Oh, Alice!
/The article Alice Roosevelt, The Sultan Of Sulu, And The Theater Of American Empire (PF February 4, 2026) by Alex Fabros revisits the meeting between Alice Roosevelt, daughter of US President Theodore Roosevelt, and the Sultan of Sulu. The event encapsulated a moment when the American empire sought to present itself as modern, inclusive, and benevolent, even as it consolidated control through coercion and administrative absorption. Fabros’ article awakened a memory from a reader, Jessie Huberty, who sent Publisher Mona Lisa Yuchengco the letter below.
Alice was the only child of Secretary Roosevelt and his first wife, who died shortly after her birth. She was sent to be brought up with relatives, but when Secretary Roosevelt remarried, she was brought home. She never really bonded with either her stepmother or her five younger siblings. Benito Legarda Tuason, my great-grandfather, was vice president of the Malolos Congress and went to Washington, DC, as the first representative to the U.S. Congress from the Philippines in 1906, where he remained for six years. He had met Roosevelt on an earlier visit to the United States, and when Manila was put on the 1905 itinerary, it was arranged that Secretary Roosevelt, his daughter, and her fiancé, Congressman Nicholas Longworth, were to stay at the Legarda home on the Calzada de San Sebastian in Quiapo. Secretary Roosevelt confided to my great-grandfather that he was concerned that Alice had become engaged to a man many years her senior, and he had arranged to bring them both on the trip so he could see for himself their relationship.
The Legarda home on the Calzada de San Sebastian in Quiapo (Photo courtesy of Jessie Thompson Huberty)
Alice was given the room that later became that of my grandparents. My mother and I occupied it in 1948 when we returned to Manila after WWII. It was a large room with wide narra [a type of hardwood] floors, open to the elements on one side, and, when closed, had windows made of capiz [mother-of-pearl shells]. Leading up into the room was a small, circular wrought-iron staircase. This connected downstairs to a set of rooms. Alice wrote in her autobiography, Crowded Hours, that on the first morning of her stay she was startled when there was a loud knock emanating from below, and suddenly up popped some “smiling, little brown faces” with her breakfast on trays.
The Sala/Ballroom (Photo courtesy of Jessie Thompson Huberty)
Benito Legarda Tuason (Photo courtesy of Jessie Thompson Huberty)
My cousin Beniting Legarda added to this lore when he told me that many of my maiden great-aunts were horrified that Alice and her fiancé were allowed to be alone on the azotea [balcony], and some had peeked at the couple and saw them kissing! A few years later, William Howard Taft visited. He used the same room and liked the bed so much that my great-grandfather had it disassembled and sent to the White House, as Taft won the presidency of the United States shortly after his visit to the Philippines. I have often wondered what happened to the bed and whether the bejuco [rattan bed mesh] managed to hold his great weight! Beniting said he thought it had been sent to the Smithsonian. I have two large framed photos, one of each president, Roosevelt and Taft, signed to Benito Legarda Tuason.
Theodore Roosevelt (Photo courtesy of Jessie Thompson Huberty)
William Howard Taft (Photo courtesy of Jessie Thompson Huberty)
So there it is… a bit of human history.
Jessie Thompson Huberty was born in the Philippines. She has lived her adult life in the United States with travel every year to visit family and friends in Manila.
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