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DATE DUE 
 F 10 40 
 
 MAR Tti 1053 J R 
 
 OCT 9 1953 KU 
 
 
 JAN— £J96&fln 
 
 ■ffi— ' 
 
 Cornell University Library 
 E664.L26 L2 
 
 The letters of Franklin K. Lane, persona 
 
 oiin 
 
 3 1924 030 911 964 
 
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This book was digitized by Microsoft Corporation in 
 
 cooperation with Cornell University Libraries, 2007. 
 
 You may use and print this copy in limited quantity 
 
 for your personal purposes, but may not distribute or 
 
 provide access to it (or modified or partial versions of it) 
 
 for revenue-generating or other commercial purposes. 
 
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THE LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K LANE 
 
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ud /csytu<-< 
 
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THE LETTERS OF 
 
 FRANKLIN R. LANE 
 
 Personal and Political 
 
 EDITED BY 
 ANNE WINTERMUTE LANE 
 
 AND 
 
 LOUISE HERRICK WALL 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 tCjje -Ribersibe $ress Cambridge 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
E. 
 
 w ^ v u/ C« 
 
 (\s\mie 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY ANNE W. LANE 
 ALL EIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 THIRD IMPRESSION 
 
 tSCflc fifumrt&c $tess 
 
 CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
 PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
To 
 
 Those whose love for my husband 
 
 is an inspiring reality 
 
 this book of his Letters is dedicated 
 
 a. w. L. 
 
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Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
PREFACE 
 
 From the thousands of typewritten letters found in his files, 
 and from the many holograph letters sent to me from his 
 friends in different parts of the country, we have attempted, 
 in this volume, to select chiefly those letters which tell the 
 story of Franklin K. Lane's life as it unfolded itself in service 
 to his country which was his passion. A few technical letters 
 have been included, because they represent some incomplete 
 and original phases of the work he attempted, — work, to 
 which he brought an intensity of interest and devotion that 
 usually is given only to private enterprise. 
 
 In editing his letters we have omitted much, but we have 
 in no way changed anything that he wrote. Even where, in 
 his haste, there has been an obvious slip of the pen, we have 
 left it. Owing to his dictating to many stenographers, with 
 their varying methods of punctuation and paragraphing, and 
 because the letters that he wrote himself were often dashed 
 off on the train, in bed, or in a hurried five minutes before 
 some engagement, we found in them no uniformity of punctu- 
 ation. In writing hastily he used only a frequent dash and 
 periods; these letters we have made agree with those which 
 were more formally written. 
 
 With the oncoming of war his correspondence enormously 
 increased — the more demanded of him, the more he seemed 
 able to accomplish. Upon opening his files it took us weeks 
 to run through and destroy just the requests for patron- 
 age, for commissions, passports, appointments as chaplains, 
 promotions, demands from artists who desired to work on 
 camouflage, farmers and chemists who wished exemption, 
 requests for appointments to the War Department; letters 
 
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viii PREFACE 
 
 asking for every kind of a position from that of night- 
 watchman to that of Brigadier-General. For his friends, and 
 even those who had no special claim upon him, knew that 
 they could count on his interest in them. 
 
 One of his secretaries, Joseph J. Cotter, a man he greatly 
 trusted, in describing his office work says: "Whatever was of 
 human interest, interested Mr. Lane. His researches were by 
 no means limited to the Department of the Interior. For in- 
 stance, I remember that at one time, before the matter had 
 been given any consideration in any other quarter, he asked 
 Secretary of Agriculture Houston to come to his office, in the 
 Interior Department, and went with him into the question 
 of the number of ships it would take to transport our soldiers 
 to the other side. And as a result of this conference, a plan 
 was laid before the Secretary of War. I remember this partic- 
 ularly because it necessitated my looking up dead-weight 
 tonnage, and other matters, with which I was entirely un- 
 familiar. . . . 
 
 "I have never known any one who could with equal facility 
 follow an intricate line of thought through repeated interrup- 
 tions. I have seen Mr. Lane, when interrupted in the middle 
 of an involved sentence of dictation, talk on some other sub- 
 ject for five or ten minutes and return to his dictation, taking 
 it up where he left it and completing the sentence so that it 
 could be typed as dictated, and this without the stenogra- 
 pher's telling him at what point he had been interrupted." 
 
 His letters are peculiarly autobiographical, for whenever 
 his active mind was engaged on some personal, political, or 
 philosophical problem, his thought turned naturally to that 
 friend with whom he would most like to discuss the subject, 
 and, if he could possibly make the time, to him he wrote just 
 what thoughts raced through his mind. To Ambassador 
 
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PREFACE ix 
 
 Page he wrote in 1918, "I have a very old-fashioned love for 
 writing from day to day what pops into my mind, contradict- 
 ing each day what I said the day before, and gathering from 
 my friends their impressions and their spirit in the same 
 way." And in another letter he says, "Now I have gos- 
 siped, and preached, and prophesied, and mourned, and 
 otherwise revealed what passes through a wandering mind 
 in half an hour, so I send you at the close of this screed, my 
 blessing, which is a poor gift." 
 
 At home on Sunday morning before the fire, he would often 
 write many letters — some of them twenty pages in length 
 and some mere scrappy notes. He wrote with a pencil on a 
 pad on his knee, rapidly stripping off the sheets for me to 
 read, in his desire to share all that was his, even his innermost 
 thoughts. 
 
 To the many correspondents who have generously re- 
 turned to me their letters, and with no restrictions as to their 
 use, I wish particularly to express here my profound grati- 
 tude. The limits of one volume have made it possible to use 
 only a part of those received, deeply as I have regretted the 
 necessity of omitting any of them. In making these acknowl- 
 edgments I wish especially to thank John H. Wigmore, since 
 to him we owe all the early letters — the only ones covering 
 that period. 
 
 For possible future use I shall be grateful for any letters 
 that I have not already seen, and if in the preparation of 
 these letters for publication we have allowed any mistakes 
 to slip in, I hope that the error will be called to my attention. 
 
