# Recollections of Full Years/Chapter 4

To be quarantined in a house too small for the number of its occupants, behind closed doors, each one of which bears aloft a sinister yellow placard across which is printed in large, black letters: "Diphtheria," is no way to begin a visit to a strange and interesting country.
No sooner had Bessie, Charlie's nurse, been released from quarantine by the doctors in Yokohama than our older boy, Robert, developed suspicious symptoms which, upon diagnosis, were pronounced to be diphtheritic. The sore throat began before Mr. Taft left for Manila, and he was loathe to go, but as the new serum treatment for diphtheria had robbed the disease of much of its terror, and as we were in the hands of an excellent American physician, Dr. Eldridge, I felt confident there was no cause for serious apprehension.
We sent Helen and the baby to be taken care of at the Grand Hotel, while Mrs. Wright, Maria and I resigned ourselves to a long and tedious period of isolation. Robert's diphtheria did not develop to a dangerous stage, but the sore throat persisted and it was three weeks before we were released upon a none-too-welcoming world. Our long quarantine had marked us as objects to be avoided—in a social sense—even after the doctors had pronounced us safe.
Mrs. Wright and my sister and I spent that entire three weeks only wishing that we were in our own land where some friendly voice might at least shout an inquiry about us from a distance, and not in this far-away place where only strange and very foreign sounds came floating in to us from curious and crowded streets whose every nook and corner we were aching to explore.
Our house was charming. All the "foreign" houses in Japan seem to me to be charming. The solidity of Occi​dental construction, with the light touch of Japanese interior decoration, make a fascinating combination, especially in that environment. The Japanese landscape is—well, peculiarly Japanese, and the gardens, however "foreign" they may be, have an air quite unique and unmistakably oriental.
The Foreign Settlement in Yokohama consists of a broad business section, solidly built, on the low lands fronting the harbour, and The Bluff. The Bluff is a garden of beautiful homes. At one end it rises high above the bay and commands a wide view of harbour, town and Pacific Ocean, while the other end runs inland to meet the higher hills beyond and forms a deep valley in which has been built up a teeming native quarter full of colour, of picturesque outline and of never-ending oriental clamour. Around this village are terraced, bright-green rice paddies and high hills covered with dark, Japanese pines which grow at curious angles.
Our house, a spreading bungalow in a large and well-kept garden, was on the inland side and overlooked this valley. From a Buddhist temple on the opposite hill, a quaint structure with uptilted roof and great stone torii gateway, came the ceaseless drone of a priest repeating over and over an endless invocation to the constant, measured tum-tum accompaniment of little wooden drums, while from the narrow streets below rose the strange cries of itinerant food venders. Throughout the whole long evening sounded the long wail of the blind masseurs who, with their thumping bamboo sticks, tramp from door to door seeking patronage. At intervals the single low tong of a great temple bell set the hills to vibrating.
We rented the house from an Englishman who was "going home" on vacation, and with it we rented a complete ménage, including a most efficient little Japanese woman named Matsu who served us both as waitress and housekeeper and answered to the call of "Amah!"—meaning either nurse or ​maid. Besides the Amah, there was only a cook, an excellent one, but the two contrived to run the house with a smoothness and an economy which I have never seen equalled. They were so economical, in fact, that we had difficulty in getting them to serve to us enough of their well-prepared food. There were six of us in family, not including Charlie, or Baby San as he was called, and at each meal Matsu would bring in just six portions of whatever there was, six chops, six croquettes, six little fishes, always six—no more. We resorted to strategy sometimes and announced, well in advance, that there would be guests.
"How many, O Ku San?" says Matsu cautiously.
"Well, maybe two," says we.
Whereupon we would get eight little chops, or eight little croquettes, or whatever it might be. But we couldn't play this game very often because we were afraid that if too many guests failed to materialise the time would come when we really would be giving a party and be forced to act out the "Wolf! Wolf!" story to our own very great embarrassment. I'm glad to say this never occurred; Matsu always obeyed orders; but when an unexpected guest dropped in we had to exercise the principle of "family hold back" in real earnest.
However, while Matsu was in command none of us had any cause for complaint. She had plenty of native shrewdness and didn't neglect her own interests to any appreciable extent, but she displayed none of the traditional oriental duplicity which we had been warned to look out for in all Japanese servants. She relieved us of all the responsibilities of housekeeping and left us free to wander around among the fascinating shops and to go off on long sight-seeing expeditions at our pleasure.
