In reading over my own and my husband’s letters, written on that trip to various members of the family, I find that Charlie was very much in evidence at all times. I suppose he was spoiled because, certainly, everybody took a hand in his misguidance, but the spoiling process at least kept him in high good humour, unless it happened to take the form of secret indulgence in prohibited sweets; then I had to meet the consequences. I find my husband writing to his brother Charles: “Charlie continues to be as full of spirits and as determined to have his own way as ever. We call him ‘the tornado’; he creates such a sensation when he lands in the midst of the children on board the ship. He is very badly in need of discipline and I long for the time to come when he will be better able to appreciate it. Maria has become quite as much a slave to him as Nellie and you may tell his Aunt Annie that I am still the only hope the boy has of moral training.” This sounds so much like the average father that I thought I ought to quote it.
When Bessie, Charlie’s nurse, was taken away from him and quarantined we got for him a Japanese “amah” who filled him at first with indignation, not unmixed with fear. But she was so patient, and followed him around so much like a faithful watchdog, that he grew to be exceedingly fond of her and straightway proceeded to exchange his small English vocabulary for, to him, more useful Japanese words.
The first thing to claim our attention in Yokohama Harbour was the American cruiser Newark, the Admiral’s flagship of the Asiatic fleet, with Admiral Kempff aboard. As soon as we came inside the breakwater she fired a salute of seventeen guns, and we wondered what it was all about, until suddenly we remembered that the Commissioners had the rank of ministers plenipotentiary and decided that it was meant for us. It was the first time in my husband’s life that he had ever been saluted. In his later career he reached a point where he would have been almost willing to assume a disguise in order to escape the thunder of the twenty-one guns that roared at him whenever he approached a naval vessel of any kind, but I think he was rather elated by this first tribute to his official standing.
We found later that an old friend, Captain McCalla, was in command of the Newark. We had known Captain McCalla in Washington when my husband was Solicitor General. He had been court-martialed and suspended from the Navy for a year for striking an unruly and insubordinate sailor and at his request Mr. Taft read the record of the court-martial. Mr. Choate had been his counsel, but the case was given a great deal of unpleasant publicity. He displayed such bravery at the Battle of Guantanamo, in Cuba, that the files he had lost were restored to him. He also rendered distinguished service in the Philippines, taking over the surrender of one of Aguinaldo’s generals at Caygayan; and later on, in China, he was in the van of the allied troops that relieved Peking and was severely wounded. Being a man of broad intelligence and great enterprise he appreciated the importance of the Philippine Commission and lost no time in extending to them all the courtesies at his command.
Shortly after we landed and got ourselves comfortably settled at the Grand Hotel, an ensign from the Newark came to ask when the Commission would receive the Admiral. The hour was set for this formality and when it had been duly disposed of, Captain McCalla called on us unofficially, with much news for our hungry ears from the big world that we had known nothing about for eleven long days. That was before the wireless era when going to sea was really going to sea, and seldom has the world known a more exciting year than 1900. Grim talk about the terrible Boxer insurrection was on every tongue and Captain McCalla told us that the Newark was lying in readiness to proceed to China at an instant’s notice. The British were just then pressing the Boers northward in South Africa, and our own troubles in the Philippines were by no means over. We had nearly seventy thousand troops in the field, and we heard of decisive engagements between the division under General Young and some religious fanatic insurrectos in northern Luzon. We found ourselves feeling very much in touch with big events.
The Commission went out to the Newark to return the Admiral’s call and when they got back to the hotel they were full of valuable information and advice about sightseeing in Japan, housekeeping in the Orient and other important things. Among other bits of news they had to tell their wives was that we would all probably be received at the Japanese Court—which was quite exciting.
My experience is that the most formal branch of the government service is the naval branch. The state department may be as formal, but I doubt it. The ceremony on board naval vessels is constant, and the severity of the penalties for any failure to follow the regulations impresses itself upon every naval officer. Therefore, every naval officer must have diplomatic training and must be alert in finding out and in carrying out the duties