 Anne Wintermtjte Lane 
 
 March, 1922 
 
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CONTENTS 
 
 I. Introduction 
 
 Youth — Education — Characteristics 
 
 II. Politics and Journalism. 1884-1894 17 
 
 Politics — Newspaper Work — New York — Buying into 
 Tacoma News — Marriage — Sale of Newspaper 
 
 Letters: 
 
 To John H. Wigmore. 18 
 
 To John H. Wigmore. 19 
 
 To John H. Wigmore. 22 
 
 To John H. Wigmore. 30 
 
 III. Law Practice and Political Activities. 1894-1906 31 
 
 Law — Drafting Nexv City Charter — Elected as City and 
 County Attorney — Gubernatorial Campaign — Mayoralty 
 Campaign — Earthquake — Appointment as Interstate Com- 
 merce Commissioner 
 
 Letters: 
 
 To P. T. Spurgeon. 32 
 
 To John H. Wigmore. 33 
 
 To John H. Wigmore. 35 
 
 To John H. Wigmore. 35 
 
 To Lyman Naugle. 38 
 
 To John H. Wigmore. 42 
 
 To John H. Wigmore. 43 
 
 To William R. Wheeler. 45 
 
 To Orva G. Williams. 46 
 
 To the Iroquois Club, Los Angeles, California. 47 
 
 To Isadore B. Dockweiler. 47 
 
 To Edward B. Whitney. 51 
 
 To Hon. Theodore Roosevelt. 53 
 
 To Benjamin Ide Wheeler. 54 
 
 To William E. Smythe. 55 
 
 To John H. Wigmore. 56 
 
 To Benjamin Ide Wheeler. 56 
 
 To William R. Wheeler. 60 
 
 To John H. Wigmore. 61 
 
 To William R. Wheeler. 62 
 
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xii CONTENTS 
 
 IV. Railroad and National Politics. 1906-1912 63 
 
 Increased Powers of Interstate Commerce Commission — 
 Harriman Inquiry — Railroad Regulation — Letters to 
 Roosevelt 
 
 Letters: 
 To Edward F. Adams. 
 
 64 
 
 67 
 68 
 70 
 
 To Benjamin Ide Wheeler. 65 
 
 To Elihu Root. 66 
 To E. B. Beard. 
 To George W. Lane. 
 To Charles K. McClatchy. 
 
 To Lawrence F. Abbott. 71 
 
 To John H. Wigmore. 72 
 
 To Mrs. Franklin K. Lane 74 
 
 To Theodore Roosevelt. 75 
 
 To John H. Wigmore. 77 
 
 To William R. Wheeler. 78 
 
 To Lawrence F. Abbott. 80 
 
 To Charles K. McClatchy. 81 
 
 To Charles K. McClatchy, 83 
 
 To John Crawford Burns. 83 
 
 To Theodore Roosevelt. 85 
 
 To Samuel G. Blythe. 87 
 
 To Sidney E. Mezes. 87 
 
 To John H. Wigmore. 88 
 
 To George W. Lane. 89 
 
 To Carl Snyder. 90 
 
 From Oliver Wendell Holmes. 91 
 
 To Oliver Wendell Holmes. 93 
 To John H. Wigmore. 94 
 
 To Daniel Willard. 94 
 
 To John McNaught. 95 
 
 V. Express Case — Cabinet Appointments. 1912-1913 97 
 
 Politics — Democratic Convention — Nomination of Wilson 
 — Report on Express Case — Democratic Victory — Prob- 
 lems for New Administration — On Cabinet Appointments 
 
 Letters: 
 To Albert Shaw. 97 
 
 To Curt G. Pieiffer. 98 
 
 To George W. Lane. 90 
 
 To Oscar S. Straus. 101 
 
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CONTENTS xiii 
 
 To Benjamin Ide Wheeler. 102 
 
 To George W. Lane. 102 
 
 To John H. Wigmore. 103 
 
 To Timothy Spellacy. 104 
 
 To Adolph C. Miller. 105 
 
 To William F. McCombs. 106 
 
 To Hugo K. Asher. 107 
 
 To Francis G. Newlands. 109 
 
 To Woodrow Wilson. 110 
 
 To William J. Bryan. HI 
 
 To James D. Phelan. HI 
 
 To Herbert Harley. 112 
 
 To Charles K. McClatchy. 113 
 
 To Ernest S. Simpson. 114 
 
 To Fairfax Harrison. 115 
 
 To James P. Brown. 116 
 
 To Adolph C. Miller. 117 
 
 To Edward M. House. 118 
 
 To Benjamin Ide Wheeler. 119 
 
 To Sidney E. Mezes. 120 
 
 To John H. Wigmore. 121 
 
 To John H. Wigmore. 122 
 
 To Joseph N. Teal. 124 
 
 To Edward M. House. 124 
 
 To Mitchell Innes. 126 
 
 VI. Secretary of the Interior. 1913-1915 129 
 
 Appointment as Secretary of the Interior — Reorganization 
 of the Department — Home Club — Bills on Public Lands 
 
 Letters: 
 
 To John H. Wigmore. 131 
 
 To Walter H. Page. 133 
 
 To Edwin A. Alderman. 134 
 
 To Theodore Eoosevelt. 134 
 
 To Lawrence F. Abbott. 135 
 
 To William M. Bole. 136 
 
 To Fairfax Harrison. 137 
 
 To Frank Reese. 138 
 
 To Mark Sullivan. 140 
 
 To Edward M. House. 142 
 
 To James H. Barry. 143 
 
 To Edward F. Adams. 144 
 
 To Hon. Woodrow Wilson. 145 
 
 To Benjamin Ide Wheeler. 147 
 
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xiv CONTENTS 
 
 To Albert Shaw. 148 
 
 To Charles K. Field. 150 
 
 To Frederic J. Lane. 151 
 
 To Edward E. Leake. 152 
 
 To William R. Wheeler. 153 
 
 To . 154 
 
 To his Brother on his Birthday. 155 
 
 To Cordenio Severance. 15' 
 
 To Hon. Woodrow Wilson. 158 
 
 To Theodore Roosevelt. 160 
 
 To Hon. Woodrow Wilson. 160 
 
 To Lawrence F. Abbott. 161 
 
 VII. European Wak and Personal Concerns. 1914-1915 163 
 
 Endorsement of Hoover — German Audacity — LL.D. 
 from Alma Mater — England's Sea Policy — Christmas 
 Letters 
 
 Letters: 
 
