March 11, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 43 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session
HAPPY SESQUICENTENNIAL--CELEBRATING 150 YEARS OF THE WEST POINT ASSOCIATION OF GRADUATES PART I (1969-1990); Congressional Record Vol. 165, No. 43
(Extensions of Remarks - March 11, 2019)
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[Extensions of Remarks] [Pages E281-E283] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] HAPPY SESQUICENTENNIAL--CELEBRATING 150 YEARS OF THE WEST POINT ASSOCIATION OF GRADUATES PART I (1969-1990) _____ HON. JOHN SHIMKUS of illinois in the house of representatives Monday, March 11, 2019 Mr. SHIMKUS. Madam Speaker, I rise to include in the Record an article by Keith J. Hamel honoring the 150th Anniversary of the West Point Association of Graduates. ``On May 22, 2019, the West Point Association of Graduates will turn 150 years old. Think about it--one hundred and fifty years! When ``the Association,'' as it used to be known, held its first organizational meeting in the office of Dr. Horace Webster, Class of 1818, President of the College of the City of New York, the light bulb had yet to be invented; the telephone had not been patented; the U.S. flag had only 37 stars; and the machine gun, dynamite, and the torpedo were less than a decade old. The year was 1869, an important year in the history of West Point graduates. On March 4 of that year, Ulysses S. Grant, Class of 1843, became the 18th President of the United States. Grant, of course, received national acclaim for commanding the Union Army to victory during the U.S. Civil War, accepting the surrender of Confederate forces from another West Point graduate, Robert E. Lee, Class of 1829. That recent conflict, roughly four years over by the time a handful of graduates met in Webster's office one Saturday afternoon for that first meeting, is often cited as the reason the ``Association'' was formed; that is, to heal the divide between West Point graduates who fought on opposing sides of the U.S. Civil War. While it may be romanticized, such a theory is plausible. After all, bridging chasms seemed to be the spirit of the age in 1869. On May 2 of that year the ``golden spike'' of the First Transcontinental Railroad was driven into the ground at Promontory Summit of Utah Territory, linking America's East Coast with its West Coast. Later that year, on November 17, the Suez Canal officially opened, finally completing a centuries-old idea to create a waterway between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. Yet when Robert Anderson, Class of 1825, wrote to Sylvanus Thayer, Class of 1808, on January 28, 1869 to propose the formation of ``an association of the graduates of the Military Academy,'' he never mentioned the Civil War as a raison d'etre for this endeavor (and Anderson was the officer in charge of Fort Sumter when it was fired upon by P.G.T. Beauregard, Class of 1838, to start that war!) Instead, Anderson plainly told Thayer he wanted to form an association ``to see what should be done to perfect and perpetuate this truly national Institution,'' [West Point] and, in his February 12, 1869 reply to Anderson, Thayer agreed. Three months later, 15 graduates gathered in Webster's office for the purposes of officially forming an ``Association of the Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy.'' Neither the Civil War nor the ``perpetuation'' of West Point was explicitly mentioned in the minutes from that meeting. Instead, the graduates present, including Anderson, passed seven resolutions, the last pertaining to the ``fundamental principle that the characteristic of this Association shall be.'' According to the ``Preliminary Meeting'' minutes, Reverend Dr. Francis Vinton, Class of 1830, Assistant Minister of Trinity Church in New York City, introduced a resolution that the Association be ``formed purely for the promotion of social and fraternal intercourse.'' Vinton's resolution became Article II of the new Association's Constitution: ``The objects of this Association shall be to cherish the memories of our Alma Mater, and to promote the social intercourse and fraternal fellowship of its graduates.'' Does this end the debate regarding the purpose of the Association of Graduates' founding? Not quite. Article IV of the Association's original Constitution complicates matters. It states, ``Political, or any other discussions foreign to the purposes of the Association, as set forth in this Constitution, or any proceedings of such a tendency, are declared inimical to the purposes of this organization, and are prohibited.'' Such an article calls attention to itself and seems to support the notion that the recent U.S. Civil War and its