Recollections of full years

by Helen Herron Taft

My husband’s memory of this now historic mission to Rome seems to include little which was not directly connected with the business in hand, but Judge Smith displays a more impressionable bent. In answer to an inquiry as to what he recalls of the visit he wrote Mr. Taft a most interesting letter. All his memoranda of the trip, including letters, journals and souvenirs, were destroyed in the San Francisco fire, but he says:

“After our arrival there was a long wait that arrangements might be made for an audience with the Holy Father, but finally the date was fixed and the Commission, at high noon, in evening dress and top hats, went to the Vatican and passed up the long staircase, lined with Swiss Guards, which leads to the State apartments. We were received by the Chamberlain and several other functionaries and were conducted from one apartment to another until finally we were ushered into the presence of Leo XIII, to whom you made a statement of the matters which were to be made the subject of negotiation.

“This statement had been previously translated into French by Bishop O’Gorman and Colonel Porter, and you will remember there were some things about Bishop O’Gorman’s French which did not meet with the entire approval of Colonel Porter. Whether you arbitrated the matter and selected the appropriate phrase which should have been used I do not know, but I do know that at one time there was danger of the severance of the friendly relations which had theretofore prevailed between the good Bishop and the good old Colonel.

“My recollection of the Holy Father is that his face was like transparent parchment, that he had the brilliant eyes of a young man and that he was wonderfully alert of mind, although bent over by the weight of years.

“Of course, none of us could forget Cardinal Rampolla,—tall, slender, straight, vigorous in both mind and body, impenetrable, and cold as fate. A man evidently of wonderful intellect and fully equal to any demands that might be put upon him as the diplomat of the Vatican.”

I might add that the first part of my husband’s speech, a copy of which I have, consisted of a few remarks appropriate to the presentation of a gift from President Roosevelt to the Pope. This gift was a specially bound set of Mr. Roosevelt’s own works.

When the formal interview was at an end the Pope came down from the dais on which he sat and indulged in a fifteen or twenty minute personal conversation with the members of the Commission. “He asked for the pleasure of shaking my hand,” writes my husband to his brother Charles, in the usual vein of humour which obtains between them, adding, “a privilege which I very graciously accorded him.” He also joked about Mr. Taft’s proportions, saying that he had understood he had been very ill, but from observation he saw no reason to suppose that the illness had been serious. He poked gentle fun at Bishop O’Gorman and made kindly inquiries of Judge Smith and Major Porter; then he walked with the party to the door and bowed them out, a courtesy which I believe was unprecedented.

“He had a great deal more vigour of motion,” writes Mr. Taft, “and a great deal more resonance of voice than I had been led to suppose. I had thought him little more than a lay figure, but he was full of lively interest and gesture, and when my address was being read he smiled and bowed his head in acquiescence.”

“We visited the catacombs,” says Judge Smith, “St. Peter’s, St. Paul’s beyond the walls, and a few of the basilicas of ancient Rome now dedicated to Christian worship. The Borghese and various other art galleries left their impression, as did some of the interesting old palaces, notably the one which was then threatening to fall into the Tiber, and the ceiling of which bears the famous fresco of Cupid and Psyche.

“One day during our first wait we had dinner out at the American College as guests of Monsignor Kennedy, where you (Mr. Taft) made a speech which brought much applause from the students in red cassocks, and everybody was happy. After dinner some of us made a visit to a villa by the Orsini on the hills overlooking the Campagna, which villa had recently been purchased by the college as a summer home.