THE SOLDIER'S CREED
From a centennial address at the United States Military Academy at West
Point, with the author's permission.
BY HORACE PORTER
As we stand here to-day a hundred years of history pass in review before us. The present permanent Academy was founded in 1802. The class that year contained two cadets. During the ten years following the average number was twenty. We might say of the cadets of those days what Curran said of the books in his library—"not numerous, but select."
And now a word to the Corps of Cadets, the departure of whose graduating class marks the close of the first century of the Academy's life. The boy is father to the man. The present is the mold in which the future is cast. The dominant characteristics of the cadet are seen in the future general. You have learned here how to command, and a still more useful lesson, how to obey. You have been taught obedience to the civil, as well as to the military, code, for in this land the military is always subordinate to the civil law. Not the least valuable part of your education is your service in the cadet ranks, performing the duties of a private soldier. That alone can acquaint you with the feelings and the capabilities of the soldiers you will command. It teaches you just how long a man can carry a musket in one position without overfatigue, just how hard it is to keep awake on sentry duty after an exhausting day's march. You will never forget this part of your training. When Marshal Lannes's grenadiers had been repulsed in an assault upon the walls of a fortified city, and hesitated to renew the attack, Lannes seized a scaling ladder and, rushing forward, cried: "Before I was a marshal I was a grenadier, and I have not forgotten my training." Inspired by his example, the grenadiers carried the walls and captured everything before them.
Courage is the soldier's cardinal virtue. You will seldom go amiss in following General Grant's instructions to his commanders, "When in doubt move to the front."
A generous country has with fostering care equipped you for your career. It is entitled to your undivided allegiance. In closing, let me mention, by way of illustration, a most touching and instructive scene which I once witnessed at the annual meeting in the great hall of the Sorbonne in Paris for the purpose of awarding medals of honor to those who had performed acts of conspicuous bravery in saving human life at sea. A bright-eyed boy of scarcely fourteen summers was called to the platform. The story was recounted of how one winter's night when a fierce tempest was raging on the rude Normandy coast, he saw signals of distress at sea and started with his father, the captain of a small vessel, and the mate to attempt a rescue. By dint of almost superhuman effort the crew of a sinking ship was safely taken aboard. A wave then washed the father from the deck. The boy plunged into the seething waves to save him, but the attempt was in vain, and the father perished. The lad struggled back to the vessel to find that the mate had also been washed overboard. Then lashing himself fast, he took the wheel and guided the boat, with its precious cargo of human souls, through the howling storm safely into port. The minister of public instruction, after paying a touching tribute to the boy's courage in a voice broken with emotion, pinned the medal on his breast, placed in his hands a diploma of honor, and then, seizing the brave lad in his arms, imprinted a kiss on each cheek. For a moment the boy seemed dazed, not knowing which way to turn, as he stood there with the tears streaming down his bronzed cheeks while every one in that vast hall wept in sympathy. Suddenly his eyes turned toward his old peasant mother, she to whom he owed his birth and his training, as she sat at the back of the platform with bended form and wearing her widow's cap. He rushed to her, took the medal from his breast, and, casting it and his diploma into her lap, threw himself on his knees at her feet.
Men of West Point, in the honorable career which you have chosen, whatever laurels you may win, always be ready to lay them at the feet of your country to which you owe your birth and your education.