally said that if anybody asked him again about the muzzle velocity of a Krag-Jorgensen, or any like question, he intended to reply: "Sh! It's a secret!"
General Kodama, who afterward made himself world-famous as Chief of Staff during the Russo-Japanese War, had been Military Governor of Formosa and he was especially interested in Mr. Taft because he conceived that in the Philippines we had a parallel for their Formosan problem. He grew quite confidential, telling Mr. Taft many things about the Japanese administration of Formosan affairs and drawing comparisons between his difficulties and those that we had encountered under similar circumstances. He ended by saying:
"We had to kill a good many thousands of those people before they would be good. But then, of course, you understand,—you know,—you know!"
This story could not have been told at that time because there were groups of active anti-Imperialists in the United States who would have pounced upon it as something to be made the most of as an argument for their cause, but in the light of history that has been made I think it is safe to tell it now. Mr. Taft had to admit that he was a man of peace, that so far as he personally was concerned he had never killed nor ordered killed a single Filipino in his life, and that his whole endeavour had been to form a friendly alliance with the Philippine people and to dissuade them from indulgence in the personal danger involved in their useless opposition to temporary American control.
We made something of a triumphal progress through Japan during our short stay and were escorted to our ship by numerous dignitaries who were extremely gracious and who cheered us on our way with such "banzais!" and such a waving of flags as made me feel that we were quite important personages. Later on I had my sense of the importance of my position rudely shaken. There is one thing to be said for the American Republic and that is that no public official is permitted to retain for very long a too exalted opinion of himself.
One day shortly after my arrival in Washington, I was at tea at the house of a friend and found myself in conversation with a lady, the wife of an Army officer, whom I had known in Manila. We talked around and about various subjects, after the manner of ladies at a tea, when she finally said to me:
"You know, Mrs. Taft, I have thought about you so often and wondered how you liked it here in Washington after your life in Manila. Why, out there you were really a queen, and you come back here and are just nobody!"
There was another lady who sat next to my husband at a dinner one night. It was a place of honour, next to a Cabinet officer, and she no doubt considered it necessary to "make conversation" while the candle-lights shone. She went along quite successfully for awhile, but eventually blundered into this:
"Do you know, Mr. Secretary, I really think you ought to go out and see the Philippine Islands. They say they are so interesting!"
Poor man, most of his reputation, such as it then was, had been made in the Philippine service, but he replied to her: "That's right, I should go. And I'm going, too, just as soon as I can possibly get away."
He meant that. He had promised the Filipinos that he would return to open their first Assembly, and even then he had a fixed desire to lead a party of American Congressmen to the country whose affairs they were endeavouring to settle by long-distance legislation founded upon very mixed and, in some cases, greatly distorted, second-hand information. Mr. Taft became Secretary of War at the beginning of 1904, but I spent the remainder of the winter after our arrival in the United States in Santa Barbara and did not join him until May, when I met him at St. Louis, where he went to open the Louisiana Purchase Exposition.
President Roosevelt was to have done this, but urgent affairs kept him in Washington, so the Secretary of War was asked to represent him and to make the speech which an- nounced to the world the inauguration of this great Fair. I remember the occasion especially because I had been so long out of touch with the kind of buoyant Americanism which made itself felt in St. Louis that I had almost lost my own identity with it, and I began then to think that it was really good to be back in my own country.
I knew fairly well what it would mean to settle down in Washington as the wife of a Cabinet officer because I had lived in Washington before. While I didn't expect to be and didn't expect anybody to consider me "just nobody" I knew that it would not be at all like entering upon the duties and privileges of the wife of the Governor of the Philippine Islands. I thought what a curious and peculiarly American sort of promotion it was which carried with it such diminished advantages. My first necessity in my generally considered enviable position was to find a house in Washington large enough to contain my family, to permit such participation in social life as would be expected of us, and the rent for which would not wholly exhaust the stipend then allowed to a Cabinet officer.
Eight thousand dollars a year, sufficient income though it may be when it is expected to accommodate itself to an ordinary eight-thousand-dollars-a-year standard of living, shrinks alarmingly when its recipient is expected to maintain on it the dignity of a Cabinet position. If we had not had some private resources I don't quite see how we could have managed. Fortunately for my husband, and more so for his successors in office, this figure was raised to twelve thousand before he left the War Department, and still there are complaints which I am amply able to appreciate.
We finally settled, on the first of October after my arrival at Washington, in a pleasant, old-fashioned house on K Street near 16th. It was not the most elegantly equipped house available, but we preferred a little extra space to the more elaborate modern conveniences, so we took it.
