# Recollections of Full Years/Chapter 7

There was a trying period of unrest and uncertainty in our early experience in the Philippines, during which we lived in a state of suspense which can hardly be described; a state of suspense which included among its various elements the excitement of an intermittent guerilla warfare and frequent threats of native uprisings in Manila. Established order and a fixed governmental policy, so necessary to the tranquillity of the normal citizen, were non-existent, and one experienced a sense of complete detachment which made plans for even the immediate future seem entirely futile. To unpack all one's things; to establish a satisfactory home and give one's attention to its ornamentation; to supply one's self with the necessities of a long residence in the tropics; in other words, to settle down to the pursuit of a usual mode of existence; all these things had to be done, but, needless to say, they were not done with the enthusiasm incident to a feeling of permanence, nor did such enthusiasm begin to manifest itself in the local atmosphere until after the re-election of Mr. McKinley in 1900 when it became certain that the American flag was in the islands to stay as long as its presence there should be deemed requisite to the peaceful development of the country and the fitting of the people for self government.
There were those who saw long years ahead,—not all Americans, by any means,—and soon the American spirit began to make itself felt in business, in schemes of civic progress, in social life, in everything. We were there for a purpose which was at last defined, so we cheerfully confronted chaos and went to work.
We were sorry to note that the election of Mr. McKinley and the consequent establishment of the American status ​in the Philippines did not change the military attitude toward the manner of solving the governmental problems. The Commission was definitely pledged to the rapid adjustment of affairs on a civil and generally representative basis, but the military authorities still maintained that military rule would continue to be a necessity for an indefinite period.
However, the Civil Commission went on its way mapping out a programme of peaceful pacification and carrying it into effect as promptly as possible, while its activities engaged universal attention and formed the chief topic of conversation wherever two or more people were met together. Society became frivolous enough, but nobody ever got very far away from the questions of absorbing interest with which many of us were so closely associated.
Our first Christmas surely would have saddened us in our peculiar exile had we been able to realise its approach, but this was not possible. The "Christmas spirit" does not thrive in a temperature of eighty-odd degrees, and I think I would have taken little interest in preparations for the holidays had not my children been there to remind me that Christmas is Christmas no matter what the thermometer may say about it. It was still the most important day in the year for them and it was almost pathetic to see them trying to defeat the climate through sheer force of their imaginations. It was a "green Christmas" with a vengeance, and very hot.
Our friends at home had not forgotten that we were more than a month's journey away and letters began to arrive as early as November in each of which some mention was made of a box which would be sent from Cincinnati in time to reach us before Christmas and, naturally, we began at once to imagine its contents. For weeks our children's favourite amusement was exchanging guesses as to what sort of gifts their affectionate relatives had sent them. Nor were their Aunt Maria and I any less excited. There were transports ​every two weeks in those days and we were not at all disappointed not to receive our box on the early December ship. There would be another one in on Christmas day and it would be much nicer, we thought, to get it then, and never a doubt did we have that it would come. Mr. Taft had a messenger ready to get it and bring it to the house as soon as it could be landed.
From our balcony we watched the transport steam up the bay; we felt the interest that only a Christmas box from home, ten thousand miles away, could excite; we forgot it was eighty in the shade; it was really Christmas. We waited as patiently as we could for our messenger, but when he arrived he had only sympathy to offer us. The box had not come. It was a most depressing disappointment, and the children were inconsolable. However, everybody cheered up about dinner time. I had done what I could with red ribbons and greenery, with cotton wool and diamond dust to create the proper atmosphere; then we had invited a number of homeless young secretaries and others to take Christmas cheer with us, and though the cold storage turkey was tough and the cranberry sauce and plum-pudding were from Commissary cans, we managed a near approach to a Yuletide air, and little Charlie went to bed with his Escolta toys quite as happy as he would have been had he been at home in his own country. I assured the three children that the box from home would come in on the next transport and promised that we would then have Christmas all over again. But I reckoned without knowledge of the shipping methods of the transport service. Transports came and transports went; our hopes were dashed to earth any number of times and it was endless weeks before our carefully prepared and holly-decked presents finally arrived.
On New Year's morning General MacArthur gave a reception at Malacañan Palace. It was such an affair as is spoken of in social circles everywhere as "the event of the ​season." It was a very special event to all the members of the Commission and their families, because not one of us had ever been invited to the Palace before.
