Grant got it; so did Sherman; so did
Sheridan. George Washington would have been treated in just the
same manner had there been a West Point for him to go to.
"It isn't because of what we upper class men think of you. It's
because of what we're waiting to find out. I don't know anything
about your connections in your home town. You may have been a
great fellow there. You may, for all I know, have had a home of
wealth, luxury and refinement. Your father may be a man of great
importance in the nation. I don't know anything about that, and I
don't care about it, either, mister. From the moment you start in at
West Point, you start your life all over again, and you stand on
nothing but your own merits. We don't know how much merit you
have, and we shan't know until you've gone through with your
plebe year and have proved whether you're a man or not. If we
find, a year from this coming summer, that you're a man, we'll
welcome you into the heartiest comradeship of all the corps.
Mister, I've said a lot more to you than most upper class men
would waste the time to say. Choose your own course, and prove
where you stand.
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