Your letter of June 12th received, and I would have answered before but for the immense pressure of other matters upon my time and attention. I am taking steps to have the proper authorities investigate the assault set out in the affidavit you sent me, and directing the authorities to proceed with the prosecution of the parties who engaged in this assault.

I notice in your editorial in the Southern Bulletin that there is a suggestion that the Governor did not mean exactly what he said when he declared that the full power of the State would be exerted to protect any citizen in his right to work whether he belonged to the union or not. I think you must agree with me that I had no opportunity to prevent the assault complained of in this case. I was not called upon to send troops to Concord. I certainly would have sent them there if the local authorities had certified to me that they were unable to afford the law-abiding citizens protection from mob violence. Your letter was the first notice I received that there had been any violation of the law.

You will permit me to say, however, Mr. Clark, that while you decry the labor union in your paper you do not offer anything better in the way of an organization of the labor people in its place. The formation of labor unions cannot be stopped by lockouts or by tirades against them. The only way to stop them is to convince labor men that there is a better way for them to permanently improve their condition. Of course you know something of the steps taken in this direction by the Durham Hosiery Mills. I am not acquainted with the details of the Durham plan, but I do know that something along this line must be done if our great industries are to flourish in the future. Capital and labor must get together. They cannot occupy hostile camps and go forward. Each is absolutely indispensable to the other, and this fact must be frankly recognized by both sides, and there must be built up a spirit of co-operation and friendliness between labor and capital to take the place of the competition and hostility that now exists. Destructive processes get nowhere.

I have written you thus at length because I am more deeply interested in the solution of this problem than in any other public question. Not only does our civilization, but our very existence depends upon its wise and just settlement.