I am in receipt of your letter of the twenty-fifth,¹ and I infer from the last paragraph of your letter that you haven't promised fifty convicts to a railroad in Clay and Cherokee.

As I understand from resolution passed by the last General Assembly we cannot, if we wanted to, aid any more railroads, and if we pay any attention to the Constitution, it looks to me like it would be our duty to withdraw every one of the convicts that are now working on railroads. The people of the state who understand this proposition are very indignant, because it is the biggest fraud on the face of the earth.

If this thing is going on, I want to get my part of it, and I shall make application at once for fifty or one hundred to develop some property that I own in a remote section of Davidson county. I am like Ben Tillman, I want my part of the loot, if we are going to rob the state. I am "agin" it, but if it is to go on, I am going to have some of it, or "raise the devil."