Recollections of full years

by Helen Herron Taft

There was one new thing for me, and that was a live cow. For two long years we had manfully striven to make ourselves believe that we liked canned milk and condensed cream just as much as we liked the fresh milk we had been used to all our lives. In fact, we were fond of declaring that we couldn’t tell the difference. But we could. And in our secret hearts we all welcomed as the most delectable treat an occasional gift of skimmed milk from a friend who had been a pioneer in the momentous venture of importing an Australian cow.

The importation of our cow was a real event, and she straightway took up a position of great dignity and importance in our establishment. She roamed at will about the grounds of the Palace and her general conduct was the subject of daily comment in the family circle. A number of people brought in cows about this time, but very few of them lived long enough to prove their dairy worth. Our cow flourished and gave forth large quantities of milk, and this fact became the subject of what was supposed to be a huge joke.

Mr. Worcester, who was the high chief health authority in the Islands, decreed that all animals as they were brought in should be inoculated for rinderpest, tuberculosis, and a number of other things,—“including prickly heat,” said General Wright,—but it just so happened that a great majority of these scientifically treated beasts died almost immediately, and General Wright could always arouse the wrath of Mr. Worcester—a thing he loved to do—by suggesting that the only reason our cow lived was because “she had not been inoculated.”

The presence of the cow having given me a true farmer spirit—at least, I suppose it was the cow—I decided to have a garden. There were very few vegetables that the Filipinos knew how to raise at that time, and our longing for fresh things was constant and intense. I selected a promising looking spot behind the Palace, had it prepared for planting, then I bought a supply of fresh American seeds and carefully buried them in places where I thought they might develop into something. The result was positively astonishing. The soil was rich and the sun was hot, and in an incredibly short time we were having quantities of beans and cauliflower and big red tomatoes and all kinds of things.

My ambition grew with success and I branched out into poultry. The first thing anybody knew I had a big screened yard full of chickens and turkeys little and big, which were a source of great enjoyment to us all both in their noisy feathered state in the chicken yard and done up in a variety of Ah Sing styles on our very well supplied table. I wonder how my cook made up the “squeeze” out of which he was cheated by my industry and thrift.

But, dwelling on these minor details I am getting far ahead of my story. There were many things in the meanwhile engaging my attention, the most important of which, I suppose, was the great church schism.

Gregorio Aglipay, an Ilocano priest of the Roman Catholic Church, joined the original insurrection against Spain, or the Friars rather, at its inception and was excommunicated. He became an insurgent leader with a reputation for great cruelty, and continued in the field against Spain, and subsequently against the United States, until resistance was no longer possible. He was among the last insurrecto chiefs to surrender in northern Luzon. When peace was restored he began immediately to solicit the interest and aid of other Filipino priests, of politicians and influential men in a plan for organising an Independent Filipino Catholic Church, and his temporary success must have surprised even him.

ARCH ERECTED BY THE PARTIDO FEDERAL REPRESENTING FILIPINA OFFERING ANOTHER STAR TO THE AMERICAN FLAG

While the people loved catholicism, the failure of the Vatican to accede to their wishes with respect to the Friars, as expressed by the American Commission to Rome, added impetus to the rebellious movement and when the announcement of the new organisation was made it was found to be based on the strongest kind of support. Aglipay constituted himself Obispo Maximo, assumed a fine regalia, and conferred upon fifteen or more of his lieutenants the regular church dignities and titles of a lesser order. He offered the people the same ceremonies, the same relief, the same confessional, and the same faith generally to which they had always been accustomed, so they found it easy enough to transfer their allegiance, and the new church gained adherents with such startling rapidity that it seemed as if a majority of the population would go over to it.