[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 50 (Thursday, March 21, 2019)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E327-E329]
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

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. JOHN SHIMKUS

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 21, 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, paragraph 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 Association's 
     ``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. 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

[[Page E328]]

     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 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 a 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 of New 
     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 Larned, 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 
     300 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

[[Page E329]]

     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 30th 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.''

                          ____________________