Greensboro, N.C. November 12th, 1917.

General Crowder,
Washington, D. C.

Dear Sir:-

A young man neighbor of mine, whom I supposed had registered last June, told me shortly after the registration that not knowing his age he had applied to his Mother and she told him he was 31. He is a colored man that was educated in the State College and has lived my closest neighbor for fifteen years. His Mother is a woman who keeps close track of all ages and birthdays of her children, and I was utterly astonished when he told me he was 31 instead of 30 as he had always passed for. I said nothing but was somewhat indignant and took a little pains to find out his records.

I found that in registering for college in 1910 he gave his age as 22, on getting married in 1914 in December, after his birthday which occurred on the 20th, he gave his age as 28. His taxes have been listed twice to my knowledge, as I found on looking over the records, giving his present age as 30, the last time being dated May 15th, 1917. This was given by his Father. I looked over the school census of the Township he lived in and found that in 1905 his age was given in as 18.

Seeing the newspapers talk about the duty and the liability of a man who was acquainted with the so called slackers record in September, I reluctantly notified the Marshall’s office of these things. I asked him not have me summoned but he said it was necessary, and on the trial day I appeared. From my viewpoint, it seemed entirely prearranged, and instead of the man being tried the Commissioner¹ and the Attorney² tried me. I was threatened with jail on three occasions during the trial for hesitating to answer the so called questions put to me in the most bullying and outrageous manner. I will state part of them, the first one - “Why did you go to work to find out all of these matters?” Thinking that this question was entirely irrelevant, I appealed to the Commissioner. He said that he was there to pass on such questions, and if I did not answer those that were put to me he would send me to jail for 30 days. The next thing to which I demurred was a long series of statements made by the Attorney, some of them entirely false, some with a small degree of truth, and he wound up by yelling out to me “Aint that so?” I asked for specific questions to be put in a legal manner and was again threatened with jail by the Commissioner. The third question to which I demurred was - “Why don’t you go to war?” As I am 65 years of age, and look it, with a little fringe of grey hair around a bald head and my double lensed spectacles, I thought that question an insult, but being again threatened with jail if I did not reply I simply said that I was too old.

Both my Great-Grandfathers fought with Washington, as the records will show. My Uncle George was killed at Shiloh with his regiment, the 18th, Ohio. My brothers in that same regiment were at Chickamauga with Rosecranes and went up Missionary Ridge with Major Grosenor, afterwards General Grosenor of Congressional fame. I have five nephews and cousins who were graduated in the first class from Ft. Oglethorpe.

After the case was dismissed and the man was cleared we passed out of the room into a hall. The bullying Attorney made another insulting remark to me, and I told him he was a “dirty dog” and used a little profanity with it. He came back at me with some of the same sort of talk, and we walked down the stairs on to the sidewalk. We are both the same age. The Deputy Marshall at this moment rushed up and assaulted me, took me roughly by the shoulders and pushed me up stairs. I told him he need not lay his hands on me that I had sense enough to go where I was told by him. He carried me into the room where the Commissioner was still sitting and told him I was raising a “fuss”. I told the Commissioner I thought I was out of his jurisdiction, that his Court had adjourned and I could not see that I had made any infraction of any United States law. He said I have a notion to put you in jail for 30 days and went on further to state that he would look into the matter and if he found that his jurisdiction covered that building and stairway that he would certainly do so. It has been over a month and I am not in jail so I presume he took another notion.

If you will have some one look over the census reports for 1890, 1900 and 1910 you will doubtless find that William Mitchell (colored) living all his life in North Morehead Township Guilford County, N.C., was registered as to be 30 years old last December. I think if ever a case needed to be looked into this is one. The United States government will probably make other drafts and will want to show that this sort of thing can not be permitted with impunity.

Yours very truly,

[unsigned]

1. D. H. Collins was the commissioner.

2. The attorney was John A. Barringer.