HUGHES TO DAVIS, OCTOBER 25, 1902

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF CALIFORNIA,
OFFICE OF THE COMMANDING GENERAL,
San Francisco, Cal., October 25, 1902.

Brig. Gen. GEORGE B. DAVIS,
Judge-Advocate-General, U. S. Army, Washington, D. C.

MY DEAR GENERAL: Your letter of inquiry of the 3d instant has just been received. It is not possible for me, here and now, to fix the time when Father Augustine de la Pena was taken to Banate and delivered to the commanding officer at that place as a prisoner. It was about the 1st of December, 1900. I do not know that he was taken by boat, and have always supposed that he was taken overland by the detachment that captured him, which was a portion of Company H, Eighteenth United States Infantry, then serving as mounted troops. If he was taken by boat I have no knowledge of that fact.

It was not known to me that Father de la Pena was a prisoner until some days after he was taken. Having been apprised of his capture and confinement at Banate, as he was the acting bishop of the diocese of Jaro, I wished to have him well cared for, and looked about to see if he could be properly taken care of in Iloilo, with the view of having him transferred to that place.

Owing to the fact that the insurgents had burned Iloilo at the time it was occupied by our forces, we were greatly pressed for shelter, and there seemed to be no place in which to locate Father de la Pena unless he was sent to the general prison. That was not considered to be a suitable place for him, so I concluded he would be more comfortable in the church at Banate, where I understood he was confined.

So far as known to me Father de la Pena never suffered any punishment in the nature of the "water cure," or in any other way. His death was officially reported to the headquarters. This report was returned to the medical officer for a statement of the cause of his death. My recollection is that the medical officer stated the death of Father de la Pena resulted from heart disease. But that paper must be on file somewhere, and may now be in Washington. Later on the commanding officer came to Iloilo and personally gave me a verbal account of the padre's death, and there was no suggestion of any punishment of any character in his account.

The Twenty-sixth Volunteers sailed for home on or about the last of February, 1900—the exact date I can not now give—and I left for Samar early in May. While in Samar, about the last of July or early in August, a letter came to me from an ex-soldier of the Twenty-sixth Volunteers, saying that a Spaniard from Boston had been in Burlington, Vt., inquiring about the death of Father de la Pena, and stating that he knew all about it.

I replied saying, in substance, that I had supposed I knew all about the death of Father de la Pena, but his letter had raised a doubt in my mind, and if he would give me some data to go on, I would have an investigation of the matter.

No reply was ever received to that letter, and as all the troops who were on the island of Panay at the time of the occurrence had returned to the United States, it was impracticable to do anything in the way of further investigation from where I then was.

I do not have this soldier's letter here, and no copy of my letter to him was retained, as at the time it was written I was confined to my room in Calbayoc and wrote the letter myself. I regret to say that I am now totally unable to recall the soldier's name, nor do I believe that I could recognize it if it was suggested to me.

The arrest and confinement of Father de la Pena was not at all surprising to me. Some eight or ten months previous to the time in question, Lieutenant-Colonel Dickman and Maj. Guy V. Henry, jr., came to me and asked if I would support them in arresting this padre. They were told that they would be supported in arresting any one, regardless of their condition, position, or sex, if they could establish the fact that he or she was an obstacle in the way of our accomplishing the object which our Government expected of us.

I left Iloilo on an expedition the next morning, and do not know the details of the search made for proofs against Father de la Pena, but I understood, in a very general way, that a search was made of his office at Dumangas, and proofs were not unearthed which were considered enough to justify his arrest.

Evidence of the padre's connection with the insurgents continued to come in to me for some months. At one time he proposed to move his place of business from Dumangas to Janiuay, the most populous pueblo in Panay, and located on the debatable belt between our forces and that of Delgado. In order to head him off I had Janiuay garrisoned. The padre then took up his residence in Molo, which was the seat of the insurgent Junta.

When he made this move I cautioned the commanding officers between Molo and the insurgent lines to keep a lookout for this man, as he was busy with the affairs of the insurgents, but we could not get the proofs, and that if he was found passing in or out of our line of posts, to arrest and confine him. Thus his arrest was no surprise to me, and excited no anxiety.

