MANNERS & MORALS: A Question of Honor

MANNERS & MORALS

In any year (and especially in 1951), the U.S. press, U.S. officialdom and the U.S. people are used to scandals in which somebody steals something, takes a big bribe, or runs off with another man’s wife. But they were taken aback by the trouble at West Point—which raised more delicate and difficult moral questions than the customary hearty fare. After the first shock, the nation plunged into debate.

In the face of obvious public sympathy for the 90 erring cadets, and an uneasy feeling that the Army shared the blame, the Academy announced that almost all of the 90 accused would be allowed to resign rather than be dismissed. The President announced an inquiry into sports at service schools, but spoke in tones which suggested that few applecarts would be overturned. The most investigation-minded Congress in many a decade, for once, could generate no fervor for investigation.

The Coach. Last week’s repercussions to the scandal centered around a New York appearance by the Army’s athletic director and football coach, Earl Blaik (whose son and star quarterback, Bob Blaik, is one of the accused cadets). Coach Blaik called his sportwriter friends together to announce that he was not leaving the Academy in its dark hour.

Blaik’s informal talk at Leone’s Restaurant in Manhattan—which brought out more cameramen and curious sidewalk neck-craners than usually attend a motion-picture première—was, in many ways, a restrained and gentlemanly performance. The coach, a West Pointer (’20) himself, made no attempt to play on the emotions of his audience. He spoke sadly of the cadets’ mistakes, but defended their characters and pleaded that they be allowed to leave the Academy with their reputations unbesmirched.

Then, without breaking stride, Blaik reversed his field. He went on to defend Big Football, the very influence which—by his own words—had done most to cause the cribbers to violate the honor system. Army football players, he said earlier, were “unbelievably fatigued” after hours of practice on the gridiron, and had to face the iron scholastic schedules of the Academy. Their high morale might, he suggested, have caused them to put success of the team above the reputation of the cadet corps. If he had been speaking solely as a professional coach, defending his way of life, this would have been understandable; as a spokesman for West Point, he seemed involved in a contradiction. If the cadets were to be defended on the ground that the pressure of Big Football was too strong for the honor system, then something needed to be done either about football or the honor system. Blaik defended the boys, the system and football.

If anyone at the Academy disagreed with him, or had any plan for solving the problem by eliminating one cause, he did not say so. The commandant, General Frederick A. Irving, announced that he was delighted that Coach Blaik, who is famous for working his men to the limits of endurance, had decided to stay on. Nobody else in authority showed any sign that anything but the punishment of the 90 was contemplated.

The School. Meanwhile, the U.S. learned a little more about the two other elements in the situation: West Point football and the honor system.

The Army admitted that “civilian alumni” of West Point paid the salaries of instructors in a cram school operated during the late spring on the Academy grounds. Each year, a dozen or so picked high-school football players are invited to go through this school to help them pass West Point entrance examinations. From Congressmen, Army officers wangle appointments for boys selected as good football material. All this is done for the “honor of the Academy,” honor in this sense meaning football victories.

That the “honor of the Academy” helped to break down the honor of many cadets was perfectly clear. And events were sped in their course by the fact that West Point made no effort to check up on how well the honor system was working.

The system itself was far more extreme than that in force in most colleges. The Naval Academy also stresses a midshipman’s honor; but it always has proctors present at tests, and it does not give the same test to two groups of students—the most glaring temptation to cheating in the West Point system. Furthermore, the Navy does not require one student to report violations of another student.

Main fact seemed to be that the Army’s honor system was unrealistic—at least when it came into conflict with the “honor of the Academy”—as interpreted by football enthusiasts.