 To William J. Bryan. 163 
 
 To John Crawford Burns. 164 
 
 To Alexander Vogelsang. 165 
 
 To John H. Wigmore. 165 
 
 To John Crawford Burns. 166 
 
 To Edward J. Wheeler. 167 
 
 To John Crawford Burns. 168 
 
 To William P. Lawlor. 171 
 
 To William G. McAdoo. 172 
 
 To John Crawford Burns. 173 
 
 To E. W. Scripps. 174 
 
 To George W. Wickersham. 175 
 
 To Frederic J. Lane. 177 
 
 To John Crawford Burns. 178 
 
 To Eugene A. Avery. 179 
 
 To John F. Davis. 180 
 
 To Dick Mead. 182 
 
 To John Crawford Burns. 183 
 
 To Sidney E. Mezes. 183 
 
 To Cordenio Severance. 184 
 
 To Frederick Dixon. 185 
 
 To Robert H. Patchin. 186 
 
 To Francis R. Wall. 187 
 
 To John H. Wigmore. 188 
 
 To Mrs. Adolph C. Miller. 188 
 
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CONTENTS xv 
 
 To Mrs. Magnus Andersen. 190 
 
 To Mrs. Adolph C. Miller. 192 
 
 VIII. American and Mexican Affairs. 1916 195 
 On Writing English — Visit to Monticello — Citizenship 
 f»r Indians — On Religion — American-Mexican Joint 
 Commission 
 Letters: 
 
 To William M. Bole. 195 
 
 To Mrs. Adolph C. Miller. 196 
 
 To Edward F. Adams. 198 
 
 To Carl Snyder. 200 
 
 To Mrs. Franklin K. Lane. 200 
 
 To Will Irwin. 203 
 
 To . 203 
 
 To Hon. Woodrow Wilson. 204 
 
 To Frederic J. Lane. 205 
 
 To Frank I. Cobb. 207 
 
 To George W. Wickersham. 207 
 
 To H. B. Brougham. 208 
 
 To Frederic J. Lane. 210 
 
 To Hon. Woodrow Wilson. 211 
 
 To Mrs. Franklin K. Lane. 212 
 
 To Mrs. Adolph C. Miller. 215 
 
 To Mrs. Franklin K. Lane. 216 
 
 To William R. Wheeler. 222 
 
 To James S. Harlan. 222 
 
 To Hon. Woodrow Wilson. 223 
 
 To Alexander Vogelsang. 225 
 
 To Frederic J. Lane. 226 
 
 To Frank I. Cobb. 227 
 
 To R. M. Fitzgerald. 228 
 
 To James K. Moffitt. 229 
 
 To Benjamin Ide Wheeler. 229 
 
 To Roland Cotton Smith. 231 
 
 To James H. Barry. 231 
 
 IX. Cabinet Talk and War Plans. 1917 233 
 
 Cabinet Meetings — National Council of Defense — Berns- 
 torff — War — Plan for Railroad Consolidation — U-Boat 
 Sinkings Revealed — Alaska 
 
 Letters 
 To George W. Lane 
 
 233 
 
 To George W. Lane. 236 
 
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xvi CONTENTS 
 
 To George W. Lane. 238 
 
 To Frank I. Cobb. 238 
 
 To George W. Lane. 239 
 
 To George W. Lane. 241 
 
 To Edward J. Wheeler. 242 
 
 To George W. Lane. 242 
 
 To Frank I. Cobb. 245 
 
 To George W. Lane. 245 
 
 To George W. Lane. 250 
 
 " To Frank I. Cobb. 253 
 
 To Will Irwin. 254 
 
 To Robert Lansing. 255 
 
 To Henry Lane Eno. 257 
 
 To George B. Dorr. 257 
 
 To Hon. Woodrow Wilson. 258 
 
 To Hon. Woodrow Wilson. 261 
 
 To John O'H. Cosgrave. 263 
 
 X. Cabinet Notes in Wab-Time. 1918 264 
 Notes on Cabinet Meetings — School Gardens — A Democ- 
 racy Lacks Foresight — Use of National Resources — 
 Washington in War-time — The Sacrifice of War — Farms 
 for Soldiers 
 
 Letters: 
 
 To Franklin K. Lane, Jr. 267 
 
 To George W. Lane. 269 
 
 To Albert Shaw. 271 
 
 To Walter H. Page. 273 
 
 To John Lyon. 278 
 
 To Frank Lyon. 282 
 
 To Miss Genevieve King. 282 
 
 To John McNaught. 283 
 
 To Hon. Woodrow Wilson. 285 
 
 To Allan Pollok. 290 
 
 To E. S. Pillsbury. 291 
 
 To William Marion Reedy. 292 
 
 Notes on Cabinet Meetings. 293 
 
 To Daniel Willard. ' 300 
 
 To James H. Hawley. 301 
 
 To Samuel G. Blythe. 302 
 
 To George W. Lane. 303 
 
 To Edgar C. Bradley. 304 
 
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CONTENTS xvii 
 
 XI. After-War Problems — Leaving Washington. 1919 306 
 After-war Problems — Roosevelt Memorials — Americani- 
 zation — Religion — Responsibility of Press — Resigna- 
 tion 
 
 Letters: 
 
 To E. C. Bradley. 306 
 
 To George W. Lane. 307 
 
 To George W. Lane. 308 
 
 To William Boyce Thompson. 310 
 
 To Benjamin Ide Wheeler. 311 
 
 To E. S. Martin. 311 
 
 To George W. Lane. 312 
 
 To Van H. Manning. 315 
 
 To E. C. Bradley. 317 
 
 To Mrs. Louise Herrick Wall. 318 
 
 To . 318 
 
 To M. A. Mathew. 319 
 
 To Herbert C. Pell, Jr. 320 
 
 To Henry P. Davison. 321 
 
 To George W. Lane. 322 
 
 To C. S. Jackson. 323 
 
 To John Crawford Burns. 324 
 
 To Frank I. Cobb. 326 
 
 To Mrs. Louise Herrick Wall. 328 
 
 To Mrs. M. A. Andersen. 329 
 
 To George W. Lane. 330 
 
 To Daniel J. O'Neill. 332 
 
 To Hamlin Garland. 333 
 
 To Hugo K. Asher. 334 
 
 To Admiral Cary Grayson. 335 
 
 To Herbert C. Pell, Jr. 336 
 
 To Hon. Woodrow Wilson. 337 
 
 To Frank W. Mondell. 338 
 
 To Robert W. De Forest. 339 
 
 XII. Political Counsel — Lincoln's Eyes. 1920 340 
 Suggestions to Democratic Nominee for President — On 
 Election of Senators — Lost Leaders — Lincoln's Eyes — 
 William James's Letters 
 
 Letters: 
 
