I beg to acknowledge receipt this morning of your letter of July 13th as follows:-

"Mr. J. S. Mann, Supt.,
State Prison,
Raleigh, N.C.

Dear Sir:-

While I know that ignorance is no excuse in the sight of the law, I will have to plead ignorance in regard to the law governing putting convicts on the Elkin & Alleghany Railroad. My attention has been called by the Hon. Edmund B. Norvell of Murphy to the fact that the law says: "fifty, nor more than a hundred."

I have just consulted the Attorney General, and he advised me to write to you and say that I will not credit you with more than a hundred convicts on the Elkin & Alleghany Railroad hereafter.

Yours truly,

(Signed) B. R. Lacy, State Treasurer."

I regret not to have had your letter on yesterday at the meeting of the Board of Prison Directors in order that they might have given due consideration to the matter.

At my request I was this morning furnished from the Executive office a copy of the minutes of the meeting of the Governor and Council of State, held on Nov. 10, 1914, as follows:-

"Executive Office, November 10, 1914.

At the above time and place a meeting of the Council of State was held. Present; Governor Craig, Secretary of State Grimes, Auditor Wood, Treasurer Lacy and Attorney General Bickett.

The Superintendent of the State's Prison came before the Council and reported that the Hardaway Contracting Co., at Whitney had requested him to withdraw the State Convicts immediately that were now engaged on that work, and giving as a reason for the request that said convict labor was now in hurtful competition with their free labor on account of their contracted operations. The Superintendent further reported that he desired to accede to their request and immediately withdraw the convicts from the Whitney work, and requested of the Governor and Council their views as to increasing the labor on certain State work for which the Prison is receiving stock certificates in payment. Therefore the following resolution was passed:

Resolved, that the Superintendent of the State's Prison be authorized to distribute the convicts returned from the Whitney Camp on the Bat Cave Turnpike, the Watauga & Yadkin Valley Railroad, and the Elkin & Alleghany Railroad, according to his judgment after investigation.

Jno. P. Kerr, Secretary.

Governor,
Secretary of State,
Auditor,
Treasurer,
Attorney General."

Aside from the record of this meeting I recall that I stated to the Council of State that if the matter of the division of convicts was left to my discretion, I would divide and assign them to the varions works exactly as they were later assigned, and was assured by Gov. Craig and the Council informally that this division of the Whitney force met with their approval. I regret that no record seems to have been made of this informal action.

I do not feel that I have authority to withdraw at this time any of the force of convicts now at work upon the Elkin & Alleghany Railroad without direction of the Governor and Council of State, of which both you and the Attorney General are honored members and both of whom are recorded as present and presumably voted in the affirmative at the time the assignment was made.

I am,