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The Philippine Scout Mutiny of 1924

Author(s): Richard Meixsel
Source: South East Asia Research, Vol. 10, No. 3 (NOVEMBER 2002), pp. 333-359
Published by: IP Publishing Ltd
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 The Philippine Scout Mutiny of 1924

Richard Meixsel

Abstract: Raised during the Philippine War (1899-1902) to serve

as infantry auxiliaries, by the early 1920s Filipino-manned regi
ments of the US Army had come to mirror American units in

organization and training. These 'Philippine Scouts' were the bul

wark of American rule in the Philippines but did not receive the
same benefits as American soldiers. Disaffected soldiers who staged
a mutiny in July 1924 found themselves sentenced to lengthy prison
terms, but despite the worrisome challenge to its authority, the army
made no changes in the Scouts' pay, recruitment or leadership. The
Scout Mutiny was a telling expression of both the marginality of
America's 'colonial army' and of the officer corps' distaste for im

perial responsibility.

Keywords: colonial armies; mutiny; Philippine Scouts; Douglas

MacArthur; Vicente Lim; Tomas Riveral

At nine o'clock on the evening of 27 June 1924, a soldier of the Philip

pine Scouts (the Filipino-manned regiments of United States Army forces
in the Philippine Islands) approached the home of the Fort William
McKinley Provost Marshal and asked to speak privately to the army
post's senior law enforcement officer. 'Badly scared and excited . . .
afraid that he would be killed if it were known that he had spoken to an
American', the young enlisted man revealed that many Scouts were
meeting in homes outside the post and in barracks on the fort. Paid less
than half an American soldier's wage, Filipino troops were planning
'to step out for their rights' if they did not soon receive an acknow
ledgment of equal status with their American comrades.1 In the four
decades between the end of the Philippine-American War, in which
the Philippine Scouts had been raised, and the onset of the Second
World War, in which the Filipino regiments were destroyed, the Philip
pine Scout Mutiny of 1924 proved to be the sole challenge to the normally

Major Walter E. Prosser, Assistant Chief of Staff [ACS] for Intelligence, Headquar
ters Philippine Department [HPD] (1924), 'Mutiny of July 7-8, 1924, in Philippine
Division, Fort William McKinley, P.I.', MID 10582-59/18, Record Group [RG] 165,
U.S. National Archives and Records Administration [NA].

South East Asia Research, 10, 3, pp. 333-359

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334 South East Asia Research

placid relationship of Filipino enlisted men to American officers. While

the mutiny was short-lived and has been ignored in all published and
unpublished histories of the Scouts, examination of its background and
outcome provides an unequalled opportunity for understanding American
attitudes towards the place of indigenous soldiers in the USA's only
significant overseas colony.
America's 'colonial army' in Asia - the Philippine Scouts - had its
origin in the Philippine-American War.2 That war had begun in February
1899 with the American decision to occupy the Philippines following
Spain's defeat in the Spanish-American War in 1898. By the end of
1899, in what could be called the USA's last 'all-volunteer war', Ameri
can soldiers had largely defeated the forces of the Philippine Republic.
Already, however, the archipelago's difficult terrain, hot and humid
weather, and endemic diseases had begun to take a heavy toll on the
Americans. (About 75% of the 4,165 American soldiers who died in the
war died of disease.)3 In June 1899, Matthew Batson, an officer who had
been impressed by the achievements of the black 9th US Cavalry Regi
ment with which he had served the previous year in Cuba, recommended
arming native collaborators to assist the army's advance through the
challenging Candaba swamp region of central Luzon Island (the main
northern island on the archipelago, site of the capital city of Manila, and
centre of the revolution). In September 1899 he received permission to
do so, and Batson's small force of Filipino soldiers performed creditably
in the subsequent campaign. The Philippine Republic's resort to guer
rilla warfare thereafter complicated the army's war effort, reduced
American enthusiasm for the war, and led to greater reliance on indig
enous soldiery. By war's end in mid-1902, several thousand Filipino
'military auxiliaries' had been recruited and had performed a wide array
of services in support of the US Army. Undoubtedly, their most remark
able achievement was the capture of Philippine Republic President Emilio
Aguinaldo in a remote area of northern Luzon in March 1901.4
Historians have applied the term 'colonial army' to the locally recruited soldiers
who became known as the Philippine Scouts, but the army used 'colonial army'
officially to refer to six cavalry and infantry regiments of the regular army desig
nated for permanent assignment in the Philippines in 1912. None of the regiments
actually remained for more than a few years.
Figures from Allan R. Millett and Peter Maslowski (1994), For the Common Defense:
A Military History of the United States of America, rev ed, The Free Press, New
York, p 653.
For accounts of the US Army's initial recruitment of Filipino soldiers, see Edward
M. Coffman (1978), 'The Philippine Scouts, 1899-1942', ACTA, No 3, pp 68-73;
Clayton D. Laurie (1989), 'The Philippine Scouts: America's colonial army, 1899

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 The Philippine Scout Mutiny of 1924 335

Both during and after the war, army officers drew attention to the
many and obvious benefits of using Filipino soldiers. One enthusiast
not only recommended replacing American troops in the islands entirely
with Filipinos, but argued that the Scouts should also be prepared for
overseas occupation duties (for example, in Panama) or for expedi
tionary service to the Asian mainland. If 'when inevitable war causes
an expedition to foreign soil [the author meant China], and battle losses
are announced', this officer wrote, 'such blood shed be that of Filipi
nos, the American public will view the enterprise with much less
discontent than if each death vacated a place at an American fireside'.
In fact, when the army prepared an expeditionary force for service in
China in 1911, it was widely believed that a Scout battalion would be a
part of it.5 (The battalion was not.)
Such exuberance was unusual. Despite the obvious utility of Fili
pino soldiers, their recruitment had always sat uneasily with many
American officers, and their retention after the war continued to do so.
The army commander in the Philippines in 1899-1900, General Elwell
S. Otis, had only reluctantly acquiesced to Batson's request. Foreign
observers had remarked on the army's seeming rejection of the Euro
pean model of colonial conquest. One English officer publicly chided
the Americans for 'bearing the heaviest burden of the fighting with no
plans to raise local troops. Americans do not seem to understand the

game [he wrote], which is to use one set of natives against the other.'6
The War Department did not abolish the Scout organization after the
war, but it never clearly articulated its place within the army. 'The
Scouts are part of the army', Chief of Staff, General J. Franklin Bell
would state in 1908, 'but they have not the same status as the remain

der of the army. They have no definite status. . . ,'7 Any number of
examples could be presented to demonstrate the Scouts' muddied rela

tionship to the rest of the army: the army Judge Advocate General once

1913', Philippine Studies, Vol 37, pp 174-191; Brian Linn (2000), The Philippine
War, 1899-1902, University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, pp 128-129; Stuart
Miller (1982), Benevolent Assimilation, Yale University Press, New Haven and Lon
don, pp 81-82; and James Woolard (1975), 'The Philippine Scouts: the development
of America's colonial army', PhD dissertation, Ohio State University, pp 3-10.
Major W.H. Johnston (1906), 'Employment of Philippine Scouts in war'. The Jour
nal of the Military Service Institution of the United States, Vol 38, No 140, pp 296—297;
Cablenews - American, 30 November 1911.
Quoted in Miller, supra note 4, at pp 81-82.
Bell statement (14 January 1908), in US Congress, House Committee on Military
Affairs, 'Hearings on army appropriation bill for fiscal year 1908-09', microfiche
ed, HMi 60B, p 39.

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336 South East Asia Research

complicated the extension of the Enlisted Reserve Corps (ERC) to the

Philippines in the early 1920s by ruling that the Scouts were not a part
of the regular army. The law stipulated that only persons 'eligible for
enlistment in the regular army' could serve in the ERC. Filipinos could
only join the Scouts; the Scouts were not a component of the 'regular'
army; thus Filipinos could not enter the ERC, the Judge Advocate rea
soned.8 One other example: in 1931, the first Filipino soldier to complete
30 years of active duty was denied a pension on the grounds that the
Philippine Scouts was not a part of the regular army, and therefore its
members were not eligible to retire and draw pensions.9
The army's ambivalence towards the use of Filipino soldiers was
reflected in its refusal either fully to incorporate the Philippine Scouts
within the regular army organization or to create a distinct officer corps
for service in the Philippines. Instead, it relied on an ad hoc arrange
ment whereby army enlisted men could apply for temporary commissions
as lieutenants of the Philippine Scouts. Contingent on the needs of the
army and good conduct, the men could extend their commissions at
four-year intervals and could (from 1908) be promoted to the grade of
captain, but no further. If they remained in the army long enough to
retire (20 to 30 years or so, depending specifically on how many years
they had spent in the Philippines between 1898 and 1913), they then
reverted to a senior non-commissioned officer rank for pension pur
poses. To ensure proper order and discipline within the Scouts, companies
were grouped for administrative purposes into battalions under the com
mand of regular army captains. These captains (13 in all) were chosen
from among those already serving with regular army units in the Phil
ippines and were allowed to carry the local rank of major as long as
they remained with the Scouts (usually no more than two to three years).

