[457] I was the only member of the first commission to be reappointed.

Neither General Otis nor Admiral Dewey cared to serve, and indeed the professional duties of each of them rendered his appointment to the new commission difficult, if not impossible.

Mr.Schurman had at one time expressed himself as vigorously opposed to the idea of a new commission, maintaining that the best results could be obtained by the appointment of a civil governor with wide powers.

It was therefore taken for granted that he would not desire reappointment.

Colonel Denby was keenly interested in the work and would have been glad to continue it, but he was past seventy and with his good wife had then spent some fifteen years in the Far East.