We were spared one item of expense by having the use of the War Department carriage and its big Irish coachman, Quade. Quade was quite a character. He had been at one time in the artillery service and had occupied the position in which we found him through several administrations. He was never able to lose the habits and manners of an artillery man, and Mr. Roosevelt used to say he never drove behind him without feeling as if he were on the caisson of a gun wagon going into action. He kept his horses in fine condition, though a trifle too fat perhaps, and he took great pride in the speed he could get out of them. He would swing around corners and dash past street cars and other vehicles in a way that was anything but soothing to sensitive nerves, but there was no use protesting. Quade's character was fully formed.
He used to feed Mr. Taft's private riding horse at the public expense, and Mr. Taft didn't approve of this. He thought he ought to include the pay for its keep in his personal accounts, and he told Quade so, asking him at the same time to have a bill made out so that he might settle it. Quade regarded him in utter disgust for a moment, then said:
"Well, Misther Sicretary, what with the good an' plinty o' fodder we got in the stables, I guess ye can go on a-feedin' your horse here without the Government's a-worryin' anny."
I remember going one day to a reception at the house of Justice Harlan on the occasion of his twenty-fifth anniversary on the bench. President Roosevelt was already there and as we drove up we found the bicycle policemen surrounding the entrance waiting for him. Quade, with great friendliness but with an absolute lack of decorum, leaned over on the box and shouted to them as we passed:
"Ah, Begorra! Ye'll be a-waitin' around fer my boss one o' these days!"
Faithful Quade lived to see his prophecy fulfilled, but not long afterward he lost his life at his post of duty in a shocking accident. He was driving the Department carriage for Secretary of War Dickinson's family; the pole broke, the horses became frightened and bolted. There were young children and a nurse in the carriage, so Quade bravely held on to the reins and finally succeeded in turning the horses into a fence. He saved the occupants of the carriage from injury, but he himself was thrown forward violently, falling in such a way as to break his neck.
Another War department employé whom we valued highly was Arthur Brooks, a coloured department messenger, and a major of militia. Arthur was the most useful individual I ever knew anything about, combining absolute loyalty with an efficiency and accuracy that were most comforting to his employers. He went into the War Department during President Arthur's administration and gradually won for himself a position of especial trust. Mr. Root, as Secretary of War, found Arthur most valuable and reposed the utmost confidence in him.
For me he did all kinds of things which without him would probably have been done very badly. He "managed" all my larger entertainments, being present, after I had done all I could by way of preparation, to see that everybody was properly received, that the service ran smoothly and that nothing went amiss. When Mr. Taft became President he had Arthur transferred to the position of custodian of the White House and I shall have occasion to speak of him in that capacity later on.
Taking things all in all, I think we managed to get on very well indeed, though I did sometimes sigh for the luxurious simplicity and the entire freedom from petty household details that I had left behind me in Manila. I did not rind that my very large and very black cook was so capable as to make me forget the excellencies and the almost soundless orderliness of Ah Sing; nor did my coloured butler and one housemaid quite manage to take the places of Ah King and Chang, my two upstairs "Chinaboys" at Malacañan. As for the six or eight barefoot muchachos who "skated" my Philippine hardwood floors to a state of mirror gloss and kept everything speckless without ever seeming to do any work at all, they could have no substitute in a Washington establishment.
The life of a "Cabinet lady" newly arrived in the Capital is one of rather monotonous stress. In the first place she is expected to call on nearly everybody who calls on her, and, of course, nearly everybody does that. This custom in my time was especially insisted upon with regard to the wives of all the Congressmen and of all the men connected with the various departments. Then there were the wives of the members of the Supreme Court, women whose husbands were connected with the many different bureaus and a large and most attractive civilian society which contributes so much to the gaiety of the city. And besides all these there were the Army women, any number of them.
Every afternoon throughout the winter when I was not "at home" myself I started out on certain rounds of calls, and I think I made as many calls as any one I knew. Irksome to me as this duty sometimes was, in the formal discharge of it I made some of the pleasantest friends I ever had. I have always found Army women particularly delightful, and it is easy to understand why they are so. In the course of their wanderings and their many changes of habitation, and in consequence of the happy-go-lucky attitude toward life that they are bound to assume, they acquire a cordiality of manner and an all-round generous tone which make them very attractive.
One morning each week Mrs. Roosevelt held a meeting of the Cabinet ladies at the White House, but this was not a social affair. We met to discuss various matters supposed to be of interest to us all, and would gather in the library from eleven to twelve for this purpose.
After calling, the most important social duty devolving upon a Cabinet officer's wife is dining out. We always dined out when we were not giving a dinner party at our own house, so that from the time Mr. Taft became Secretary of War we almost ceased to know what it was to have "a quiet evening at home." Of course such a life gave us an opportunity for meeting many interesting men and women who contributed much to the sum total of what the world seemed to have in store for us.