On this issue, see memorandum for the Chief of Staff (6 November 1928), 'Defense
plans for the Philippine Islands', WPD 3251, RG 165, NA; and HPD/Judge Advo
cate General [JAG] memorandum (14 August 1928), 'Applicability to the Philippine
Islands of Section 55, National Defense Act', enclosure to 'Report on the Defense of
the Philippine Islands by Maj. Gen. William Lassiter, August 21, 1928', AG, for
merly classified, Philippines, RG 407, NA.
In 1934, the US supreme court ordered the government to pay pensions to Scouts
who qualified for retirement under army regulations. The first soldier involved, Sgt
Miguel Santos, had actually spent more than 30 years as a soldier, but regulations
did not allow service performed prior to 1 October 1901 to be counted towards retire
ment. Santos returned to his regiment in December 1941 and died on Bataan. On the
retirement issue, see Antonio Tabaniag (1960), 'The Pre-war Philippine Scouts',
Journal of East Asiatic Studies Vol 9, No 4, p 17, and Bureau of Insular Affairs
[BIA] file # 1877-162 to 164, RG 350, NA.

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 The Philippine Scout Mutiny of 1924 337

But even with higher rank and emoluments, the army found it diffi
cult to identify officers willing to serve with the Scouts. A commanding
general of the Philippine garrison once complained to the War Depart
ment that he had run through a list of eligible captains without finding
a single one who would volunteer for the duty.10
What motivated soldiers to seek Scout commissions? Regrettably,
little is known about the original Scout officers. Like many American
enlisted men who re-enlisted into regiments remaining in the islands,
no doubt some American soldiers saw a Scout commission as a means
of continuing a relationship with a querida or to accommodate a Filipina
wife. Cohabitation with a Filipina was very common; marriage to a
Filipina was uncommon but not unheard of, although it invariably con
signed the officer and his family beyond the social margins of the army
community. Former Scout officer, James Tierney, remembered one of
ficer who had a Filipino wife and two children. 'They never', Tierney
wrote, 'appeared on post'. Since few women of 'respectable' Filipino
families would consort with American soldiers, the soldier and his family
also had difficulty finding acceptance in Filipino society."
More often, a Philippine Scout commission was a consolation prize
for failure to obtain a commission in the regular army. Applicants whose
lack of educational attainment, or merely poor timing, prevented them
from qualifying for a regular commission sought service with the Scouts
(or Philippine Constabulary, the insular government's national police
force) instead. The second-class nature of such a commission was
obvious to all and a constant source of aggravation. In one all too typi
cal incident, a Scout officer had insisted that a regular army enlisted

Maj Gen William Duvall to The Adjutant General [TAG] (13 December 1909), copy
in Samuel Rockenbach Papers, Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, VA.
Tierney to Eugene Ganley (8 March 1959), Eugene Ganley Papers, US Army Mili
tary History Institute [USAMHI], Carlisle Barracks, PA. The late Eugene Ganley
was an army officer who from 1959 until about 1979 collected information for a
projected history of the Philippine Scouts. In the course of his research, he inter
viewed many former Scout officers. Ganley never completed the history, but the
material he gathered is available at Carlisle. For a fuller discussion of the problems
confronting Americans who took Filipino wives, see James J. Halsema (1991), E.J.
Halsema: Colonial Engineer, New Day, Quezon City, pp 39^10. The topic of inter
racial marriage is difficult to research without access to personnel and pension records,
which are generally not available to the public. However, there is ample evidence to
suggest that easy access to sex partners was a major attraction of Philippine duty
among enlisted men. Officers were more likely to be married before arriving in the
Philippines and, if not, more guarded in their conduct. One exception was the case of
Gen J.J. Pershing, who was openly accused of fathering several children by a Fili
pino mistress in Zamboanga.

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338 South East Asia Research

man should be court-martialled for having spoken disrespectfully to

the officer. The officer complained that everyone knew 'the white troops'
looked down on officers who served with native troops. At least some
American regular officers agreed. One wrote that he 'wouldn't want
them [American Scout officers] in my outfit'. They had little formal
education and were 'jealous' of the regulars 'since their service was
limited to the islands'. American Governor-General, F.B. Harrison,
complained that the Scout officers were therefore 'in a state of continual
dissatisfaction' and always politicking to receive regular commissioned
status. In fact, when the army did regularize their status in the early
1920s, most of the officers quickly sought assignments that would take
them back to the USA.12

Understanding enlisted men's motivations to serve in the Scouts poses

a greater challenge. The original Scouts recruited by Batson were from
the town of Macabebe, in southern Pampanga province. The town had
long provided soldiers to the Spanish and had raised a regiment to fight
against Filipinos attempting to throw off Spanish rule in the 1896-98
revolution. Having already taken a stand against Philippine independ
ence, these men simply transferred their allegiance to the USA in 1899.13
Similarly, the army identified disaffected communities in other parts
of the archipelago from which to draw recruits. After the war, military
service seems to have become something of a family tradition. According
to one officer, many 'applicants for enlistment were frequently dis
and - even sons - of
regarded, and, instead, brothers, cousins, nephews
the men already in the ranks appeared to take the examinations for
enlistment.' Philippine Scout retirement announcements in the Philip
pine newspapers in the 1930s (the decade in which Scouts first became

Frank Stoner to Ganley, supra note 11 (9 March 1959); Alan Jones questionnaire,
Ganley, supra note 11(1 December 1958). Stoner was a failed West Point cadet who
accepted a Scout commission in 1917 as a stepping stone to a regular commission,
which he received in 1920. Jones was an army regular assigned to the Scouts in
1921-23. See also Lt Frank S. Ross, 45th Infantry (PS), testimony in trial of Pte.
James Vandevender, 15th Infantry (US), August 1924, CM # 162930, Records of the
Office of the Judge Advocate General, RG 153, NA; and Francis Burton Harrison
(1922), The Corner-stone of Philippine Independence, The Century Co, New York,
pp 150-151.
Woolard, supra note 4, at pp 5-7, writes that a Macabebe regiment was initially
raised by the Blanco family in 1896 to protect its extensive properties in the prov
ince. In part because of the military forces it could contribute to successive colonizers,
the Blancos, Philippine-born Spaniards, successfully made the transition from Span
ish to American rule and remained leading citizens of Macabebe after the
Philippine-American War. See John A. Larkin (1993), The Pampangans: Colonial
Society in a Philippine Province, reprint, New Day, Quezon City, pp 182-183.

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 The Philippine Scout Mutiny of 1924 339

eligible for pensions) almost invariably mentioned that the departing

soldier left behind a son in the regiment. When, for example, First Ser
geant Eusebio Cumagun completed 30 years of duty in 1937, the 45th
Infantry continued to carry the names of two of his sons on the regi
mental roster.14

For the first decade-and-a-half of its existence, the Scout organiza

tion numbered about 5,000 soldiers.15 Battalions could be found listed
in the tables of organization, but for the most part companies contin
ued to operate independently. The First World War brought important
organizational changes to the Scouts, however. Primarily to keep the
insular government from getting its hands on the Scouts (and to pro
vide promotion opportunities for Scout and regular army officers required
to remain in the islands during the war), the wartime commander of the
Philippine garrison had brought the disparate companies of the Scouts
together in provisional units of regimental size. The army did not ex
pect to maintain these units after the war, but economic and personnel
trends soon led in that direction. The War Department informed the
Commanding General of the Philippine Department in October 1920
that 'Philippine Scout Combat Troops' would fill a division numbering
nearly 10,000 soldiers. Essentially, this division would consist of the
provisional Philippine Scout regiments. The American component of
the garrison would still be substantial, with nearly 8,000 men. Roughly
one half of the American soldiers, however, would be assigned to the
coast artillery. The Philippine Scouts now formed the mobile army force
in the Islands.16

Further economic retrenchment in 1922 limited the extent of the Phil

ippine Scout build-up but at the same time gave Filipino troops an even
more dominant role in the garrison. Confronted by a congressional
mandate to reduce the army's total manpower by nearly 10%, in mid
year the War Department notified Manila that the American contribution
to the garrison would be just 4,500 men, barely half the commitment

James K. Eyre, Jr (1943), quoting Col Frederick A. Blesse, in 'The Philippine Scouts:
United States Army troops extraordinary', The Military Engineer, Vol 35, No 210,
pp 192-193; Philippines Herald, 30 April 1937.
From 1902 to 1917, Scout strength (enlisted men only) ranged from alow of 4,177 in
October 1903 to a high of 5,673 in December 1915. Strength charts are to be found
under AG # 1879789, RG 94, NA.
Appendix A to Philippine Department, Annual Report, Fiscal Year 1921, AGO Project
Files, 1917-1925, Philippine Department, RG 407, NA. The figure given for Ameri
can troops, 8,985, included about 1,000 soldiers assigned to the army garrison in
China, which at that time was considered a detachment of the Philippine Depart
ment.

