In reply to your kind letter of the 21st I am enclosing an affidavit which I trust will be the basis for reopening the the case of Obey Pettiford, colored, No. 945 of Alamance County, N.C.

If I construe correctly the President’s ruling regarding the selective draft it was not intended to take men who have helpless dependent families.

Pettiford has a wife and two children, less than five years of age, also a young sister-in-law dependent upon him.

He is a good farmer whom I cannot replace.