It has been the custom through a good many administrations for the President, sometime during the season between December first and Lent, to dine with each member of the Cabinet, and all other members of the Cabinet, with only a few outside guests, were usually invited to these parties. It can easily be imagined that, they did not offer much variation, especially in view of the fact that hard and fast rules of precedence settled for the hostess just where each of her guests should sit. Mr. Roosevelt did not care for this custom, so during his last Administration it became usual to ask to such dinners only people outside the "official family," as it is called. The dinner to Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt which we gave each year was our most ambitious social function and it was my desire always to invite as many persons as possible who would themselves prove entertaining and who would not be likely to meet the President in the ordinary course of events. I often asked friends from different parts of the country to visit us for the occasion.
Every Wednesday afternoon all the ladies of the Cabinet were "at home" and nearly all Washington called on each of them. Then, too, the casual visitors to the Capital were free to attend these informal receptions and I used to be surprised at the number of curious strangers who found their way into my drawing room.
However, this is only a glimpse in general of the life of a Cabinet lady during the regular social season. Fortunately for me my husband was, from the very beginning, a travelling Secretary. I remember most of the cartoons of those days pictured him either as "sitting on the lid," wreathed in cherubic smiles, while President Roosevelt rushed off on some flying trip, or as himself making a frantic dash for the rear platform of a moving train. The rush of Mr. Roosevelt was always expressed by the backward sweep of the ribbon attached to his eyeglasses, while Mr. Taft was usually pictured with a perspiring look, his hat lifted off his head by the wind and a busy looking suitcase, labelled in large letters: "Taft," swinging wildly along behind him. And these cartoons were rather accurately descriptive of real conditions.
I had hardly got my house on K Street in order before something happened in Panama which made it imperative for the Secretary of War to go down to the Isthmus and give the situation his personal attention. There was a state of popular discontent among the Panamanians complicated by question of zone boundaries, jurisdiction, postal regulations, tariff inequalities and a few other matters, and by that time we had too much at stake in the Canal Zone to risk long distance or dilatory regulation.
The building of the Panama Canal was not included in the business of the War Department until after Mr. Taft became Secretary, nor was there at that time any definite idea of having it done by the Army Engineer Corps, but it has long been recognised that in the War Portfolio accommodation can be found for any and every kind of governmental problem, and Mr. Taft had not been Secretary long before Mr. Roosevelt transferred the administration of Canal Zone affairs to his already well-laden shoulders.
I was very glad to have an opportunity to see the beginning of what I knew was to be the greatest enterprise ever undertaken by the United States, so I fully approved of my husband's suggestion that I accompany him to Panama. Señor Obaldia, the Panamanian Minister to Washington, went also, and among others in the very interesting party were Rear Admiral J. G. Walker, President of the Canal Commission, Judge Charles G. Magoon, law officer of the Commission, and Mr. Nelson W. Cromwell, counsel for the Republic of Panama.
On this trip Mr. Taft went to Panama as a representative of the President of the United States for the purpose of presenting to the President of Panama a message of friendship, and to make, if possible, an amicable adjustment of the differences between American and Panamanian interests.
It was in November, 1904. We went from Washington to New Orleans and were greeted in a kindly manner all along the way. When we arrived we were met by a most imposing committee of citizens who escorted us to our hotel. No sooner were we installed, in the midst of all the luxury that could be prepared for us, than Governor Blanchard, with due ceremony and accompanied by members of his staff in uniform, called to pay his official respects. We hadn't very long to stay, but every hour was filled with entertainments made memorable by the courteous and high-bred lavishness for which New Orleans is famed, the only private event of our visit being a dinner with Archbishop Chapelle, now dead, who was Archbishop of Manila when Mr. Taft first went to the Philippines and with whom he good-naturedly, but persistently, disagreed on the important problems connected with the necessary disentanglement of the affairs of Church and State in the Islands.
We sailed on the little Dolphin from New Orleans to Pensacola, where the cruiser Columbia lay waiting to take us down to Panama, and it was to the boom of saluting guns, the cheers of hospitable Pensacola citizens and the strains of "The Star Spangled Banner" that we got under way on this first memorable trip to the Canal Zone.
We arrived at Colon on a Sunday morning, and I remember distinctly that it seemed more like "getting home" than like getting to a strange place. The whole atmosphere and surroundings, the people, the language they spoke, the houses and streets, the rank earth odours and the very feel of the air reminded me so strongly of the Philippines as to give me immediately a delightful sense of friendly familiarity with everything and everybody.
We were met at Colon by the vice-President of Panama, Señor Arosemana, and a number of other Panamanian officials, by General Davis, then Governor of the Canal Zone, and by Mr. John Barrett, the American Minister to Panama. A private train was waiting to take us across the Isthmus and we lost no time in getting started. Our visit had been "programmed" almost to the last hour of our time, and the first event was to be an exchange of formalities between the Secretary of War and the President of Panama that very afternoon.