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340 South East Asia Research

projected only 19 months earlier. With slightly over 7,000 soldiers, the
Scout contingent would also be reduced, but it now comprised an even
greater percentage of the total garrison. From the early 1920s, Filipino
soldiers would make up about two-thirds of the army garrison in the
Philippines.
Filipino soldiers underwent a complete conversion from 'scout' to
'soldier' between 1917 and 1922. The Philippine garrison came to
include Filipino-manned military units of all arms (infantry, cavalry,
field and coast artillery) and most supporting branches, numerically
integrated into the line of the regular army. Thus, the wartime 1st Phil
ippine Infantry (Provisional) became the 45th Infantry (PS), the 1st
Philippine Artillery (Provisional) became the 24th Field Artillery (PS),
and so on.17 When the 9th Cavalry ended its long sojourn at Camp
Stotsenburg (a large post 55 miles north of Manila) in 1922, its place
was taken by the newly organized Philippine Scout 26th Cavalry Regi
ment. The Philippine Department created a Scout signal company and
an engineer regiment in 1921. An existing medical regiment was stripped
of its American enlisted men and filled with Filipino soldiers in August
1922.
The greater use of Filipino manpower was not, however, indicative
of army confidence in the capability and loyalty of Filipino soldiers.
Economic concerns drove the reliance on Filipino soldiers. The jobs
assigned to them reflected the operational needs of the garrison but not
the belief that Filipinos were capable of performing the assignments.
Nonetheless, when prejudice conflicted with operational requirements,
the latter usually won out. For example, an American field artillery
officer observed that 'up until 1917 the military utility of the Filipino
was thought to be limited to that of a light infantryman', but when the
dictates of the war required the return of the Philippine garrison's field
artillery unit to the USA, the army had no choice but to 'try the Fili
- that of a
pino in a new role pack artilleryman'.18 Similarly, Filipino
abilities in operational communications or 'signals' (the use and main

As a result of the reduction in the size of the army in the early 1920s, an increasing
number of regiments were deactivated, including some whose officers and regimen
tal numbers had been assigned to the Philippines in 1920-21. These included the
43rd Infantry, the 62nd Infantry, the 25th Field Artillery, and others. The personnel
who had been assigned to these units were transferred to other regiments in the Phil
ippines.
C. A. Easterbrook (1926), 'The Filipino as a pack artilleryman', Field Artillery Journal,
Vol 16, No 4, p 375. Harry Watts, who served with the 24th Field Artillery (PS) at
Camp Stotsenburg in 1924-26, wrote that one criticism made of Filipino soldiers as

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 The Philippine Scout Mutiny of 1924 341

tenance of radio, teletype and telephone under field conditions) also

failed to impress signals officers. The Philippine Department commu
nications officer found the Scouts' signal corps skills 'unsatisfactory
and their ability to perform such duties as they are ultimately fitted for
. . . arrived at only after a long period of service'. Again, the dearth of
American soldiers gave Filipino soldiers ingress to this additional branch
of military service.19
Necessity also forced the inclusion of Filipino troops in the garrison
of the all-important Fortified Islands of Manila and Subic Bays. The
army had lavished the bulk of military expenditures in the Philippines
on the four island fortresses spanning the entrance to Manila Bay and a
lone island located at the mouth of Subic Bay, 35 miles to the north.
Constructed at great expense from 1908 to 1919, once completed the
very existence of these forts shaped (or distorted, some officers would
have argued) all subsequent defence planning long after the forts' weap
ons had become obsolete and their modernization prevented by treaty
restriction. As the centrepiece of the army's defence effort on the archi
pelago, many considered the harbour fortresses sacrosanct, a final redoubt
from which both the enemy and Filipinos should be excluded at all
costs.

With the reduction in the overall size of the military in 1922, the
army acknowledged its inability to man even the harbour defences with
Americans. Now it allocated only 800 coast artillerymen to the Philip
pines and authorized the recruiting of 1,600 Philippine Scouts to take
the place of the 4,000 American coast artillerymen called for in October
1920. When the 43rd Infantry (PS) was deactivated in September 1922,
its members were transformed into coast artillery companies. They were
soon joined by men transferred from other Scout units. In mid-1924,
the army reorganized these companies into the 91st and 92nd Coast
Artillery Regiments (PS). American coast artillerymen were reduced

pack artillerymen was that the Filipinos did not share the American 'love of animals'
and thus tended to take less care of the mules that carried the guns. Watts also claimed
that a major problem confronting the 24th Field Artillery was that each mule had to
be individually fitted with what was known as an 'aparejo' (a saddle liner). Only an
'expert experienced pack master' could perform that task, but the pack master of the
departing 2nd US Field Artillery Regiment that the Scout regiment replaced was 'a
jealous individual' who refused to pass along his knowledge. Watts to Eugene Ganley,
30 March 1959, Ganley, supra note 11.
Assistant Director, War Plans Division [WPD] to TAG, 29 January 1921; Memoran
dum for ACS/WPD, 'Inspection of Philippine Department made by Maj. JJ. Bain,
General Staff', dated 25 August 1924, both in AG, formerly classified, Philippines,
RG 407, NA.

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342 South East Asia Research

to manning only the 'key' batteries of Fort Mills.20 It was only in the
air corps that need did not overcome prejudice. 'National character
istics' - presumably too well known to require definition - prevented
the qualification of Filipinos as military pilots or aircraft mechanics.
The utilization of Scouts in virtually all branches of the army partly
explains the significant changes that came about in the Scout officer
ranks after the First World War. Leadership in the Scout regiments now
required the services of professionally qualified officers, not those of
enlisted men given temporary officer status while serving with Fili
pino troops. After 1920, therefore, while there continued to be a few
American officers permanently assigned to the Philippine Scouts, most
officers previously assigned to the Scouts made the transition into the
regular army. Thereafter, most of the officers serving with Scout units
would be regular army officers fulfilling their normal two-years' long
foreign service obligation in the Philippine Islands.
To officers who found themselves assigned to the Philippine Scouts,
the Filipinos seemed to have little in common with their American
counterparts. At a time when relatively few American enlisted men
were allowed to marry, for example, many Filipino soldiers had wives
and children. The 'Scout barrio [village]' was a staple of Philippine
military posts. 'This neat little village of nipa-covered bamboo
houses', one officer informed his comrades, provided even the 'the
lowest paid private' with the opportunity 'to marry and raise that large
family of brown babies so dear to the heart of every Filipino'.21 Cor
respondingly, the native soldiers' standard of discipline was also far
higher than the army norm. Alcohol abuse and venereal disease, two
clear indicators of a unit's disciplinary standards, seemed at times to
define the American soldier's experience in the Philippine Islands. For
example, at the creation (by taking soldiers from existing regular army
regiments in the islands) of the 31st US Infantry Regiment in 1916,

TAG to Maj Gen William Wright, 17 and 18 July 1922, AGO Project Files, 1917—
1925, Philippine Department, RG 407, NA. (The 'key' quotation is found in the
letter of 17 July.) The 'Official Program, Military Tournament, Philippine Depart
ment, 1924—1925' (copy in USAMHI) provides short histories of these regiments.
The American coast artillery troops on Corregidor served in the 59th Coast Artillery
Regiment. From late 1922 to mid-1924, the 59th included two batteries of Philippine
Scouts, but these men were transferred to the 92nd. A fourth coast artillery regiment
in the islands, the 60th, also consisted of Americans. These anti-aircraft troops arrived
in the Philippines in 1923 and were stationed at Fort McKinley until relocated to
Corregidor in the late 1920s.
Ralph Hirsch (1924), 'Our Filipino regiment: the Twenty-Fourth Field Artillery (Phil
ippine Scouts)', Field Artillery Journal, Vol 14, No 4, p 357.

