Replying to yours of the 4th, I beg to say that your information in regard to the appointment of Mr. Scales as a member of the Western District Board is incorrect.

Upon learning that Mr. Kluttz was in such a physical condition that he would not be able to attend to the duties of the office, I took a list of the lawyers of the State and went over it very carefully with Major Langston, and both of us agreed that if Mr. Scales would accept the position that he would be an ideal man for the place. If you were to ransack the State of North Carolina with a fine tooth comb you would not be able to find a man in it who would be willing to say that Mr. Scales has not the requisite intelligence for the discharge of the duties of the office, nor would you be able to find a man who would be willing to say that anything on earth could induce Mr. Scales to do anything except exact justice, and that without regard to whether the registrant was his next door neighbor or had just located in Cherokee county from Kalamazoo. This opinion of Mr. Scales is shared by everybody who knows anything about public men in North Carolina. 

Mr. Scales came into the office to see me about another matter, and I asked him in he would be willing to accept the position, and he instantly replied that he would accept it and would give to it all of his time if necessary. He said that he felt that he ought to be in France. He is well beyond the draft age and has a young wife and four or five small children, but his application for admission to the army to be sent to France is on file with the authorities in Washington. He emphasized his feeling that he was not doing his duty, and that he would welcome the opportunity to do this patriotic work no matter if he had to quit everything else.

Now Mr. Gibson, you must agree with me that I would have been derelict in my duty to the other members of the Board and to the Government if I had failed to call into service a man so capable and so eager to serve. He is the first man I have found who has told me that he stood ready to quit everything else and devote all of his time, all of his thought and all of his energy to this job.

Not one word was said about Mr. Scales being made chairman of the Board. The board elects its own chairman, and I have never directly or indirectly suggested to either the Eastern District Board, the Western District Board or to any local board who should be made chairman. That is a matter that is left exclusively to the members of the board, and I have never had the slightest inclination to interfere with their judgment in the premises.

Neither was the appointment of Mr. Scales conditioned upon the headquarters of the board being removed to Greensboro. That is also a matter left to the judgment of the members, and in no case have I attempted to interfere with their judgment. I was asked if I had any objection to the headquarters being removed from Statesville to Greensboro. I said I had absolutely none, that if in the judgment of a majority of the members of the Board the headquarters should be removed to Greensboro, to Charlotte, to Salisbury or anywhere else their action would meet with my entire approval.

You freely and frankly conceded in your letter that the Western District Board has had seas of trouble, and once you commence to work with Mr. Scales you will thank God and me for his appointment.