Recollections of Full Years quotes

Cincinnati, the city of my birth and early memories, was, in the ’sixties, about as begrimed and noisy and altogether unattractive as any place well could be; yet it possessed certain attributes which really entitled it to the proud designation of “The Queen City of the West.”

It was prosperous; it had hardly yet been surpassed in prosperity by Chicago; Cleveland was not even spoken of as a rival; and in many ways it was the most important centre west of New York and east of the Mississippi.

As a matter of fact I should have waived ceremony and come myself to welcome you to Washington except for one thing which I could not very well overlook, and that is—that Mr. Taft has not yet called on Mr. Justice Grey.”

I think I have rarely seen anything more satisfactorily amusing than the expression on my husband’s face when I told him this.

But, in spite of the friendliness of the Justices and others, we really went out very little.

When we got into our cab to go home Maria turned to my husband and said:

“I had my eye on you all the time I was talking, Will Taft. I was perfectly certain that your terrible sense of fact would overcome you and that you would blurt out that I dined with all those people on the same evening at the same dinner party!”

President Harrison, in March, 1892, appointed my husband on the Federal Circuit Bench, so once more I saw him a colleague of men almost twice his age and, I feared, fixed in a groove for the rest of his life.

In three days he came home with an expression so grave that I thought he must be facing impeachment. But when he broke his news to me it gave me nothing but pleasure.

“The President wants me to go to the Philippine Islands,” he said, in a tone he might have used in saying: “The President wants me to go out and jump off the court house dome.”

“Want to go?” he added.

“Madam, I understand you are going to the Philippine Islands. Now I want to know if you are going to take that great, big, beautiful boy out to that pest-ridden hole and expose him to certain destruction.”

I grabbed my great, big, beautiful boy and rushed off to my room, and it was a relief eventually to learn that the awful Philippine climate, at least so far as children were concerned, existed, largely, in people’s minds.

We found intense interest in our mission in California and San Francisco. If there were any anti-imperialists there, they successfully concealed themselves.

Worcester, who, in outward seeming, is the frailest kind of little woman, with a sweet face and engagingly gentle manners which suggest timidity.

Mrs. Worcester has proved herself to possess the frailty of flexible steel.

At that time we were quite concerned about her, I remember, thinking she would not be able to endure the Philippine climate even for a short period. But she has lived there from that day to this.

It is the custom for Americans residing in Honolulu to introduce visitors to this dish, and the native viands which go with it, in entertainments which are called “poi dinners,” and we were treated to as many of these as our time would permit.

“Poi” bears an unpleasant outward resemblance to cockroach paste and, try as I would, I was never able to cultivate a taste for it.

But foreigners do learn to like it, for I found Americans in Honolulu eating it with the greatest relish and dipping it up with their fingers in true Hawaiian style.

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.

… 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.

All our necessary luggage had been released and put into the hands of orderlies to be delivered, so we were free to start at once for home.

My husband had written me that the Philippine horses and the Philippine cockroaches were just about the same size, but I was hardly prepared for the diminutive turnout to which he proudly escorted me.

Two little brown ponies, no higher than my shoulder, and with very shaggy manes and foretops, were hitched to a Victoria which had been built to fit them.

Indeed, they all have very long horns, and how they keep from obstructing traffic in the narrow streets I never did understand. They do obstruct traffic, as matter of fact, but not with their horns; only with their slow motions.

Nobody can possibly know just what the word slow signifies until he has seen a carabao move.

Great, grey, thick-skinned, hairless beast;

Where he got his supplies with which to meet these sudden demands I never knew.

I learned to accept the gifts of the gods without comment, which is the only thing to do in the East.

Ah Sing was particularly proud of his sweets. He loved to make puddings and pies with lavish decorations upon them, though none of the family cared much for such delicacies. One evening, shortly after my arrival, I was giving quite a formal dinner party;

We huddled ourselves in chairs in the big hallway and sat listening. Rain always comes with the wind in typhoons and the dash of water against the windows and the sides of the house was deafening.

But the noise was suddenly punctuated by a gentle snore.