While we were still in the midst of the miseries of quarantine I got my first letter from my husband, and as he had ​sailed away into what to me then was a very far distant and somewhat unreal world, I was exceedingly glad to hear from him.
The Hancock had stopped at Kobe and had then gone on to Nagasaki where it had to lie for two days taking on coal. The Commissioners seem to have begun by that time to chafe at delays and to long for their settled, definite employment. But they had to go to Hongkong on some business matters and it was from Hongkong that my first long letter came. They were received by the British authorities with the usual formality; pompous calls to be returned as pompously; din- ners, luncheons, club privileges, launch parties and much en- tertaining gossip; but they were interested, principally, in meeting for the first time the genus Filipino irreconcilable. The Filipinos, after three centuries of Christian educa- tion, which had taken the form of religious instruction only, had, with reason, risen in revolt against the Spanish system of friar domination and had demanded some measure of freedom and a voice in the control of their own affairs. This is a long and complicated story which can only be touched upon here.
They were engaged in a hopeless struggle with Spanish authority when the Spanish-American War, unexpected, un- dreamed of, suddenly turned the tables and placed them in an entirely new situation. They saw Spain defeated and turned from the islands she had held since Magellan's first. voyage, while another flag quickly rose above their ancient forts and strongholds. Then it was that the handful of am- bitious "illustrados," or well-to-do and educated ones, began freely to preach independence and were encouraged by not a few Americans, including some in official relation to the sit- uation, who, in complete ignorance of real conditions, approved the so-called aspiration and gave hope of its early fulfilment.
The idea of these Americans was that our forefathers had ​fought for independence and that it was against our most cherished principles to hold any people against their will. But they didn't take into consideration the fact that the Filipinos were Malays, not ten per cent. of them with even a primary education, used only to a theocratic and absolute government and without any experience in the rule of the people. Nor did they consider that our forefathers had, for a century and a half before the revolution, been carrying on what was really self-government and were better fitted by training and tradition to make self-government work than any people in the world. They indulged in sentiment to the exclusion of thought; and so the situation was created.
The idea of complete independence was never shouted from the housetops in Spanish times, but the new flag represented free speech, a free press, and such freedom generally as the Filipinos had never dreamed of in their wildest aspirations and the "illustrados" and the men who had tasted power in the insurrection against Spain were not slow to take advantage of it. An alluring conception of independence, freedom from all restraint and the enjoyment of luxurious ease, really, was sent abroad among the densely ignorant masses by the handful who had education, with the result that by the time the American government was free really to face the issue, the demand for our immediate withdrawal was unanimous, or nearly so.
But it couldn't be done. Aguinaldo tried his hand at a government for six months and failed miserably. Corruption was rife. Chaos reigned; the country was impoverished and absolutely unprotected; and it didn't take the Americans long to recognise the fact that "independence" meant nothing more nor less than the merciless exploitation of the many by the few and the establishment of worse conditions than any the people had ever known.
So we stayed; there was nothing else to do; and the insurrection against constituted authority was taken up where it ​left off when Admiral Dewey steamed up Manila Bay. It was hopeless from the start, and one after another of the leading insurrectos, as the months went by, abandoned the struggle in favour of prosperous peace and came in to Manila to take the oath of allegiance to the United States. But as pacification progressed a few of the leaders declared themselves to be "irreconcilable" and either took to the hills with marauding bands of ladrones, or went over to Hongkong and joined the little Filipino colony there. This colony in Hongkong—which still exists, by the way—was known as the "junta" and its business in life was to hatch schemes for murderous uprisings, smuggle arms and incendiary literature into the islands, raise money for carrying on hostilities and make itself useful generally.
The methods employed by these "irreconcilables" were peculiarly their own. They consisted, mainly, of coercion and threats of assassination among Filipino people who were staying at home and endeavouring to keep out of trouble. Then, too, they were reported to have made a great deal of money by compelling Filipino hemp and tobacco planters to sell to them these valuable products at prices fixed by themselves, and later disposing of them in Hongkong at the regular market price which gave them a tremendous margin of profit.
These were the conditions—merely sketched—which existed in the Philippine Islands when the second Commission was sent out, and the first Filpinos Mr. Taft ever met, he met in Hongkong. They were not members of the "junta" but were high-class, wealthy, non-combatant refugees named Cortez, who lived under a threat of assassination, who had had all their property confiscated because of their sympathy with the insurrection against Spain, had secured restitution through the government at Washington, and who came now to beg the Commission for protection against their own ​people and for the speedy establishment of peaceful American rule in the islands.
