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Analysis Of Richard Hofstadter's 'The Water Cure'

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Wilson 1 Kaitlyn Wilson December 1, 2016 Hist 2020 Section L18 - Dr. Paulauskas Final Paper - Question #4 America is supposed to be a country based on freedom and comes off to be a very good place. Fear has been a major reaction to a mass amount of historical events. The country of Liberty has a face of fear behind a perfect mask. “The Water Cure” an article by Paul Kramer, is about American Soldiers torturing Filipinos. The Soldiers would torture them to get information out of them, and they found it pleasing (Kramer, 40). The Filipinos had salt water forced through their nose, causing stomach and throat pain (Kramer, 41). Another article by Richard Hofstadter, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” discusses the paranoia of Americans …show more content…

Their bodies would expand as the water increased until the soldiers forced the water out by applying pressure on their stomachs and they described it as terrible (Kramer, Paul). “My stomach and throat pained me, and also the nose where they passed the salt water through” (Kramer, 41). As well as forcing water down their throats, they also forced salt water through their nose (Kramer, 41). “Military necessity does not admit of cruelty-- that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge, nor of maiming or wounding except in fight, nor for torture to extort confessions” (Kramer, 24). The military would not confess to the torture as a form of revenge, which would cause more fear as the Filipinos look as if they were lying during their testimonies. American soldiers put the Filipinos in such pain and horrific terror in order to get information out of them. When the Filipinos gave their testimonies, the Soldiers never admitted to any of the crimes, causing an even larger amount of fear within the Filipinos wondering what would happen to them if the court assumed that they were the ones lying (Kramer, Paul). This article is a good example of fear in American History because of the torture, the threats and the fear of what the government would do to them when their voice was

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