- Transcription
W. L. SPOON
U. S. HIGHWAY ENGINEER
BOX NO. 125
BURLINGTON, N.C.
September 9, 1918.
To His Excellency,
Hon. W. T. Bickett,
Raleigh, N.C.
Doubtless you are flooded with letters and petitions for exemptions. This is no request for exemtion but a statement of a fact, Consider it and advse me.
I have a farm of nearly one thousand acres, 9 head of mules and horses, 40 head of cattle, 30 head of shees, 8 hogs. I have on my place on old Negro (68 years old), my father-in-law 75 years old, two hired men and a young man, an orphan boy I have raised, Richard Alexander Stanford is his name,. Next April he will be twenty one years old. Last year he attended A & E Colleg at Raleigh but this year I had decided to keep him on the farm on account of labor shortage. This year I have sold 460 bushels of wheat and have seed left for another seeding for a crop as lage next year.
Under the recent enactment of Congress he will register the 12th and be subject to draft at as early a date as any one and liable to be called. He is no slacker, will register and go when and where called. What I want to know is whether or not I can keep him until my fall seeding is done and my ensilage and other corn crops harvested? This young man is my main stay in crop times because he knows the work, and is worth a cowpen full of greenhorns to me. Necessarily to lose him will make me cut down my efforts and reduce my farm production. But if he can serve his country better in France than on my farm, then I am ready and willing to send him without a whimpir although he is as dear to me as a son whom I have the misfortune to have none.
I am 56 years of age and in the employ of the Office of Public Roads and Rural Engineering. Have been for 16 years and put all my earnings into lands and now if I can keep the necessary labor I will do my bit feeding the allies.
The case is before you. What ought I do.
Very respectfully,
