I was mistress of the Palace at Havana for just three overcrowded days. Before our arrival Mr. Taft and Mr. Bacon had been the guests of the American Minister, Mr. E. V. Morgan, at his beautiful home about nine miles outside the city. This house stood between two insurgent camps and the mediators had to pass by automobile through rebel lines every morning and evening while the uncertain negotiations were in progress, but the strange part of this intervention was that it was welcomed by all the parties concerned except the intervening party, so the mediators were shown every courtesy.
Mr. Taft did not take possession of the Palace immediately after the President’s abdication, but when Mr. Magoon was arriving he thought it wise to do so in order that he might induct him into the office and all its dignities with due form, and so it happened that we found him living there.
On the afternoon after our arrival Mrs. Bacon and I gave a reception which I remember as a most notable affair. It was attended by hundreds of Cubans, by all the members of the different foreign colonies and by every American Army and Navy officer who was not at the moment on active duty. Everybody seemed to be especially happy and festive after the month of gloom, and the pretty white gowns, the gay Cuban colours and the crisp smartness of American uniforms mingled together in the great rooms with quite brilliant effect. While we stood shaking hands with the throng passing by in single file, the Municipal Band in the Park before the Palace played American music, from the latest ragtime back to “Swanee River,” interspersed with well-rendered classics and a few gay, lilting airs peculiarly Spanish.
On the following afternoon Mr. Morgan tried to outdo the affair at the Palace with a reception in our honour at his house, and succeeded admirably. Mr. Taft had written of Mr. Morgan: “He is something of a sybarite. He has a very fine house, a French cook and all the luxuries, and we are being exceedingly well taken care of;—though I do think we eat too much!” In fact, Mr. Morgan is a true host, combining imagination and great ability with the wish to entertain. His house at Havana was like a scene from some tropical grand opera. Standing in the midst of fine gardens heavy with groups of big drooping palms and ferns, and bright with wide spaces of green lawn, it seemed like a veritable storybook house. It had wide corridors and a quaint, moss-softened patio, in the middle of which a fountain played over a mass of brilliant tropic plants. The spacious rooms were filled with curios and art treasures from all parts of the world, and I was especially interested in a splendid collection of brassbound and inlaid Korean chests. Mr. Morgan was America’s last Minister to Korea, being transferred from Seoul to Havana when Japan established her Korean protectorate.
Although it was nine miles out to Mr. Morgan’s house, everybody came, and it was said to be the most representative gathering of the city’s leading families that had been seen in many a day. Of course there was music and dancing and refreshments and all the elements which go to make up an enjoyable entertainment, and even though there was a general celebration going on in the city, the crowds took their departure reluctantly.
The general celebration was in commemoration of the anniversary of the outbreak of the Ten Years’ War in 1858, and it was strange to see all parties uniting in a demonstration of what seemed to be real patriotism. Havana was decorated in regular old-fashioned Fourth of July style, and there were parades and speeches, bands, banners and fireworks, just as if Cuba were the solidest little Republic in the world. One really couldn’t take the situation very seriously after all—except that it was costing the country a great deal of money and certainly would have cost many foolish lives had it not been taken in hand so promptly.
The next morning we inaugurated Governor Magoon and took our departure, leaving him to his uncomfortable fate. I remember later a cartoon depicting him as sitting in agony on a sizzling stove labelled “Cuba,” while Mr. Taft appeared in the distance in a fireman’s garb carrying a long and helpful-looking line of hose. But that illustrated subsequent history.
We sailed from Havana on the battleship Louisiana, escorted by the Virginia and the North Carolina, Mr. and Mrs. Bacon, General Funston, Mr. Taft and I, on the 13th of October, just twenty-nine days from the day on which Mr. Roosevelt had called the momentous conference at Oyster Bay to decide what should be done about Cuba, and we escaped by only a few hours the terrible storm which swept east from the Gulf of Mexico that same evening. It was one of the worst storms the locality had ever known. It did untold damage to property, killed a number of people and by cutting the island off from outside communication gave the United States a short period of acute uneasiness on account of the thousands of American soldiers quartered in Cuba and the big fleet of American battleships lying in Havana harbour. The waters of Hampton Roads were so rough that after boarding the Dolphin for the trip up the Chesapeake and the Potomac to Washington we went ashore at Fort Monroe and took the train.
XIV
Busy Years
These were the days when Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Root and Mr. Taft were known and very aptly caricatured as “The Three Musketeers,” a thing which both pleased and amused them. Mr. Roosevelt was, of course, D’Artagnan, Mr. Root was Athos and Mr. Taft was Porthos, and they worked together in such