When we got to the city of Panama just before luncheon we went to the home of Mr. Wallace, the Chief Engineer, whose guests we were to be during our stay, and early in the afternoon Mr. Taft, accompanied by uniformed aides and other Army officers, with enough ceremony to satisfy even the most formal, went to call on President Amador. The call was promptly returned with due formality, and the decks were then considered "cleared for action."
Negotiations began at once, but the conferences were private, and in our daily round of sight-seeing and social diversions it did not seem that the delicate machinery of diplomatic transaction was in motion at all.
Our Minister, Mr. Barrett, had a charming house in the old tropic city and on the Monday evening after our arrival he gave a dinner at which were gathered many high officials of the Panama Republic as well as all the interesting Americans who were then directing our great Canal building enterprise. Mr. Barrett, being a bachelor, placed President Amador opposite himself; he took Madame Amador at his right; Mr. Taft sat next to her, while I occupied the place at the right of the President and had on my other side Señor Arias, the Minister of Foreign Affairs. General Davis, Mr. Wallace, Colonel Gorgas—"the man of the hour" during that cleaning-up period,—many Army officers and Cabinet Ministers in full regalia and many decorations, with their wives, were seated in order of rank along the sides of the great table, which, laden with flowers and gleaming glass and candles, made a picture long to be remembered even by one whose memory is overcrowded with dinner-party scenes.
The formality of this occasion, however, began and ended with its costuming and its beautiful tropic "setting." Nearly everybody, including the President and Madame Amador, spoke English as well as Spanish, and the evening was gay from the outset. There is a wonderful fish caught in Panama waters; I wish I could remember its name; it is delicious and rare beyond description, and our pleasantries began with the President's demand for a second helping which the embarrassed host and the more than flustered servants were unable to supply. The persiflage then turned upon the unenviable position of a bachelor diplomat and we all advised Mr. Barrett to get married. He parried our jibes as best he could until President Amador volunteered the information that the American Minister was honorary President of the Iris Club, an association of some three hundred-odd of the choicest girls in Panama. "And he can't get one out of the lot," said the President.
After dinner a large reception was held in the salon which, as in all Spanish houses in the tropics, was on what might be called the second floor, the first floor being only a sort of plastered and stone-paved street-level basement. The highly-polished floor of the big room didn't look to me to be particularly safe and I suppose Mr. Barrett observed my worried looks as it "gave" under the weight of my husband. He hastened to reassure me by telling me that he had taken the precaution to have it shored up with heavy timbers under the spot where Mr. Taft was to stand to receive the long line of guests. He seemed to consider this a fine joke, but I thought it a most commendable measure.
When we arrived in Panama we were not at all certain that we should find the country in a state of tranquillity; nor did we exactly; though by prompt action the President had nipped a budding revolution only a short time before. Hostilities had been averted, but the people were in a bad temper and it was thought best to keep them "merely guessing" while the negotiations between the Secretary of War and the Panamanian government were in progress, and much of Mr. Taft's time, therefore, was spent behind the closed doors of President Amador's council chamber.
In the meantime I made myself familiar with the wonderful American project which brought the Panama Republic into existence. The Canal then was a sorry sight. The public clamour in the United States was for "making the dirt fly," but it did not look to a mere layman as if we could ever make it fly fast enough or in sufficient quantities to really bring the two oceans together. All along the line of operations the old French machinery lay buried in pathetic ruin in a tropic jungle which had all but effaced the evidences of the French enterprise, and such conditions of general unhealthiness prevailed as made it seem almost too much to expect that any kind of clean-up programme could be made effectual.
But all that story has been told; told in actual accomplishment with which all the world is familiar. I am only glad that I saw Colonel Gorgas and his men in that initial and contagious enthusiasm which, being sustained, resulted in a record of which we are all so proud.
The Panamanians are nothing if not expansively hospitable. On the 4th of December, after we had been on the Isthmus a couple of weeks and while the results of the official negotiations were still, as far as any one knew, "in the lap of the gods," an ocean steamship was chartered by a company of hosts, and about three hundred guests, the élite of the whole republic, were invited for a picnic party to the Pearl Islands in the Bay of Panama, and a sail out into the Pacific Ocean. It was an all-day expedition and included the exploration of the beautiful little group, some pearl-diving for our especial benefit, a most amazing luncheon, and a dance on deck, to the music of a stringed band in gay and most decorative uniforms, at which Mr. Taft made a tremendous "hit." The tiny Panamanian woman who first danced with him was thought to be very courageous, but as one after another followed suit his reputation grew and it finally was conceded, in the midst, of great merriment, that he was as light of foot as the slimmest Panamanian of them all.
