The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1896-11-07
Highest of all in Leavening US Report
R9>:a:!'!l! q! fs%assz RfskiRs
ABSOLUTELY PURE
WEST POINT TRADITIONS.
Same Arc Row Observed That Were IN
Vogue Thirty Years Ago.

Same Arc Row Observed That Were In
Vogue Thirty Years Ago.
One may always be sure Of one thing
at West Point that that which goes
on there to-day is that which has gone
on there every day for generations past,
and that which will go on, with triGirg
changes, for generations yet To come.
The board of visitors viii arrive at
just such date; tine ice cream and
first strawberries of the season provided
for their entertainment with equal rcGu-
larity. The cadets will PUT on their
white trousers at the very hour of tine
very day in which long dead generals
put on theirs as yearlings. The buglei
will blow in the sally port as it did for
them; pretty girls will arrive; the
graduating class go through its exer-
cises, and then, for the first time, march,
up en- masse to make its last salute at
parade; the graduating hop will be
given, and farewells and tears win fol-
low, and the next day Hudson river
boat will carry all the young graduates
away, and the old unbroken current of
West Point life close over the places
they have left, as it closed over the
Yet West Point is full of traditions of
men and women, for all the dominance
of institution over individual. Nowhere
else in the country are traditions, in fact.
more carefully guarded. You can see
to-day the very spot at Fort Clinton,
next the summer encampnent, on which
years ago the famous Fanny Elssler
danced for the cadets in the moonlight,
having stolen her way past sentinels
and guards and ever-alert young officers
to do so. No new road or trolley line
Is ever in danger of destroyingit. And
the little spring at which Gen. Washing
ton once stopped to drink bubbles as
freshly and in as undisturbed quiet as
it did in his day. The very stones in
the area of barracks are still pointed
out over which James Whistler walked
out his "extras" on Saturdays in the aft
ernoou.
There are some changes of course.
New buildings have gone up; old ones
have been destroyed. There are tennis
courts in Gallows Hollow, where once
there was only an apple tree, now and
then solitary cart and for the rest OF
the time an ominous stiffness. The
Monument hill has been swept away,
for every new superintendent likes to
leave some impress, be it ever so faint,
of the time of his stay. Most men do,
and If no reforms are necessary or possi-
BILE, there is always that refuge of the
restless-a change. It gives evidence,
at least, of power being held. But the
old order at West Point goes on in spite
of the little ripples one man makes with
his endeavors, and no single individual
can stand up against its power.
Now, in part of this old order must al
ways be included the button-the big
brass bell button used in trimming the
cadets short gray coats. The three
young girls who rushed out, all smiles
and excitement, on Mrs. Van Twiller's
veranda to-day, bent on telling all in
one breath of their visit to the Point,
had each long string of them.
When a young man of the world sends
q rose or a bonbon, the West Point ca
det sends button. 1t represents all
his capital, the one bit OF wealth at his
disposal. For he lives in a land where
there is nothing to be purchased, and
where he is allowed no money to pur-
chase with. Sometimes he adds a
chevron from his arm or brass buckle
from his belt, but these demand larger
outlay, and the chevrons presuppose
certain honors not falling to every man
in q class. For all these reasons moth
ing since West Point began has outshone
the bell button as a token of regard, an
evidence of affection and pledge of
Irritation.
To the young girls who sat and
chatted gayly before us over their cake
and tea, the buttons in their hands rep
resented no traditions, only the fiutter
of a hundred emotions, all their own, of
q happiness and sense of power never
felt on earth before.
How could we tell them-life being SO
new to them, so fresh, so untried and so
beautiful, and SO old a story to many OF
us-how could we tell them that their
emotions, like the buttons, were only
part of it all--of the general order that
time and progress and oil the changes of
the world outside never altered for those
who went to West Point? - Harper's
Bazaar.