- Transcription
T. C. BOWIE
ATTORNEY AT LAW
JEFFERSON, N.C.
November 14, 1917.
Gov. T. W. Bickett,
Raleigh, N.C.
Dear Governor:
On November 5th I wrote you asking for a full explanation of your order in regard to the services rendered by attorneys to parties in connection with the Selective draft. As I stated in my letter, I desired to know your construction of the order with reference to parties who had already been inducted into the military service and were thereafter seeking to avoid the service. I wrote you this letter because, as I stated in the letter, I desired to be governed by your construction of the order, and it was not my purpose to violate either in letter or in spirit this order. I did not write this letter for publication and I did not suppose that you would make is a purpose of newspaper controversy when I wrote it. However, I had not, and do not now, have any objection to your making the matter public if it could be of any benefit either to your office or to the public. I yield to no man, either lawyer or layman, in my patriotism to my country in this supreme national peril; but I did not believe, and do not believe, that it is a patriotic duty for any lawyer to assist without compensation any soldier who is already inducted into the military service in seeking exemption, and thereby to avoid the discharge of a duty that he owes to his country. However, as I stated in my letter, and the very reason that prompted me to write you, I did not desire to violate either in letter or in spirit any ruling or code of ethics either of the Governor or of the North Carolina Bar Association, or the American Bar Association, both of which I am a member. I desired your construction of this order, and I am sure that if this is the construction placed upon the order by the American Bar Association and that State Bar Association, as well as your Excellency, that no lawyer in North Carolina will violate this order either in spirit or in letter.
In view of the fact that your office made public my letter, which seems to have created an erroneous impression, I, therefore, must respectfully request that you correct the same.
With best wishes and highest regards, I am
Yours truly,
amhc