Having always been used to my husband's dancing, and knowing how much lie likes it, I never thought of it as anything unusual, but during the days when he was being "boomed" for the Presidency and was therefore much in the public prints, it was made the subject of frequent jest. I have one bit of doggerel in my scrap-book which appeared in the Baltimore American after the reception we gave on the occasion of General Kuroki's visit to this country, and the last verse of which runs:
Is a thing which we all know;
That as Presidential thunder
His big boom is like to go.
But as butterfly, blooms sipping,
And as waltzer, simply ripping!
'Tis a sight to see Taft tripping
On the light fantastic toe!
As a matter of fact he dances exceedingly well, if his wife who has been dancing with him for the past thirty years may say so.
When we returned from the Pearl Islands to Panama City that evening we were met by a pleasing surprise. The text of the agreement which had been reached by Mr. Taft and the government of Panama, and which had not been mentioned by anybody all day, had been made public during our absence and newsboys were crying "extras" in all the streets, while excited groups stood about here and there wreathed in smiles and talking with great animation. Everybody seemed wholly satisfied and wherever we went we were met with cheers and cries of "Viva!"
The keynote sounded in this agreement was that justice should be done at Panama. Mr. Taft interpreted the treaty between our country and the infant republic; he adjusted the differences with regard to postal regulations and the tariff; he defined the harbour boundaries; and, much to the satisfaction of the Panamanians, he kept within the hands of the American authorities all matters pertaining to the public health. The people realised the necessity for a pure water supply, for sewer systems, clean and well-paved streets, and the elimination of the dread diseases which made the Isthmus a death trap for white men, and all these things America offered to Panama as a free gift that the great work of building the Canal might go on. If vociferous cheers are an expression of gratitude the people were grateful.
The next day a great demonstration took place in Cathedral Plaza. We stood on a balcony of the Grand Central Hotel, on one side of the square and opposite the Cathedral, and looked out across a veritable sea of moving, swaying, white-clad humanity. As far as one could see in every direction there were people, and when Mr. Taft stepped to the balcony rail to address them they gave voice to a cheer which made it seem certain that all cause for quarrel between us had happily been removed.
There had been vague rumours that the deposed War Minister of the Panama government who had attempted to start the rebellion would, with his followers, take this occasion to make a hostile demonstration, but he was evidently sensible enough to realise that his was an unpopular cause. Moreover, his original army of two hundred and fifty men had been reduced to twenty-five, and if that were not discouraging enough he had only to contemplate the natty American Marine corps in the Canal Zone and the Pacific squadron, including the New York, the Boston, the Bennington and the Marblehead, lying out in Panama harbour unobtrusively but very positively guaranteeing peace.
Mr. Taft in his speech to the Panamanians was earnest. He was imbued with the spirit of conquest as represented in our Panama Canal enterprise. It was to be a conquest of nature's own forces in their most formidable aspects and he expressed a determination to enforce, during his term of administration, the laws necessary to make that conquest possible, and capping all his promises of fair treatment to the people of Panama, he emphasised an insistence upon orderly government in the little republic which brought forth round after round of applause.
He was destined to have almost endless difficulties of various sorts in the Canal Zone, but he had the great privilege of occupying an administrative office, first as Secretary of War and then as President, until the end of the work was in sight and all the problems had been fully solved. During those eight years, wherever he might be or whatever business happened to be temporarily paramount, Canal questions were with him always and were always given first consideration.
The history of the Panama Canal is divided into two great periods. The first covers the full discussion and final settlement of the question as to which route should be adopted, the Nicaraguan or the Panama; the negotiation of the Hay-Herran Treaty with Colombia, by which we were given the right to complete the Panama Canal, and under which we secured all the rights of the French Panama Canal Company; the rejection of the Hay-Herran Treaty with Colombia; the revolution of Panama; the establishment of the Panamanian Republic and its recognition by President Roosevelt, the negotiation of the Hay-Varilla Treaty with Panama, by which we acquired dominion over the Canal Zone, and the right to build the Canal from the Republic of 
MR. TAFT AND COLONEL GOETHALS, IN PANAMA
It was not long after our return to Washington from the first trip to Panama before arrangements were completed for the tour of the big Congressional party which Mr. Taft "personally conducted" to the Philippines and back, and which was destined to be slightly overshadowed as a Congressional party by the personality of Miss Alice Roosevelt who, under the chaperonage of Mr. Taft and Mrs. Newlands, made the trip just, as Kipling sings, "for to be'old and for to see."
