The prospect of another novel experience was exceedingly gratifying to me and I began at once to look forward with interest to a renewal of my acquaintance with Rome and to the trip back to the East by the Suez Canal, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean which, according to Kipling, “sits an’ smiles, so sof’, so bright, so bloomin’ blue.” So my feet no longer lagged in my preparations for a long trip with my three children and another extended residence in the tropics.

To assist Mr. Taft in his negotiations with the Vatican, and to make up a dignified and formidable looking Commission, the President appointed Bishop O’Gorman of the Catholic diocese of South Dakota, and General James F. Smith, at that time a member of the Philippine judiciary and in later years Philippine Commissioner and Governor-General of the Islands. His rank of General he attained as an officer of volunteers in the Army of Pacification in the Philippines, but, a lawyer in the beginning, after he was appointed to the Bench he became known as Judge Smith, and Judge we always called him. He is an Irish Catholic Democrat and a man of very sane views and exceptional ability. Major John Biddle Porter was made Secretary-Interpreter to the Commission, and Bishop Brent, Episcopal Bishop of the Philippines, on his way to Manila, decided to go with Mr.