THE FOUNDING OF GOVERNMENT ernor because all the Americans were heartily in favor of him, on account of his having been a friend to our cause from the first. The provincial secretary was a thoroughgoing insurrecto. So there was a good deal of feeling while the caucusing was going on, the insurrecto element being very bitter against our man. In announcing the result Judge Taft said to the audience, "Some of you may think we have made a mistake in the selection of the governor; if it be true that we have made a mistake you can correct it at the coming general election, but we have acted as we thought best; we don't hold it against any of you that you have been insurgents, and we will not permit you to hold it against any man that he has been a friend to the cause of the Americans." We left Laoag for the beach at about 4 o'clock on the afternoon of that same day, Tuesday, Aug. 20, and had quite a time of it going out to the boat. We came near being swamped while the great colossal canoes, already described, were endeavoring to ride over breakers. As I stood on the side of the boat to keep out of the water, I noticed Governor Taft standing knee deep in the water. We felt that forty-foot canoe tremble from the shock of an extra big breaker. It was a new experience in
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circuit-riding, both for the big judge and for the little one. Judge Ide is a very precise, methodical gentleman, from the poise of his spectacles and the cut of his waistcoat, to the exact and careful way he places one foot foremost and then the other in order to execute the process of walking. He is accuracy personified. When we finally reached the big boat in safety and had dried our clothes, and were comfortably seated at the supper table, Judge Ide remarked that he did not want any more breaker riding; that General Bell's enthusiasm had got him into it this time, but that he did not propose to have any more of it if he could get out of it on this side of the river Styx; in reply to which Professor Worcester, who impresses one at first as a rather surly person, sent a laugh around the table by remarking: "Well, you need not worry about the last, for it is popularly reputed to be a very sluggish stream." Here the whistle blew, and, leaving Ilocos Norte duly clothed with civil liberty, we started, outward bound, to fit the same garment upon the body politic of the Province of Cagayan on the morrow. WASHINGTON, D. C., June, 1908.
