Alice in Asia: The 1905 Taft Mission to Asia, Hawaii

Hawaii

July 14 Hawaii

“The five days between San Francisco and Honolulu, sailing into the tropics in the lovely, blazing weather, seeing flying fish for the first time, were enchanting. The morning we reached Honolulu, I was wakened by the plaintive singing voices and musical instruments of the natives who had come out to meet the steamer. It was before Hawaiian tunes and ukeleles had become as hackneyed as they now are. I had never heard anything like it before and felt as if the lotus eaters themselves had come out to greet us. My eyes were open and my head was out of the porthole simultaneously, to see the lovely mass of the island of Oahu lying offside in the early dawn light, mountains and valleys in cloudy green down to the line of the white beach. We rushed through breakfast and landed for a day of hospitalities which are characteristic, I should say, of literally everyone on the islands. The entire population seemed to be on the wharf to meet us and garland us with leis of heavy, perfumed flowers, gardenias and ginger blossoms.”

“The entire party was taken charge of by a committee of which Acting-Governor Atkinson was chairman. We first drove in a long procession of carriages to the Pali, the cliff that overlooks the Nuuanu Valley from which one gets a far-flung view of island and ocean. Over a hundred years earlier, Kamehameha I with his army of warriors left the island of Hawaii to conquer Oahu. After making a stand in Nuuanu Valley, the Oahu natives broke and fled up to the Pali where Kamehameha and his force drove hundreds of them over the precipice and hundreds more threw themselves over through fear of the conqueror.”

“We raced back down the road to Honolulu to take a special train to see a sugar plantation and refinery. There a rather expurgated Hula was provided for our entertainment. I asked if it were not possible to see a less jeune fille version. The answer was yes, so with a few others, I left the general crowd and saw a dance that undoubtedly was much more like the real thing. Afterwards a song was written that ran as follows: “Alice Roosevelt, she came to Honolulu and she saw the Hula Hula Hula Hai, and I think before she reached the Filipinos, she could dance the Hula Hula Hula Hai.” I could and did.”

“We were given a luncheon at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, rooms and lanai decorated with quantities of tropical fruits and flowers. Mr. Taft spoke, and the band, according to what was almost a habit of bands in those days, played, “Alice, where art thou?” It was amusing when it first happened, but the novelty very soon wore off and I developed a pretty fair technique, that conveyed amusement, surprise, and appreciation at the combination of attention and jest. The nice people who did it were always so pleased that they had thought of it. We spent the afternoon swimming and surf-boating. I remember Mr. Taft pleading with photographers not to take photographs of me in my bathing suit. It was considered just a little indelicate, the idea that they might be taken and published. And a bathing suit was a silk or mohair dress, not at all short, high-necked and with sleeves, and, of course, long black stockings! We stayed on the beach at Waikiki until it was time to go back to the steamer. I did not want to leave. I missed the boat at the wharf, as it had to sail at a definite time because of the tides. So, in a launch with Nick, Senator and Mrs. Newlands, and a few others, leis about our necks, regret in our hearts at leaving, I pursued the Manchuria out into the open Pacific.”

July 14 – 23: Sail to Japan

“The ten days’ voyage on to Japan went quickly. In the evenings there were pools on the day’s run, fancy dress parties, a sheet and pillow-case party, and a mock trial. We were also given informative lectures on the Philippines in order that the party should have some idea of what it was going to inspect. A canvas pool was rigged up on deck in which I and some of the younger people spent much time. It was, I think, on the deck where the freight was put in, and one could stand on the railing of the deck above and let oneself down or jump in. The newspapers made much of a story that I had gone in fully dressed, a story that for once happened to be true. There was really not much difference between swimming in a bathing suit and swimming in a linen skirt and shirt waist, and, of course, I left shoes, watch, and such things that the water would hurt, in the care of onlookers.”

“The papers also said that I dared Nick to jump in fully clad with me, which they implied was a dashing, romantic thought. It was Bourke Cockran, not Nick. He was standing on the deck at the railing watching me and had said that it looked so comfortable in the pool that he was tempted to go in just as he was. So I said, “Come along,” and after a little argument, in he came. Bourke was a very old friend. I had known him since I was a small child and used to see him at tea at Auntie Bye’s in New York. He was impressed oh my early memory from the fact of my having bitten into a piece of extremely spongy sponge cake in which I left a first tooth just as he came into the drawing-room one late afternoon. We were always in an argument of some sort; Bourke, flowery, oratorical, booming along in his delightful Irish voice. Though his sympathies were Irish, he had numerous English friends of high position, who used to stop with him when they came to America. I would say, “You are an Anglo-phobe in public and an Anglomaniac in private,” and the battle would be on. His opposition to a large navy —one of his assertions was that New York City could be defended by row boats—used to infuriate me. Yet, going over a battleship, I heard him enthusiastically tell the Captain that “a great battleship was the noblest work of man,” whereat I exploded at him about his inconsistent blarney.”

July 24: Along the coast of Japan