By Prof. Martin Meadows<\/p>\n
Recently I saw the following aphorism in an emailed collection of similar expressions: \u201cYou never appreciate what you have till it\u2019s gone. Toilet paper is a good example.\u201d That saying is quite amusing; however, the reason I mention it is because that is precisely what reminded me of, and thereupon gave me the idea to revisit, the situation that existed in Santo Tomas Internment Camp (a.k.a. STIC) regarding the rarely if ever discussed subject of toilet paper, now known more politely as bathroom tissue \u2014 hereinafter to be referred to as BT. I decided to explore the topic partly for the edification (?) of those who are unaware of it; partly in the hope that it would elicit similar recollections from others (especially women, whose perspective unfortunately is necessarily missing here); partly for my own records; and primarily because I was unable to find any treatment of it elsewhere. That is surprising, considering that BT is almost the equal of food and drink as a necessity of life (he said tongue-in-cheek). To be specific, I found no discussion of it in the four principal sources of information about camp life that I consulted for this brief survey. They include three primary sources (primary in the sense that they (1) were written by internees, and (2) are about STIC in general rather than personal accounts centered on the authors), and one secondary source. These are cited next in a short bibliographic detour. Initially, I should specify three cautions, or qualifications. First, what follows is based entirely on purely personal recollections. Second, those memories seem to be more acute for roughly the last two years of STIC life (perhaps because the \u201ctissue issue\u201d was less critical during the first year). Third, as is to be expected, I deal only with male contexts (i.e., men\u2019s bathrooms) and male concerns (i.e., no mention of, e.g., sanitary pads). Regardless, I assume (erroneously or not) that my BT experiences were not unique to me In any event, with those qualifications in mind, the necessary starting point of any discussion of this subject is the ineluctable fact that BT was not available either at a central place in the bathrooms, or within the individual toilet stalls. That is because of one major (and self-evident) reason: like everything else of value in STIC, BT was in short supply, and would have vanished quickly had it been made available unrestrictedly.<\/p>\n That situation prevailed in all bathrooms, but \u2014 to digress \u2014 there was one feature that possibly was unique to the bathroom that I used, which was located at the south-side rear of the third floor in the Main Building. That feature was maximally annoying, to put it mildly \u2014 all of the half-dozen toilet stalls there lacked not only doors but any kind of covering to shield their occupants. Although I did use other bathrooms on a few occasions, I did that so infrequently that I do not recall whether they had a similar problem, except in the case of a bathroom in the Education Building, where I distinctly recall the stalls did have doors. And, since it is relevant to the question of uniqueness, it is worth noting that at one point I had to use the women\u2019s third-floor bathroom \u2014 that was shortly after liberation, when Japanese shelling forced third-floor men for several days to use the women\u2019s bathroom because, unlike the men\u2019s bathroom, it was located on the safer (north) side of the building. That was how I learned that the toilet stalls there did have covering, in the form of flimsy green \u201ccurtains\u201d \u2014 cloth that extended from about six feet high down to within about two feet from the floor. Come to think of it, for the sake of total accuracy I should say that I can speak only for the first stall, the only one which the women generously let the men use \u2014 the other four or five stalls were reserved for themselves. I had no chance (or desire) to notice the other stalls, for conditions in the bathroom were not conducive to lingering \u2014no water supply, overflowing commodes, overpowering stench, etc.<\/p>\n And now, back to the subject. The absence of BT in the bathrooms meant that it had to be supplied from some other source. That is where the role of room monitor enters the picture. In my room (#43, located as noted on the third floor, at the front of the Main Building), its denizens \u2014 usually about 55 in number \u2014 took it for granted that our room monitor (a former seaman named Henry Pile) was responsible for distributing the BT allotted to our room. But they disagreed on the issue of how often to distribute the BT. One faction, perhaps assuming that most people are sufficiently rational and disciplined to control themselves, thought that each person should receive a full week\u2019s BT allotment at one time. The other faction, evidently fearing that those individuals unable to discipline themselves might finish their BT supply too rapidly, favored doling it out on a daily basis. As might be expected, our room monitor preferred not to be burdened with the task of daily rationing, thus BT was distributed on a weekly basis in our room (and, I assume, in most if not all other rooms; I do not know about the Annex, which housed mothers with very young children).