“And have you been much entertained, my dear Maria?”
“Oh, I’ve been enjoying myself tremendously,” was the answer.
“Well, with whom have you dined, dear?” persisted our hostess.
“Why, we’ve dined with the Andersons, with the German Ambassador, with the Chief Justice, and with the Maurys, and with the French Ambassador—and with, oh, a number of other people.”
Our hostess was visibly impressed.
“Why! you really have been very gay, haven’t you, dear!” she exclaimed.
When we got into our cab to go home Maria turned to my husband and said:
“I had my eye on you all the time I was talking, Will Taft. I was perfectly certain that your terrible sense of fact would overcome you and that you would blurt out that I dined with all those people on the same evening at the same dinner party!”
President Harrison, in March, 1892, appointed my husband on the Federal Circuit Bench, so once more I saw him a colleague of men almost twice his age and, I feared, fixed in a groove for the rest of his life. However, he was greatly pleased and very proud to hold such a dignified and responsible position at the age of thirty-four. I think he enjoyed the work of the following eight years more than any he has ever undertaken.
We moved back to Cincinnati. Mr. Taft’s circuit included parts of Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Michigan—reached in fact, from Lookout Mountain to Marquette, and he was much away from home. My own life during those years in Cincinnati was very busy, for, in addition to my occupation with family and friends, I became interested in a number of civic movements.
My principal work was the organisation and management of the Cincinnati Orchestra Association. I found, at last, a practical method for expressing and making use of my love and knowledge of music.
We had not had a good symphony orchestra in the city since Theodore Thomas left, but with our music-loving population it was only necessary that somebody should take the initiative and arouse definite enthusiasm and keep it going, in order to establish and maintain such an institution. There were many public-spirited citizens, some of them true music-loving Germans, and I saw no reason why I should not get strong popular support for my project. I was not disappointed. From the first the response was general and generous and we did not have much difficulty in raising the necessary funds for financing the orchestra, although in addition to our box-office receipts, we had to secure $30,000 a year for six consecutive years. It could not have been done had it not been for such liberal friends as my brother and sister, Mr. and Mrs. Charles P. Taft, Mr. Charles Krippendorf, Mr. M. E. Ingalls, Mr. and Mrs. L. A. Ault, Mrs. Charles Fleishmann, Mr. J. G. Schmidlapp and others.
For the first year we had three different directors, Mr. Seidl, Mr. Schradick and Mr. Van der Stücken, who came to Cincinnati and led two concerts each. Then we secured Mr. Van der Stücken as a permanent leader and he remained with the orchestra ten years.
I think I regretted the Cincinnati Orchestra Association more than anything else when we left for the Philippines, but I left it in good and well-trained hands. Mrs. C. R. Holmes, who succeeded me as President of the Association, had taken a great part in the original work of organisation and management, as had my sister-in-law, Mrs. Charles P. Taft, and others. Through their efforts the orchestra has been enlarged and improved and it is still a source of great pride and satisfaction to the city of Cincinnati. Mrs. Charles Taft is now the President and through her interest, activity and generosity it has been enabled to grow in excellence.
Except for the orchestra, our life was tranquil; quite too settled, I thought, and filled with the usual homely incidents connected with housekeeping and the entertaining development of small children. My youngest child, Charles, was born in 1897, and my family was thus complete.
I come now to the years which we gave to the Philippine Islands and I must say that I wonder yet how our lot happened to be so cast.
There had never been any unusual interest in our family as to the results of the Spanish-American War. Like most patriotic Americans we had been greatly excited while the war was in progress and had discussed its every phase and event with a warmth of approval, or disapproval, as the case might be, but it did not touch us directly, except as citizens, any more than it touched the vast majority of the people of the United States. And yet, it came to mean more to us personally, than any other event in our times. The whole course of my husband’s career was destined to be changed and influenced by its results.
Mr. Taft was strongly opposed to taking the Philippines. He was not an anti-imperialist in the sense that he believed the Constitution required us to keep the boundaries of the United States within their continental limits, but he thought the Antipodes rather a far stretch for the controlling hand, and he thought the taking of the Philippines would only add to our problems and responsibilities without increasing, in any way, the effectiveness and usefulness of our government.
Oddly enough, he had expressed himself to that effect when he happened, during the Spanish War, to be dining with a number of judges including Justice Harlan who, although later an anti-imperialist, was at that time strongly upholding the policy of taking over Spanish territory in both oceans.
Mr. Taft knew just about as much about the Filipino people as the average American knew in those days. What he definitely knew was that they had been for more than three centuries under Spanish dominion and that they now wanted political independence. He was heartily in