Mr. Taft had settled himself back in his chair and gone quietly to sleep. Maria’s nerves were on edge; without a word she jumped up and shook her tired-out brother-in-law most vigorously, crying above the roar of the storm:

Mr. Taft had settled himself back in his chair and gone quietly to sleep. Maria’s nerves were on edge; without a word she jumped up and shook her tired-out brother-in-law most vigorously, crying above the roar of the storm:

“Will Taft, what do you think we waked you up for? You can’t go back to sleep. We want you to stay awake and comfort us!”

“All right, Maria,” said he, with the utmost good nature; whereupon he sat up, changed his position to one more comfortable, and proceeded to lapse again into peaceful slumber.

“The decision satisfies everybody; it raises a question which threatened to drag itself over the hot sands we tread, cleanses it of all impurities, and makes it the beginning and the end of a most transcendental principle of sovereignty and law.”

The Filipino or Spanish editor is nothing if he is not hyperbolic.

When we arrived in Manila it was a source of great worry to us that we could not send our children, eight and ten years old, to school. The Jesuits had a school for boys in the Walled City, and Mr.

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 …

And in addition to these a University has been founded which promises to become one of the finest institutions of learning in the whole East.

Whatever may be said about the American Constitution there can be no dispute about the fact that education follows the flag.

The Filipinos in our party, who were invited to go in order that they might give the Commission information and advice and also, in some measure, explain to their own compatriots the intentions of the American Government, included Chief Justice Arellano, the two Supreme Court …

They did not know the words, or the “sentiment” of the songs; they knew only the tunes, and these they played at all times, for occasions either solemn or gay.

Of my own experience I can testify that “A Hot Time in the Old Town” makes a perfectly good funeral march when reduced to a measure sufficiently lugubrious.

It didn’t take us long to see the town and when my ears could endure the discords no longer I explained to the pleasant little presidente that I thought it was necessary for the ladies to return to the transport for a rest before it …

When they saw us they lapsed into a state of utter disgust.

They turned and rowed sadly back to the ship, and afterward I overheard them exchanging very definite opinions as to the possible future of a sailor who would burn red rockets when all he wanted was a searchlight.

After calling at Cagayan Misamis, Dapitan, Iloilo, San José Antique and Capiz, we made straight for Cebu. Cebu is, in rivalry with Iloilo and next to Manila, the most important town in the Philippine Islands.

But we were used to that. Many Christian Filipinos believe firmly in the “evil eye.” There was one little dwarf who was bolder than the rest and who followed us everywhere we went.

He was like a little, brown, toy-child, beautifully formed, and looking not more than one year old, but we were told that he was at least fourteen.

Everybody wanted to give us things.

“Well,” said the guard, “I guess you can’t unmake me. I’ve just been mustered out of the United States Army and am a plain American citizen. I don’t understand that Congress can do much about unmaking American citizens.”

Which all goes to show that it doesn’t do much good to lose one’s temper.

The gentleman took his party and stalked out of the plaza.

The stars were so large and hung so low that they looked almost like raised silver figures on a dark blue field. And when the moon shone—but why try to write about tropical moonlight?

The wonderful sunsets and the moonlit nights have tied more American hearts to Manila and the Philippines than all the country’s other charms combined.

And they are both indescribable.

That the record of our ill-luck may be quite complete I must add that on the way across the Atlantic my son Charlie managed to pick up whooping-cough, and that by the time we reached Rome he had passed it on to Helen.

Her first remark to her father was a plaintive query: “Papa, why is it we can never go anywhere without catching something?”

I devoutly hoped that we had caught everything there was to catch and that we might now venture to predict a period of peace.

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 …

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.

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:

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;

“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 stationmaster was my humble servant. He accompanied me out, ordered the train held, and superintended a whole obsequious force which hustled our baggage aboard as soon as it arrived.

In the morning Mr. Taft found President Roosevelt in the great hall below, genially alert.

“Well, Will,” he exclaimed, “the storm will soon be over. It isn’t a regular storm. It’s nature’s echo of Senator Rainer’s denunciations of me. As soon as I am out where I can do no further harm to the Constitution it will cease.”

“You’re wrong,” said Will; “it is my storm. I always said it would be a cold day when I got to be President of the United States.”

“Well, Will,” he exclaimed, “the storm will soon be over. It isn’t a regular storm. It’s nature’s echo of Senator Rainer’s denunciations of me. As soon as I am out where I can do no further harm to the Constitution it will cease.”