Then came Artacho. Artacho had been Aguinaldo’s rival in the insurrection against Spain and he very much resented the selection, by the Americans in command, of Aguinaldo as the leader of the Filipino forces when Dewey went into Manila. He was sufficiently annoyed to leave the country and take refuge in Hongkong. He professed entire ignorance of the activities of the “junta” and unqualified loyalty to the government of the United States, but, as he had with him a “secretary” who very carefully listened to all he had to say, and as he seemed to be very cautious in all his expressions, Mr. Taft decided that he was being watched and was, if not actively connected with the “junta,” at least “on the fence” and in his call only “casting an anchor to windward” in case the Americans should succeed in pacifying the Islands and establishing a government there with which it would be very nice indeed to be connected. It must have been a very diplomatic, a very soft-spoken and a most amusing meeting.
Among other things the Commission had to do in Hongkong was to secure Chinese servants. They had been told that this was absolutely necessary because the unsettled state of affairs in Manila made Filipino servants entirely undependable.
Captain McCalla, of the Newark, had given to my husband in Yokohama, a letter to one L. Charles, a Chinese who ran a sort of employment agency in Hongkong, but when L. Charles came out to the Hancock, in response to a message from Mr. Taft, he brought with him the surprising news that the servants had already arrived from Shanghai and had been waiting for several days. Mr. Taft was greatly astonished, as he was unconscious of having made any arrangements at all, but L. Charles smilingly explained to him that Admiral Dewey had attended to it. Then Mr. Taft ​remembered that, sure enough, Admiral Dewey had, several months before in Washington, offered to secure servants through his own Chinaman, Ah Man, but he, himself, had all forgotten about it.
However, he sent for the men and when they came aboard one of them proudly produced a note from the flag officer of the Brooklyn, enclosing a note to Ah Sing, the steward of the Brooklyn, from Ah Man, Admiral Dewey's servant. It read:
My dear Ah Sing:
It is a new Governor General coming up to Manila City. His name is Mr. Wm. H. Taft and he is going to sail from here first of April. The Admiral asked me to write to you and ask if you please find him some good Chinese servants for Mr. Taft. He like to have a very good cook just like myself the Admiral said and two men to wait on table a butler and second man just like you. Now would you be so kind as to try to find some very nice people that will take good care and will understand their business. The Admiral will be very much oblige to you I am
Your truly friend,
Ah Man.
This is an example of what is known in the East as "flen-pidgin," which may be literally translated as "friend-work."
It is a Chinese system, but it has been adopted by the representatives of every country in the world to be met out there and it is by no means the least of the elements which enter into the charm of the Orient.
One of the objects for stopping in Japan was to enable the Commissioners to get white duck and linen clothes for the tropics and Mr. Taft had the worst of luck in getting anything to fit him. In the beginning we had some rather heated discussions as to the style of dress that he should adopt. He had been assured that the most comfortably dressed men were those who wore "straight button ups" as they are called. These are coats which have a high, round ​collar and button straight down from the chin—plain military jackets, in fact. They are worn without shirts, collars, ties or anything except underwear and trousers and are, no doubt, very nice for the tropic heat. But I did not consider that such a severe style would bring out the lines of my husband's figure to the best advantage, so I prevailed upon him to have all his clothes made with sack coats which should be worn with the usual accessories. It was a sad experience in Yokohama, but he left for Hongkong full of hope, having been told that the tailors there were much better. He wrote in utter disgust. The tailors were not good; he had been to every shop in town looking for wearing apparel of all kinds and could find nothing large enough for him. He said he had imagined that Englishmen were, as a rule, large enough to demand men's sizes,—but evidently not. He had to have everything, shoes, stockings, under-wear, shirts, collars and hats made to order—and then they didn't fit.
My husband's letter, full of strange names, of assassination, of smuggled arms, of dark intrigue and unrest generally, left a vague impression in my mind that he was going into a country where he would be subjected to murderous attacks every few minutes. Then I reflected that he was not quite alone; that General MacArthur and about seventy thousand American troops were down there too, and that they could probably be depended upon to do everything in their power to protect him.
