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Show U P -1! ' ' v ' "T ivWT1 V ' W Mfr baTe 10 shIne thc,r 'shoes ond make their own ' X5K2W ' ' Such a PrSrnm of' work, and such strict dls- J vSsf4'i m'ffi' 'MyU clpline as to conduct soon proves whether or not - raduab'OTVi' 'Af VgSjAr ' l the cadet has -real stuff In. him. If he hasn't, if " M -.7. TSOL.: V$' 'zl' Y sfrrV& bls scholarship falls below par. and If, as pre- .r,1 iJ d . :' .J-- ' "7Jl3j w&'$ - j viously stated, he doesn t keep the rules, out he V - :V' .: " ' : X . -'X'L'-l.X ' , ,'Vil cocs! Neither birth, family, influence nor wealth . . V By" ELMO SCOTX . WATSON 1 "71 N-' JUKE 13 some 209 young men ' "Etthered In the big gymnasium at. : the v United. States Military academy . - ; J ' I ' ai.yesl V jnt, N." Hi, there to re-.v re-.v -".X V; I ' celve' 'from1' 'th'e:' hands - of a.repre-" a.repre-" x ' J 'sentntIve of e secretary of war and MaJ.'Gen. William R. Smith, snper-. snper-. x&z -a, intenden of the. academy, their muih Wm& of gra'doatlon. And thereby ; yC was added to the rolls' of the United . . IQgjfctjf States army the names of 299 "of-X "of-X 4 . Ocers apd seiitlemen." iiark that - phrase well, for IC has more meaning than appears . J!, from a casual reading-of ltv axid what that mean- .' lng Is you will come to understand a little, better , further along. : - .: . V. -On July 1 there will arrive at the academy some .i 400 young men who come from every part of f the ' United States and from every level of the . diversified society which characterizes such , a democracy" as' the United States of America. For. "' these newcomers are the raw material from which "t. th-e''dfUeers' and. gentlemen" of' four years hence , are made. .During the two months immediately . . following their admission to the academy they . will spend-in an Intensive military training heir he-ir fore-they are officially accepted Into the. United Sta-tes corps of cadeta Tills period, the most rigid and exacting of the entire four years at West Point, will be spent under a group of selected In-f In-f Btructors from the first class, known as ihe "Beast , i Detail, supervised by officers of the tactical -de1' ... . partmenl of the ucademy.. For these newcomers .In."kaydet slang,", are now the "beasts." And" It la not until the termination of "beast barracks,". . followed by a hike of about a week's duration, that these members now known as plebes," are - absorbed' Into the corps as the fourth class and ' take op their ne academic duties the first week -In September. .. The motto of the United States Military acad- emy is "Duty, Conor, CJountry.' During. the pre-'- .'1' "llmlnary tr'alnjhg'of the newcomers .-this .summer ' i ; "one of the ffrst things they . will learn Is the real meaning back of tliat motto. Here Is that meaning as it 1s Interpreted In "Bugle Notes,' the little handbook which the "kaydets' call the "Plebe's. Bible." The motto of the corps, the standard by which ; . very cadet regulates- bis personal life Is "Duty, Honor, Country." "Country" needs no definition; , "Onr Country, right or wrong", is the patriot's ,.Rlogan throughout -the nation. But the standards of "Duty" and "Honor", at. West Point are dlstinc-, dlstinc-, tlve nnd rigid; and because. In civilian life, the general attitude as to these two principles from time to time and from place to place, the following page's are devoted in great part to a definition of the attitude of the corps in matters of duty and honor: ..' DUTY i Graduates of West Point have always inspired ' and set the standard of duty In the army. That " they have been able to do so, 1b due entirely to the - Inculcation 'of a keen cense of duty, and to. the. faithful, conscientious and cheerful performance '' of eve'ry task imposed upon them' while at the.acad ' emy. Only he who has acquired . the habit of dia-" ' clpline, of duty, and of justice can be trusted to act as a leader in a profession which deals with the lives of men. Performance of one's duty implies far' more than ' .mere obedience to the letter of the law. In other walks of life, technicalities and evasive; tactics arc condoned and even lauded as an Indication of : cleverness. In the army where the lives are the price of failure there are no technicalities and an order is given, a statement received at its face , --value- When it becomes a soldier's-duty to