 To William Phelps Eno. 340 
 
 To Roland Cotton Smith. 342 
 
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xviii CONTENTS 
 
 To James M. Cox. 343 
 
 To Timothy Spellacy. 350 
 
 To Edward L. Doheny. 351 
 
 To Franklin D. Roosevelt. 351 
 
 To Mrs. George Ehle. 352 
 
 To Isadore B. Dockweiler. 354 
 
 To Hall McAllister. 356 
 
 To Mrs. George Ehle. 357 
 
 To Benjamin Ide Wheeler. 358 
 
 To John W. Hallowell. 359 
 
 To John W. Hallowell. 360 
 
 To Robert Lansing. 362 
 
 To Carl Snyder. 363 
 
 To William R. Wheeler. 363 
 
 To George Otis Smith. 364 
 
 To George W. Wickersham. 365 
 
 Lincoln's Eyes. 368 
 
 To Benjamin Ide Wheeler. 369 
 
 To Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt. 372 
 
 To Lathrop Brown. 372 
 
 To Timothy Spellacy. 373 
 
 To Frank I. Cobb. 373 
 
 To John G. Gehring. 374 
 
 To John W. Hallowell 375 
 
 To John G. Gehring. 377 
 
 XIII. Letters to Elizabeth. 1919-1920 381 
 
 Letters: 
 
 To Mrs. Ralph Ellis. 381 
 
 XIV. Friends and the Great Hope. 1921 399 
 Need for Democratic Program — Religious Faith — Men 
 who have Influenced Thought — A Sounder Industrial Life 
 
 — A Super-University for Ideas — "I Accept" — Frag- 
 ment 
 
 Letters: 
 
 To Mrs. Philip C. Kauffmann. 399 
 
 To Benjamin Ide Wheeler. 401 
 
 To Lathrop Brown. 402 
 
 To Mrs. George Ehle. 403 
 
 To Mrs. William Phillips. 404 
 
 To James H. Barry. 405 
 
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CONTENTS xix 
 
 To Michael A. Spellacy. 
 
 406 
 
 To William R. Wheeler. 
 
 407 
 
 To V. C. Scott O'Connor. 
 
 407 
 
 Letter sent to several friends. 
 
 408 
 
 To John G. Gehring. 
 
 410 
 
 To Lathrop Brown. 
 
 411 
 
 To Lathrop Brown. 
 
 413 
 
 To Adolph C. Miller. 
 
 414 
 
 To John G. Gehring. 
 
 415 
 
 To John W. Hallowell. 
 
 421 
 
 To Curt G. Pfeiffer. 
 
 422 
 
 To John G. Gehring. 
 
 424 
 
 To D. M. Reynolds. 
 
 425 
 
 To Mrs. Cordenio Severance. 
 
 428 
 
 To Alexander Vogelsang. 
 
 429 
 
 To James S. Harlan. 
 
 429 
 
 To Adolph C. Miller. 
 
 430 
 
 To Lathrop Brown". 
 
 433 
 
 To John G. Gehring. 
 
 434 
 
 To John H. Wigmore. 
 
 435 
 
 To Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt. 
 
 436 
 
 To John W. Hallowell. 
 
 437 
 
 To John G. Gehring. 
 
 438 
 
 To Hall McAllister. 
 
 439 
 
 To Mrs. Frederic Peterson. 
 
 440 
 
 To Roland Cotton Smith. 
 
 441 
 
 To John G. Gehring. 
 
 443 
 
 To Adolph C. Miller. 
 
 445 
 
 To Robert Lansing. 
 
 448 
 
 To James D. Phelan. 
 
 449 
 
 To Mr. and Mrs. Louis Hertle. 
 
 450 
 
 To Alexander Vogelsang. 
 
 451 
 
 To John Finley. 
 
 452 
 
 To James H. Barry. 
 
 455 
 
 To Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt. 
 
 455 
 
 To friends who had telegraphed and written for news. 
 
 — "I accept." 456 
 
 To Alexander Vogelsang. 
 
 462 
 
 To John W. Hallowell. 
 
 462 
 
 To Robert Lansing. 
 
 463 
 
 Fragment. 
 
 464 
 
 Index 
 
 467 
 
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ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Franklin K. Lane Frontispiece 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 6 
 
 With his younger brothers, George and Frederic. 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 10 
 
 At eighteen. 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 34 
 
 As City and County Attorney. 
 
 Franklin K. Lane, Mrs. Lane, Mrs. Miller, and Adolph 
 C. Miller 140 
 
 Franklin K. Lane with Ethan Allen, Superintendent 
 of Rainier National Park, Washington 204 
 
 Franklin K. Lane and George B. Dorr 256 
 
 In Lafayette National Park, Mount Desert Island, Maine. 
 
 Franklin K. Lane in 1917 358 
 
 Taken in Lafayette National Park. 
 
 "Lane Peak," Tatoosh Range, Rainier National Park 462 
 
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DATES 
 
 1864. July 15. Born near Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. 
 1871-76. Taken to California. Went to Grammar School at Napa, Cali- 
 fornia. 
 1876. Went to Oakland, California. Oakland High School. 
 1884-86. University of California, Berkeley, California. Special student. 
 1885. Reporting on Alta California in San Francisco for John P. Irish. 
 
 1887. Studied Hastings Law School. 
 
 1888. Admitted to the Bar. 
 
 1889. Special Newspaper Correspondent in New York for San Fran- 
 cisco Chronicle. 
 
 1891. Bought interest in Tacoma News and edited that paper. 
 
 1892. Campaigned in New York for Cleveland. 
 
 1893. Married. 
 
 1895. Returned to California. Practiced law. 
 
 1897-98. On Committee of One Hundred to draft new Charter for San 
 Francisco. 
 
 1898. Elected City and County Attorney to interpret new Charter. 
 
 1899. Reelected City and County Attorney. 
 
 1901. Reelected City and County Attorney. 
 
 1902. Nominated for Governor of California on Democratic and Non- 
 partisan Tickets. 
 
 1903. Democratic vote in Legislature for United States Senator. 
 1903. Nominated for Mayor of San Francisco. 
 
 1905. December. Nominated by President Roosevelt as Interstate 
 Commerce Commissioner. 
 
 1906. June 29. Confirmed by Senate as Interstate Commerce Com- 
 missioner. 
 
 1909. Reappointed by President Taft as Interstate Commerce Com- 
 missioner. 
 1913. Appointed Secretary of the Interior under President Wilson. 
 1916. Chairman American-Mexican Joint Commission. 
 