Our life in Yokohama was very placid. It was some time after our yellow placards were removed before our neighbours began to call on us, and we didn't blame them. No doubt they felt that it would be foolish to risk getting diphtheria just for the sake of being formally polite. We were delightfully entertained, both before and after the Commission sailed, by Mr. and Mrs. T. Williams McIvor, who are among the old American residents of Yokohama. Mr. ​McIvor had been American Consul General, but when we met him we was engaged in a private law practice, representing the American Tobacco Company and other large foreign concerns. As Consul General he had taken care of the Chinese during the Japan-China War and had sent about eight thousand of them out of the country. He was now representing the foreign business community in its dispute with the Japanese government as to whether or not the property known as the Foreign Concession, or The Settlement, was taxable. This area had been granted by the Japanese government on perpetual lease at the time the first treaties with Japan were made, and the holding of it by foreigners was conditioned on the payment of a ground rent to the government which, it was provided, should never be increased beyond a certain amount. But now Japan was greatly in need of money, was taxing its own people in every way possible, and eventually decided to levy a tax on the houses and improvements upon this land, on the theory that improvements on land are not a part of the land itself. But by the Civil Law and the Common Law the provision in the treaties that no tax should be paid on the property greater than that fixed in ground rent would have prevented the levying of any tax on the buildings because, by such laws, improvements are considered to be a part of the land. But in Japanese law it is said they were not so regarded and the question was whether the treaties were to be construed according to Japanese law or according to the laws of foreign governments. The subject was one of endless discussion while we were there, and Minister Buck had already referred the question to the State Department at Washington.
We also dined with Mrs. Scidmore, whom I was to meet many times in after years. Mrs. Scidmore is the mother of Eliza Ramaha Scidmore, the well known writer about Far Eastern countries, and is, I suppose, the most notable foreign figure in the Orient. She had lived in Japan since the early ​days, not so long after the country's doors were opened to the world. Her son was in the Legation service when I met her and she had a charming house on the Bund, in which was gathered a remarkable collection of Japanese curios and objects of art. Mrs. Scidmore was then early eighty years of age I think, but she was as bright and young as a woman of fifty. The last time I saw her she was nearly ninety and she entertained us at luncheon in Nagasaki, where her son was American Consul. She dresses with as much care and is as interested in fashions and fabrics as any girl, and it is a rare pleasure to see her, with her snowy hair piled up on her head and a white silk gown spread out about her, sitting in the centre of a group of people discussing, with great admiration and entire comprehension, general topics of current interest. She afterward went to the "keep house" for her son in Seoul, Korea, when he became Consul General, and she continues to be a sort of uncrowned queen of foreign society.
Leaving our children at the bungalow with their nurses, Mrs. Wright, Maria and I went about, to Nikko, to Kamakura, to Kyoto and other interesting places, and we spent the intervals, indeed all our time, in restraining our intense desire to purchase everything we saw in the extraordinarily attractive little shops.
About the last of July, when the heat began to be rather more than we could stand, we left Yokohama and went up into the Hakone Mountains to Miyanoshita. The trip to Miyanoshita includes a two hours' climb in 'rickshas up a steep incline from a village on the railway, where there was then no sort of accommodation for "Europeans,"—only Japanese inns which, though they may have been excellent from a Japanese standpoint, did not seem to us to have been built for inn purposes. When we got out of the train it was seven o'clock in the evening. There were Mrs. Wright and her maid, her daughter Katrina, my sister Maria, the three ​children, Bessie the nurse, and I. We wanted dinner above all things else and we decided to get it. It all had to be prepared "European style" at one of the little inns, so by the time it was served and disposed of the night was upon us, and, I may say, the blackest night I ever remember seeing. We debated at length the possibility of taking the two hours' 'ricksha ride in such darkness, but the chattering coolies, mainly by gesture and facial expression, succeeded in convincing us that it was the most desirable thing in the world to do. Incidentally, and aside from our objection to the bedless inns, we were most anxious to reach our journey's end. So—we set out, in eight 'rickshas, six for us and two piled high with hand luggage. I put Helen and Robert together in one and took Charlie in with me, and each of us had an extra man behind to push, also two men each for the baggage 'rickshas, which made sixteen men in all. We made quite a cavalcade and I felt fairly satisfied, not to say mildly festive, until we got away from the lights of the town and discovered, to our amazement, that for some reason or other, the 'ricksha men had failed to bring lights. I believe the idea was that they could keep the road better without them. We went along for a short distance in the Stygian darkness, then Maria decided that she wouldn't have it. Whatever we might do, she was going back for a lantern. We were not in an argumentative mood, so we let her go without a word, while we plunged on.
