Moved into my office in Malacañan Executive Building. It is very cool, quiet and delightful. Put in my first morning at writing Christmas letters to go by air mail to my children –beginning with Kiko who was born in the Palace just beside here, nearly 15 years ago.
Apparently no announcement of my appointment was made by Quezon so it will just leak out in the press.
In the afternoon, we joined the Gaches at the Carabao Wallow Club to watch a jumping contest in the ring there –we were then told that when the bugle blew we were all to go out and form a “horse-shoe” to greet the High Commissioner and the Commanding General on their arrival. After our waiting 15 minutes in the dark, the two dignitaries arrived. General Parker having come down from Baguio, but having had to stop at the hospital first; his arm was still in a sling and evidently he is not well. Usual press photos and flash lights. Then the High Commissioner spoke for about twenty minutes in eulogy of General Parker, and bid farewell to him on behalf of the members of the Club of which he is the Patron Saint. Murphy used excellent English and has a good vocabulary but was too long, too solemn and too eulogistic. Give him a cloak and cowl and he would make an excellent monk of the Savanarola type.
General Parker was visibly affected, and was spurred to a reply also lasting at least twenty minutes. He displayed the army mind of the “Days of Empire” by showing that he believed that he and the Governor General together had governed this country for the past two and a half years!
Dinner at the Walter Stevensons, where garden and trees were most artistically lit.