THE WATER CURE by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 30, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 18.

“THE WATER CURE”

By Editor

Is the mild name given to that form of recreation wherewith certain American soldiers have tortured Filipinos. It is said that the Filipinos hide their guns, profess to be friendly, and when opportunity offers, shoot the soldiers. The “water cure” is used to torture from the Filipino the information as to where his gun is concealed. As is well known, the great proportion of Filipinos have no guns, and it may well be believed that when such a one is captured, he is, as a soldier remarked, “out of luck, that's all, for they usually died from the treatment.” This is what a discharged soldier, Edward H. Beal, tells us in the San Francisco Examiner of April 17, 1902:—

It took about five men to hold a Filipino down. One man had to hold a bamboo across his open mouth for a gag. It was pressed back behind the teeth until the lips split. Other men held the arms and legs of the prisoner as he lay flat on his back. The fifth man held a large Filipino water pot, and his business was to pour the water slowly on the man's face so as to flood the mouth and nostrils. Then when he gasped for breath, down would go the water. This was kept up until the man was bloated, then they stamped on his stomach to pour the water out again.

The officers did not exactly order that kind of punishment, but they looked on. It usually killed a man—forced the water into his lungs and did for him. If it did not kill him, he was no good after that. If there was a kind-hearted American doctor around, of course death was due to heart failure or something like that.

Moreover, this soldier frankly tells us that “the soldiers were always willing to do it. I never disapproved of it. I worked on the proposition that it was war, and the treacherous devils deserved it, anyhow.”

In the next day's issue of the above-named paper, John P. Monahan, private in company B, Thirty-fifth Volunteer Infantry, news agent on the Southern Pacific, tells us, “I have taken part in so many cases of administering the water cure that we ceased to pay any attention to the matter. Everybody did it. It was a common thing.” Once a Filipino major was “aguaed,” as it was called. He was tortured till it was thought he was dead, but would tell nothing. A doctor “beat him on the feet, wrapped him up in blankets, and rubbed him till he got to kind of breathing again. Then they threw him into an old, deserted bamboo shack, and went off and left him. I don't suppose he ever got out of there, tho. He was too far gone.” Similar testimony is being given before the Senate Committee by ex-sergeant Edward J. Davis, of Greenfield, Mass., and others. This testimony implicates inferior officers, as lieutenants and captains. It is of interest to learn that this new American method of eliciting information was obtained from the cruel Maccabebes, who received it from the Spaniards. Where did the Spaniards get it?

But how would Americans feel if some oppressive government with which they had been at war for hundreds of years, and which they had nearly conquered, had sold them out without their consent to some other much bigger nation; and that this bigger nation proceeded to benevolently assimilate the Americans by a stronger and surer process of warfare till they killed more Americans in three years than had their former oppressor in three centuries? Under such circumstances, would not Americans do all in their power to rid themselves of their “benevolent” oppressors, especially when those “benevolent” oppressors themselves used treachery, notably so in the capture of the American chief? We are not looking upon this matter from a political standpoint; we are presenting some of the cold facts concerning the operations of a “Christian nation.” Sherman spoke truly when he said, “War is hell;” and it is just as true that it transforms men into

fiends. And yet there are professed Christian ministers who advocate war, and who inculcate its spirit in Boys' Brigades and kindred organizations. This water torture of the Filipinos is one of war's legitimate fruits, especially of unprovoked, ambitious, predatory warfare.