Alice in Asia: The 1905 Taft Mission to Asia, Washington to San Francisco

Washington to San Francisco

June 30 – July 1: Washington to Chicago

“Father and Mother went to Oyster Bay for the summer at the end of June, and a few days later, I left with the Taft party. It was a huge Congressional party, a “junket” if ever there was one. We left from the old Baltimore and Ohio Station that stood on what is now part of the park between the Capitol and the Union Station. Mr. Taft, Colonel Edwards, Major Thompson, Mabel Boardman, Amy McMillan, and I were on the private car, Colonial, attached to the train that carried a major portion of the party. The news of Secretary Hay’s death met us the next day in Chicago and was a personal sorrow. Though we had known of his illness, we realized what a loss he would be to Father and half thought that Mr. Taft might have to give up the trip, but Father telegraphed him to keep on, and we pulled out of the barnlike station in Chicago, in the flare and smell of photograph-taking.”

July 1-4: Train to California

“General and Mrs. Wood boarded the train for a moment there. They were just coming back from the Philippines, so to our regret we should not see them in Manila.”

“At last we were on our way across the continent. It was the first time I had ever been farther West than the Mississippi, and I had a little Atlas that I used to read as though it were a romance. I would look at it and think I am actually here at this place on the map. Those were the days when Kipling made Empire and far-flung territory dreams to dazzle. Going through the mountains, I would shout to myself, “We lead the iron stallions down to drink through the canyons to the waters of the West.” Again, in the words of Kipling, it was “the world so new and all,” and I was fairly jumping with excitement and interest. I of the snow-sheds seemed an adventure, as I thought of the stories of trains caught in the huge snow drifts.”

How Alice in Wonderland: First Maiden of Land Will Travel to Orient.

“Mr. Schwerin, one of Mr. E. H. Harriman’s lieutenants, had his car on the train, too, and he lent it to me to give a “ladies lunch” to the Congressional ladies of the party. This idea was suggested by Mr. Taft, who thought it would be well for me at least to seem to have a modicum of interest in the others.”

“The last day on the train was the Fourth of July. I got up early in the morning and set off fire-crackers on the back platform and shot my revolver at the telegraph poles. Some of the men left us for the day to go to the Hart-Root prizefight at Reno. There was no question in those days of a woman going to a prize¬fight, and our car was switched off and sent on an hour ahead to give the Secretary time to stop for lunch at a place where there was a row on about whether to bridge or not to bridge some river.”

July 5–8: Berkeley and San Francisco

“We got to San Francisco late that afternoon to spend four days before the steamer sailed. It was San Francisco before the fire—San Francisco of the old Palace Hotel, of the Poodle Dog Restaurant, of the Barbary Coast. I shall never forget those days. There was an exhilarating quality in the air, the place, the people that kept me on my toes every moment of the time there. Adventure seemed just around every corner and I was ready for it. I do not think that I ever slept. Our immediate party stayed at the Palace Hotel. Old Mrs. Eleanor Martin had an evening reception at which we met many San Franciscans, and we went afterwards to Mrs. Oxenard’s to play poker; an enterprising game as played by the Californians with a variety of wild hands that we had never heard of before.”

“We lunched at the Bohemian Club Grove, where the Bohemian Club, one of the most famous organizations in the country, holds its annual “jinks,” in the sun-flecked gloom of the great redwood trees. After lunch in the dining-room, the “ceiling” of which, two hundred feet above us, was the foliage of the trees, we sat in another of the principal “rooms.” There in a circle that must have been about one hundred feet in diameter, the towering tree-trunks formed an amphitheatre in the centre of which was the camp-fire. Scattered through the groves were the tents and camps of the members where they spend several weeks every summer. We lunched at Berkeley University with President Benjamin I. Wheeler. One evening I escaped my chaperones for a trip to Chinatown, of which I saw only the fringes. At that time a girl had to go on such an expedition very much on the side.”

July 8: Aboard the Manchuria

“We sailed by the Manchuria on the first leg of our journey on July 8. The Taft party was, I should say, about eighty strong. The six of us who had occupied the Colonial had a table together, with the addition of Nick, the Herbert Parsons, and Senator and Mrs. Newlands of Nevada. Mrs. Newlands was my own particular chaperon and there never was a more charming, sympathetic, and gay one.”

“Other Senatorial couples were Mr. and Mrs. Scott of West Virginia and Mr. and Mrs. DuBois of Idaho. Among the Congressmen were the Sereno Paynes, the Grosvenors, Frederick Gillet, Charlie Curtis, Swagar Sherley, Bourke Cockran, a good many more with and without wives and a few other Senators and a certain number of friends of the official members of the party. Sereno Payne, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, was a massive old fellow who looked a little like a Bismarck gone to seed. I became really-attached to him and to little old Santa Claus-bearded General Grosvenor and Mrs. Grosvenor. On that trip, too, my friendship began with Charlie Curtis, later Senator from Kansas and Vice-President. Burr Macintosh was the official photographer. We were all “taken,” in big groups, in little groups, and singly, from morning to evening.”

“The luggage that I thought necessary for the trip included three large trunks and two equally large hat boxes, as well as a steamer trunk and many bags and boxes. For ordinary day-by-day wear, I had heavy white linen skirts and three-quarter coats and blouses to go with them; embroidered linens and muslins for more dressed-up moments, and a series of bridesmaid’s dresses for best. I had been bridesmaid for several cousins and friends that spring and the spring before, and those dresses and their accompanying hats were all put into commission for the trip. There was also an accumulation of dinner dresses, and underclothes were no small item; especially the petticoats with lace and embroidery ruffles that even had small trains. And, of course, there were riding habits, and a special box for my side-saddle. I had things to ride astride in, too, that I finally used to the exclusion of the others. It was a cumbersome paraphernalia, a contrast to the two or three bags which are all I now need for a trip of any length or duration. There was a tremendous amount of changing from one dress to another during that summer, and it was a whole-time job for Anna, the maid who had been with me since we left Albany, to pack and unpack and keep my things in order. I remember she nearly had a nervous breakdown, and for three days while we were at Manila was sent to take a sort of rest cure on the Government Transport;. during which time Brooks, the colored messenger from the War Department who looked after Mr. Taft and his personal belongings, packed and pressed and generally attended to my things for me.”

“Though our immediate group kept much together, we became good friends with all the members of the party, which was just as well, as it would have been impossible to avoid contacts for the months that we were thrown together on steamers and transports and at general entertainments whenever we went on shore. I really liked my Congressional fellow voyagers, yet I think I felt it to be my pleasurable duty to stir them up from time to time. One way of so doing was to smoke in their presence. It seems unbelievable, but I do not think that more than one or two other women on that trip smoked, certainly not in public. I had a fat, old-fashioned, gold vanity case and in the compartment intended for hairpins, I kept my cigarettes. The case was always dropping and spilling them out. I think I must have broken at least seven mirrors in as many months, but that is one superstition I have never had.”