There was much discussion of the serious subject as to what the civil government officials should wear at the New Year's reception and, if gossip can be relied upon, it came very near causing several family riots. The men naturally inclined toward the comfort of their white linens, but they were overcome by argument and it was eventually decreed that they should present themselves in frock coats and silk hats. This may sound reasonable, but it wasn't. It was intensely funny, however, and that helped some. A silk hat which has reposed in a box throughout a rainy season in the Philippines is a curious object. It is not the glossy, well turned and dignified article which a silk hat should be. Its rim is warped, its nap is dulled and roughed beyond repair; it is very sticky, and it has an odour all its own. In Judge Ide's hat some mice had made a nest and had eaten a small hole through its one-time shiny crown, but it was the only one he had and, as silk hats are not carried in Philippine shops, he had, perforce, to wear it.
My husband communed with himself during the process of getting into his heavy frock coat with all its stiff and its woollen accessories,—for the first time in seven months and in the bright white heat of a tropic morning,—but we were finally ready and on the way, in our diminutive Victoria behind the prancing black stallion ponies of uncertain disposition.
When we arrived at Malacañan, quite early as we thought, we found ourselves in a long block of carriages which moved up slowly and, one by one, discharged their occupants under the porte-cochère of the Palace. Considerations of rank and precedence had escaped our minds for the moment and this was evidently a very important matter. However, we found a capable staff of military aides who knew just where ​everybody belonged, and they adopted the method of marshalling the crowds into a room on the first floor and letting them out in the proper order of precedence. In consequence we found a more or less annoyed throng awaiting our arrival. We had plenty of rank, my husband being the ranking civil officer in the Islands, but as everybody in Manila had been invited, the process of forming the line was a long and laborious one and many were the caustic comments of the delayed and rankless multitude. It reminded one forcibly of similar receptions at the White House, except that in Washington everybody knows the rules of precedence governing diplomatic circles and recognises the necessity for following them, while in Manila it was a departure which did not meet with full and general approval.
General MacArthur and his staff were receiving at the head of the grand staircase on the second floor, and, as the spacious rooms became filled with military men in dress uniforms, with gaily attired women and black-coated civilians, the scene was sufficiently dignified to make one feel that a brilliant local society was an established fact. But there was no denying that it was hot and that the Army officers in trim white duck had the frock-coated, camphor-ballscented and profusely perspiring civil government officials at a disadvantage.
Nowdays—and always after that first experiment—the man in a temperate-zone costume is a sadly conspicuous figure at a social gathering in Manila. The accepted formal evening dress is white linen with either a short mess jacket or a dinner coat of the usual pattern, while for morning or afternoon affairs a man may wear anything his laundryman can turn out for him. As a matter of fact, in the early days in Manila women, as well as men, enjoyed emancipation from the tyranny of clothes. It was a case of discovering how unnecessary many supposed necessities are. There were no fashionable gowns to be had, therefore sim​plicity, or a more or less rundownedness of one-time respectability, became the fashion. There were no hat shops, so women ceased to wear hats. We went shopping on the Escolta in the early morning hatless; we went to luncheon parties hatless, and in the later afternoon we made our calls and drove on the Luneta minus the millinery which is considered so dear to a woman's heart. I do not say that the women liked it; there were many plaintive protests; but it was one of the crosses of their environment which saved them numerous jealous pangs as well as much expense. It is different now. The importer of fashionable millinery and sumptuous garments has invaded the field and the women in Manila to-day are about as finely gowned and hatted as they are anywhere, but I doubt if they are as care-free and comfortable as we were in "the days of the Empire."
It was expected that the New Year's reception at Malacañan was intended to inaugurate a gay season of hospitality at the Palace, as General MacArthur announced a dinner and reception to follow early in January. But they were unquiet times; for various reasons there were many postponements; then came the death of Queen Victoria, whereupon the British community went into mourning, and, as it was deemed courteous to observe a period of social inactivity, it was many weeks before we again went to Malacañan.
The campaign of pacification, due to the election of McKinley, the activity of the army, and the actual legislation and organisation work of the Commission, was making great progress throughout the Islands and hardly a day passed that did not bring news of the capture or surrender of insurgent officers and forces in the provinces, while in Manila they were being arrested and imprisoned by the hundreds. They were given an opportunity to take the oath of allegiance and those who persisted in their refusal to do so were banished to Guam. This vigorous policy was having a ​marked effect upon the spirit of the insurrection and it was rapidly approaching total collapse.
The peace movement was greatly assisted, too, by the activities of the Federal party, a strong political organisation, pledged to the acceptance of American control and American principles, which numbered among its leaders and adherents many of the best men in the Philippines. In its directory were Chief Justice Arellano, Don Benito Legarda, Dr. Pardo de Tavera and General Ambrosio Flores, a one-time leader of the insurrection.