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xxiv DATES 
 
 1918. Chairman Kailroad Wage Commission. 
 
 1919. Chairman Industrial Conference. 
 
 1920. March 1. Resigned from the Cabinet. 
 
 1920. Vice-President of Pan-American Petroleum Company. 
 
 1921. May 18. Died at Rochester, Minnesota. 
 
 FAMILY NAMES 
 
 Franklin K. Lane was the eldest of four children. 
 
 Father: Christopher S. Lane. 
 
 Mother: Caroline Burns. 
 
 Brothers : George W. Lane. 
 Frederic J. Lane. 
 
 Sister: Maude (Mrs. M. A. Andersen). 
 
 He was married to Anne Wintermute, and had two children : 
 Franklin K Lane, Jr. ("Ned")- 
 Nancy Lane (Mrs. Philip C. Kauffmann). 
 
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THE LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
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THE LETTERS OF 
 FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Youth — Education — Characteristics 
 
 Although Franklin Knight Lane was only fifty-seven years 
 old when he died, May 18, 1921, he had outlived, by many 
 years, the men and women who had most influenced the 
 shaping of his early life. Of his mother he wrote, in trying 
 to comfort a friend, "The mystery and the ordering of 
 this world grows altogether inexplicable. ... It requires 
 far more religion or philosophy than I have, to say a real 
 word that might console one who has lost those who are dear 
 to him. Ten years ago my mother died, and I have never 
 been reconciled to her loss." Again he wrote of her, to his 
 sister, when their brother Frederic — the joyous, outdoor 
 comrade of his youth — was in his last illness, "Dear Fritz, 
 dear, dear boy, how I wish I could be there with him, though 
 I could do no good. . . . Each night I pray for him, and 
 I am so much of a Catholic, that I pray to the only Saint 
 I know, or ever knew, and ask her to help. If she lives, 
 her mind can reach the minds of the doctors. ... I don't 
 need her to intercede with God, but I would like her to 
 intercede with men. Why, Oh ! why, do we not know 
 whether she is or not ? Then all the Universe would be ex- 
 plained to me." 
 
 From those who knew him best from childhood, no word 
 of him is left, and none from the two men whose strength 
 
 l 
 
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2 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 and ideality colored his morning at the University of Cali- 
 fornia — Dr. George H. Howison, the "darling Howison" 
 of the William James' Letters, and Dr. Joseph H. Le Conte, 
 the wise and gentle geologist. "Names that were Sierras 
 along my skyline," Lane said of such men. To Dr. Howi- 
 son he wrote in 1913, when entering President Wilson's 
 Cabinet, "No letter that I have ever received has given me 
 more real pleasure than yours, and no man has been more 
 of an inspiration than you." 
 
 The sealing of almost every source of intimate knowledge 
 of the boy, who was a mature man at twenty-two, has left 
 the record of the early period curiously scant. Fortunately, 
 there are in his letters and speeches some casual allusions 
 to his childhood and youth, and a few facts and anecdotes 
 of the period from members of his family, from school, col- 
 lege, and early newspaper associates. In 1888, the story 
 begins to gather form and coherence, for at that date we have 
 the first of his own letters that have been preserved, written 
 to his lifelong friend, John H. Wigmore. With many breaks, 
 especially in the early chapters, the sequence of events, and 
 his moods toward them, pour from him with increasing full- 
 ness and spontaneity, until the day before he died. 
 
 All the later record exists in his letters, most of them writ- 
 ten almost as unconsciously as the heart sends blood to the 
 remotest members of the body ; and they come back, now, 
 in slow diastole, bearing within themselves evidence of the 
 hour and day and place of their inception; letters written 
 with the stub of a pencil on copy-paper, at some sleepless 
 dawn ; or, long ago, in the wide-spaced type of a primitive 
 traveling typewriter, and dated, perhaps, on the Western 
 desert, while he was on his way to secure water for thirsty 
 settlers ; or dashed off in the glowing moment just after a 
 Cabinet meeting, with the heat of the discussion still in 
 
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INTRODUCTION 3 
 
 his veins ; others on the paper of the Department of the 
 Interior, with the symbol of the buffalo — chosen by him 
 — richly embossed in white on the corner, and other letters, 
 soiled and worn from being long carried in the pocket and 
 often re-read, by the brave old reformer who had hailed 
 Lane when he first entered the lists. This is the part of 
 the record that cannot be transcribed. 
 
 Franklin Knight Lane was born on July 15, 1864, on his 
 father's farm near Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, 
 Canada, the eldest of four children, all born within a few 
 years. The low, white farmhouse that is his birthplace 
 still stands pleasantly surrounded by tall trees, and at one 
 side a huge, thirty-foot hedge of hawthorn blooms each 
 spring. His father, Christopher S. Lane, was at the time 
 of his son's birth a preacher. Later, when his voice was 
 affected by recurrent bronchitis, he became a dentist. 
 Lane speaks of him several times in his letters as a Pres- 
 byterian, and alludes to the strict orthodoxy of his father's 
 faith, especially in regard to an active and personal devil. 
 
 In 1917, when in the Cabinet, during President Wilson's 
 second term of office, Lane wrote to his brother, " To-night 
 we give a dinner to the Canadians, Sir George Foster, the 
 acting Premier, and Sir Joseph Polk, the Under-Secretary 
 of External Affairs, who, by the way, was born in Char- 
 lottetown, Prince Edward Island, and says that he heard 
 our father preach." 
 
 But it was from his mother, whose maiden name was 
 Caroline Burns, and who was of direct Scotch ancestry, 
 that Franklin Lane drew most of his physical and many of 
 his mental traits. From her he derived the firmly-modeled 
 structure of his face; the watchful Scotch eyes; a fine 
 white skin, that weathered to an even brown, later in life ; 
 
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4 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K LANE 
 
 remarkably sound teeth, large and regular, giving firm sup- 
 port to the round contour of the face ; and the fresh line of 
 his lips, that was a marked family trait. A description 
 of him, when he was candidate for Governor of California, 
 at thirty-eight, was written by Grant Wallace. Cleared 
 of some of the hot sweetness of a campaign rhapsody it 
 reads : — 
 
 "Picture a man a little above the average height . . . 
 with the deep chest and deep voice that always go with the 
 born leader of men ; the bigness and strength of the hands 
 . . . the clear eye and broad, firm, and expressive mouth, 
 and the massive head that suggests irresistibly a combina- 
 tion of Napoleon and Ingersoll." 
 