Knowing that I should have an opportunity to go again to the Far East in two years to be present at the inauguration of the first Philippine Assembly, I decided to remain behind this time. I did not think I would much enjoy this brief busy trip to the Orient with three children and decided that a quiet summer in England would be better for us all. So I took a cottage in Oxford for the summer and with my two younger children and one of my Cincinnati friends and her two children made various trips here and there and found myself most pleasantly entertained. It was an exceedingly quiet summer, unbroken save by the somewhat lurid accounts which we gathered from the British and European press of the progress of the Congressional party with Mr. Taft and Miss Alice Roosevelt in the East. One German paper went so far as to announce that Miss Roosevelt was undoubtedly engaged to be married to her father's War Secretary.
It was my intention to sail from Southampton and meet Mr. Taft in New York on his arrival from the East. We had been inveighing all summer against the British system of handling luggage and when we went to look after our trunks in the Oxford station we were charmed to find that a new method of labelling had been introduced and that our luggage would travel down to London and across London to the station for Southampton without any assistance from us. We pocketed our British substitutes for American baggage checks with considerable satisfaction and started on our way.
When we arrived in London I sent the boys over to the station from which we were to leave for our steamer to make sure that our baggage had really been delivered as promised. Unfortunately the boys got to the station just as King Edward arrived, and they were so excited about getting a glimpse of the monarch that they gave up trying to look after baggage. We, having nothing else to do, drove to the station a full hour before the steamer train was to leave, and had occasion to congratulate ourselves for being so early. Our trunks were not in the station. My friend jumped in a hansom and rushed to the station where we had come in. I spent the time ransacking every corner and looking over piles of all kinds of luggage and three-quarters of an hour passed before a telephone message came to say the trunks were found and that they had started across town.
But the train would leave in five minutes! I was frantic. Otherwise I should never have played my last card and exposed myself to the jibes of my family forever after. I rushed into the office of the station-master determined to overawe him by revealing to him my official position.
"I am Mrs. William Howard Taft of Washington," I cried. "I must get my trunks on that boat train. They'll be here in a few minutes. Can't you hold it for me!"
He looked at me blankly.
"My husband is the Secretary of War of the United States," I went on desperately.
"I am very sorry, Madam," he began, then I made my last effort.
"You must have heard of him. He's travelling now with Miss Alice Roosevelt." At last I had produced the effect I desired. Immediately the station was my castle. The station-master was my humble servant. He accompanied me out, ordered the train held, and superintended a whole obsequious force winch hustled our baggage aboard as soon as it arrived. Since we made the boat, which we would not otherwise have done, I was able to bear the chaffing of my children and friends when they continued to refer to me as The Mrs. Taft whose husband was travelling with Miss Alice Roosevelt.
Early in the autumn of 1906 the American Consul General at Havana began cabling to the government at Washington that the Cuban republic under President Palma was rapidly going to pieces. What was described as "devastating and paralysing civil strife" was rampant, and a serious insurrection was threatened.
The Constitution of the Cuban republic and the Cuban Treaty with the United States contains a "self-acting" clause, known as the Platt Amendment, which was introduced by the United States Congress, and which provides for American intervention in Cuban affairs whenever such intervention is deemed requisite to a continuance of peace and good government in the island.
Sometime during the first week in September the situation became acute and President Palma, fearing that it would become formidable and knowing that he had no adequate force to protect life and property, urgently, though secretly begged our government to send warships to his assistance. On September 12 he despatched a cablegram imploring that an American Army be landed in Havana at once to prevent a threatened massacre of citizens; on September 13 he decided to resign the Presidency and compel the United States to assume the responsibility of government; on September 14 President Roosevelt called a conference at Oyster Bay where it was decided that Mr. Taft should undertake the task of Cuban pacification, peaceful if possible—and on September 20 Mr. Taft, accompanied by Mr. Robert Bacon, Assistant Secretary of State, as a fellow Peace Commissioner, landed at Havana. They didn't lose much time.
Then began what Mr. Taft always refers to as "those awful twenty days." The people were divided into various warring factions, the result, largely, of political habits inherited from the old Spanish régime wherein a new party arose on the slightest provocation, basing its antagonism to the others on nothing finer nor more patriotic than individual desire for political patronage.
President Palma still held the reins of government, but camped just outside Havana were twenty thousand men under arms ready at any moment to open hostilities. These insurgents, as well as the party in power, had appealed to the United States for intervention, but neither faction had any intention of accepting any form of compromise which did not include all their demands.
For about a week the fiercest storm that Mr. Taft had ever encountered raged about his head. His one immediate desire was to avoid bloodshed. His investigations proved that no real obstacle to tranquillity, or to compromise, existed and he made every effort to induce the Cubans to settle their differences on high non-partisan grounds, each yielding something to the other for the sake of the general good. But he found very little interest in the "general good." Indeed, all through his despatches during those days there runs a complaint that except with President Palma and a few others patriotism was not very apparent, that petty jealousies and personal ambitions, often of a brazen or a sordid nature, constituted the chief secret of all the dissension and strife.