HELEN TAFT IN JAPANESE COSTUME
most inoffensive little men in the world, but the darkness and the wind-driven rain and the discomfort generally, must have got on my nerves because I began to be perfectly sure that my two men were nothing less than brigands and that the separation from my party was a prearranged plan for murder and robbery. I didn't know how wide the road was, but I knew that on one side there was a very deep chasm because I could hear the roar of a mountain torrent far down and directly below me. Then the coolies chattered and grunted incessantly, as Japanese coolies always do, and I was convinced that they were arguing about which should take the initiative in violence. But I sat tight and said nothing, which was the only thing I could do, of course except to soothe Charlie who was crying with discomfort and fright—and after awhile—ages it seemed to me—I came upon the rest of my party where they had halted in the road to give their men a breathing spell. I couldn't see them; I couldn't even make out the outlines of a 'ricksha, but I could hear Helen sobbing and stammering something about having lost her mother for good and all.
The coolies were chattering at each other at a terrific rate and I judged, from their tones, that they liked the night no better than we. While we were standing close together in the road, all talking at once and trying to tell each other what horrible experiences we had had, we saw a faint glimmer away in the distance, growing more and more distinct as it came up the long hill. It was the dauntless Maria with a light. We fell upon her with the warmest welcome she probably ever received in her life, and every- body at once cheered up. Even the coolies got happier and seemed to chatter less angrily in the lantern's dim but com- forting yellow glow. Nor did we separate again. Every- body wanted to keep close to that light. It revealed to us the reassuring fact that the road was, at least, wide enough ​for safety, and so we rolled soggily along, with no other sound but the rattle of many wheels and the splash of mud, until we arrived at the Fujiya Hotel, sometime after ten o’clock, in a state of utter exhaustion.
I am not going to describe Miyanoshita because it has been very well done by scores of writers, but I will say that the Fujiya Hotel, away up in the mountains, at the head of a glorious canyon, is one of the most splendidly situated, finely managed and wholly delightful places I ever saw.
And there are plenty of things to do. We were carried in chairs over a high mountain pass to Lake Hakone, which, still and bright as a plate-glass mirror, lies right at the base of Fujiyama and reflects that startlingly beautiful mountain in perfect colour and form.
Then there are temples and wayside shrines, and tea-houses—tea-houses everywhere. We were coming back from a tramp one day and stopped at a tea-house not far from our hotel where we encountered an Englishwoman who gave us our first conception of what the terrible Boxer Insurrection was like. She entered into talk with us at once and told us a most tragic story. She was a missionary from the interior of China and had been forced to flee before the Boxers and make her way out of the country in hourly peril and through scenes of the utmost horror. Her husband had elected to remain at his post and she didn’t then know but that he might already have died under the worst imaginable torture. She made our blood run cold and we were tremendously sorry for her, though she did tell her harrowing story calmly enough. It seems she had with her a young Chinese refugee who was a convert to Christianity and, because of that fact, in even more danger in China than she.
We expressed our sympathy and good wishes and continued on our way. But we hadn’t gone far when we heard a frantic shouting behind us:
​"Have you seen my Chinaman! Have you seen my Chinaman anywhere on the way!"
It was the missionary, distracted and running violently after us; and, we had not seen her Chinaman. She rushed past and up into the woods faster than one would have thought she could run, and all the time she kept calling, "Joseph! Joseph!" at the top of her voice. We decided that Joseph was the Chinaman's new Christian name since we had heard that they all get Biblical names at baptism. We hastened along, thinking she might have gone suddenly mad and we wondered what in the world we should do. But as we came around a bend in the road we saw her coming toward us with a grinning little queued heathen marching meekly before her. She was looking very much relieved and stopped to explain her rather extraordinary conduct.
"I was perfectly certain that boy had committed suicide," she began.
"Why, what made you think that?" I asked.
"Well, he wrote that, and I found it!" And she thrust into my hand a piece of paper on which was scrawled in printed characters:
She explained that Joseph had had a great deal of trouble; was away from his people; that Chinamen didn't care anything about their lives anyhow; and that she had been afraid for some time that he would grow despondent and do something desperate.
