Recollections of full years

by Helen Herron Taft

“Señor Don Felipe Calderón, who represents the Philippine people, was given an opportunity to make the first speech. He had printed his argument and read it, having given us translated copies with which we followed him. His argument was a very strong one, lawyer-like and well-conceived, but he weakened it by some vicious remarks about the Dominican order. The Archbishop of Manila, once or twice, felt so much outraged at what he said that he attempted to rise, but Archbishop Chapelle prevented him from doing so. At the close of the argument Monsignor Chapelle asked for ten days in which to prepare an answer and we granted him two weeks. The scene was one I shall always carry with me as marking an interesting period in my Philippine experience.”

The Commission did not settle the question. After careful consideration and many hearings, they left the property in the hands of the Dominicans, but appointed a Board of Trustees to prepare and present an appeal to the Supreme Court of the Islands, appropriating at the same time, five thousand dollars to pay the expenses of the litigation.

Archbishop Chapelle did not like this decision and telegraphed to Secretary Root asking him to withhold his approval. Then he asked the Commission to modify the law and give him an opportunity, in case the decision in the Supreme Court should go against the Church, to appeal to the Congress of the United States. This the Commission refused to do on good and sufficient grounds, whereupon the Archbishop cabled to the President, declaring that the decision as it stood would retard pacification. Although he had always been strongly opposed to the continuation of military government, we were much amused to learn that in his cable to the President he took occasion to remark, significantly, that “General MacArthur is doing splendidly.”

But if Archbishop Chapelle was displeased with the action of the Commission, the Filipino press was delighted, and the editorial encomiums heaped upon them can only be described as brilliant. The Diario de Manila, the next morning, was absolutely unable to express itself, and it concluded a more or less incoherently eulogistic editorial with the words: “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. Taft considered for awhile the possibility of sending Robert there, where he might, at least, learn Spanish; but so strong was the feeling against the Friars that this would have been taken by the people as a certain indication that the President of the Commission was leaning toward the Church in his deliberations on the vital subject. As I have said, they could not look upon this question, in any of its bearings, in a reasonable light.

We eventually settled Helen in a convent where she made an effort to learn Spanish, and Robert we turned over to Mrs. LeRoy, the wife of Mr. Worcester’s Secretary, who was a graduate from the University of Michigan and a most excellent teacher.

Mr. and Mrs. LeRoy went to the Philippines as bride and groom. They were classmates, graduated together, and this was their first big venture into the world. They were a valued part of our little pioneer circle, and it was with the greatest dismay that we learned, after about two years in the Islands, that Mr. LeRoy had developed tuberculosis. He had either brought the germs with him from the United States or had contracted the disease there, where, indeed, it is most prevalent. He continued to act as Secretary for Mr. Worcester beyond the time when he should have gone to another climate to devote himself to a cure, but finally, when he realised that the sentence was upon him, he decided to leave the Islands, and my husband was able to secure for him, because of his splendid efficiency, a position in the Consular service under Mr. Hay, at Durango, Mexico. This post was chosen because it is in a dry, mountainous region where the ravages of tuberculosis are supposed to be checked.

Mr. LeRoy was an exceedingly well-informed and studious man. He was a natural linguist, spoke Spanish with ease, and soon was able to acquire enough Tagalog to enable him to go among the people and get their point of view at first-hand. He immediately became interested in writing a history of the Islands and wanted much to go to Spain to examine Spanish-Philippine documents at Seville and other places, but he was never able to do so.

In the days when death faced him in New Mexico, whither he had gone after leaving Durango, he wrote, as Grant wrote, on a book which he hoped might furnish some means to his wife after his death. He died before he was able to complete what Mr. Taft says is a very accurate, comprehensive and interesting history of the Archipelago from the beginning down to, and including, Dewey’s victory, the taking of Manila and the work of the first Commission. He had planned to give a full account of the work of the second Commission, with which he was so intimately connected, but his pen dropped before his purpose was fulfilled. His history has been only recently published.

Mrs. LeRoy later went to Washington, and Mr. Taft appointed her to one of the few clerical positions not covered by the Civil Service law. This is in the Land Office where she signs the President’s name to land patents. She is the only person in the government who has the right and power, given by special act of Congress, to sign the President’s name to a document.