 These two resemblances, to Napoleon and to Robert In- 
 gersoll, were frequently rediscovered by others, in later 
 years. 
 
 The description concludes by saying, "That Lane is a 
 man of earnestness and vigorous action is shown in . . . 
 every movement. You sit down to chat with him in his 
 office. As he grows interested in the subject, he kicks his 
 chair back, thrusts his hands way to the elbows in his trouser 
 pockets and strides up and down the room. With deepen- 
 ing interest he speaks more rapidly and forcibly, and charges 
 back and forth across the carpet with the heavy tread of a 
 grenadier." As an older man this impetuosity was some- 
 what modified. What an early interviewer called his "frank 
 man-to-manness " became a manner of grave and cordial 
 concentration. With the warm, full grasp of his hand in 
 greeting, he gave his complete attention to the man before 
 him. That, and his rich, strong laugh of pleasure, and the 
 varied play of his moods of earnestness, gayety, and chal- 
 lenge, are what men remember best. 
 
 Lane's native bent from the first was toward public life. 
 
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INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 His citizenship was determined when his father decided to 
 take his family to California, to escape the severity of the 
 Canadian climate. In 1902, Franklin Lane was asked how 
 he became an American. "By virtue of my father's citizen- 
 ship," he replied, "I have been a resident of California since 
 seven years of age, excepting during a brief absence in New 
 York and Washington." 
 
 In 1871, the mother, father, and four children, after visit- 
 ing two brothers of Mrs. Lane's on the way, finally reached 
 the town of Napa, California. 
 
 "They came," says an old schoolmate of Napa days, 
 "bringing with them enough of the appearance and man- 
 nerisms of their former environment to make us young- 
 sters 'sit up and take notice,' for the children were dressed 
 in kilts, topped by handsome black velvet and silk plaid 
 caps. However, these costumes were soon discarded, for 
 at school the children found themselves the center of both 
 good- and bad-natured gibes, until they were glad to dress as 
 was the custom here." The "Lane boys," he says, were 
 then put into knee-trousers, " and Franklin, who was large 
 for his age and quite stout, looked already too old for this 
 style," and so continued to be annoyed by the children, 
 until he put a forcible end to it. "He 'licked' one of the 
 ringleaders," says the chronicler, and won to peace. "As 
 we grew to know Franklin ... his right to act became 
 accepted. . . . There was always something about his 
 personality which made one feel his importance." 
 
 The little California community was impressed by the 
 close intimacy of the home-life of the Canadian family — 
 closer than was usual in hurriedly settled Western towns. 
 The father found time to take all three boys on daily walks. 
 Another companion remembers seeing them starting off to- 
 gether for a day's hunting and fishing. But it was the 
 
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6 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K LANE 
 
 mother, who read aloud to them and told them stories and 
 exacted quick obedience from them, who was the real power 
 in the house. There were regular family prayers, and fam- 
 ily singing of hymns and songs. 
 
 This last custom survived among the brothers and sister 
 through all the years. Even after all had families of their 
 own, and many cares, some chance reunion, or a little family 
 dinner would, at parting, quicken memory and, with hats 
 and coats already on, perhaps, in readiness to separate to 
 their homes, they would stand together and shout, in uni- 
 son, some song of the hour or some of their old Scotch melo- 
 dies with that pleasant harmony of voices of one timbre, 
 heard only in family singing. 
 
 Lane had a baritone of stirring quality, coming straight 
 from his big lungs, and loved music all his life. In the 
 last weeks of his life he more than once wrote of his 
 pleasure in his brother's singing; At Rochester, a few 
 days before his operation, he reassured an anxious friend by 
 writing, "My brother George is here, with his splendid 
 philosophy and his Scotch songs." 
 
 His love and loyalty to past ties, though great and per- 
 sistent, still left his ideal of loyalty unsatisfied. Toward 
 the end of his life he wrote, "Roots we all have and we must 
 not be torn up from them and flung about as if we were 
 young things that could take hold in any soil. I have been 
 — America has been — too indifferent to roots — home 
 roots, school roots. ... We should love stability and 
 tradition as well as love adventure and advancement." 
 But the practical labors of his life were directed toward 
 creating means to modify tradition in favor of a larger sort 
 of justice than the past had known. 
 
 Resignation had no part in his political creed. "I hold 
 with old Cicero 'that the whole glory of virtue is in ac- 
 
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FRANKLIN K. LANE WITH HIS YOUNGER BROTHERS, GEORGE 
 AND FREDERIC 
 
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INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 tivity,'" comes from him with the ring of authentic tem- 
 perament. And of a friend's biography he wrote, "What a 
 fine life — all fight, interwoven with fun and friendship." 
 
 All the anecdotes of his boyhood show him in action, mov- 
 ing among his fellows, organizing, leading, and administer- 
 ing rough-and-tumble justice. 
 
 From grammar school in Napa he went, for a time, to a 
 private school called Oak Mound. In vacation, when he 
 was eleven years old, he was earning money as messenger- 
 boy, and at about that time as general helper to one of the 
 merchants of the little town. He left in his old employer's 
 mind the memory of a boy "exceedingly bright and enter- 
 prising." He recalls a fight that he was told about, between 
 Lane "and a boy of about his size," "and Frank licked 
 him," the old merchant exults, "and as he walked away he 
 said, 'If you want any more, you can get it at the same 
 place.'" 
 
 It was in Napa — so he could not have been quite twelve 
 years old — that Lane started to study Spanish, so that he 
 might talk more freely to the ranchers, who drove to town 
 in their rickety little carts, to "trade" at the stores. 
 
 In 1876, the family moved from the full sunshine of the 
 valley town, with its roads muffled in pale dust, and its hill- 
 sides lifting up the green of riotous vines, to Oakland, cool 
 and cloudy, with a climate to create and sustain vigor. In 
 Oakland, just across the bay from San Francisco, Lane en- 
 tered the High School. Again his schoolmates recall him 
 with gusto. He was muscular in build, "a good short-dis- 
 tance runner." His hands — always very characteristic of the 
 man — were large and well-made, strong to grasp but not 
 adroit in the smaller crafts of tinkering. "He impressed 
 me," an Oakland schoolmate writes, "as a sturdy youngster 
 who had confidence in himself and would undoubtedly get 
 
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8 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K LANE 
 
 what he went after. Earnest and straightforward in man- 
 ner," and always engrossed in the other boys, "when they 
 walked down Twelfth Street, on their way to school, they 
 had their arms around each other's shoulders, discussing 
 subjects of 'vast importance.'" 
 