But there stood Joseph, broadly smiling and looking for all the world like an oriental cherub who would have liked very much to know what all the commotion was about. Poor ​chap, he didn't understand a word of English and had been merely trying to learn the words of an English hymn by copying them, in carefully imitated letters, on bits of paper.
In the meantime my husband had arrived in Manila and had already sent me several letters through which I came gradually to know something of the situation he was facing.
The principal impression I received was that between the Commission and the military government, in the person of General Arthur MacArthur, there did not exist that harmony and agreement which was considered to be essential to the amicable adjustment of Philippine affairs. In other words, General MacArthur seemed to resent the advent of the Commission and to be determined to place himself in opposition to every step which was taken by them or contemplated. It was not very easy for the Commissioners, but as far as I can see now, after a careful reading of all the records, they exercised the most rigid diplomacy at times when it would have been only human to have risen up and exercised whatever may be diplomacy's antithesis.
The description of the arrival of the Commission made me rather wish I had accompanied them;—except for the heat. It was June and my husband said the sun beat down upon and came right through the heavy canvas awnings on the decks of the Hancock. The men had, by this time, become accustomed to their ill-fitting white linens, but they had not yet mastered the art of keeping them from looking messy, and they must have been a wilted company during their first few days in Manila.
They came up into the harbour on Sunday and during the course of the day received many interesting visitors. General MacArthur was not among them, but he sent a member of his staff, Colonel Crowder, to present his compliments and make arrangements for the going ashore ceremony the next day. Then came the Americanistas, as the Filipinos who sympathised with American control were called. These had ​been recognised by General Otis before General MacArthur had arrived and many of them have always been prominently associated with the American government in the Islands. Among others were Chief Justice Arellano, Mr. Benito Legarda and Mr. Pardo de Tavera. The Commissioners talked about the situation with these gentlemen, through Mr. Arthur Fergusson, the Spanish Secretary of the Commission, and found them not altogether despondent, but certainly not optimistic about the outcome. They thought the Commissioners were facing very grave problems indeed, if not insurmountable difficulties.
The next day—"just when the sun got the hottest," wrote Mr. Taft—all the launches in the harbour gathered around the Hancock, many whistles blew, many flags and pennants fluttered, and the Commission was escorted to the shore. They entered the city with great pomp and circumstance, through files of artillerymen reaching all the way from the landing at the mouth of the Pásig River, up a long driveway, across a wide moat, through an old gateway in the city wail and up to the Palace of the Ayuntamiento where General MacArthur, the Military Governor, had his offices. But it was not a joyous welcome for all that. All the show was merely perfunctory; a sort of system that had to be observed. Their reception was so cool that Mr. Taft said he almost stopped perspiring. There were few Filipinos to be seen, and as General MacArthur's reception to the Commission wras anything but cordial or enthusiastic they began to feel a discomforting sense of being decidedly not wanted.
If they had any doubts on this point General MacArthur soon cleared them up. He frankly assured them that he regarded nothing that had ever happened in his whole career as casting so much reflection on his position and his ability as their appointment under the direction of the President. They suggested that he could still rejoice in considerable honour and prestige as a man at the head of a division of ​more troops than any general had commanded since the Civil War and that he was, moreover, still enjoying the great power of Chief Executive of the Islands.
"Yes," said he, "that would be all right if I hadn't been exercising so much more power than that before you came."
Whereupon Mr. Taft gently reminded him that he had been exercising that power for about three weeks only and said he hoped he had not become, in that time, so habituated to the situation as to prevent his appreciating the rather exalted position in which he would still be left. They afterward exchanged some correspondence as to what powers each did have, but they seemed to have disagreed from the first.
General MacArthur succeeded General Otis in command of the United States Army in the Philippines and he had fallen heir to a policy with which he was entirely out of sympathy. General Otis had scattered the troops in small divisions and detachments all over the Islands, and General MacArthur found himself in command of about seventy thousand men, but with only a few regiments where he could lay his hands on them for action in his own immediate vicinity. He believed that the only way to get rid of the predatory bands and bring order out of a chaotic state, was to concentrate the army on the island of Luzon where most of the active insurrectos operated. And he thought it would be many years before the Filipinos would be ready for anything but the strictest military government. But the trouble was that thousands of Filipinos all over the Islands had already sworn fealty to the United States, or had gone quietly back to work, and it was known that the lives of many of these would not be worth a moment's purchase if the protection of the American troops was withdrawn from them. That was the situation.