political aftermath might impede the formation of an Association of West Point Graduates. Furthermore, Article III, 2, states, ``The oldest graduate belonging to the Association shall be President; and in his absence the senior graduate present shall preside at the meeting of the Association.'' This made Thayer the ``official'' first president. Although Thayer never attended a meeting of the Association of Graduates (and, interestingly, his name does not appear on the roll of members until 1872), this passage marries Thayer's legacy with the creation of the Association, including his desire to form such an organization for the benefit of West Point. Going forward, both implicit political matters and the promotion of West Point routinely enter into the dialogue regarding the Association's early history and business. Take the Association's first public act after a committee of 13 graduates, chaired by Webster, met on June 16, 1869 and drafted the constitution and bylaws for the new Association. Soon after, the committee mailed the proposed constitution and bylaws to all graduates; 128 joined (of more than 1,350 living graduates), including three former Confederate officers: Richard S. Ewell, Class of 1840; James Longstreet, Class of 1842; and Nathaniel R. Chambliss, Class of May 1861. In fact, Ewell sent a letter back with his dues stating, ``I cannot think that any graduate of the Academy would, unless blinded by prejudices, decline to aid the work of reuniting . . . a bond broken asunder by civil discord and war.'' Conversely, Simon Bolivar Buckner, Class of 1844, the first Confederate general to surrender an Army to Union forces, perhaps stinging from so-called ``Radical Republicans'' attempts to strip ex-rebels of their right to vote and hold office in the First Reconstruction Act (1867), wrote back to the committee saying, ``Fraternal fellowship can exist only in the light of an acknowledged equality, [which] is denounced by the legislation of the central government which extends its fostering care to our class of graduates of our Alma Mater and at the same time prescribes the other . . . an acknowledgement of the inequality which renders agreeable social intercourse impossible.'' Buckner's sentiment becomes an important theme taken up by committee member Charles Davies, Class of 1815, in his address to graduates at the Association's first reunion on June 17, 1870. Forty-three graduates sat in the pews of the West Point Chapel (now known as the Old Cadet Chapel) to hear Davies' address. [[Page E282]] Although no Southern graduates attended that first open meeting (more likely due to the prohibitive cost of travel than to ideological allegiances), Davies used poetic language in his speech to delicately and diplomatically address the issue raised by Buckner, that is the seeming rift between graduates who fought on opposite sides of the U.S. Civil War. ``We come together as the scattered members of a household after a long separation--some full of years, some full of honors,'' said Davies, recalling the metaphor of a ``divided house'' used by President Abraham Lincoln in a famous 1858 speech. Why would Davies use such language? The answer is reunification. But, digging deeper, it is not just a reunification of graduates from the North and the South; it is a reunification between West Point graduates and the United States of America. Just one sentence prior, Davies said, ``We come together under the old flag, dear to every American heart, to recall and contemplate that springtime of life . . . .'' In this and his future reunion addresses, Davies continually uses a ``reunification with the country'' theme to tacitly unite graduates from the North and from the South behind a single purpose. ``We meet to revive cherished memories . . . and to renew, together, vows of perpetual allegiance to our country,'' Davies said in the opening to his 1870 address. As noted by George Pappas in his book To the Point: The United States Military Academy 1802-1902, ``The defection of southern cadets and graduates, termed treason by many antagonists, was used as a stepping-stone for criticizing West Point in general and its graduates in particular.'' The Civil War thrust West Point and its graduates, particularly those who defected to fight for the Confederate cause, into the national spotlight, and, as noted by Harry Williams in his article ``The Attack Upon West Point During the Civil War,'' ``. . . the [Academy] faced and weathered a series of dangerous attacks designed to destroy its existence.'' Those who gathered in those early reunions must have been aware that West Point stood on precarious footing in the years immediately following the Civil War, as well as the distrust felt for Southern