obey an order, It also becomes his duty to look be-' neath the surface of that order for rts spirit, nnd In so doing to put his whole being into Its performance. per-formance. A fearless readiness to assume respon- slbtllty and the determination to. do, not Just the Job, but the whole and the best Job are what is expected of a West Pointer, Every cadet la expected to make It his individual individ-ual and personal obligation to maintain- the hlgh-.. hlgh-.. est possible standard of duty and to do everything , In his power to discountenance and discourage anj act or spirit which might place a premium on th nonperformance of one's duty. . , HOXOU, ' Honor is the morft cherished principle of life; It Is the beacon which guides every one during their stay at the military academy and during the career of later life. The fundamental principles of honor, their application ap-plication to specific acts and problems, and th methods ' of administering " and 'enforcing these principles and applications, have long been designated desig-nated by the general term, the "Honor System " ' Almost all educational Institutions have honor sy6tems, varying In severity, efficiency and effec-tlveotsa effec-tlveotsa honor systems t-y which to a greater or Trophy- "Point less degree, .students consider themselves bound, and which exert a varying degree of Influence on . the lives of the' several institutions. At the peak of the varying scale stands the honor system of the corps, representing the best, the most steadfastly upheld, the most practical and, at once, Ideal system sys-tem of honor in the world. The basic principles of the honor system are;; no lying, no cheating, no half-truths. ... Now ail of this may sound very much like the type of thing that you will read in any of the student handbooks, which are given to members of the freshmen clnss In any educational Instltu-: Instltu-: tion in the United States. And to the cynical-minded, cynical-minded, who have observed the break down of honor systems in various institutions, this state- ment from "Bugle Notes" may mean nothing more , than a similar statement in other such handbooks. But here, lies the difference: At West Point honor Is a living reality. Go there, as did the wjlter of this article, and you will quickly realize that fact. It Is not because the cadets go about their business with a conscious air of virtue; It is not that they parade the fact that their honor is to them the dearest of ail things ; it is not that there -is a visible evidence of a rigid adherence to a code of honor set forth In formal phrases- and exemplified by apparent effort. But it is a part of their every day fe and as such It finds Its .. phrasing In a, "single expressive colloquialism; For theheart "and 'soul and watchword of the West Point code of honor Is expressed in Just two words "All Right." Cadet life at West Point is one of rigid discipline, dis-cipline, hedged about by many restrictions. The cadet has a certain time for doing a" certain thing, he is supposed to be In certain places for certain , duties at certain times. If he is not in those places or performing those duties he will receive demerits, .those black marks for which he must make amends, usually by doing "punishment tour," which means that he must spend some of the extra ex-tra time that he would ordinarily have for leisure. -marching at attention on the campus. Enough demerits received for infraction of the rules oi . the. nca demy im.y lead to' Iris expulsion. . -Cadet life if one of Spartan. simplicity-. Cadets. . are not - allowed to .have or receive money ; they .'cannot smoke except in their own rooms; -they' ..cannot, iea.ve,. the,, reservation - except at stated . . , .times. Christmas-.- leave is only Issued-, a . year , - and a half, after the-cadet first enters. ' , ; . In addition to .the four daily drills In Infantry ' field artillery, cavalry nnd const artillery lessons must be learned ; -mot lipmatics. from simple-algebra through the latest wrinkle In calculus and least squares ; philosophy, chemistry," electricity, French nnd Spanish, English and history. 