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 The Philippine Scout Mutiny of 1924 343

the enlisted men of one battalion of 'Manila's Own' were found to

suffer a venereal infection rate of over 30%. By contrast, in 1920, the
VD infection rate for Filipino soldiers was one-ninth the rate for
American soldiers in the Philippines. In 1939, three in every 1,000
Scouts suffered from venereal disease; 85 in every 1,000 American
soldiers did so.22 As the historian of the 57th Infantry (PS), then-Lieu
tenant John Olson, recalled, during his tour with the Scouts he never
served on a court-martial board; his soldiers were too well behaved.
His compatriots with the American 31st Infantry had just the opposite
experience.23

Filipino soldiers also excelled in the routines of peacetime soldiering.

According to one Scout officer, the Scouts so out-classed American
regulars at Philippine Department 'meets' (in which individual sol
diers and units competed in sports and military proficiency events)
that separate competitions were held.24 Major General Francis Kernan,
the Commanding General of the Philippine Department in 1919-22,
had resisted the reorganization of the Scouts into permanent regiments
for this very reason. The placing of a Filipino artillery regiment along
side the 9th Cavalry at Camp Stotsenburg, Kernan had pointed out to
the War Department, only led the Filipino soldiers 'to think their work
is of as good a quality as that of the negro soldiers, while their pay is
less than half'.25

Another lasting impression of duty with the Philippine Scouts was

the Filipino soldiers' 'apparent delight in polishing and cleaning'. 'Spit
and polish' was the mainstay of army life everywhere, not just in the
Philippine Scout regiments. Captain Charles Ivins succinctly described
this prosaic reality of day-to-day military duty in the 1920s and 1930s:
'If an outfit had on clean uniforms, starched and pressed, [and] if the
rifles were clean ... the outfit was ready for war.' In the Philippines,
this standard was even more strongly stressed. The Philippine Scouts
stood out even in an army that equated show with preparedness.

Reporting the results of an inspection of the 24th Field Artillery (PS)

War Department (1918), Annual Report, 1917, Vol 1, Government Printing Office,
Washington, DC, p 519. For comparative statistics, see Joseph F. Siler (1943), 'The
prevention and control of venereal diseases in the Army of the United States of
America', The Army Medical Bulletin, No 67, pp 16-17.
John E. Olson, with Frank O. Anders (1991), Anywhere-Anytime: The History of the
Fifty-Seventh Infantry (PS), Olson, San Antonio, TX, p 8.
Tierney to Ganley, 8 March 1959, Ganley, supra note 11.
Philippine Department, Annual Report, Fiscal Year 1921, AGO Project Files, 1917—
1925, Philippine Department, RG 407, NA.

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344 South East Asia Research

at Camp Stotsenburg, the inspecting officer marvelled that the guns'

'steel looked like silver and brass parts shone like gold'.26
The outcome of this, as Philippine Department Intelligence Officer,
Major Walter Prosser put it, was that American officers 'found that
their organizations would run themselves and function with slight
supervision'.27 If some officers feared that shiny weapons and glis
tening leather had little to do with fighting ability, for most the Scouts'
enthusiastic embrace of peacetime routine only enhanced a tour of
duty in the Philippines. Prior to the First World War, Philippine duty
had been so unpopular that the army required the transfer to the Phil
ippines of any officer who volunteered to go. It is no coincidence that
the Philippines acquired its reputation as a two-year 'vacation with
pay' in a tropical paradise in the 1920s, when more officers found
themselves assigned to Philippine Scout regiments. Most of the day
to-day management of the Scout units was left to experienced and
reliable Filipino non-commissioned officers. When the working day
came to an end for American soldiers at noon, the Scouts continued
their military duties under the direction of senior enlisted men. An
cillary tasks that might have provided American officers with a greater
knowledge of their troops, such as barrio officer (the officer assigned
to conduct sanitary inspections of the Scout villages located on the
edges of the army posts), for example, might be given over to an
enlisted subordinate.28

Putting further distance between the officers and their men was the
inability to speak each other's language. Virtually no officer knew
more than a few words or phrases of any native dialect. At various
times, the army apparently encouraged officers to study Tagalog (the
language spoken around Manila and increasingly touted as a 'national
language' in the 1920s and 1930s), but one Scout officer recalled that
actually knowing how to speak a native tongue could damage an
officer's reputation. The enlisted men had less respect for the officer,
as did Americans, who assumed the officer's proficiency reflected

Ivins, 'The monkeys have no tails in Zamboanga', Charles Ivins Papers, USAMHI,
pp 49-50; Maj Gen Eli A. Helmick, 'Report of Iinspection of troops in the Philip
pine Department', 22 October 1925, AGO Project Files, 1917-1925, Philippine
Department, RG 407, NA.
Prosser, supra note 1, at p 10.
Per Ramee to Ganley, 11 May 1959, Ganley, supra notell; 'Vacation', quotation
from Duane Schultz (1981), Hero of Bataan: The Story of General Jonathan M.
Wainwright, St. Martin's Press, New York, p 43.

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 The Philippine Scout Mutiny of 1924 345

regular resort to a 'sleeping dictionary'.29 The evidence concerning

English-language knowledge among enlisted men is contradictory, but
while drill commands were given and understood in English, it seems
that, at least in the 1920s, few enlisted scouts were capable of con
versing in the language of their officers.30
The reliance on Filipino soldiers and open admiration for their com
petence in the daily routines of military life masked a concomitant belief
in their unsteadiness in real soldiering. As already seen, Filipino suit
ability for broader military service was shaped by the operational needs

Per Ramee questionnaire, nd [1959], Ganley, supra note 11. One of Ganley's corre
spondents, Joseph C. Thomas (interview dated 16 January 1959), who served with
the Scouts from 1910 to 1920, claimed to be able to speak Tagalog. Other corre
spondents could recall one early Scout officer, Allen Fletcher, who could speak fluently
the local dialect of the remote district on Mindanao in which he served for many
years. Maj Edward Parfit, who commanded a battalion of the 57th Infantry (PS) in
1924, claimed to 'understand Visayan and Tagalog', but the reporter of the Philip
pines Herald (31 July 1924) who listened to Parfit's mutiny trial testimony wrote
that Parfit understood 'a little Visayan and less Tagalog'. According to the late Arthur
Whitehead, who served with the 26th Cavalry (PS) at Fort Stotsenburg in 1940—41,
American officers 'were required to attend classes on Tagalog', but Thomas Jones
served with the 26th Cavalry at the same time and shared no such recollection. John
Olson, at Fort McKinley with the 57th Infantry in 1940-41, recalled that officers
were 'encouraged' to study Tagalog, but the admonition was not taken seriously.
Letter, Whitehead to author, 29 September 1991; telephone conversation with Olson,
17 February 1991; Jones interview.
In Ganley's interviews of former Scout officers, this question - did enlisted men
know English? - drew the most varied One officer, Benjamin S. Stocker
responses.
(questionnaire dated 5 February 1959), who had several years' experience with the
Scouts before and after the First World War, stated that he could remember only one
enlisted man who could read and write English, while a handful of others could
speak it with a limited vocabulary. At the other extreme, a Filipino officer, M. M.
Santos (questionnaire dated 2 March 1959), claimed that 100% of the men in his
engineer regiment were English speakers. Questionnaires in Ganley, supra note 11.
The evidence of other officers, whether contemporary or recalled long afterwards, is
equally inconsistent. An officer of the 24th Field Artillery (PS) at Stotsenburg re
ported in the mid-1920s that many of the men 'cannot read or write English at all,
and speak it with difficulty', but another officer stationed at the same post in 1940
41 claimed that he could have a conversation in fluent English with any man in his
outfit. Writing of his service as a battery commander with the 91st Coast Artillery
Regiment (PS) in 1939-41, Stephen Mellnik found communicating with his men
'difficult because their inadequate English made every conversation an adventure'.
John Olson recalled that the enlisted soldiers' ability to use English improved over
time: the older men 'were never able to communicate directly in English with their
American officers', but the younger recruits had learned English in school. See Hirsch,
supra note 21, at p 356; Arthur K. Whitehead (1990), Odyssey of a Philippine Scout,
A.K. Whitehead, Tucson, AZ, p 11; Stephen M. Mellnik (1981), Philippine War
Diary, 1939-1945, rev ed, Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., New York, p 9; Olson, supra
note 23, at p 8. Some enlisted men obviously found it convenient to claim they did
not understand English even when they did, a fact that came out in the mutiny trial.

