[1] Seiward J. Morton testified in front of the SIAP describing his experience in conducting the water cure:
“I was on guard and acting corporal of the scouts. A man named Bender, who belonged to Company I, I think, of the Eighteenth Infantry came up and told me he wanted me to help ‘water cure’ this native. I told him that I had no particular objection. [...] We were directed there to throw the native or take him down, and we picked the native up and laid him down. He was a small man, and he didn’t make much resistance. One man had hold of his leg, and I had hold of his leg, and another man had hold of a leg, and we laid him on his back. Another man had hold of an arm, each arm. Then Bender took the water with a cup, dipped it out of a pail, and first they took a stick about 2 inches wide and placed it between the native’s teeth like this [indicating]. The stick was probably about a quarter of an inch thick. When they did that they twisted the stick around so that it forced the native’s mouth open the width of the stick. Then Bender dipped the water from the pail and poured it in the native’s mouth, and finally the native stiffened; that is, he appeared--I thought he was going to die then. I had never seen it done before then. I refused to have anything more to do with it, and Bender and I had a slight altercation there; I don’t remember the exact nature of it, but I told him I would have nothing more to do with it. My connection with the affair ended there.”
[2] Lieutenant Grover Flint during the Philippine-American War:
“A man is thrown down on his back and three or four men sit or stand on his arms and legs and hold him down; and either a gun barrel or a rifle barrel or a carbine barrel or a stick as big as a belaying pin, – that is, with an inch circumference, – is simply thrust into his jaws and his jaws are thrust back, and, if possible, a wooden log or stone is put under his head or neck, so he can be held more firmly. In the case of very old men I...