 His capacity for organized association developed rapidly. 
 He had part in school orations, amateur plays, school and 
 Sunday school clubs. Many of these he seems to have ini- 
 tiated, so that, with his school work, his life was full. He 
 says somewhere that by the time he was sixteen he was 
 earning his own way. His great delight in people, and es- 
 pecially in the thrust and parry of controversial talk, held 
 him from the solitary pleasures of fishing and hunting, so 
 keenly relished by his two younger brothers. One of them 
 said of him, "Frank can't even enjoy a view from a moun- 
 tain-peak without wanting to call some one up to share it 
 with him." He writes of his feeling about solitary nature to 
 his friend George Dorr, in 1917, in connection with improve- 
 ments for the new National Park, near Bar Harbor, "A 
 wilderness, no matter how impressive or beautiful does not 
 satisfy this soul of mine (if I have that kind of a thing) . It 
 is a challenge to man. It says, 'Master me! Put me to 
 use ! Make me more than I am!'" About his "need of a 
 world of men," he was equally candid. To his wife he 
 writes, "I am going to dinner, and before I go alone into a 
 lonesome club, I must send a word to you. . . . The world is 
 all people to me. I lean upon them. They induce thought 
 and fancy. They give color to my life. Thrown on myself 
 I am a stranded bark." . . . 
 
 His love for cooperation and for action, "dramatic action," 
 some one says, never left him. In his last illness, in a politi- 
 cal crisis, he rallied the energy of younger men. He wrote 
 of the need of a Democratic program, suggested a group of 
 
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INTRODUCTION 9 
 
 compelling names, "or any other group," he adds, "put 
 up the plan and ask them what they think of it — tenta- 
 tively — just a quiet chat, but start!" And about the 
 same matter he wrote, "The time has come. Now strike !" 
 
 To a friend wavering over her fitness for a piece of pro- 
 jected work, he said drily, "There is only one way to do a 
 thing, and that is to do it." Late in life, the summation of 
 this creed of action seemed to come when he confessed, "I 
 cannot get over the feeling that we are here as conquerors, 
 not as pacifists." 
 
 And words, written and spoken words, were to him, 
 of course, the instrument of conquest. But the search for 
 the fit and shining word for his mark did not become research. 
 In a droll letter, about how he put simpler English into the 
 Department of the Interior, he tells of finding a letter written 
 by one of the lawyers of the Department to an Indian about 
 his title to land, that was "so involved and elaborately 
 braided and beaded and fringed that I could not understand 
 it myself." So he sent the ornate letter back and had it put 
 into "straightaway English." 
 
 His own practicable English he believed he had learned 
 through his newspaper training. He first worked in the 
 printing office of the Oakland Times, then became a reporter 
 for that paper. He went campaigning and made speeches 
 for the Prohibition candidate for Governor in 1884 — before 
 he was twenty-one. The next year he was reporting for the 
 Alta California, edited by Colonel John P. Irish, himself a 
 fiery orator, of the denunciatory type. Colonel Irish recalls 
 that he was at once impressed with the " copious and ex- 
 cellent vocabulary" of his ambitious reporter, who was, 
 even then, he says, "determined upon a high and useful 
 career." In a letter to Colonel Irish, in 1913, Lane wrote, 
 "That simple little card of yours was a good thing for me. 
 
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10 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 It took me for a minute out of the maelstrom of pressing 
 business and carried me back, about thirty years, to the 
 time when I was a boy working for you — an unbaked, 
 ambitious chap, who did not know where he was going, but 
 was trying to get somewhere." 
 
 It is interesting to notice that in youth he did not suffer 
 from the usual phases of revolt from early teachings. His 
 father was a Prohibitionist, and Lane's first campaign was 
 for a Prohibition candidate for Governor; his father had 
 been a preacher and Lane, when very young, thought seri- 
 ously of becoming a minister, so seriously that he came 
 before an examining board of the Presbyterian church. 
 After two hours of grilling, he was, though found wanting, 
 not rejected, but put upon a six months' probation — the 
 elders probably dreaded to lose so persuasive a tongue for 
 the sake of a little "insufficiency of damnation" in his creed. 
 One of his inquisitors, a Presbyterian minister, went from 
 the ordeal with Lane, and continued to try to convert him 
 to the tenets of Presbyterianism. Then suddenly, at some 
 turn of the talk, the clergyman abandoned his position and 
 said carelessly, "Well, Lane, why not become a Unitarian 
 preacher ? " 
 
 The boy who had been walking the floor at night in the 
 struggle to reconcile the teachings of the church with his 
 own doubts — knowing that Eternal Damnation was held 
 to be the reward for doubt of Christ's divinity — was so 
 horrified by the casuistry of the man who could be an ortho- 
 dox minister and yet speak of preaching as just one way to 
 make a living, that he swung sharply from any wish to enter 
 the church. 
 
 The strictness of the orthodoxy of his home had not 
 served to alienate his sympathies, but he was chilled to the 
 heart by this indifference. He remembered the episode all 
 
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FRANKLIN K. LANE AT EIGHTEEN 
 
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INTRODUCTION 11 
 
 his life with emotion, but he was not embittered by it. He 
 was young, a great lover, greatly in love with life. 
 
 In 1884, when he entered the University of California, 
 it was as a special not as a regular student. "I put myself 
 through college," he writes to a boy seeking advice on edu- 
 cation, "by working during vacation and after hours, and I 
 am very glad I did it." He seems to have arranged all his 
 college courses for the mornings and carried his reporting 
 and printing-office work the last half of the day. 
 
 College at once offered a great forum for debate, and a 
 richer comradeship with men of strong mental fiber. Lane's 
 eagerness in discussion and love of large and sounding words 
 made the students call him "Demosthenes Lane." In his 
 letters it is easy to trace the gradual evolution from his early 
 oratorical style into a final form of free, imaginative ex- 
 pression of great simplicity. Meanwhile, as he debated, he 
 gathered to himself men who were to be friends for the rest 
 of his life. The "Sid" of the earliest letters that we have 
 is Dr. Sidney E. Mezes, now President of the College of the 
 City of New York, to whom one of his last letters was ad- 
 dressed. His friendship for Dr. Wigmore, Dean of Law at 
 the Northwestern University, in Chicago, dates almost as 
 far back. 
 