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346 South East Asia Research

of the garrison, not by confidence in Filipino abilities. Indeed, their high

disciplinary standards and rapid obedience to orders led some officers to
hold them in contempt. For example, Prosser insisted that 'personnel'
was one of the major defects of the Manila Bay defences, and his was a
widely shared belief. In part, the dislike for relying on Filipino troops as
coast artillerymen was based on legitimate operational concerns. Most
of the several thousand Filipino civilians who lived in the native barrios
on Corregidor Island were the dependants of Philippine Scout soldiers.
Replacing Filipino soldiers with Americans (few of whom were either
married or allowed to bring families to the Philippines) would both
increase security and simplify defence of the harbour fortresses. But
Prosser was not alone in believing that Filipino soldiers were' too dependent
upon detailed supervision [and] have less natural capacity along artillery
lines'. Furthermore, like proponents of air bombing of enemy population
centres who foresaw the rapid collapse of civilian morale, Prosser sug
gested that it was 'not certain that [the Filipinos] posses[ed] the innate
moral stamina to withstand continuous and protracted shell-fire'.31
Lest any officer should fail to discern the limitations of Filipino abil
ity and make the mistake of concluding that the native soldier was no
different from or even superior to the American enlisted man, Philip
pine Department Headquarters at Fort Santiago commissioned a
psychological study of the Filipino soldier, the purpose of which was
to remind officers of Scout inferiority. Authored by an anonymous but
'acknowledged authority on the subject', The Psychology of the Fili
pino painted a demeaning portrait of the local soldiery. The 'Filipino
character' had many 'grave defects', the reader learned. It was emotional,
illogical, ignorant, unformed, easily influenced, swayed by preference
and prejudice, submissive yet vain, slothful, inert, careless, and lacking
in forethought, competitiveness, pugnacity, creativity and perseverance.
Only superficially and with difficulty could the Filipinos develop the
innate fighting ability of the white soldier.32
Colonel Edward L. Munson of the Army Medical Corps was the un
named author of this unflattering analysis.33 An 1892 graduate of Yale

On this, see WPD 532-24, RG 165, NA.

HQ Philippine Department (1925), Psychology of the Filipino [and] Conversation
with Major-General Leonard Wood, Governor-General of the Philippine Islands,
Headquarters Philippine Department, Manila, p 29. The nine-page 'conversation'
appended to the booklet consisted of an interview with General Wood conducted by
Edward P. Bell, reprinted from the Chicago Daily News.
A copy of the original report, with Munson's name attached, dated 21 August 1924,
is filed as WPD 2903, RG 165, NA.

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 The Philippine Scout Mutiny of 1924 347

Medical School and an army surgeon since 1893, Munson was, by his
own account, also a soldier of extensive Philippine experience. By the
time he wrote his report in mid-1924, he had served three tours of duty
in the islands, had been detailed to the Insular Health Service three
times over the past 22 years, and had served as director of health or as
sanitary adviser to the Philippine government. He also considered himself
no amateur in the field of military science. He had been a member of a
board of officers that had evaluated the harbour defences of Manila
and Subic Bays in 1913 and had studied the 'general principle of mili
tary art' at military service schools. Psychology of the Filipino was an
abridgement of Munson's classified report. In Munson's view, it was
'illusory' to place any faith in the ability of Filipino soldiers to defend
the islands. Despite an appearance of soldierly skill, Munson insisted,
'the practical results of [military] training will never produce more
than a low grade fighting efficiency in the Filipino soldiers'. The De
partment apparently shared Munson's overall sense of the shortcomings
of Filipino martial ability. (The timing of the report had nothing to do
with the mutiny, although its publication may have. The idea for
Munson's report emerged out of concern that too much reliance was

being placed on Filipino soldiers in the Philippine Department's 1923

war plan for the defence of the islands against an attack by Japan.)
The rapid changes the Philippine Scouts had undergone had led by
the mid-1920s to two conflicting interpretations about the nature and
significance of the Scouts. Arriving in Manila for short, two-year tours
of overseas duty, American officers embraced the prerogatives of tropical
service, but gave little thought to the men they commanded. If they
thought of their troops at all, they were as likely to be dismissive of the
Filipino soldier's accomplishments. 'One good white soldier is worth
a dozen of the little brown fellows', as one officer later commented,
'and the little brown fellows know it'.34 For their part, how could Fili
pino soldiers not have recognized that they excelled at the established
criteria of regular army achievement and that they had become the bul
wark of American authority in the Philippines? In the intersection of
these two conflicting views lay the origin of the Philippine Scout Mutiny
of July 1924.
A number of factors had coalesced within a very few years to heighten
awareness of the discrepancy in the treatment of American and Fili
pino soldiers. The reorganization of the Scout units into regiments and
Wilson A. Heefner (1995), Twentieth-Century Warrior: The Life and Service of General
Edwin D. Patrick, White Mane Publishing, Shippensburg, PA, p 38.

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348 South East Asia Research

their later combination into a division had brought most of the troops
physically together in two large brigade posts, Fort McKinley, near
Manila, and Camp Stotsenburg, north of the capital. (These were the
largest army posts in the Philippines aside from the fortified islands;
both had originally been manned by American troops.) This opened
the Scouts to the influence of political agitators and labour organizers
at a particularly tempestuous time. Former army general Leonard Wood
had become the Republican-appointed governor-general in 1921. Wood's
attempts to reassert executive authority after seven years of Democrat
Francis Harrison's liberalism in granting greater authority to local
political leaders reached fever pitch in 1923-24. In recent months, there
had been other strike actions against authority, of Filipino workers in
Hawaii, of civilian employees at the Cavite naval yard, and even of
students at the University of the Philippines.35 Facilitating the Scouts'
awareness of these developments was the presence of many young
enlisted men, veterans of the First World War era Philippine National
Guard, better educated and more politically aware than the older Scout
soldiers.
Inequality in pay was the main complaint. Initially, in 1899, Filipino
troops received in Mexican dollars what American soldiers received in
gold. (Two 'Mex' or silver dollars equalled one gold dollar.) There
was apparently no legal basis for this discrimination; it was, as Rear
Admiral Thomas Washington explained in justifying wages for Fili
pino employees of the navy, simply 'customary that Asiatics should
get one-half of what the white men get in the matter of pay'.36 At one
time, Filipino soldiers had drawn slightly more than one-half the wage
of American soldiers, but by the early 1920s, Filipinos received much
less. A regular army private earned $21 a month in 1921; the Scout
private a mere $8. In the two decades since the Scouts' founding, the
pay of a regular army private had risen by 61%; a Scout private's by
0.025%. In 1921, a Filipino private made 40 centavos (20 cents) more
each month than in 1901.37
In April 1921, Master Sergeant Bruno V. Madrid of the 57th Infantry
(PS) drew attention to the discrimination faced by the Scouts in an
article published in the Army and Navy Journal. The Filipino soldiers

Eugene Ganley, 'Bloodless mutiny', supra note 11, at p 6.

'Hearings before the Committee on Naval Affairs of the House of Representatives
on sundry legislation affecting the naval establishment, 1921', microfiche ed, HN
67A, p 469. The admiral was, in fact, trying to get Filipino wages increased.
Prosser, supra note 1, Appendix, at pp 26-28.

