We struggled through the crowd of sight-seers and into the big basement, which was decorated very profusely, and where a lot of people were standing about. A man told us he guessed the reception was going on upstairs; and we thought perhaps he had guessed correctly, so we mounted the broad stairs, between sheaves of palms and American flags, and found ourselves in a huge crowd in the outer room of the suite I described to you the night of the ball. The court room had been arranged with rows of chairs and benches facing the daïs, and the balcony beyond, with the bright blue sky and white glare of sunlight for a background, was a seething mass of white-clad humanity. I noticed the Americans were all at one end and the Filipinos at the other—an arrangement of choice, I imagine, rather than accident.
Amongst the visitors I met again Mrs Luke E. Wright, and several other people whose acquaintance I had made in Manila, as the party had been nearly doubled by the numbers absorbed into it after arriving in the Philippines. My friends said they had heard I was ill, and that I was going home, and envied me, calling heaven to witness that they wished they were going “back home” too. The Governor’s secretary told me that the party now amounted to 170 people, and they had a very jolly time on board, and were expecting to have a very pleasant trip round the Islands.
There was no regular presenting being done, and no one offered to introduce us to Mr Taft or “Miss Alice,” and we did not like to ask them to do so, which I am sorry about now, as I should have liked to have met them. However, Miss Alice was standing next to the Governor’s wife while I was talking to the latter, so I was able to get an impression of her appearance, which I thought quite pleasing; a young girl with a fluff of fair hair tied behind with a big bow of black ribbon, a very pale complexion, and heavily-lidded blue eyes. She had on a coat and skirt of stiff white pique, which did not do justice to her pretty figure, and a plain straw hat with blue ribbons on it tilted over her forehead.
All the American ladies amongst the visitors were very plainly dressed in shirts and skirts, as for the country in the morning, with large, flat hats and floating gauze veils—just like the American tourists you see in London out of the season. The residents, however, had on pretty muslins and hats, and the Filipino ladies sported their most beautiful camisas and finest jewels. I heard afterwards that the very plain costumes of the visitors were considered as rather a poor compliment, not to say a mistake in tact, for of course the Manila papers had given glowing accounts of the lovely dresses they wore at the entertainments in Manila, and Orientals think such a lot of that sort of thing—and so do Occidentals, too, for the matter of that!
Mr Taft and the Senators were all in white linen suits; the officers in white linen, too, plus the badges of their rank. Mr Taft, who is a very tall, fair man of enormous build, towered over the heads of everyone about him. I don’t think I ever saw anyone so vast, and could quite believe that he weighed 250 pounds—though I must say that to hear a weight expressed in pounds does not convey much impression to my mind. He has a large, clever face, which creases up into an amiable smile for which he is famous, and which has helped him enormously in life. In curious contrast are his eyes, which are small, and placed rather close together, and very shrewd in expression. When he is serious, it is a stern, rather hard face, and not very pre-possessing, but when he smiles the “Taft smile,” it is altered in the most extraordinary manner, and he really looks charming.
After we had been on the balcony a little time, the procession began to come into sight, headed by a brass band. At this the people on the balcony sorted themselves out, Mr Taft and “Miss Alice” standing in the front of the balcony with the chief personages behind them, and less important Americans in the doorways and on the outskirts, all in the most approved “democratic” style, while the brown faces all clustered at the other end of the balcony. I thought it a great pity that it did not occur to Mr Taft, or Miss Roosevelt, or the Governor, or anyone like that to go and stand amongst the Filipinos and give a real and tangible demonstration of the theories they were there to express. I did not see anyone talking to the visitors but Americans, either, and I thought that a pity too.
You see, a little thing like that would convey more truth about Equality than miles of bombastic print or hours of windy rhetoric.
The Governor’s secretary found me a place in front of the balcony, but I was foolish enough to move away for a moment to speak to someone, and so lost my place. Then we saw that people were beginning to stand on the benches, so C—— got me a place on one by asking some men to move, which they were rather huffy about. On one side of me was a tall, thin young Senator with a large hand-camera, who showed his resentment in tiresome little incivilities; but the man on the other side was a nice, good-natured soul, who tried to make room for me, and spoke very agreeably. He seemed to be feeling the heat very much, and complained that it was so fearfully hot, but I laughed and said: “This is the coolest day we have had for a long time.”
“My!” he exclaimed, “I guess I’m not fair crazy to come and live in these old Phaluppeens.”
“Oh,” I said, “then you have not joined the party at Manila?”