Perhaps the most extraordinary demonstration any of us ever saw in Manila took place on Washington’s birthday in 1901. The Commission had already begun its long task of instituting provincial and municipal governments and its members had just returned from a trip into the country north of Manila where they had been received with great enthusiasm, and where the people had shown every indication of a glad determination to stop all hostilities and settle down to peaceful pursuits under the representative and democratic system which the Commission was inaugurating.
A TYPICAL FILIPINO MENU AND PLACE CARD
The next morning, the 22nd of February, the Federal party, many thousands strong, marched through a flag-decked city to the Luneta where a speakers’ stand had been erected for the celebration of the day. There were scores of bands, each, as usual, playing its own tune in its own way regardless of what the others were doing; the populace, in its gayest attire, crowded in the wake of the procession; the spirit of festivity was rampant; and altogether it was a most interesting scene.
As close as ten thousand people could get to a speakers’ stand ten thousand people massed themselves, and they listened in respectful silence to the words of both the American and Filipino speakers, each one of whom made a spirited appeal for peaceful co-operation in the solution of the problem which America had acquired through no fault or desire of her own and which she could not, in honour, abandon. General Wright was the American speaker of the day and the frank friendliness of his speech was translated, paragraph by paragraph as he delivered it, by Mr. Arthur Fergusson, the Secretary-interpreter for the Commission, whose extraordinary command of Spanish made it possible for him not only to translate the words themselves, but to infuse into them the poetic fervour of the Spanish tongue. Never was Wash​ington's birthday so celebrated, and it marked a new era of mutual toleration which was to grow into sympathetic understanding disturbed only by the agitation of the few whose aspirations were in no way in those days shared or condoned by the many.
The method adopted by the Commission for organising provincial government was extremely simple. The people were instructed to send delegates from all the towns in a province to meet the Commission on a given date at the provincial capital. Having gathered this popular assembly in the largest available hall Mr. Taft, or some other member of the Commission, would proceed to read and explain the new Provincial Code which covered every governmental function and which provided for the appointment by the Commission of a provincial governor, a treasurer and a secretary. It was the intention of the Commission to name a Filipino for governor in each province, thereby giving them an immediate opportunity for the exercise of self-government, but in several instances they were almost unanimously petitioned by the people to appoint to this office the American Army officer who had been in command in the district. Considering the attitude of the Filipinos toward military rule and their eagerness to substitute a purely civil form of government, it was really astonishing that they should have wished to retain any representative of hated régime, but personality counts for a great deal with the Filipinos, and the Army officer who displayed tact and kindly justice in his dealings with them was sure to win for himself a peculiar popularity.
For treasurer an American was almost invariably chosen. During Spanish times the Filipinos had not learned much about the proper use of public funds and they have had to be very painstakingly taught that government money is for government purposes only. To our poignant and everlasting shame object lessons had to be given them by the drastic ​punishment meted out to certain American treasurers who were unable to resist temptation. The penalty described in Philippine law for the misuse of public funds or the falsification of a public document is terribly severe, and there is a little band of white men in Bilibid orison in Manila to-day because of their venality and breach of trust. Our mission in the Philippines is based upon the highest principles and we have always striven to maintain a high moral tone in the government personnel, so it is particularly painful to the small American community when, as happened too often first, an American went wrong.
Though the Commission proceeded with the establishment of civil government in a conspicuously simple manner as much cannot be said of the Filipinos. They were bent upon making the most of a rare opportunity for the enjoyment of great and ceremonious festivity.
On the 23d of February, following the extraordinary celebration of Washington's birthday, the Commission, accompanied by a considerable number of prominent Filipinos and by several of the ladies, took a government launch and steamed across the Bay to the town of Balanga, the capital of the province of Bataan which lies directly opposite Manila where they sun goes down in tropic splendour behind the Meriveles Mountains. The trip was a new experience for me and was the beginning of my long acquaintance with Filipino hospitality.
