I am in receipt of your letter of the 17th, in reference to protesting against the establishment of a Chair factory in the State's prison.

I am enclosing copy of letter that I wrote yesterday to the Hickory Chair Company which gives some of my ideas about the matter.

Personally, I think that there is nothing to all of this noise that is being made about the State manufacturing chairs and there will probably never anything come of it, but the protest of the chair folks is just as unreasonable as a similar protest would be coming from the farmers against our producing corn, wheat, and cotton or by the brick men, objecting to our making brick, or from the ordinary laboring class, protesting against the use of convicts on public roads.

It is impossible for me to tell you what is going to happen on March 2nd; neither could I tell you what I shall say or do in the matter, except that I shall at all times, while director of the State prison, work for the best interest of the Institution.