“You’re wrong,” said Will; “it is my storm. I always said it would be a cold day when I got to be President of the United States.”

It was really very serious. Railroad and telegraphic communications were paralysed all along the Atlantic Coast. Wires were down in every direction and traffic of all kinds was at a practical standstill.

… great lover of adventure stories and it is a favourite tradition in the family now that he carried with him to the Senate Chamber a copy of Treasure Island with which to while away the time in case the Inaugural address should prove too long.

Charlie was only eleven years old and I consider it a great tribute to his father’s eloquence that Treasure Island was not opened that day.

This Inauguration was said to be, by persons who had seen many, one of the most impressive ceremonies that ever opened the administration of a President.

There was nobody at the White House to bid us welcome except the official staff and some of our own guests. But it didn’t matter. There is never any ceremony about moving into the White House.

You just drive up and walk in⁠—and there you are.

The aides and ushers who greeted us at the entrance, treated our occupation of our new residence so much as a matter of course that I could not help but feel something as Cinderella must have felt when her mice footmen bowed her into her …

We gazed at each other for a moment, with slightly lost expressions on our faces, and then nature asserted herself in the new President.

“Let’s go upstairs, my dears, and sit down!” said he.

Poor man, he had not experienced the blissful sensation of sitting down since early that morning; so we proceeded out to the elevator, which Charlie, true to his boy nature, had, of course, already learned to operate.

However, I must still have had energy enough left to worry over domestic arrangements since the last thing I remember of that eventful day was a hearty laugh from my husband when I exclaimed in sleepy tones:

“I wonder where we had all better have breakfast in the morning!”

He did not come nor did he ever offer any kind of apology or excuse for his extraordinary conduct.

There are certain manifestations of so-called Jeffersonian simplicity in this country of ours that I am sure Jefferson would deplore if he lived in this day and generation.

The north verandah of the White House is pleasant enough, but it lacks the charm of seclusion peculiar to the south portico which runs around the oval Blue Room and looks out upon the broad south garden with its great fountain, and with Potomac Park, …

In order to put possible bad weather off its guard, I made the invitations simply for an “At Home from 5 to 7 o’clock,” because all my life the elements have been unfriendly to me.

Whenever I plan an outdoor fête I begin to consult the weather man with the hopeful faith of a Catherine de Medici appealing to her astrologer, but for all my humble spirit I very frequently get a downpour, or else a long drawn out and nerve-trying threat.

Quite often the lowering clouds have passed and my prayers for sunshine have been rewarded, but quite often, too, I have had to move indoors with an outdoor throng for whom no indoor diversions had been arranged.

No sooner were my plans completed, however, than the weather man predicted rain. It was coming, sure. Of course, I knew it would, but I had had too much experience to think of coming in out of the rain before it began to come down.

I always sustain my hopeful attitude until the deluge descends.

About half past three it began to rain in torrents and I saw all of my festive-looking preparations reduced to sopping wrecks before there was even time to rush them indoors.

So another house was found in the town, yet on the seashore, and was fitted up for Executive Offices and as a home for the office staff and Captain Butt.

The secret service men, like the poor, we had with us always, but it never seemed to me that they “lived” anywhere.

They were merely around all the time. They were never uniformed, of course, and looked like casual visitors.

The hostess doesn’t have to worry about seating the Cabinet officers because it is all a matter of precedence and is attended to by the Social Executive Secretary.

The rank of a Cabinet officer is determined by the date on which his office was created and not, as one might think, by the relative importance of his official status.

The only time when a friendly democracy presents itself to the President en masse is on New Year’s Day.

Very shortly after the New Year’s Reception, three days later in fact, we gave the next big event of the season, the Diplomatic Reception.

It is understood, of course, that one of the chief occupations of the President of the United States is shaking hands.

I am moved to this observation by memories of uncounted hours by my husband’s side in a receiving line at the White House when thousands of guests passed by, each separately introduced to both the President and to me and each extending an untired hand …

They do speak English, of course, but many of them imperfectly, and, taking them all, with exactly thirty-nine different accents.

Imagine the wife of the Chinese Minister sitting between the Minister of Salvador and the Minister of Cuba, or the wife of the Japanese Ambassador having on one hand the German Ambassador and on the other the Minister of Costa Rica!

It all depends on how long they have been in Washington.