At last I had produced the effect I desired. Immediately the station was my castle. The stationmaster was my humble servant. He accompanied me out, ordered the train held, and superintended a whole obsequious force which hustled our baggage aboard as soon as it arrived. Since we made the boat, which we would not otherwise have done, I was able to bear the chaffing of my children and friends when they continued to refer to me as The Mrs. Taft whose husband was travelling with Miss Alice Roosevelt.

Early in the autumn of 1906 the American Consul General at Havana began cabling to the government at Washington that the Cuban republic under President Palma was rapidly going to pieces. What was described as “devastating and paralysing civil strife” was rampant, and a serious insurrection was threatened.