'Cadet rooms must, he swept out'' anO ' cleaned by the .cadets themselves four time .dally and they count at West Point. Of course,, to the average American youth, it would seem easy to "heat ihe game" and o cover . up his rule-breaking, so that he would not suffer the penalty for It. But at West Point "beating the game" Is not a popular sport and here is where the "All Right" comes in. Suppose, for instance; that the cadet leaves his room, the barracks or'the post, and In doing so he meets a "tac" (a tactical officer). If the "tac' Inquires. ' "all right?"' and the cadet replies "all right!" It most decidedly IS all right, that Is to say, these two words are a complete explanation of his action, that n's leaving his room, the barracks, bar-racks, or the post is not an Infraction of the rules. For, say the rules, "an 'all right,' involves the purpose pur-pose of a visit, as well as the place. No cadet may report 'all right' when he Is going anywhere for an unauthorised purpose" And here Is another and even finer Interpretation of the rule. tllt a cadet is asked 'all right?' his answer should refer to the time that the question was asked and not to the moment that the answer wns given." So you see a cadet's action which Is not all right one minute may apparently be all right the next minute, but he can not take advantage of the apparent compliance com-pliance with the rules within that short space of time, for the code of honor of West Point says "no half-truths." Another of the guiding principles of the cadet, as set forth In the "Ilebes Bible" Is this: "Quibbling, "Quib-bling, evasive statements, or" technicalities In order or-der to shield guilt o.' defeat the ends of Justice will not be "tolerated. The code of the soldier demands de-mands courageous and fearless honesty in setting forth the truth, regardless of consequences." So when the cadet answers "all right" ft means Just . exactly that and not a whit less. If the thing he Is doing when that Inquiry Is made Is hot all rl:ht then he says nothing and accepts the demerit which he has earned. For "cadts do nrtt make-excuses. make-excuses. Explanations, citing extenuating circuhv stances or adequate reasons for. failure In. the 'performance of duty may he si bmitted." Bui "Offenders of the code of honor are never granted Immunity." " ' . . . And those rules and this code of honor apply to all from the lowliest plehe to the most outstanding out-standing member of the first class. There Is a rather widespread' -popular' belief that In most of our educational institutions athletic stars can "get by with anything." But that distinctly Is not true at West Point Take the case of Cadet Cagle "Red" Cagle, as you probably have heard of him, the outstanding bncktleld s-lar of the football foot-ball team and next "year's 'captain. Last winter . Cagle obtained a leave of nhsence which he spent in New. York city. When he returned to the richd emy. he was late, through no especial fault of.'hls, . by .a very short time. But was this breach of . rules ..overlooked In the case of this great foot-hall foot-hall star?. It most emphatically was not. For the ...next month "Red" Cagle was doing 22 hours of "punishment tour," -22 extra hours marching, at' attention on the campusIf you will more)) for an hour at attention !yoii will 6oon appreciate" that 22 hours In a' month, 'or nearly " an hour a May extra, Is no Joke nnd least of all would It seem . so if you were doing 'it for what might "seem 'to be .a very unimportant reason. Th!nk back over the number-of times yidi have been-late to' an ap-' " polntment and offered as an excuse for your tardi- ness an airy "Sorry, old fellow!" and then see. how: you would feel If 'you had lo pay for it the way "Red" Cagle did for' his tardiness, But remember that discipline at the jvillltnry academy comes ahead of anything els. Four years of -such discipline, f such practice, !i self-restraint self-restraint by the young men who are enrolled . there, by their training in scrupulous regard for duty, by their doing the right thing because it Is the right thing, according to' the code of honor ennnot but result In making men of high physical and mental standard. Those four years have brought a knowledge nnd physique that couldn't very well be obtained any other place; have given that Insight Into men that few colleges give; have formed and molded a character that neither knows nor shields crime or deceit; have breathed into It lhat spirit of the. corps exemplified by Its motto: "Duty, Honor, Country." And that is why the term "officer and gentleman," when applied to t West Pointer, means exactly that! |