The Wenatchee daily world. [volume] (Wenatchee, Wash.) 1905-1971, 1909-05-15
'MATR|n0N|ES' IN
THE PHILIPPINES
HOW AMERICAN SOLDIERS TAKE
NATIVE WIVES DURING THE
TIME OF SERVICE IN THE IS
LANDS.

Pittsburg, May 15.-The Gazette
Times tomorrow will publish a letter
from j. ]. Stanley, hospital appren-
tice of the first class, attached to
the naval sick quarters at Olongapo,
P. l., in which he charges many
American soldiers now in the Philip
pines with contracting temporary
marriages with native women there.
In what he alleges is "a true history
of the soldiers life in the Philip
pines,' Stanley holds that the soldiers
themselves are largely responsible
for the disposition on the part of the
natives to kill the Americans when
ever they have an opportunity to do
so.
The native men, he says, are afraid
that the Americans will steal their
women. And, Stanley says, these
fears are far from being groundless.
The soldiers who are doing outpost
duty are said to be almost constantly
in danger of knife being plunged
into their backs by some aggrieved
native.
Stanley says that while some of
the American soldiers have legally
married Filipino women, others take
them only as "matrimonies." "By
matrimonies," he explains, 81 mean
getting a license to live with a Fill
pino woman as long as you wish, pro-
viding you support her. You are not
required to take her with you in
public or introduce her as you wife;
she Is just your 'matrimonie.'
These matrimonies," Stanley says,
may be obtained from justice of
the peace. When the soldiers enlist
ment expires he can come home, and
leave his "matrimOnie' behind. STAN
ley has no patience with this kind
of business. He regards it as most
Many of the offenders,
he says, have wives back home. The
native women he calls "goo-gooes,
and it costs SIT month for the SOL
der to keep his "goo-goo."
Constituting, Stanley says:
''At the dance halls the girls are
allotted a number of tickets which
are sold by the man who is running
the place. The girls have to dance
with every man who buys their tick
cts. Some of the best dancers are
given 81 day, but many Of them get
only SO cents. 1t is at these dance
halls many of the "goo-gooes' meet
the soldiers and induce them to mar
ry them. The Filipino men are gen
orally lazy and if their wives can
dance and earn the living of the fam
lily in that way the husbands are
mighty tickled. Naturally, when an
American soldier comes along and
takes one of these wives her husband
becomes his mortal enemy.
Zone of the soldiers who is lead
ing this kind of life has wife and
baby back in the states. He is not
sending them any money. All his
surplus goes to his 'matrimonie' Not
long ago his wife wrote to him that
she and the baby were in straitene1
circumstances, but he had no money
to send to them. Her next letter told
him that she had been compelled to
go to work to support herself and
child"
In ending his letter Stanley says
that some of the soldiers who have
spent all their money on the Filipino
women are so disguised with them
selves at the end of their enlistment
on account of having nothing to take
home with them that they reenlist
and keep on living with their "mat-
rimonie," apparently having lost all
their self-respect and abandoning
themselves to their fate. Stanley en-
M