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 The Philippine Scout Mutiny of 1924 349

'now perform[ed] duties similar to those of the regular army soldier in

the field and in the garrison', Madrid pointed out, and justice demanded
that Congress provide the Scouts - a title he wanted removed - the
same 'consideration and privileges as the American soldier'.38 Con
ditions did not improve, and two years later, in April 1923, Madrid
took another approach. Observing the success of other fraternal groups,
he attempted to form an enlisted men's association to petition for equal
treatment.
At the same time, the sergeant major at Camp Stotsenburg approached
the post commander there, Brigadier General Johnson Hagood, and
also requested permission to form an enlisted men's society that would
serve as an outlet for grievances. Hagood suggested some changes in

the society's constitution and gave his approval. At McKinley, how

ever, the Philippine Division commander (who was Hagood's immediate
superior) held the opinion that the soldiers already belonged to a wor
thy organization that they could count upon to look out for their interests
- the
Philippine Scouts. He did not approve of an enlisted men's asso
ciation.39 Thwarted in these efforts, some Scouts - but not the senior
NCOs - discussed forming a 'Soldiers's Secret Union'. They planned
to gain equal pay by demonstrating or staging what they called 'a peaceful
strike' in July or August 1924.40 This is the point at which the young
soldier spoke to Fort McKinley's provost marshal.
Strike or mutiny, the refusal to perform military duties involved a
significant portion of the McKinley garrison. The authorities raided a
secret meeting being held in the basement of the post hospital laundry
on Sunday morning, 6 July 1924, and arrested 26 men. The next morn
ing, two battalions of the 57th Infantry Regiment refused to drill
(although the men continued to perform routine fatigue duties around

Prosser, supra note 1, Appendix, at pp l^t.

Hagood's lengthy statement aptly illustrated how one hand of the army did not always
know what the other was doing, even within the narrow environs of the Philippine
garrison. The proposed constitution shown to General Hagood included an oath of
allegiance to the USA, 'couched in very fiery and patriotic language'. Hagood ad
vised that it be removed, since the Scouts had already sworn allegiance to the
government and other military associations and did not require a second oath. A few
days later, Hagood learned from Fort McKinley that an enlisted men's organization
was being formed, and division headquarters had concluded that the new organiza
tion was probably 'directed against the United States' because its constitution was
known to have included a patriotic oath, which had later been removed. 'Summary
of statement made by General Hagood in reference to disaffection among native
troops in the Philippine Islands', 13 August 1924, WPD 1799-2, RG 165, NA.
Prosser, supra note 1, Appendix, at pp 24-25; Francis Ruggles, 'Causes leading up
to the mutiny of the Philippine Scouts', 19 March 1925, WPD 1799-7, RG 165, NA.

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350 South East Asia Research

camp).41 Prosser, whose office prepared the press releases dealing with
the mutiny and deliberately downplayed its extent, later claimed that
the mutiny involved 'very close to one thousand men' and caused 'con
siderable anxiety' at division headquarters. The division commander,
however, remained calm.42 He was of the opinion that 'the men were

probably ignorant and did not realize the seriousness of their offence'.
He ordered that the potentially dire consequences of their conduct be
explained to each soldier individually and that each be given the
opportunity 'to recant and return to duty with full privileges'. Of 380
soldiers involved, 104 persisted in refusing to return to work. The next
day (8 July 1924) 202 soldiers of the 12th Medical Regiment at Fort
McKinley failed to report for duty. These men displayed 'an uglier
spirit' than that shown in the Fifty-Seventh, but 117 ended their par
ticipation in the strike after being addressed by their officers.
The army suspected collusion with Scouts at Camp Stotsenburg and
Fort Mills (Corregidor Island), but no soldiers at those posts stepped
forward to make common cause with the Scouts at McKinley. No member
of the other Scout infantry regiment at McKinley, the Forty-Fifth, joined
the mutiny either, although the regiment's officers had no reason for self
congratulation. That regiment's sergeant major had refused to tolerate
any disobedience on the part of the Forty-Fifth's soldiers. He had earlier
been accused of misusing his immense influence over the men and had
been told that any further trouble would result in his demotion. Military
authorities were soon approached 'by many individuals' from the Forty
Fifth proclaiming their loyalty to their officers and to the United States.43

There is contradictory testimony to the effect that several officers managed by assertive
action to keep their companies from joining the mutiny. According to Prosser, supra
note 1, at pl8, the commanding officer of Company H, 57th Infantry, N. P. Williams,
loaded his pistol in front of his assembled men and threatened to shoot any who
disobeyed him. Company H promptly marched off to drill. The trial testimony, as
repeated in the local press (Philippines Herald [2 August 1924]), credited the failure
of the strike to take hold in Company H to Sgt Hopinaldo, who ran into the barracks
with a bolo in one hand and a club in the other and frightened the soldiers into
obedience. William Carraway, an officer who served with the 57th Infantry a few
years after the mutiny, was told that another officer, Lt Joseph Walecka of C Company,
charged into the barracks with a baseball bat in hand and 'such obvious determina
tion' to use it that his men promptly fell in for drill. Prosser's contemporary account
makes no mention of Walecka, and members of both C and H companies were included
among the list of mutineers. See Carraway (1969) in 'The Mutiny of the Philippine
Scouts in 1924: personal statement', 1 November, Ganley supra note 11.
Prosser to Maj J.J. Bain, 4 September 1924, MID 10582-59/12, RG 165, NA.
Carraway, 'Mutiny of the Philippine Scouts', in Ganley, supra note 11; Philippines
Herald, 12 July 1924.

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 The Philippine Scout Mutiny of 1924 351

In late July and August 1924, the army tried 225 soldiers for refusal
to obey orders (violations of the 66th and 96th Articles of War) in two
mass trials, one of ringleaders and one of followers, held in the YMCA
building on Fort McKinley. The court martial board consisted of eight
officers, both regular and Scout, whose military service in the Philip
pines ranged from little more than one year to nearly 20. None was
Filipino. Brigadier General Douglas MacArthur, commanding the 23rd
Brigade at Fort McKinley, headed the court martial board. The army
appointed one of the few Filipino officers assigned to McKinley, the
45th Infantry's Major Vicente P. Lim, as the defence counsel for the
accused. At the soldiers' request, Major John Considine of the 26th
Cavalry (PS), an American officer held in high regard by Filipino sol
diers, was appointed individual counsel.
The defence had a difficult task. The issue before the court was
unambiguous: had the accused soldiers refused to report for duty as
ordered or had they not? The adequacy and fairness of army pay was
irrelevant. Lim, the first Filipino graduate of the United States Military
Academy at West Point, had been with the Scouts for 10 years. Lim
knew that most of the enlisted men could not comprehend anything
beyond the simplest commands in English, and that, conversely, the
officers could not speak the men's languages. In what the local press
derisively labelled the 'Tower of Babel Defence', Lim argued that lang
uage difficulties had prevented the soldiers from understanding the nature
and seriousness of their actions. Not only were there many more and

distinct dialects spoken by the soldiers than most officers seemed to be

aware, but there were many words in army regulations that could not

be easily translated. 'There are few interpreters in the whole Philip

pines who can off-hand translate into the native dialects questions asked
in English', he pointed out to the court. The thought that poorly edu
cated enlisted men were up to the task was too ludicrous to
army
But while it was easy enough to establish that there were
contemplate.44
serious communications problems within the Scout units, too many
soldiers had obeyed their officers for the rest to claim that they had not
understood what was being said to them.

Major Considine focused on the role of the non-commissioned officers.

How could such a widespread conspiracy develop, he asked, without
the knowledge of the regiments' senior enlisted men? Several soldiers
testified that NCOs had told them to obey their officers' commands
Lim's statement is found in section 6, pp 818-821, CM # 162932, box 8833, RG 153,
NA.

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352 South East Asia Research

while at the same time using prearranged hand signals to indicate that
the men were to persist in refusing to drill. The officers had their suspi
cions, but the army could not prove that any NCO had participated in
the union or had foreknowledge of the mutiny.
In fact, a private soldier, Tomas Riveral, was identified as the mov
ing spirit behind the mutiny. The 28-year old Riveral had been in the
Scouts since 1919 and had had an exemplary record until the previous
year, when he had been demoted from corporal to private for improp
erly scoring targets on the firing range. In the army's preliminary
investigation, Riveral had claimed that he knew little about the pro
posed strike; later, he admitted that he had authored the 'constitution'
of the secret soldiers' union. He refused to testify under oath at the
trial, but made a statement expressing regret for the hardships the mu
tiny would cause to the families of the Scout soldiers. He had been
motivated, Riveral said, by the plight of poorly paid soldiers who could
not even afford to buy food for their children. Apparently he did not
mean himself. He was unmarried, reportedly kept a room in Manila,
wore civilian clothes after hours, and subscribed to several American
magazines.
Riveral was sentenced to 20 years at hard labour. Three other 'ring
leaders' received 10 to 15 year sentences. The majority of the accused
received dishonourable discharges and sentences of five years in prison
at hard labour. Only six men were acquitted. The Judge Advocate Gen
eral in Washington thought the sentences excessive and suggested that
the Philippine Department suspend the awarding of dishonorable dis
charges and sift through the prisoners to identify those soldiers 'worthy
of being restored to the colours', but officers in the Philippines did not
agree. 'Opinion is unanimous' over here, the Department commander

responded, 'that for military, political and psychological reasons' all

of the soldiers should be discharged and be given no chance to re-enter
the army. To do otherwise would have a detrimental on
impact army
discipline and American prestige. He did, however, agree to a reduc
tion of the five-year sentences to two and one-half years. Most of the

prisoners served two years or less with the penal battalion on

Corregidor.45
The trial did confirm that many officers knew little or nothing of the

Radios, TAG to HPD, 7 February 1925, and HPD to TAG, 14 February 1925, copies
included in the court-martial file. Remission orders (Special Orders 34, 111, 114,
117, 121 and 125, HPD, series 1926) are also found in the court-martial file. See also
clipping, Washington Star, 10 June 1926, in BIA 1877-132, RG 350, NA.

