US Marine Corps - The Black Vault

The First Thirty Years 15
paternally molded into Midshipman Turner, United States Navy, within the
Academy walls.
In sports, although he had played guard on grade school football teams,
at the Academy he went out for baseball and track. “Previous to 1904, only
inter-class track meets had been held at the Naval Academy. . . . In the
Spring of 1905 a large number of candidates from all classes appeared.”
Midshipman Turner was one of that large number, and made the track team
that year, running the hurdles.”
The Superintendent’s prediction in regard to the living quarters proved
reasonably accurate. At the start of the 1904–1905 Academic Year, “the
northeast wing of Bancroft Hall went into commission” allowing half
the midshipmen to take apartments in Bancroft Hall. Turner’s Battalion (six
companies) continued to live in “Old Quarters,” “an unsightly structure per-
haps, but fragrant with the very romance and spirit of the days of yore.” 3’
The Regiment of Midshipmen was organized into two battalions of six
companies each, with about 75 midshipmen in a company. Everyone in the
company got to know everyone else, and classmates, in four years, formed
strong opinions in regard to the others in their class.37
Physical hazing of plebes was a problem at the Naval Academy in 1904–
1905 despite the fact that the Congress recently had passed a law forbidding
it, and the official naval policy, as well as unofficial officer belief were
strongly against it.
Awareness of interest at higher levels in physical hazing is shown by the
Superintendent’s remarks in his 1904 and 1905 Annual Reports to the Chief
of Bureau of Navigation: ‘