graduates. In his address at the Second Annual Reunion on June 17, 1871, Davies' concluding words seem to be as much for the graduates as for a public he felt may still be wary of the future political intentions of West Point alumni. ``But above all, fellow graduates,'' Davies said, ``let us remember that the nation which sustains and has spread its mantle over this institution, expects from every graduate, at all times, and wheresoever he may be, the full measure of his duty.'' Then in his last (and longest) address to graduates, commemorating the centennial of the Battle of Bunker Hill (1875), Davies made his most overt gesture to reunification between graduates from the North and South via renewed allegiance to the nation. He began by reminding graduates of the resolution passed at the annual meeting a year earlier to invite graduates from ``all sections of the country'' to the 1875 reunion. Seven of the Association's 12 former Confederate officer members attended this reunion, the most ever up to that point. ``[W]e have come here today, to bury within the circuit of these mountains all recollections which can separate us from each other, or from our common country,'' Davies said, `` . . . and to say to all, for each, and to each for all, that from this auspicious day, all the graduates of this Institution will recognize each other as friends. Henceforth, and forever, we have one flag--one country--one destiny.'' Interestingly, before championing the patriotism of West Point graduates, Davies lauded the accomplishments of West Point itself through its graduates. ``We behold, also, a great Institution,'' he said in his 1875 address, ``. . . scattering science and knowledge over the nation,'' which seems to pay homage to Thayer and Anderson's original aim for the Association, ``to see what should be done to perfect and perpetuate this truly national Institution.'' Davies died in 1876, and, according to David Pinder '86, in his paper ``The Association of Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy, 1869- 1902: The Healing Years,'' the leadership of the AOG passed to George Cullum, Class of 1833. One of the original 15 members of the Association, Cullum became a member of AOG's Executive Committee in 1871 and chaired this committee until his death in 1892. A year before those 15 grads met in Webster's office to form the Association, Cullum published the first edition of his three-volume Biographical Register of the Officers of the United States Military Academy, which he described in its preface as a record of West Point graduates' service to the nation so as to give ``world-renown to their Alma Mater.'' In the preface to his third edition of the Register, published in 1891, Cullum's intent became more explicit. There he wrote that he hoped ``this last legacy to Alma Mater and her numerous sons may further prove the usefulness of that noble national institution,'' nearly echoing Thayer and Anderson's original aim for the Association. While reunification seemed to be Davies' primary ambition, championing the accomplishments of graduates for the glory of West Point was clearly the achievement for which Cullum was known. In fact, at that first meeting in 1870, the first order of business after approving the constitution and by-laws was adopting a resolution that gave thanks to Cullum ``for his truthful and admirable annals of the Military Academy and its Graduates.'' Cullum demonstrated his philosophy for West Point and its graduates in the biographies he wrote for ``Necrology,'' that section of the Association's published annual report identifying the graduates who had died since the last meeting. In the 1871 Annual Reunion, the first to acknowledge the author of each graduate's biography, Cullum is cited as having written five of them, the first being for Ethan Allen Hitchcock, Class of 1817. And while other authors devoted paragraphs to the deceased, Cullum wrote pages (Hitchcock's biography is 10 pages long). Cullum continued writing ``Necrology'' biographies right up until his own death, the last one for Montgomery C. Meigs, Class of 1836, who died January 2, 1892. Cullum himself died February 28 of that year, and his own ``Necrology'' biography appears just six pages after Meigs'. Cullum had started writing an extended biography of Thayer for the 1873 Annual Reunion, but, according to a Secretary note in that record, Cullum's absence in Europe prevented the completion of it in time for publication. Ten years later, Cullum likely incorporated portions of that biography into the momentous address he delivered at the unveiling of the Thayer Statue on June 11, 1883, touting Thayer's impact on West Point and the nation. Consider this passage: ``With each