Quote by Mark Twain, "New York Times", on

Mark Twain, in an interview today, spoke about hazing at West Point, and denounced the practice as a brutal one and men who indulge in it as bullies and cowards. Why, he said, the fourth class man who is compelled to fight a man from the first class hasn't a show in the world, and it is not intended that he should. I have read the rules provided to prevent such practices, and they are wholly deficient, because one provision is omitted. I would make it the duty of a cadet to report to the authorities any case of hazing which came to his notice; make such reports a part of the vaunted West Point 'code of honor' and the beating of young boys by upper class men will be stopped. I am not opposed to fights among boys as a general thing. If they are conducted in a spirit of fairness, I think it makes boys manly, but I do oppose compelling a little fellow to fight some man big enough to whip two of him. When I was a boy, going to school down in the Mississippi Valley, we used to have our fights, and I remember one occasion on which I got soundly trounced, but we always matched boys as nearly of a size as possible, and there was none of the cowardly methods that seem to prevail at West Point.

Summary

In this quote, Mark Twain reflects on hazing practices at West Point and condemns them as brutal, performed by bullies and cowards. He criticizes the lack of effective rules to prevent hazing and suggests that reporting such incidents should be a duty for cadets, integrated into the West Point code of honor. Twain does not oppose fights among boys if conducted fairly, as it builds character, but strongly opposes forcing smaller boys to fight much larger opponents, highlighting the difference in his own school experiences where fights were arranged between evenly matched individuals.