Excerpt: 'The whole class came to the meeting. There hadn't been such an important meeting at West Point for many a day. The yearling class had been outrageously insulted. The mightiest traditions of the academy had been violated, 'trampled beneath the dust,' and that by two or three vile and uncivilized 'beasts'—'plebes'—new cadets of scarcely a week's experience. And the third class, the yearlin...