November
Sixteenth
Nineteen eighteen.

My dear Mr. Baker:-

Doubtless you are deluged with suggestions in regard to the demobilization of the Army. I am beginning to be deluged with applications from friends and relatives of men in the camps in this country asking for individual discharges. You can readily see how impossible it is for this office to handle these applications, and, indeed, at the present time I would not know how to even start in any given case.

Therefore, I earnestly trust, at an early date, you will promulgate rules and regulations governing the discharges of men in camp in this country. It seems to me that a certain amount of judgment and discrimination ought to be used in turning the men loose, just as it was used in calling them in. I suggest that the Local Boards might be used in this connection, that is to say, if a soldier wants a discharge let him apply to his commanding officer and let that officer at once forward his card to the Local Exemption Board of the county or city from which the soldier comes, and let that Board find certain facts:-

1. Whether or not the soldier worked steadily before he entered the army.

2. Whether or not there is a job awaiting that soldier at home. The industrious men who have jobs awaiting them ought to be discharged first, and if any men are to be held in camps for any considerable period then the men ought to be held who do not want to work or whose services are not specially needed.

I take it that it would be unfortunate to discharge great numbers of soldiers without knowing what they are going to do, or where they could get anything to do after being discharged. 

I simply throw the suggestions into the hopper knowing that if the main principle appeals to you the details can be worked out wisely and justly in your Department.

Sincerely yours,

[unsigned]

Hon. Newton D. Baker,
Secretary of War,
Washington, D.C.