United States Post Office
J. B. COLVARD, POSTMASTER

Jefferson, N.C., October 29, 1917.

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

My dear Sir:

Enclosed is a copy of a letter I recently wrote the Adjutant General, which is self-explanatory. Not having received the least semblance of a reply from him, I now write you to ask that you as his superior officer take the action requested of him.

I am morally certain that with one guess I can name the man who made the report. It is the same attorney of this town who was recently in Raleigh, nominally attending the Supreme Court but in actuality conferring with the Adjutant General about obtaining the exemptions of select men from this county who have him employed as an attorney to secure their exemption. It was the Adjutant General, so one of his clients just within the hour informed me, who advised him that in preparing the affidavits supporting claims for exemption no mention should be made of other than minor children, even if there were such.

Now, I do not mind this attorney’s trying to get men exempted but I do want these exemptions obtained in a fair and honorable way. The fact that as an attorney charging fees for his work and getting advice from the Adjutant General as to the means of evading the regulations governing exemptions would not look or sound well when reported to the Federal authorities. It is my intention to make such report if this lawyer is permitted to continue his dishonorable practice. His name is the same as what I believe my reporter to be, T. C. Bowie.

Requesting the courtesy of an early reply,

Yours very earnestly,

J. B. Colvard

Enclosure: 1917, Oct. 9. Colvard to Adj. Gen.