The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-05-22
.THEaBUFCHER OF SAMAR. B
HE TALKS ABOUT THE MILES
 REPORT,
Torture and His own experiences.

SIi1tCu CldlCS SpIPSB nllO WEB dubbed "the butcher of Samar," and who was brought before a court-mar- tia1 on the charge of cruelty to the Fill ipinos, yesterday made one of the most comprehensive statements of his side of the case which have been made by any of the accused officers. Major Waller is now in charge of the Marine Corps recruiting office, in Market street, below Sixteenth, and he is stay ing at the Sherwood apartment house in Thirty-eighth street, above Chest nut His statement was called forth by the report of General Miles on con- ditions in the Philippines, which has recently been made public by Secretary of War Root.
 q am not in a position to deny the atrocities mentioned in General Miles report" said the major, flor the req son that it would be impossible for me to speak for all the officers in the Philippine service. I can only say that none of these things occurred in the district under my command, to my knowledge and that several of the deeds complained of seem to me highly | improbable. Understand I don't for 8 moment question General Miles good faith. but think he has been misin- l formed.
 For instance, he reports that six hundred prisoners were crowded into room sixty or seventy feet long, and that some of them were suffocated. The. width of the room is not men, tioned, but from my knowledge of F'ili- pino buildings doubt very much if six hundred men could have been squeezed into such a place. Unless the room | was broader than it was long it would | appear to be mathematical impossi- bility, wouldn't it?
 Another charge which caught my attention was that a party under Ma | jor Glenn moved from place to place to extort information by means of tor ture; that they acted with the knowl- edge of Brigadier General Hughes, and that they were known as 'Glenn's Brigade Now, Major Glenn was a junior officer in the same district with me for time, He was also one of my counsel when I was court-nartialed, and know him very intimately. I | never heard of 'Glenn's Brigade nor did I ever hear of any cruelty being practiced by the men under his com mand, Inasmuch as he was represent ing me when I was being tried for cru city, it is certainly reasonable to be- lieve that he would have mentioned to me in conversational way some of his own exploits in that line. He would have said, Why, have done worse things than that myself" or something of that sort. But never from his own mouth or from the lips of anybody else have I had the slightest inkling that Major Glenn was doing or even did any of the things accredited to him. 'F1. H .{+ "Concernfng the bayoneting of seve- ral prisoners by Lieutenant Caulfield's scouts and the burning of the old man Luna, anything I might say would be merely my own opinion, for I did not know either of the officers concerned, I may say, however, that if those charges are ,substantiated it will be a complete surprise to me.
 "As to the water torture about 1 which so much has been said and writ ten, | can say something. It was nev- CT practiced in my district. and never saw 1t administered, but know that in isolated cases it was tried, and I know how 1t is done. The prisoner is laid on his back and canteen contain ing water is forced between his teeth. He is forced to swallow to keep the water out of his nose. Occasionally a man is found who can hold as many as three canteens full of water, but Ewhen his stomach is distended to it's utmost extent he spews out the con- tents. That is all there is to the tor ture.' It has absolutely no harmful ef-
 feet upon the prisoner. The Spaniards
 had 8 way of dropping water upon the upper lip which, if continued long enough, would produce nervous dis order, and I presume that is why we
 speak to-day of the water torture The only sort of water cure ever heard of being practiced in the Philip pines is the one I have described, and it is so rdiculously silly and ineffec- tive that an officer in his right senses would never think of countenancing it.. He might as we'll order the prisoners feet soaked.
 There is another thought I would like to suggest while we are on this subject of torture. It is a well-known fact that Filipino native has no con- scientious scruples about lying out of a predicament. Suppose now that were
 to threaten a prisoner with hot irons ar thun1bscreWs or whatever you please, if he did not tell me where his
 companions were. Do you think for a
 moment he would refuse to speak, and allow me to proceed with the torture?
 Not at all. He would give me a
 plausible story and send me off into
 an ambush, or plodding over an un-
 broken wilderness by saying that he
 had directed me to the best of his abil-
 ity, there would be nothing left for me
 to do but to pretend to believe him. I
 never used a Filipino scout but once,
 and I think the other officers were
 equally wary of them"
 Major Waller, in a quiet unimpas-
 stoned voice, then went on to speak
 about his own experience.
 Tn America" he said, ''among my
 own people am known as the Butch
 CT of Samar.' In the district of Sa-
 mar where I held sway, the natives
 call me Father In San1ar I am said
 to have been a fiend, yet have. in my l dol taI hry fhn