Respecting your inquiry, "Whether the fact that the 'water cure' was being resorted to by troops under your command, with a view to obtaining information as to the plans or movements of the insurgents, or for other purposes, was made known to you, and what action, if any, was taken with a view to its prevention."

In answer to this question, I have to say that while I was in the Philippine Islands no case of the "water cure," as defined in history, or as defined by the late trials in the archipelago, was ever made known to me.

Since my arrival in the United States it has been made known to me that the water cure was applied at Igbaras. So far as I know, this was the first and only case of the "water cure" having been resorted to for a military or any other purpose in my command.

If I am to construe the term "water cure" generically, I can say that there were four cases of treatment—not "water cure," as explained to me—which were made known to me while I was still in the archipelago, but too long after their occurrence to admit or justify action on my part. Two of these were from natives, and related to two cases where an effort was being made to run down the perpretators of atrocious crimes—crimes of insurrecto natives against Americanista natives. The statements were made to me by the female friends of the men who had been forced to speak.

These statements were made to me after the negotiations for the surrender of the insurgent forces in the province of Iloilo had been made, which was no time to attack our own people. After inquiring if the men had been injured in any way, and finding that the injuries sustained by them were only to their feelings, and considering the fact that the suspension of hostilities removed the caucus bellum between the natives, thereby curing the evil, it was not considered either prudent or necessary to take any action in the matter further than to assure the 'complainants that they need have no anxiety for the future, which was entirely satisfactory to them. One of the complainants was from Negros and the other from Panay.

There was a case reported officially by a young officer at a station on the west coast of Cebu. He had given two boys a switching, while making use of them as guides. I contented myself with telling the Adjutant-General to write the youngster a note and tell him he must not do so any more.

The fourth case made known to me was by reference of a complaint, submitted by some native women of Catbalogan, Samar, that their husbands had been forced to swallow salt water until they were badly used up. I can not now recall the wording of the complaint.

The incident referred to occurred about the middle of September, 1901. We had captured insurgent documents showing that three of the officials of Catbalogan (one being the presidente, as I now recall it) were aiding and abetting the insurgents, although they had taken the oath of allegiance to the United States.

I sent an officer from Calbayoc to arrest them and send them to Iloilo with other prisoners of war. They were so arrested, and I went on the same transport with them the next day from Calbayoc, Samar, to Cebu, and saw them and know they were all right.

The papers concerning the treatment they had had at Catbalogan came to me about the 1st of the next December, at Iloilo. In the meantime, Samar had passed out of my command; the prisoners had been returned to Catbalogan and I was stationed in Iloilo. But as the papers referred to a date when I was in command, I inquired into the matter, and was informed that these prisoners did have a rough time with and in the salt water.

It seems that they were on board the launch which had been sent for them, ready to start for Calbayoc, when a storm came up, and it was decided to return them to the shore for the night, as the launch would not risk going to sea.

In trying to get them ashore in a small boat, it capsized, and the prisoners and guards were badly buffeted by the waves, and narrowly escaped drowning. They were taken to their homes for dry clothing in a very much exhausted condition, and it is not surprising that their friends were greatly disturbed and excited.

There was much general gossip about the general expedients resorted to to gain information throughout the archipelago, and, generally speaking, they were all "water cure," in the language of the country.

Some of the expedients mentioned in my presence were as follows: The application of a lump of ice suddenly to the bare skin of a speechless native who had grown up in the brush in the tropics was so novel that he was talking before he ascertained whether he was burned or chilled; by allowing a native to stand long enough to collect himself, after asking him a question, was found to enable him to answer; marching was another way of loosening his tongue. The use of oil was mentioned, and also setting a man on an ant hill.

The two last named seemed so grave that I instituted inquiries to ascertain whether any such things had been resorted to in my command; but the stories vanished into thin air, and neither time, place, nor person could be discovered, nor when, where, or by whom any such alleged treatment had been perpetrated. Possibly an investigation of the other stories would have resulted in much the same way, but I did not attempt to follow up the gossip about them.

If I can assist you further in your investigation, I hope you will indicate to me in what manner, and I shall be most happy to do so.

Yours, very respectfully,

R. P. HUGHES,
Major-General, U. S. Army.