WAR DEPARTMENT
OFFICE OF THE PROVOST MARSHAL GENERAL
WASHINGTON

March 15, 1918.

Honorable T. W. Bickett,
Governor of North Carolina,
Raleigh, North Carolina.

My dear Governor Bickett:

Receipt is acknowledged of your letter of March 12, 1918 asking whether the Governor or the Adjutant General has any power or authority to take any steps looking toward the discharge of a registrant who was inducted into service under the old regulations and is now in a training camp.

You are advised that neither the Governor nor the Adjutant General has any authority to take any step or action in such cases. The advice you have been giving registrants to that effect is correct.

For your additional information you are advised that this office has received complaints, from the office of the Adjutant General of the Army, of camp commanders protesting against the unauthorized requests and recommendations of Local Boards to camp commanders to discharge men drafted under the old regulations. Such action on the part of the Local Boards is unauthorized and should not be done.

E. H. CROWDER,
Provost Marshal General,

By J. S. Easby-Smith
Lieut.-Colonel, National Army.

RHH-hac