evolving year of Colonel Thayer's Superintendency, class after class was graduated, adding to our army 570 officers, of whom the nation may be justly proud, for in that galaxy are many bright particular stars which have given lustre to our arms, illuminated the paths of science, brightened halls of learning, and adorned various vocations of usefulness.'' Cullum was perpetuating the national institution of West Point by demonstrating the perfections of its honorific father. But this is not all that Cullum did as the Association's de facto leader. Cullum had been Chairman of the Thayer Monument Committee, which was established at the June 12, 1873 annual meeting, and was instrumental in bringing Thayer's remains from his hometown of South Braintree, Massachusetts to West Point. This accomplishment could be viewed as the Association's first official act of external business (a year earlier the Executive Committee resolved to have the body of Joseph Swift, Class of 1802, exhumed and re-interred at the West Point Cemetery, but this ambition never materialized). Thayer's remains were re-interred at West Point on November 8, 1877, but the monument intended to honor his memory remained unfinished, as only $1,225 of an anticipated $3,100 had been raised from graduates. At the 10th Annual Reunion on June 12, 1879, feeling that the plans to obtain funds to build a stone memorial of Thayer for placement on the Plain were ``impractical,'' Cullum proposed that a smaller monument be built over Thayer's grave. However, in his address at that reunion, Cullum's classmate Francis H. Smith, Class of 1833, the first Southern graduate to speak before AOG members, implored graduates not to forget the original monument plan, saying, ``He was a noble specimen of West Point character, and I trust the scheme will not be abandoned of putting, in enduring marble or bronze, a colossal statue of Brvt. Brig. Gen. Sylvanus Thayer, the father of the U.S. Military Academy.'' A year later, at the 11th Annual Reunion, George Andrews, Class of 1851, Treasurer of the Thayer Monument Fund, reported that all but $160 of the funds needed for the monument remained uncollected. The project was further delayed when the committee hired the New England Granite Company ``to execute a statue eight feet three inches high, standing upon a well-proportioned pedestal of eight feet, both of pure white granite,'' and the cost jumped to $4,000. To raise money to cover the escalating cost, Cullum reportedly addressed ``personal letters to each living graduate who has a diploma signed by General Thayer.'' In his June 10, 1882 Thayer Monument Committee report to AOG's Executive Committee, Cullum noted that the statue would be ready by winter, ``in ample time to be erected before the Reunion of this Association in June 1883'' (it was completed on June. 9, 1883, which would have been Thayer's 98th birthday). At the 14th Annual Reunion on June 12, 1883, Cullum furnished a final report on the Thayer Monument to the Association, saying the statue ``is worthy of the great Superintendent, whose majestic port [sic] and intellectual visage [it] so faithfully represents; and it is worthy of this Association which has preserved, amid so many difficulties, to raise such a memorial to the `Father of the Military Academy.' '' Showing its appreciation for Cullum's efforts to bring the Thayer Monument to fruition, the Executive Committee unanimously passed a resolution that thanked him for admirably performing his duties. A year after erecting Thayer Monument, AOG moved on to its next order of major business, another project that took years to materialize and one that ultimately depended greatly on Cullum. At the 15th Annual Reunion in 1884, John S. McCalmont, Class of 1842, proposed that Congress should be petitioned to make an appropriation for the purposes of furnishing a hall for AOG use at West Point, given that the Association had received so many gifts of manuscripts, portraits, books, letters, and more and had no room to safely keep them or exhibit them. The matter was tabled and reintroduced three years later at the 1887 meeting, but members felt that the USMA Board of Visitors would have better luck securing the [[Page E283]] funds from Congress for building such a hall than their resolution. ``The Association of Graduates cannot raise the necessary money,'' Charles Braden, Class of 1869, AOG's Secretary at that time, flatly stated. Then, given the lack of reference to it in meeting notes, the Executive Committee seems to forget about this idea for a memorial hall for half a decade, but Cullum did not forget. Upon his death, Cullum bequeathed $250,000 to the U.S. government for the purposes of erecting such a hall at West Point. According