Recollections of full years

by Helen Herron Taft

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 that 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-ball-scented and profusely perspiring civil government officials at a disadvantage.

Nowadays—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 simplicity, 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.