The Cathedral Plaza⁠—since renamed Plaza McKinley⁠—presented a memorable scene that Fourth of July morning. The architectural grace and time-mellowed colours of the old Spanish buildings blended with the rich luxuriance of many-hued tropic plants and the green of spreading acacias. American flags covered the canopied platforms and floated from every possible point of vantage. Americans and Filipinos, all in gala attire, were pressed close together in the spectators’ stands which extended on either side of the central pavilion; the plaza below was thronged with Filipinos of every rank and condition, in all manner of bright jusis and calicoes; while above the crowd towered many American soldiers and sailors in spic-and-span khaki or white duck.

The programme was much like other programmes. General MacArthur and his staff occupied the centre of the platform. A well trained and finely conducted Filipino band played several numbers; there was a prayer and an invocation; then my husband, looking larger even than his natural size in his crisp white linen suit, stepped to the front of the platform and stood gravely looking down upon the stocky little Chief Justice of the Archipelago, Señor Arellano, who administered the oath of office. Afterward Mr. Taft and Mr. Fergusson stood together and delivered, in English and Spanish, paragraph by paragraph in translation, the Inaugural address.

I think only one unfortunate incident occurred to mar the complete harmony of the occasion, and that was furnished by a United States Congressman of the Military Committee of the House, who was visiting Manila at the time.