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 The Philippine Scout Mutiny of 1924 353

men they led. The testimony of Captain Charles Estes of the 57th Infantry
was typical. Estes stated that he had had two men interpret his English
to the mutineers in his company. He acknowledged that he did not know
what language they used; he assumed it was Tagalog. Nor did he know
the ethnicities of the men in his company, although he had been told
the names of some of the provinces from which the men came. Another
officer of that regiment, First Lieutenant E.C. Lickman, could not name
the men in his company even when they stood before him. 'I always
get them mixed up', he said. Lieutenant Lickman had been with the
company for two years. There were other officers who could read the
names of the enlisted men from rosters and know that the names be
longed to soldiers in their companies, but could not attach the names to
specific soldiers seated in front of them in the courtroom.46
In its search for explanations for the soldiers' behaviour, first and
foremost, the army blamed outside agitators and the 'seditious politi
cal knavery and discontent' of Filipino politicians for undermining the
loyalty of the Philippine Scouts. 'With universal political contentment
existing the mutiny would not have occurred', Major Prosser concluded.
Governor-General Wood was equally adamant that 'the foundation for
the Mutiny [had been] laid largely by the disloyal speeches of [Manuel]
Roxas, [M.L.] Quezon, [Sergio] Osmena, and others advocating non
cooperation . . . and impugning the good faith of our country'. (These
were the leading Filipino figures in the government of the day.) Prosser
admitted, however, that an investigation could not prove the involve
ment of any 'outside influence', and Wood could present no evidence
that tied 'disloyal speeches' to the mutiny, either.47
The army admitted to ill-considered decisions of its own. The break
down in tribal-based recruiting was one. Army officers used the word
'tribe' to identify the Philippines' 'enthnogeographic' groups. The word
'tribe' itself had become pejorative, and many Filipinos thought its use
unjustly exaggerated the islands' political disunity.48 The army attached
political significance to tribal designates. Those 'tribes' which had
dominated the Philippine Revolution or participated in political activ
ity were potentially disloyal and thus their members made undesirable

See Estes testimony, trial transcript, pp 76-77; Hamilton testimony, p 96; Lickman
testimony, p 186, CM # 162921, box 8833, RG 153, NA.
Prosser, supra note 1, at pp 24-25; Wood Diary, 12 July 1924 entry; Wood to Secre
tary of War, 22 July 1924, both in Leonard Wood Papers, Library of Congress.
Joseph R. Hayden (1942), The Philippines: A Study in National Development, The
MacMillan Co, New York, p 19.

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354 South East Asia Research

recruits. Seen within this context, the army's categorization of Filipino

tribes was predictable. The army admitted that the Tagalogs of central
Luzon and the Manila area stood at the top of Philippine society in
'mental ability', but this presumed mental superiority did not make the
Tagalogs leading contenders for military service. The 'mountain tribes',
for example, excelled in physical prowess, while lowlanders - like the
- were
Tagalogs generally undernourished and diseased, capable of
working long hours but with limited efficiency. Preparing its first de
tailed plan of action in case of insurrection, in 1923, the Philippine
Department staff concluded that the army needed to increase the number

of Visayans, Bicolanos, Macabebes, Ilocanos and non-Christian sol

diers in the ranks and to distribute the Tagalog soldiers 'as widely as
possible'. There were virtually no Tagalogs in the army anyway, since
the army forbade their enlistment other than in exceptional circum
stances, and the staff's recommendation was dubious, given the events
of the following year. In 1924, only 5% of the Philippine Division was
Tagalog, while nearly 40% was Visayan and another 27% Ilocano.49
Initially, Scout enlistment policy had been along tribal lines, a delib
erate adoption of 'the old Roman principle, "Divide and Rule"',
calculated to take advantage of tribal enmities. According to Prosser,
successive commanding generals had taken differing stands on the is
sue of tribal enlistment. Leonard Wood, who had been the senior army
officer in the Philippines from 1906 to 1908, had been committed to
the principle of tribal-based enlistments, but Major General J. Franklin
Bell, who commanded the garrison from 1911 to 1914, had ordered
'the removal of tribal barriers to enlistment'. Thomas Barry followed
Bell in command and 'practically revoked' Bell's policy. Neverthe
less, the increasingly administrative sophistication of the organization
undermined the insistence on tribal-based enlistments. Company offic
ers grew less concerned with unit solidarity and reliability in combat
and instead sought out better educated or educable men who could per
form the routine administrative functions of a peacetime military
garrison. Confronted by a different type of duty, the army concentrated
on recruiting more intelligent men, regardless of their tribal origins.
The army had never cared enough to articulate an inviolable 'martial

49 "Basic Plan - Brown, Philippine Department, 1923', 15 January 1924, copy in Special
Projects, Harbor Defense, Philippines, RG 407, NA. For 'tribal' make-up of all Fili
pino units in the Philippine Department, except the two coast artillery regiments, see
'Tribal classification of units of the Philippine Division', in Prosser, supra note 1, at
p 33.

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 The Philippine Scout Mutiny of 1924 355

races' ideology, the adherence to which might have outweighed practi

cality, and thus, in Prosser's view, 'the danger attending this new
departure was forgotten or underestimated during the long period of
peace following the last days of the insurrection'. By the 1920s, mem
bers of one tribal group did tend to dominate in any given company
(probably because NCOs wanted to recruit from their own families),
but they rarely formed a majority, and the battalions and regiments
mixed members of many ethnicities, who could now make common
cause against their superiors. In the wake of the mutiny, the army's
proposed solution was to reintroduce battalion-level tribal-based re
cruiting.50
The army also admitted to faults in its personnel assignment system
for American officers and enlisted men. Officer assignment policy was
an immediate concern. Leonard Wood asserted that 'the loss of the old
American Scout' officers had reduced American influence over the
enlisted men and encouraged mutinous behaviour. Many officers agreed.
The officers sent to the islands in the early 1920s and assigned to the
newly formed Scout regiments had no 'particular affinity' for service
with Filipino soldiers. The Philippine Department recommended increas
ing the length of service in the islands to three years, identifying officers
who possessed the ability to command native troops, and encouraging
officers to learn the soldiers' language.51
American enlisted men did not serve in the Scout units, nor for the
most did they serve at the posts where Scouts were to be found.
part
Nonetheless, they were a prominent presence in Manila, and they did
not always project a favourable image in either personal conduct or
professional ability. This problem was especially acute in the early
1920s, when a large number of Tow type' soldiers had been returned to
Manila from the Siberian expedition. 'They murdered, robbed, and
debauched the reputation and good name of the American soldier for
fair', one officer wrote, while another claimed that so many of the sol
diers were such hardened criminals that the army had built a special
compound on Corregidor to hold them until they could be returned to
the USA.52 An army review board recommended that white soldiers
sent to the islands in the future should be 'the pick of the army'. The
Prosser, supra note 1, at pp 2-5; Ruggles, supra note 40.
Wood diary, 12 July 1924, supra note 47.
George Treat to James Harbord, 2 October 1921, AG # 320, Philippine Department,
RG 407, NA; Charles Loucks Papers (1984), 'Charles W. Loucks Oral History, Sen
ior Officers Oral History Program', USAMHI, pp 125-126. Treat commanded Camp
Stotsenburg in 1920-21. Loucks was stationed at Fort Mills in 1919-21.