to a March 7, 1892 New York Times article reporting on his will, Cullum's gift, ``Follow[ed] an idea which he had for some years entertained.'' Part of that idea likely involved Cullum's 1891 proposal that Executive Committee incorporate the Association under the laws ofNew York state. The committee unanimously adopted Cullum's proposal and filed a certificate of incorporation in November of that year. As some have hypothesized, Cullum proposed this idea because he had already made his estate plans, and, rather than gift his considerable fortune to what might be characterized as an informal fraternal club, he wanted to leave it to an organization with legitimacy and longevity. Furthermore, showing his prescience, Cullum explicitly stated in his will for the memorial hall to be built ``at farthest within five years after my death'' (perhaps because he witnessed no movement on an idea that originated in 1884!). Cullum's bequest was formally accepted by an act of Congress, and the architectural firm McKim, Mead & White was appointed in 1894 to design the building. Construction began in 1896, with the cornerstone being ceremoniously laid on April 15, and construction was completed on December 21, 1898. After it was furnished (Cullum also left $20,000 in his will for this purpose), the hall was dedicated on June 12, 1900, the date of the 31st Annual Reunion. According to a July 1900 article by Charles Lamed, Class of 1870, in Junior Munsey Magazine, ``This hall is distinctly a monument to West Point and all that it stands for, given by a son of the Academy to his brother alumni and their well beloved mother; designed to commemorate their deeds, to preserve their names, and to bear witness to the enduring work of the foremost military school of the age.'' Thirty-one years after its founding, the Association of the Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy had 473 members on its rolls, and those members now had a home at West Point. In his will, Cullum indicated that it was his desire that the gifted memorial hall be used for ``the Assemblage and Dinners of the Association of Graduates of the United States Military Academy, and, if practicable, I wish that lodging accommodations should be provided in some part of it for the members of that Association while attending its annual reunions.'' Furthermore, they now had funds. Cullum's will also provided $10,000 for ``the current and necessary expenses'' of the Association. This is the genesis of what is now known as the West Point Association of Graduates' ``Long Gray Line Endowment.'' While Cullum was Chairman of AOG's Executive Committee, AOG's balance sheet consistently ran between $1,000-$1,500, but, thanks to his gift, it grew by 3 00 percent in one year. At the turn of the 20th century the Association, now with a home and with funds, started to focus on growth and accountability. This began with two notable changes to the Association's Constitution and Bylaws. First, in 1897, the Executive Committee decided that an elected graduate, rather that the oldest graduate, would serve as the Association's President, and voted accordingly to change Article III of the Constitution. They nominated George Greene, Class of 1823, to be President, and he was unanimously elected (ironically, Greene was also the oldest graduate on the Association's membership roll). Then, at the 1900 Annual Reunion, the Executive Committee voted to amend the Bylaws so that initiation fees were reduced from a one-time $10 payment to an initial $2 fee with an additional $1 paid each subsequent year for the next decade. The prorated fee cycle spurred growth in new membership. In 1898, only three graduates elected to pay the prescribed $10 initiation fee; in 1902, more than 70 paid the new $2 fee. New membership also fostered more graduate participation. In 1899, only seven members attended the 3Oth annual reunion, but in 1902 reportedly some 350 graduates returned to West Point for the annual alumni reunion. During the dedication of Cullum Hall, Alexander S. Webb, Class of 1855, who was present in Webster's office at the original May 22, 1869 meeting, looked back on that historic day and gave a brief account of the organization of the Association. No records exist of his remarks, but it is easy to imagine he would have said that the 15 graduates who gathered to form an ``Association of the Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy'' would be proud that, 31 years later, their idea had figuratively and literally found a home, that more and more graduates were coming back to that home each year, and that the Association was continuing to promote the social intercourse and fraternal fellowship of USMA graduates.'' ____________________