Page "Douglas MacArthur" Paragraph 7

MacArthur entered West Point on 13 June 1899, and his mother also moved there to a suite at Craney's Hotel, overlooking the grounds of the Academy.

Hazing was widespread at West Point at this time, and MacArthur and his classmate Ulysses S. Grant III were singled out for special attention by southern cadets as sons of generals with mothers living at Craney's.

When Cadet Oscar Booz left West Point after being hazed and subsequently died of tuberculosis, there was a congressional inquiry.

MacArthur was called to appear before a special Congressional committee in 1901, where he testified against cadets implicated in hazing, but downplayed his own hazing even though the other cadets gave the full story to the committee.

Congress subsequently outlawed acts " of a harassing, tyrannical, abusive, shameful, insulting or humiliating nature ", although hazing continued.

MacArthur was a corporal in Company B in his second year, a first sergeant in Company A in his third year and First Captain in his final year.

He played left field for the baseball team, and academically earned 2424. 12 merits out of a possible 2470. 00 or 98. 14, the third highest score ever recorded, graduating first in his 93-man class on 11 June 1903.

At the time it was customary for the top-ranking cadets to be commissioned into the United States Army Corps of Engineers, so MacArthur was commissioned as a second lieutenant in that corps.