February 15th, 1918.

Dr. L. D. Wharton,
Member Local Exemption Board,
Smithfield, N.C.

My dear Sir:-

Your letter of the 12th to the Adjutant General has been properly referred to me for answer.

Major J. D. Langston has, by my direction, written a general letter supplemental to my letter to the local boards referred to in your letter of the 12th. On account of the general tenor of your letter to the Adjutant General I deem it proper for me to write a special letter to you and through you to the other members of the Johnston County Board. I refer you to the sentence in Bulletin No. 143 which says:-

“Reasonable adequate support cannot be determined by a rule of thumb, but must be determined with common sense and sympathy on the facts of each individual case.”

In my opinion this “common sense and sympathy” requires that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred married men who are good husbands and are in good faith supporting their wives should not be placed in class one. Marriage in itself is a distinction that ought to be seriously considered. In the former draft ninety-five per cent of the anger and irritation in North Carolina on account of the execution of the law was due to the just and reasonable grievance that the people felt when they saw married men taken away from their wives and children while further down the line single men with no family ties or obligations were marking time.

I am everlastingly opposed to any repetition of this blunder, and I am profoundly convinced that if I lived in Johnston county I could find in the realm of “common sense and sympathy”, commended to your consideration by the Provost Marshal General, abundant facts and reasons to justify me in refusing to put in Class one a married man who is a good husband and is in good faith discharging his marital obligations.

I may add that in so far as I have been able to discover the principles laid down in my general letter have been applied in ninety-five counties in the State, and in only five counties has there been any disposition to place good husbands in Class One.

Very truly yours,

[unsigned]

B_G