WAR DEPARTMENT.
WASHINGTON.

-:Confidential:-

July 28, 1918.

My dear Governor:

I ought earlier to have acknowledged your letter of July 10, which interested me greatly and has been helpful to all of us. Your analysis of the cause of delinquency and desertion is undoubtedly sound, and we are endeavoring to meet the situation by establishing agencies for the instruction of our people in the camps.

Your services in Ashe County were certainly most helpful and wise. After all, how could we expect so great a mobilization in this country without incidents of that kind. Our people, as you see, are not military, and particularly in the remoter sections of the country are unaccustomed to the rigidity of military discipline and the acceptance of orders and commands. I have been having some studies made recently in some of the camps and was much interested in an estimate which came to me yesterday, from a particularly shrewd observer, to the effect that the drafted me seemed to him to be accepting military service as an obligation of citizenship, at first without enthusiasm, but with growing pride and rapidly developing appreciation of the meaning of the country’s effort. He told me that he thought out of every twenty drafted men there were at least nineteen who would not have ordinarily volunteered for military service, but that after three weeks there would not be one in each twenty who had not settled down in a brave and uncomplaining way to the acceptance of the sacrifice. Perhaps the recent successes in Europe will help the growth of the right spirit. Our Army in France is doing so tremendously well that I find they have created a reservoir of enthusiasm and pride in this country which will be a great asset to have from now on.

Cordially yours,

NEWTON D. BAKER
Secretary of War.