As we approached the Bataan shore there were splashes of brilliant colour all over the surface of the Bay, which, on nearer view, turned out to be the decorations of a great fleet of bancas coming out to meet us. There must have been a hundred or more and, while they were of all sizes, some of them were large enough to hold twenty and thirty rowers. The banca is a long, narrow dugout which usually looks as if it were just about to sink. Some of these had outriggers, some had not, but each and every one of them was loaded to ​capacity, and each was covered with the most gorgeous decorations. Bunting and paper flowers of every hue were mixed with long palm leaves and branches of bamboo and everything in the nature of an ornament that could possibly be used, while from every angle and at every point fluttered small American flags, some of them home-made and only approximately correct. Then there were two huge flat affairs with decorated awnings over them which we found were nothing less than rafts prepared for our own use, the water in the little harbour being too shallow for our big steam launch. These rafts were made of split bamboo flooring lashed to the tops of the large bancas and, though they looked exceedingly unsafe, we found they would hold as many as could stand upon them without being pushed over the edge.
In ten minutes this gay and unusual fleet had surrounded us; the rafts came alongside and over our rails clambered the reception committee, a half dozen Filipinos in more or less nondescript, heavy black clothes with silk hats! Where these garments came from I have no idea. Most of the hats looked like heirlooms, just as the silk hats of our own husbands looked, but the chief concern of their owners seemed to be their protection. Never have I seen silk hats so cautiously handled.
TRIUMPHAL ARCH AT BATAAN
This formality disposed of, the reception committee invited us to step upon the pavilioned raft and be wafted ashore. It sounds like a dignified proceeding, but of course it was not. We had to climb over the rails of the launch and, more or less, slide to a secure footing on the frail floor of the curious craft. Contrary to my secret expectations it kept afloat and we were soon landed at a little fishing village down on the beach, where Army ambulances waited to take us to the town of Balanga, a mile inland. Just outside of Balanga we passed under a great bamboo arch, the sort of thing the Filipinos erect and ornament with great skill and ingenuity. This one was so thickly decorated, however, with small American flags that little of its intricate frame-work was visible. A piece of white bunting stretched across the top of it bore, in large letters, the inscription: “Glory Honor to the Commission.”
We drove into the town and found the place en fete. I never saw so many American flags in one place in my life. Four thousand of them had been bought in Manila for the occasion; and four thousand flags go a long way in decorating a small provincial town. There was not much of the town left uncovered.
When we got to the provincial building where the meeting was to be held, we found all the delegates gathered from the different villages a-tiptoe in an atmosphere of intense excitement. Bataan had never been a rich province and we discovered that few of the Filipinos understood Spanish. They spoke only Tagalog. This was due to the fact that the province had been for generations under the control of the Dominican Friars who did not believe in encouraging the natives to learn Spanish. In consequence, all the speeches had to be translated from English to Spanish, from Spanish to Tagalog, and vice versa. Felipe Calderón, the Manila ​lawyer who handled the San José College case for the People, acted as Tagalog interpreter, and I have often wondered just how much of the familiar Spanish hyperbole was convertible into the phrases of that primitive language. It made the proceedings very long and tedious, but we sat through them and they finally came to an end with much cheering for the newly appointed officials.
The Filipinos were greatly pleased at having the Commissioners bring their wives and daughters along. It was new to them and they were not slow to grasp its significance. Much to the disgust of the military authorities present, we all shook hands with everybody and assumed the friendliest kind of attitude. That the Army officers did not approve of our cordiality toward the Filipinos can hardly be wondered at. They had been subjected to the risks of a campaign of ambush and assassination for many months, and even then they were trying to bring in a band of about one hundred and fifty insurrectos, with as many rifles, who were hiding in the Meriveles Mountains and preying upon the people; so, it was natural for them to think that a policy of disdain and severity was the only one suited to the apparent unreliability and deceitfulness of the native. However, these same officers very shortly admitted to us, though rather unwillingly, that our mode of dealing with the people had had an extraordinary effect on the general tone in Bataan.
It was about this time that President McKinley communicated through Secretary Root the intention of the Administration to abolish the military governorship and to install a civil Governor under the power of the President as Commander-in-Chief, and to create civil departments also. When Mr. Taft received a cable from Secretary Root advising him of this fact, he went to see General MacArthur for the purpose of discussing with him the mode of procedure and to get his ideas as to how and when the transfer of power should be made.
​The General had begun to look upon the work of the Commission from a somewhat less prejudiced angle and was by this time freely admitting that the establishment of provincial and municipal governments was having a good effect. He, of course, did not wish to surrender his power as military governor and remain in the Islands in a less important position, but he thought somebody would soon be named to succeed him and that the proper time for the transfer was after his successor arrived. Mr. Taft was going, with the other members of the Commission, on a long organising trip through the southern islands, and he thought he could not be ready for the adjustment of affairs before the end of June, so it was decided that the civil Governor should be inaugurated on the 4th of July, and my husband soon received assurances that he would be asked to serve in that capacity.