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From Socialist Appeal, Vol. 4 No. 47, 23 November 1940, p. 3.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The United States Military Academy, West Point, is under the direct control of the War Department. It is the only school of its kind in the country. Its aim is “to produce not merely competent company clerks, or even competent second lieutenants, but potential officers of the general staff and general officers.”
Founded in 1802, its graduates, with few exceptions, led the American Army in the Mexican War, Civil War, the Spanish-American War and the World War. They occupy the U.S. Army’s highest positions today.
The bulk of the appointments to the U.S. Military Academy are made on the following basis: six from each state at large to make a total of 288; three from each congressional district totaling 1305; 172 from the United States at large, and 180 from the enlisted men of the Regular Army and the National Guard. These four categories cover all but seventeen of the 1964 cadets appointed.
Appointments are made by the President as follows: from States-at-large and from Congressional districts on the recommendation of their respective United States Senators and Representatives; from enlisted men in the National Guards of the states and territories on the recommendations of their respective governors; and from men enlisted in the Regular Army, on recommendations of the commanding general of the particular army corps from which the appointees are drawn.
In only one case does the government provide specifically for a competitive examination, and that is in appointments from the United States at large. Of the 172 in this grouping, more than two-thirds are selected without examination as noteworthy students of so-called “honor schools” (colleges where military training under army officers is given) or as “worthy” sons of deceased war veterans.
A physical examination is compulsory, and justifiably so. A mental examination is compulsory only if the candidate cannot show a certificate of graduation from a secondary high school (in this case, a validating, but not a competitive, examination is required), or show a college board certificate, in which case he need not take an examination. Hence, the competitive examination is really a fraud which conceals this simple fact – the politicians are at full liberty to choose whomever they want without regard to ability.
The only place where the competitive system really operates is in the few Presidential appointments. The nature of the “mental” examination shows clearly the class of people who have a chance of being selected. The “mental” test requires a knowledge usually acquired only through a first rate college education. It is not a test of native ability. The subjects covered are algebra, plane geometry, English grammar, composition and literature, the history of the United States and ancient Greek and Roman history.
Few workers could pass this examination. And that is its precise purpose – to make it impossible for workers to enter West Point. This examination grants the typical capitalist “equality of opportunity,” like that equality of the law which Anatole France once noted holds both rich and poor equally liable for stealing a loaf of bread.
If by some miracle a young worker genius should manage to pass all these barriers, he would have to pay an entrance fee of $300. Any salary he made during his four years at the Academy would go for his own upkeep – not the best prospect for any dependents he might have. Just what provisions might be made in such a case is not known, inasmuch as there exists no record of any young workers ever being admitted to West Point.
What kind of families do West Pointers come from? Arthur P.S. Hide’s West Pointers of 1900 supplies some revealing brief biographies of members of the Class of 1900.
These biographies show that West Pointers almost without exception, are the sons of officers, generals, professors, blue blood families, the wealthy layers of the population.
West Point graduates, when time hangs heavy on their hands, may engage in civil occupations. The civil “occupations” of the Class of 1900 are a conclusive indication of the bourgeois character of the West Point graduates.
Among 116 cadet graduates are listed 37 educators, 28 corporation executives other than presidents, 17 corporation presidents, 15 public officials, 13 manufacturers, 11 engineers, and the rest divided among lawyers, legislators, authors, etc. ... If this is not a “caste of class,” what it it?
We are used to having officers described as “bluff” or “blunt.” An officer who lacks command of strong language in dressing down a private is considered not worth his salt. And we have all heard the term “mess,” which the buck privates, use in reference to their food, a term somehow not associated with attributes of gentility like the correct handling of a knife and fork, or whether to rise from table before a lady, in other words, few of. us associate Emily Bast. with the Army.
In this we are badly mistaken. Cadets at the U.S. Military Academy are required to study social usages for two hours each week. And for good reasons.
It is expected that Army officers shall move only in Society, that is, in the social circles of the rich and the socially “acceptable.” Indeed, every military journal emphasizes this with its extensive society pages. In the Army and Navy Journal or Army and Navy Register reams of print are devoted to the blue chiffon dress and orchid corsage worn at such and such a select affair by the wife of Officer So-and-So. Only a few weeks ago, the Washington press was all a-dither over a gala affair at which the U.S. General Staff hosted and toasted the leading military lights of South America.
In this fashion, the commissioned officer is constantly reminded that the capitalist Army is divided within itself. The officers come from one class; the privates, from a hostile class. These class differences are emphasized in the most common every day forms. Officers and privates eat separately. They live in different quarters. And the “national unity” of wartime only serves to intensify these class differences.
If the vital statistics of the Class of 1900 are typical, West Pointers, unlike buck privates in war, have an amazing record of survival. When they die, it is generally in bed.
Let us take the Class of 1900, for instance, with 116 members. They averaged 25 years of age on graduation. In 1937, those left alive averaged about 65 years in age.
Hyde’s West Pointers of 1900 tells us that in 1937 only 38 or one-third of this class had died. Of these, only one had been killed in action. One was slain in his sleep while serving in hostile territory, and three died from the ultimate effects of services injuries. Among the casualties listed were two who died of appendicitis due to lack of medical attention. The rest died in bed.
West Point, the exclusive training school for the most important officers of the Army, is a capitalist institution in every respect. The manner of selecting its students, the families from which they are drawn, the class training with which they are saturated, all give conclusive proof that the U.S. Military Academy is designed to safe-guard the ruling class domination of the armed forces. And this set-up likewise reveals the deadly fear of the capitalists at the thought of the workers learning the military arts.
Just compare, for instance, the discipline maintained in an army officered by workers – trade unionists – with that in the capitalist army. Members of a democratically run union are united by common interests. We are accustomed to elect our own officers, to decide a course of joint action by common vote after discussion. Not through fear of punishment, but through common interests, we then carry out the majority decisions in a disciplined manner. This type of workers training would condition the character of an army led by union men, and would be a guarantee that the army would not be used by Wall Street for imperialist adventures.
But that is the exact opposite of the character of the present Army regime. The aims of the Army are now decided behind closed doors, through conferences restricted to the General Staff and the “best people,” through secret pacts and treaties. These aims are imposed on the ranks by a martinet discipline, the whip of one class over another.
We want an army modeled like a democratic trade union! An army in which those who do the fighting and dying have something to say about what they are dying for! An army which will guarantee the interests of the American masses! The first step toward the creation of such an army is a program, of trade union control of military training.
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