The last engagement between real insurgents and American troops had taken place in February before the Commis​sion arrived. There had been men of some ability and real patriotism in Aguinaldo's cabinet and among his followers at Malolos, but by this time the best of them had come in and taken the oath of allegiance to the United States, others were in prison slowly making up their minds as to whether they would or would not follow this course, while still others had gone over to Hongkong to join in the activities of the "junta." Aguinaldo was still roaming around the mountain fastnesses of Luzon, posing as a dictator and issuing regular instructions to his lieutenants for the annihilation of American regiments; but the insurrection had degenerated.
The companies of men who still kept the field did so, for the most part, because they found that the easiest way to make a living. Money was getting scarce and the people were steadily refusing to contribute to the cause. A letter from one of Aguinaldo's lieutenants was intercepted in which he said that he had found a certain town obdurate and that he thought it would be necessary to take four or five lives before the people could be induced to give money. Murder and rapine, torture and robbery; these were the methods employed, and very little of the money realized ever found its way into the general revolutionary coffers. Most of the remaining "patriots" had become ladrones and were harrying their own people much more than they were opposing the American forces.
These conditions led the Commission to think the time had come to organize a native constabulary, under American officers, with which thoroughly to police the Islands. But General MacArthur did not agree with them; thought it would be folly to trust any Filipino with arms and cited instances of where those who had been armed as scouts had proved entirely untrustworthy. But the suggestion was received by many of his own officers with the utmost approval and one man, in the Ilocos country in northern Luzon, said he had only to issue a call and he could have five thou​sand as loyal men as ever wore uniform enlisted in twenty-four hours. I may say here that the Filipino people are divided into a number of distinct tribes and that some of these never did take much, if any, part in the insurrection. The insurrection is to-day referred to as the Tagalog rebellion, the Tagalogs being one of the principal tribes, though not the largest.
There had always been a great number, a majority in fact, of Filipinos who did not like the awful conditions created by the insurrection and who easily could be persuaded to an attitude of loyalty toward any decent and peaceful government; and it was from this number that the Commission wanted to recruit a native constabulary. But no. The Commission would not begin to exercise such powers as it had until September and in the meantime General MacArthur was absolute and in answer to this proposition he merely reiterated his belief that the only way to meet the situation was with additional American troops.
In my husband's earliest letters he characterised the Filipino people much as he did after years of experience with them. He wrote me that of the six or seven millions of Christian Filipinos about two per cent. were fairly well educated, while all the rest were ignorant, quiet, polite people, ordinarily inoffensive and light-hearted, of an artistic temperament, easily subject to immoral influences, quite superstitious and inclined, under the direction of others, to great cruelty. He thought them quite capable of becoming educated and that they could be trained to self-government. He was inclined to think that they had, because of their environment and experience under Spanish rule, capacity for duplicity, but he did not think they had the Machiavellian natures which people attributed to them. Some of those who call themselves "illustrados"—the higher class—took to political intrigue with great gusto.
Almost the first experience which the Commission had ​with Filipino Machiavellian methods involved them in a complication which might have proved quite serious. If there is one thing in the world that the Filipino people, as one man, love, it is a fiesta. A fiesta is a holiday, a celebration with music, marching, many flags, best clothes and plenty of high-flown speechmaking. Now there was one Pedro A. Paterno, an unctuous gentleman, who, while he had taken the oath of allegiance and had fairly put himself in the pocket of American authority, was still supposed to be more or less in sympathy with Aguinaldo. He made himself the mediator between General MacArthur and Aguinaldo and occasionally promised Aguinaldo’s surrender. Nobody ever knew what he promised Aguinaldo, but it was known to a certainty that he was “carrying water on both shoulders” and doing his best to keep in well with both sides. He had played the same rôle in Spanish times. He made what is known in history as “The Peace of Biacnabato,” between the insurrectos and the Spanish government, by the simple means of “interpreting” to each the demands of the other in perfectly satisfactory terms. He did all the translating, on both sides, himself and the “Peace” was signed. Then before its irregularities were made clear he asked of the Spanish government, as his reward, a dukedom and a million dollars upon which to live up to the title. His letter to the Spanish governor is still extant.
