They will follow as a matter of course; but an unworthy officer, one whom the enlisted men know to be unfit to command them, will demoralize a company, a troop, a battery or a regiment if he be given power enough.
Every cadet and every officer of the Army is concerned with the honor of that Army.

If he knows that an unworthy man is obtaining command, it worries the cadet or officer of honor.
Had he been able to offer legal, convincing proof of Haynes's dastardly conduct in pushing him off the train on the return from the Army-Navy game, Prescott would have submitted that proof to the authorities, or else to the members of the second class in class meeting.
"But Haynes would only lie out of it, of course," Dick concluded.
"As a cadet, his word would have to be accepted as being as good as mine.

So nothing would come of the charges." A class meeting, unlike a court-martial, might not stand out for legal evidence, if the moral presumption of guilt were strong enough; but Cadet Prescott would not dream of invoking class action unless he had the most convincing proof to offer.
Class action, when it is invoked at West Point, is often more effective than even the work of a court-martial.

If the class calls upon a member to resign and return to civil life, he might as well do so without delay.

If he does not, he will be "sent to Coventry" by every other cadet in the corps.