- Transcription
Badin, N.C.
July 14th 1919
Mr. Walter E. Brock, Solicitor,
Wadesboro, N.C.
Dear Sir:
In connection with the investigation which you held in Badin, particularly to that part in which Mr. Gobel endeavored to connect the company with the altercation between Messrs. M. M. Holliday and H. B. Jordan, I beg to attach hereto affidavit by Mr. Harold S. Beers, who is Electrical Superintendent, and the man to whom both Holliday and Jordan reported to at that time.
You will note form Mr. Beers' affidavit that Holliday was not a foreman over Jordan. In fact, Holliday never was a foreman but simply a gate operator at the Narrows Dam and took his instructions from Jordan as to the operation of the gates, which instructions were phoned to Jordan by Mr. Beers, so that if anything Jordan was Holliday's superior instead of the reverse as Mr. Gobel intended to show.
Also for your information I am attaching two affidavits, one by Berter Rice and one by Mr. Louis Nachman. Berter Rice is the cook in the Nachman home and Mr. Nachman is manager of Wolf's department store at Badin.
If you have already sent your report to Governor Bickett I would appreciate your sending him these affidavits as we do not desire an erroneous impression to get around that we counternance for one minute any brutal treatment by the foreman. Had Holliday been a foreman over Jordan I can assure most positively that we would most certainly have discharged Holliday but Mr. Early's investigation of this matter at the time proved conclusively that it was purely a scrap between two men of equal position and for which we could not make ourselves a general protector; but we do exercise our authority in case a foreman maltreats his subordinates as much from a humane standpoint as from the standpoint of giving the workmen the necessary protection from unscrupulous foremen and take from the foreman any license he might feel he has to treat his men as he sees fit.
The originals of these affidavits were sent to Washington at the request of the Department.
Yours very truly,
J. E. S. Thorpe
GENERAL SUPERINTENDENT
JEST.HJS
encs. 3
Enclosures: 1919, July 11. Affidavit of Louie Nachman
1919, July 11. Affidavit of H. S. Beers
1919, July 10. Affidavit of Berter Rice
Enclosed in: 1919, July 17. Brock to Bickett.