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356 South East Asia Research

American regiments in the Philippines 'should be maintained in a high

state of discipline with special attention to their soldierly appearance'.
Ideally, the army should also return to the pre-1912 system of assign
ing entire units (rather than individual soldiers) to the Philippines, first
'weed[ing] out all undesirable men and replacing] them by excep
tional soldiers'.53
In fact, the army did nothing, its own investigatory boards recom
mended to ensure that there was no repeat of the mutiny. It did not
change officer assignment policy, it did not return to the pre-1912 policy
of rotating American regiments in and out of the garrison, and it did
not insist upon sending higher-quality white soldiers to the islands.
Nor did it reintroduce tribal-based recruiting for Filipino regiments at
either battalion or company level (although it did persist in keeping
many Tagalogs out of the ranks, even when the Scout organizations
doubled in size in early 1941). It did not raise the Scout wage either.
Only in 1928 was one dollar a month added to the Scout private's pay,
raising it to nine dollars. That was still less than half the $21 per month
received by an American army private.54
Essentially, the army viewed the Scouts as 'mercenaries' (Prosser's
word) who were well paid and suitably cared for by the army. They
had no legitimate grounds for complaint. As Frank Mclntyre, the army
officer serving as Bureau of Insular Affairs chief at the time, put it:
'The Scout soldier has at all times been paid too highly', and the ben
efits Scouts enjoyed as soldiers in American service were, in fact,
'excessive in view of conditions in the community'. What the army
really needed to do, in Mclntyre's opinion, was to remind Filipino sol
diers of those facts.55

Ruggles, supra note 40.

Comparative pay scales are found in the published annual Army Register. A com
parison of the tribal strength in the 45th Regiment (PS) from 1924-25 to 1932 shows
that soldiers of virtually every 'tribe' could be found mixed at the company level
throughout the regiment. The only exceptions were Companies A and B, recruited
from non-Christians in northern Luzon and stationed at Camp John Hay, Baguio,
and Company C, recruited from the Muslim community on Mindanao and stationed
at Zamboanga. Comparative charts found in 'History of the Forty-fifth Infantry (Phil
ippine Scouts), U.S.A.', nd [cl924-25] with tribal composition chart, dated 20
November 1932, appended. Copy in Edward Almond Papers, USAMHI.
Mclntyre to War Plans Division, 'Recent "strike" of certain P.I. Scout soldiers', 28
July 1924, WPD 1799, RG 165, NA. Were enlisted Scouts well compensated by
comparison with other Filipinos? The Philippine Bureau of Commerce and Industry
published daily wage scales, for the city of Manila only, in its annual statistical
bulletins. According to the figures for 1924, given in the Statistical Bulletin of the
Philippine Islands, Philippine Bureau of Commerce and Industry, Manila, p 50, the

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 The Philippine Scout Mutiny of 1924 357

The Scouts seem to have agreed. Speculation that recruitment of

Philippine Scouts would grow more difficult in the wake of the mutiny
proved unfounded. On the surface, the Philippine Department's widely
repeated assumption seemed reasonable enough, but it misread the psy
chology of the Filipino soldier and those who sought to be soldiers.
Perhaps the disobedience of a few had made the rest fearful that access
to military service with the prestigious and relatively well paid Scouts
might be jeopardized. The re-enlistment rate shot up in the mid-1920s
and remained at a uniform high until the outbreak of war in 1941. As
the War Department's finance representative, Captain Lawrence Worrall,
testified before a House of Representatives appropriations committee
in 1935: 'Those men, enlisted once, never leave. They build little shacks
outside of the posts, and they and their families live close to their
organization.'56 Enlistment statistics bear him out. Previously around
80%, the re-enlistment rate rose to 92% in 1926 and 100% in 1932. It
averaged over 95% throughout the 1930s. Even the already low vene
real infection rate dropped by a third the year following the mutiny,
almost as if the remaining Scouts were determined to be on their best
behaviour.57 When later, in 1931, the government initially denied pen
sion benefits to the first Scout to complete 30 years of active service
with the army, the Philippine Department's intelligence agents reported

lowest-paid workers in male-dominated job categories (unclassified labourers, watch

men, bakers) made from 50 centavos (25 cents) to 4 pesos (2 dollars) a day. Assuming
full-time employment, this amounted to an income of perhaps 12 to 45 dollars a
month. By comparison, a Scout private made $8 a month in 1924; a master sergeant,
$40. Of course, most enlisted men did not come from Manila, and most would have
drawn lower provincial wages. Also, the majority (81% in 1918 according to the
Statistical Bulletin
[1925], pp 48-49) of male workers in the Philippines were agri
cultural and would have seen far less cash income than workers in Manila.
labourers
More importantly, the Scouts received an array of benefits and allowances worth
significantly more than their base pay. There was a small cash increase for marks
manship, and a substantially larger increase for those who served as guards with the
penal battalion on Corregidor. Scouts had free accommodation and food in the bar
racks and mess, while married Scouts received assistance in building homes in the
Scout barrios (which received free water and other government-supplied ameni
ties). The army also assisted in educating Scout children and providing medical
services. Presumably (although this was not tested until the first Scout was eligible
to retire in 1931), the Scouts could also look forward to pensions. In short, the Scouts
enjoyed considerably more job security than the vast majority of Filipinos.
'Hearings before the Subcommittee of the House Committee on Appropriations in
Charge of War Department Appropriation Bill, 1936', microfiche ed, H694, pp 165
166.
Re-enlistment rates were calculated from the published Annual Reports of the War
Department. For VD infection rates, see Siler, supra note 22, at pp 16-17. The 1924
rate was 11 per 1,000 soldiers; the 1925 rate was seven per 1,000.

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358 South East Asia Research

that the Scouts were not contemplating another 'mutiny'. Rather, the

older Scouts resented the continuing talk by civilians of political inde

pendence that they felt was turning the American government against
them; the younger Scouts 'indulge[d] in war talk, their idea being that
a war would prove their ability' and demonstrate their loyalty and use
fulness to the Americans.58

Their demands were largely economic, just as Riveral had claimed.

The Scouts were not nascent nationalists. They did not look back to a
golden era of the past, which their valour and self-sacrifice could re
store, nor were they inspired by the independencia rhetoric of Filipino
politicians. Despite Governor-General Wood's and the army's contrary
assumption, the strikers found little sympathy from the political elite.
Manuel Quezon's newspaper, the Philippines Herald, editorialized that
'the day would come when an independent Philippine government shall
have to support an army'. It was important that 'the Scout soldiers
should be dealt with rigorously' by the army, in order to establish the
precedent 'in this country now' that 'a soldier under whatever circum
stance has no right to go on a strike'. In fact, the intelligence office
translated a Tagalog-language newspaper article, which reported that
'the few scouts, sergeants, corporals or even privates and their families
to whom [the paper's reporter had] talked' preferred continued service
under the United States government, even if the Philippines received
independence.59 An American informant passed along to the army the
story of 'a Filipino sugar man in Negros' who reported that when sev
eral Filipino politicians had asked some enlisted Scouts about their
attitude towards independence, the men responded that they favoured
independence only 'if they would receive the same treatment' they
received under American rule. The politicians' rejoinder that an inde
pendent government could hardly offer the same benefits drew the
disconcerting reminder from the Scouts that they 'had the guns'.60
In the idolizing tradition of colonial military history writing, the
Philippine Scouts have fared well. The soldier-historian author of the

R.T. Taylor, Assistant Chief of Staff for Military Intelligence, Philippine Depart
ment, 'Digest of confidential information furnished the department commander during
the month of July, 1932', 1 August 1932, MID 10582-90/5; 'Digest of confidential
information furnished the department commander during the month of December,
1932', 1 January 1933, MID 10582-90/6, RG 165, NA.
Translation from Ang-Watawat (19 May 1924), in Prosser, supra note 1, Appendix,
at p 23.
Letter, Arthur Fischer (an army reserve officer living in the Philippines) to Col Leroy
Eltinge (War Plans Division), 26 October 1924, WPD 1799-4, RG 165, NA.

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 The Philippine Scout Mutiny of 1924 359

most recently published history of the Bataan campaign of 1941-42

dedicated his book to the Philippine Scouts - 'the finest soldiers in the
Philippines', he called them.61 This, however, was a judgment based on
the intimacy formed between officers and enlisted men in the difficult
early days of the Second World War. It was not a judgment pre-war
officers would have shared. In 1924, the Scout Mutiny only reinforced
widely held dismissive attitudes towards the use of Filipino soldiers.
To have taken the Scouts seriously, one suspects, would have required
taking America's imperial adventure seriously, something the army was
loath to consider.

John W. Whitman (1990), Bataan: Our Last Ditch, Hippocrene Books, New York.

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