Events must have moved with feverish rapidity. The insurrectos demanded the annulment of the election which continued the Palma government in power, and the situation developed new complications with every argument and piece of testimony presented by cither side. Finally when it was decided to begin an investigation of election returns with the hope of arriving at a just conclusion, President Palma, who had certainly been elected by irregular methods, though with no connivance on his own part, promptly resigned; his Congress failed to meet and elect his successor. To forestall a state of absolute anarchy, with the approval of President Roosevelt, Mr. Taft issued a manifesto proclaiming an American provisional government with himself as the provisional governor of the republic. This happened on the eighth day after his arrival in Havana.
American marines had already been landed to guard the Treasury and a large force of United States troops, under General Frederick Funston, was in readiness to sail at once for Havana.
There was a strong sentiment among the better elements of Cubans, and an almost unanimous expression on the part of foreign residents, in favour of annexation to the United States. Indeed, feeling ran so high on this point, and especially among those, of whatever nationality, with financial interests at stake in Cuba, that it was thought for a time that an effort would be made to stampede or force the United States government into such action. But Mr. Taft's Philippine experience proved of value to him in this crisis, and his proclamation provided only for a provisional government "to last long enough to restore order and peace and public confidence." The Cuban flag was not hauled down; no Cuban official was to be disturbed in the discharge of his regular duties; and the American flag was to fly over nothing but American troops. In other words, the Cuban Republic was not to cease for an instant to exist. It was a curious situation.
Shortly after the provisional government was instituted, Mr. Magoon was appointed to relieve Mr. Taft in the office of governor, and was instructed to proceed at once to Havana. Mr. Taft cabled me and Mr. Bacon cabled to Mrs. Bacon, asking if we did not want to accompany Mr. Magoon, and, of course, we immediately decided to do so. We sailed on the Mascotte with the battleship Texas in our wake, carrying three hundred marines from Norfolk, and for the first time in my life I felt as if I were actually "going to war." There was such a sense of rush throughout the whole performance that it seemed tremendously serious. As a matter of fact, intervention was accomplished without the firing of a single gun, and when we landed at Havana, on the afternoon of the 10th of October, just twenty days after Mr. Taft's arrival on the scene, the principal enterprise in progress was the disarmament of insurgent troops which was by that time almost completed.
When we landed in Cuba I found myself once again, although only for the moment "the first lady of the land," and we were received with much ceremony. It reminded me of Manila days.
As we passed the Cabañas fortress at the entrance of Havana harbour the Texas fired a salute and the echo of the answering guns cracked and rattled from piers and surrounding sea-walls. Everything in the harbour dipped its flag as we came in, while from out of the maze of battleships and cruisers, transports, merchant vessels and shore boats we saw a launch approaching in the bow of which I could easily make out my husband's generous proportions. With him were his colleague, Mr. Bacon, his aide, Captain McCoy, and a second aide, Captain José Marti, an artilleryman and son of an old Cuban patriot whom he had appointed to this position, to the intense gratification of the Cuban people.
A second launch followed, bearing General Funston and his aide, Captain Cloman, while a third full of Cuban newspaper men brought up the rear. These newspaper men were the most engaging reporters I ever encountered. They didn't approach Mrs. Bacon and me with pads and pencils and a few ill-considered questions. No, indeed. They came bearing flowers, great, gorgeous bouquets for each of us, and we were permitted to receive these without having to say anything more compromising than: "It was a very pleasant voyage, thank you," and, "Yes, indeed, we are very glad to get to Havana."
When we reached the wharf of the Captain of the Port we found a large gathering of American naval officers and Cuban citizens, and we were formally welcomed by Señor Julio de Cardenas, the Mayor of Havana, who was continuing to exercise his official authority exactly as if nothing unusual had occurred. He was accompanied by the members of the City Council and with them later escorted us to the Palace.
As Mrs. Bacon and I stepped into our carriage the commander of the rebel army and his wife came up to welcome us with what the paper that evening described as "a floral offering," but we saw nothing of the deposed President or his followers. Upon his resignation he had gone down into the country, where he was said to have been received with marked enthusiasm and sympathy. Nobody ever accused President Palma of being anything but an honest man and a sincere patriot, the victim of political chicanery on the part of his supporters. It was afterward shown that he could easily have been re-elected without trickery, but dishonest politics were the only kind of politics that his people had yet learned how to play.
When we arrived at the Palace, Mr. Taft, Mr. Bacon and Mr. Magoon went into a long conference in the governor's office, while I wandered around the imposing building. It was about as cheerful as a mortuary chapel. It seemed to be admirably adapted for the display of gold lace, gorgeous decorations and lofty martial manners. After a brief inspection I sought the spacious discomfort of my own room and an hour's repose under a betasseled canopy.
