"'Why, yes; he knows everybody—all the great men. He's a great man himself;' and this poor colored boy stood up, I thought, the proudest champion David Clark ever had.
"'Yes, David Clark is a good man,' I mused, as I saw the grateful tears standing in the colored cadet's eyes.
"When I got back to the hotel I heard a wishy-washy girl, who came up year after year with a party to flirt with the cadets say:
"'O dear! it is hawid to have this colod cadet—perfectly dre'fful. I should die to see my George standing next to him.'
"But Miss Schenck, the daughter of General Schenck, our Minister to the Court of St. James, told Jimmy Smith that she hoped he would graduate at the head of his class, and when the colored boy told me about it he said:
"'Oh, sir, a splendid lady called to see me to-day. I wish I knew her name. I want to tell David Clark.'
"Every white boy at West Point now agreed to cut the colored boy. No one was to say a single word to him, or even answer yes or no. At the same time they would abuse him and swear at him in their own conversation loud enough for him to hear. It is a lamentable fact that every white cadet at the Point swears and chews tobacco like the army in Flanders.
"Again I saw Jimmy Smith on the 9th of July. The officers of the Academy had been changed. Old General Schriver had given place to young General Upton. The young general is a man of feeling and a lover of justice. He sent for the colored boy, and taking his hand he said:
"'My boy, you say you want to resign, that you can stand this persecution no longer. You must not do it. You are here an officer of the army. You have stood a severe examination. You have passed honorably and you shall not be persecuted into resigning. I am your friend. Come to me and you shall have justice.'
"Then General Upton addressed the cadets on dress parade. He told them personal insults against their brother cadet, whose only crime was color, must cease.