This gentleman one day, out of a clear sky, proposed what he called an Amnesty Fiesta; a grand banquet in honour of General MacArthur to follow a day of celebration and all-round relaxation from the strain of hostilities. General MacArthur didn’t see that it would do any harm, but said he would not attend the banquet in his honour and that all the speeches that were to be made would have to be carefully censored. To this Pedro readily agreed and went immediately to work to make elaborate preparations for the occasion. He got a committee together and set them to wait ​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 ​sanction of their presence to an entertainment that had been so arranged. The banquete was in General MacArthur's honour and the speeches glowingly promised everything short of immediate evacuation and complete independence.
The Commissioners wrote a polite little note to Señor Paterno and said they were very sorry to find that it was not possible, under the circumstances, for them to be present that evening.
Mr. Taft and General Wright were living together in the house that my husband had secured for us, and they went home and had a comfortable dinner in their everyday white linens and were enjoying post-prandial talk on the cool verandah when Pedro Paterno came rushing in and, figuratively, threw himself on his knees before them. He begged them to come with him to the banquete; the crowd had assembled; it was past nine o'clock; and he would be placed in a terrible situation if the gentlemen of the Commission did not reconsider their cruel decision. The gentlemen of the Commission asked how about the carefully censored speeches. Paterno vowed that no speeches at all should be delivered, that no word of any kind should be said, but that they must show themselves to the people, if only for a little while. All right. They quickly got into their hot evening clothes and went down to the banquet hall. They sat through a couple of silent, weary hours, took a few sips of wine, smiled a few smiles, shook a few hands, and then went home. That was all there was to it. But Pedro was discredited in both camps. His purpose had been to have the speeches made before the Commissioners, claim all the credit with his own people for getting the Commissioners there and then to deny to the Commissioners all responsibility for the occasion.
The forms of military government were being strictly observed; there was a nine o'clock curfew and nobody was allowed on the street after that hour without a pass. Mr. ​Taft wrote of several trying experiences when he went out in the evening and forgot his pass and, starting home about half past ten, was held up by one sentry after another who demanded an explanation at the point of a gun.
Mr. Bryan was running for President at this time and he was making a good deal of political capital out of the Philippine situation. He had promised to call a special session of Congress, if he were elected, to consider means for settling the Filipinos in immediate self-government, and he had a large following of mistakenly altruistic anti-imperialists supporting him. Mr. Taft was inclined to think that the whole anti-American demonstration, which was to culminate in the Amnesty Fiesta banquet, was planned by a Mr. Pratt, an American politician then visiting Manila, who wanted the "grandly patriotic" speeches to publish in American newspapers. They probably would have been the perfect material for the anti-imperialists to grow sentimental over.
In the meantime Mr. Bryan's promises and the possibility of his being placed in a position to redeem them, were retarding pacification. All that was needed to discourage the last of the insurrectos was Mr. McKinley's election, and the Presidential campaign of 1900 was probably not watched anywhere with more breathless interest than it was in the Philippine Islands.
Such were the lessons in letters that I got from my husband, and my imagination was fired. He had great projects in hand. The Commission proposed to establish municipal governments wherever conditions made it possible and among the first things they undertook was the framing of a municipal code upon which to base such governments. They sent this to General MacArthur for his comments, but his comments consisted in a rather pointed intimation that military rule was still in force and that he thought they were several years ahead of possibilities, ​but that they might go on and amuse themselves since their municipal code would not deter him in any action he found it necessary to take at any point where it was in operation. All this was couched in most excellent diplomatic language, of course, but it amounted to just that. An equally diplomatic reply seems to have brought the General to a realisation that the powers of the Commission were well defined, that their object was peaceful pacification wherever it was possible and that they would probably be supported by Washington in any reasonable measures they might take to that end.
They had many plans already; a big general school system for the organisation of which they had engaged a superintendent from Massachusetts; good roads to open up the country for commerce; harbour improvements; health measures; a reliable judiciary; a mountain resort where American soldiers and civilians might recuperate from tropic disease, thereby saving many lives to say nothing of millions of dollars to the government in troop transportation charges; and they were already attacking the vexed friar question that had caused all the trouble in the first place.
The letters made me anxious to finish my visit in Japan and get down to Manila where so much of vital and engrossing interest was going on. My husband wrote rather discouragingly about the house he had taken, but he was having some improvements made and, though I did not expect to find comfort, I was sure I should manage to get along. I had purchased in Japan a number of bright and artistic objects in the way of house decorations and I thought that, with these, I should be able to make almost any place look inviting.
MRS. TAFT IN FORMAL FILIPINA COSTUME