Mr. Magoon was not to assume the office of governor until disarmament was completed and an amnesty proclamation had been issued. Mr. Taft intended to leave him with no insurgents except those who refused to give up their arms, and these were no longer to be known as insurgents. They were to be called bandits and were to be hunted down and treated as such.
I was mistress of the Palace at Havana for just three over-crowded days. Before our arrival Mr. Taft and Mr. Bacon had been the guests of the American Minister, Mr. E. V. Morgan, at his beautiful home about nine miles outside the city. This house stood between two insurgent camps and the mediators had to pass by automobile through rebel lines every morning and evening while the uncertain negotiations were in progress, but the strange part of this intervention was that it was welcomed by all the parties concerned except the intervening party, so the mediators were shown every courtesy.
Mr. Taft did not take possession of the Palace immediately after the President's abdication, but when Mr. Magoon was arriving he thought it wise to do so in order that he might induct him into the office and all its dignities with due form, and so it happened that we found him living there.
On the afternoon after our arrival Mrs. Bacon and I gave a reception which I remember as a most notable affair. It was attended by hundreds of Cubans, by all the members of the different foreign colonies and by every American Army and Navy officer who was not at the moment on active duty. Everybody seemed to be especially happy and festive after the month of gloom, and the pretty white gowns, the gay Cuban colours and the crisp smartness of American uniforms mingled together in the great rooms with quite brilliant effect. While we stood shaking hands with the throng passing by in single file, the Municipal Band in the Park before the Palace played American music, from the latest ragtime back to "Swanee River," interspersed with well-rendered classics and a few gay, lilting airs peculiarly Spanish.
On the following afternoon Mr. Morgan tried to outdo the affair at the Palace with a reception in our honour at his house, and succeeded admirably. Mr. Taft had written of Mr. Morgan: "He is something of a sybarite. He has a very fine house, a French cook and all the luxuries, and we are being exceedingly well taken care of;—though I do think we eat too much!" In fact, Mr. Morgan is a true host, combining imagination and great ability with the wish to entertain. His house at Havana was like a scene from some tropical grand opera. Standing in the midst of fine gardens heavy with groups of big drooping palms and ferns, and bright with wide spaces of green lawn, it seemed like a veritable story-book house. It had wide corridors and a quaint, moss-softened patio, in the middle of which a fountain played over a mass of brilliant tropic plants. The spacious rooms were filled with curios and art treasures from all parts of the world, and I was especially interested in a splendid collection of brass-bound and inlaid Korean chests. Mr. Morgan was America's last Minister to Korea, being transferred from Seoul to Havana when Japan established. her Korean protectorate.
Although it was nine miles out to Mr. Morgan's house, everybody came, and it was said to be the most representative gathering of the city's leading families that had been seen in many a day. Of course there was music and dancing and refreshments and all the elements which go to make up an enjoyable entertainment, and even though there was a general celebration going on in the city, the crowds took their departure reluctantly.
The general celebration was in commemoration of the anniversary of the outbreak of the Ten Years' War in 1858, and it was strange to see all parties uniting in a demonstration of what seemed to be real patriotism.
Havana was decorated in regular old-fashioned Fourth of July style, and there were parades and speeches, bands, banners and fireworks, just as if Cuba were the solidest little Republic in the world. One really couldn't take the situation very seriously after all,—except that it was costing the country a great deal of money and certainly would have cost many foolish lives had it not been taken in hand so promptly.
The next morning we inaugurated Governoon Magoon and took our departure, leaving him to his uncomfortable fate. I remember later a cartoon depicting him as sitting in agony on a sizzling stove labelled "Cuba," while Mr. Taft appeared in the distance in a fireman's garb carrying a long and helpful-looking line of hose. But that illustrated subsequent history.
We sailed from Havana on the battleship Louisiana, escorted by the Virginia and the North Carolina, Mr. and Mrs. Bacon, General Funston, Mr. Taft and I, on the 13th of October, just twenty-nine days from the day on which Mr. Roosevelt had called the momentous conference at Oyster Bay to decide what should be done about Cuba, and we escaped by only a few hours the terrible storm which swept east from the Gulf of Mexico that same evening. It was one of the worst storms the locality had ever known. It did untold damage to property, killed a number of people and by cutting the island off from outside communication gave the United States a short period of acute uneasiness on account of the thousands of American soldiers quartered in Cuba and the big fleet of American battleships lying in Havana harbour. The waters of Hampton Roads were so rough that after boarding the Dolphin for the trip up the Chesapeake and the Potomac to Washington we went ashore at Fort Monroe and took the train.