<\/p>\n Now to turn from the question of frequency (how often BT was distributed) to that of quantity (how much BT was distributed). I was unable to remember the ration amount, but fortunately the aforementioned Curtis Brooks came to the rescue \u2014 he recalled that each (male) internee was allotted six sheets daily. In light of that meager quota, even the obvious deserves comment \u2014 namely, that most internees had to try to supplement their BT supply with whatever else they could scrounge. One example of that was newspapers, which were available via the English-language Japanese propaganda sheet the Tribune; it was allowed into STIC until Nip losses in the war could no longer be camouflaged as victories, whereupon it was banned. (It is tempting to speculate that, when using the newspaper as BT, internees perhaps were thinking that it was serving its proper function.) Another example that I am aware of \u2014 or at least that I suspect \u2014 concerns a less obvious source of supplementary BT: in some of the many books that I borrowed from the camp library (located in the lobby of the Main Building), occasionally I would find that pages were missing, a fact which I consider probable evidence of an understandable but extremely annoying means of supplementation.<\/p>\n It would be interesting, in my opinion, to know not only the percentage of internees who did and who did not handle their BT allotments responsibly, but also the consequences of their not having done so. Internees of course were not surveyed about this, and even if a survey on such a personal matter had been feasible, the idea of doing so undoubtedly never would have occurred to anyone. Still, it would be instructive, I think, to speculate, however sketchily, as to what a standard survey would have involved \u2014 more specifically, what kinds of questions internees might have been asked. It seems to me that three basic aspects of the issue should have been examined, ideally focused on the following three questions: Did you apportion your BT supply properly? Did you handle it properly? What did you do if\/when you found yourself without BT when you needed it? (The past tense in the questions assumes a post-liberation survey.) Naturally I can answer these questions only for myself, but I am also able to add a few comments about others in connection with (3)(c) below, thanks in large part to what friends told me during internment.<\/p>\n This concludes an unavoidably cursory, and perhaps to some an offensive, overview of what I have called the STIC \u201ctissue issue.\u201d As noted at the outset, it is a subject which has received hardly any attention in works with which I am familiar. It is difficult to understand the reason(s) for this oversight affecting coverage of STIC. There are several possible explanations \u2014 it may be that the subject has been:<\/p>\n Whatever the reason(s), the \u201ctissue issue\u201d (warts and all) at last has been broached in and of itself. Conceivably it might now even receive the proverbial 15 minutes of fame \u2014 or infamy. \u2014 MM (a.k.a. Martin Meadows)<\/p>\n *Originally the title was \u201cSTIC Tic: Eschew Tissue Issue.\u201d But because that title required a somewhat convoluted explanation at the start, I acceded to my daughter\u2019s suggestion to simplify both the title and the introductory paragraph. \u2014 MM<\/p>\n
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\nThe three primary sources are A. V. H. Hartendorp, The Japanese Occupation of the Philippines<\/em><\/a>, two huge volumes (signed, incidentally, by the author); F. H. Stevens, Santo Tomas Internment Camp<\/em><\/a>; and James E. McCall, Santo Tomas Internment Camp: Stic in Verse and Reverse<\/em><\/a>. All of the primary sources lack indexes (where BT references, if any, might have been listed); and, though the Stevens work has a chapter on \u201cSanitation and Health,\u201d there is no allusion to BT in its six sections. The lone secondary source is the comprehensive survey by Frances B. Cogan, Captured: The Japanese Internment of American Civilians in the Philippines, 1941-1945<\/em><\/a> (also signed by the author). Her book does contain an index, but, index or not, I can neither find nor recall any kind of coverage of BT in these (or any other) sources. Of course, that does not rule out the possibility that such coverage may exist, whether elsewhere or even in the four named sources. (Note: Curtis Brooks, STIC alumnus and member of the notorious Maurice Francis gang, astutely has suggested that perhaps the mimeographed pages of the STIC news sheet Internews<\/em> may contain such information.) And now to move from procedural to substantive matters.<\/p>\n\n
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