August 4, 1917.

Solicitor Walter D. Siler and
Sheriff Leon L. Lane,
Siler City, N.C.

Gentlemen:-

Your joint letter of August 2 received and carefully considered. In it you say:

“Certain parties in this county are quoted to be soliciting funds from men drafted, using the argument that the draft law is unconstitutional and proposing employ counsel to test it, etc., and are using language that is calculated to arouse the ignorant against the Government. Each day we hear of this going on in different sections, and greatly fear that we are going to have a serious situation in certain sections unless something can be done to stop it. In one township we learn that an effort is being made to prevent any man whose name has been drawn among the first to be examined to appear, and various other things are being done that may give us trouble.”

In reply I beg to advise that the first article and the eighth section of the Constitution of the United States clothes the Congress with power “to declare war, to raise and support armies and to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers.”

In strict conformity to the constitutional powers so conferred, Congress has, with practical unanimity, declared that a state of war exists between the United States and the Imperial German Government, and has enacted the Selective Draft Law for the purpose of raising an army to carry on the war so declared.

The Nation is, therefore, lawfully at war. Through its accredited representatives it has declared its will and fixed its course. There was a time for difference and debate. That time has now expired. We are in a death-grapple with the enemy, and the man who in this perilous hour lifts voice or hand to weaken the Nation’s will or shorten its arm is a traitor to his country and a friend to its foes. He is more than a traitor. He is a murderer. Any word spoken, any deed done to hinder the vigorous prosecution of the war means a Prolongation of the war and this means added loss of life.

The men who for love of money are promising to show registrants a way of escape from their duty have sounded depths of infamy heretofore unknown. Send me their names and I promise that they shall be forever pilloried in a people’s contempt.

The Constitution defines treason against the United States to be “giving aid and comfort to their enemies”. Every discordant note is comfort to the Kaiser. Every attempt to prevent the Nation from presenting a solid front is strength to his arm.

I do not propose to tolerate treason in North Carolina by word or deed, if there be power in State or Federal law to prevent it. You and all Sheriffs and Solicitors in the State are directed to report by wire to the United States District Attorney and to this office any man who, by word or deed, gives aid and comfort to the enemy by seeking to palsy the Nation’s arm as it is raised to strike. Immediate and drastic action will be taken upon every report and men who thus desert their country in its hour of peril will be made to feel the strong arm of the law.

Yours very truly,

Governor.