COPY

STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA
Corporation Commission.
Raleigh

May 25th, 1917.

Provost Marshal General,
C/o War Department,
Washington, D.C.

My dear Sir:

I am very much interested in the success of the selective draft and I am very uneasy lest it is going to be a dead failure in the South unless your office wakes up to two points.

First, nobody scarcely seems to know that any penalty is attached for failing to register. I have just been on a trip through the State and have talked this matter everywhere and I am sure that, unless this point is given great publicity within the next week, not one-half a registration will take place in the South. I was with a bunch of very intelligent men in the smoker of a Pullman day before yesterday and I was shocked that not one of them knew that any penalty whatever was attached for failing to register. Some effort should be made at once to see that all the newspapers print in bold type the section providing a penalty. Next week will be the last issue of the weekly papers to carry this, hence the matter should be seen to at once.

Second, the negroes throughout the South are not intending to register. They know that they go by so many names that they cannot be spotted and also are depending on the old saying “All coons look alike to me.” I happened to be on yesterday in a barber shop where there are seven young negro barbers. They all told me that they didnt think any negroes worth speaking of were going to register, and also stated that no negro knew anything about a penalty for failing to register. They went on to say that since the negro has been disfranchised in the South they have gotten used to thinking that no negro has to register for anything. Certainly not with the registrar of election, and it so happens that nearly all of the registrars of the selective draft have been registrars of election.

I hope you will not think it presumptuous on my part in writing this to you, but I feel it is due you from a loyal citizen.

Yours very truly,

(Signed). George P. Pell,
Corporation Commissioner.

P.S. No married man thinks he must register.

Enclosed in: 1917, May 27. Crowder to Bickett.