Now that Williams and myself were admitted, the newspapers made their usual comments on such occurrences. I shall quote a single one from The New National Era and Citizen, published in Washington, D.C., and the political organ of the colored people. The article, however, as I present it, is taken from another paper, having been by it taken from the Era and Citizen: "COLORED CADETS AT WEST POINT. "The New National Era and Citizen, which is the national organ of the colored people, contains a sensible article this week on the status of colored cadets at West Point. After referring to the colored young men, 'Plebes' Flipper of Georgia, and Williams of Virginia, who have passed the examination requisite for entering the Academy, the Era and Citizen says: 'Now that they are in, the stiff and starched protègès of the Government make haste to tell the reporters that "none of the fellows would hurt them, but every fellow would let them alone." Our reporter seems to think that "to be let alone" a terrible doom. So it is, if one is sent to Coventry by gentlemen. So it is, if one is neglected by those who, in point of education, thrift, and morality are our equals or superiors. So it is not, if done by the low-minded, the ignorant, and the snobbish. If it be possible, among the four hundred young charity students of the Government, that Cadet Smith, for instance, finds no warm friends, and has won no respect after the gallant fight he has made for four years--a harder contest than he will ever have in the sterner field--then we despair of the material which West Point is turning out. If this be true, it is training selfish, snobbish martinets--not knightly soldiers, not Havelocks, Hardinges, and Kearneys--but the lowest type of disciplined and educated force and brutality--the Bluchers and Marlboroughs. We scarcely believe this, however, and we know that any young man, whether he be poor or black, or both, may enter any first-class college in America and find warm sympathetic friends, both among students and faculty, if he but prove himself to be possessed of some good qualities . . . . If the Smiths, Flippers, and Williamses in their honorable school -boy careers can not meet social as well as intellectual recognition while at West Point, let them study on and acquit themselves like men, for they will meet, out in the world, a worthy reception among men of worth, who have put by the prejudices of race and the shackles of ignorance. Emerson says somewhere that "Solitude, the nurse of Genius, is the foe of mediocrity." If our young men of ability have the stuff in them to make men out of, they need not fear "to be let alone" for a while; they will ultimately come to the surface and attain worthy recognition.'