 In college, Lane seized what he most wanted in courses 
 on Philosophy and Economics. "His was a mind of many 
 facets and hospitable in its interest," says his college and 
 lifelong friend, Adolph C. Miller, "but his years at Berkeley 
 were devoted mainly to the study of Philosophy and Govern- 
 ment, and kindred subjects. He was a leading figure in the 
 Political Science Club, and intent in his pursuit of phi- 
 losophy. Often he could be seen walking back and forth in 
 a room in the old Bacon library, set apart for the more seri- 
 ous-minded students, with some philosophical book in hand ; 
 
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12 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 every line of his face expressing deep concentration, the 
 occasional light in his eye clearly betraying the moment when 
 he was feeling the joy of understanding." 
 
 In two years, not waiting for formal graduation, Lane was 
 back in the world of public affairs that he had scarcely left. 
 In the same short-cut way he took his Hastings Law 
 School work, and passed his Supreme Court examination 
 in 1888, in much less than the time usually allowed for the 
 work. 
 
 By the time he left the law school, " a full fledged, but not 
 a flying attorney," his desire for aggressive citizenship was 
 fully formed. In fact, the whole active campaign, that was 
 his life, was made by the light of early ideals, enlarged and 
 reinterpreted as his climb to power brought under his survey 
 wider horizons. 
 
 The sketchiest summary of his early and late activities 
 brings out the singleness of the central purpose moving 
 through his life. His first fight, in 1888, for Ballot Reform 
 was made that the will of the people of the State might be 
 honestly interpreted; later, in Tacoma, Washington, he 
 sided with his printers, against his interest as owner, in their 
 fight to maintain union wages ; once more in San Francisco, 
 he took, without a retaining fee, the case of the blackmailed 
 householders whose titles were threatened by the pretensions 
 of the Noe claimants, and with his brother, cleared title to all 
 of their small homes ; he joined, with his friend, Arthur Mc- 
 Ewen, in an editorial campaign against the Southern Pacific, 
 in the day of its tyrannous power over all the shippers 
 of California; later he drafted into the charter of San 
 Francisco new provisions to improve the wages of all city 
 employees; as its young city and county attorney, he 
 aggressively protected the city against street railway en- 
 croachments, successfully enforcing the law against infrac- 
 
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INTRODUCTION 13 
 
 tions; as Interstate Commerce Commissioner, he disen- 
 tangled a network of injustices in the relations between 
 shippers and railroads, exposed rebating and demurrage 
 evils ; formulated new procedures in deflating, reorganizing, 
 and zoning the business of all the express companies in 
 the country ; as Secretary of the Interior, he confirmed to 
 the people a fuller use of Federal Lands, and National Park 
 Reserves, laid the foundation for the development, on public 
 domain, of water powers, and the leasing of Government 
 oil lands, and built the Government railroad in Alaska; 
 during the War, he contributed to the Council of National 
 Defense his inexhaustible enthusiasm for cooperation, with 
 definite plans for swift action, to focus National resources 
 to meet war needs ; and finally, his last carefully elaborated 
 plan — killed by a partisan Congress — was to place returned 
 soldiers upon the land under conditions of hopeful and de- 
 cent independence. These were some of the "glories" of 
 activity into which he poured the resources of his energy 
 and imagination. 
 
 But no catalogue of the work or the salient mental charac- 
 teristics of Franklin Lane gives a picture of the man, without 
 taking into account his temperament, for that colored every 
 hour of his life, and every act of his career. The things 
 that he knew seized his imagination. Even when a middle- 
 aged man he sang, like a troubadour, of the fertility of the 
 soil ; he was stirred by the virtue and energy of what he 
 saw and touched ; his heart leaped at the thought of the 
 power of water ready to be unlocked for man's use — most 
 happy in that the thing that was his he could love. 
 
 "To lose faith in the future of oil !" he cries, in the midst 
 of a sober statistical letter, "Why ! that is as unthinkable 
 as to lose faith in your hands. Oil, coal, electricity, what 
 are these but multiplied and more adaptable, super-service- 
 
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14 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 able hands? They may temporarily be unemployed, but 
 the world can't go round without them." A man who feels 
 poetry in petroleum suffers from no wistful "desire of the 
 moth for the star." To his full sense of life the moth and 
 the star are of one essential substance, parts of one glorious 
 conquerable creation — and the moth just a fleck of star- 
 dust, with silly wings. 
 
 In truth, both then and throughout most of the days of his 
 life he was completely oriented in this world, at home here, 
 with his strong feet planted upon reality. He liked so many 
 homely things, that his friendly glance responded to common 
 sunlight without astigmatism. 
 
 That his sympathies should have outrun his repugnances 
 was of great practical moment in what he was able to achieve 
 in a life shortened at both ends, for though he had to lose 
 time by earning his own professional equipment, he lost little 
 energy in friction. He wrote to a political aspirant for high 
 office, in 1921, "Pick a few enemies and pick them with 
 discretion. Chiefly be for things." To a man who was 
 making a personal attack on an adversary of Lane's, while 
 in 1914, as Secretary of the Interior, he was engrossed in 
 establishing his "conservation-by-use" policy, in opposition 
 to the older and narrower policy of conservation by with- 
 drawal, Lane wrote, "I have never seen any good come by 
 blurring an issue by personal conflict or antagonisms. . . . 
 I have no time to waste in fighting people ... to fight for 
 a thing the best way is to show its advantages, and the 
 need for it . . . and my only solicitude is that the things 
 I care for should not be held back by personal disputes." . . 
 
 This lesson he had learned more from his own tempera- 
 ment than from political expediency. It was bound up in 
 his love of efficiency and also in his sense of humor. During 
 this same hot conservation controversy he writes to an old 
 
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INTRODUCTION 15 
 
 friend, "I have no intention of saying anything in reply 
 to Pinchot. He wrote me thirty pages to prove that I was 
 a liar, and rather than read that again I will admit the fact." 
 
 This preoccupation with the main issue, in getting bene- 
 ficial results was one thing that made him glad to acclaim 
 and use the gifts of other men. Through his sympathies 
 he could follow as well as lead, and he caught enthusiasms 
 as well as kindled them. He believed in enthusiasm for it- 
 self, and because he saw in it one of the great potencies of 
 life. In writing of D'Annunzio's placing Italy beside the 
 Allies, he rejoices in the beautiful spectacle of the spirit of a 
 whole people "blown into flame by a poet-patriot." But 
 "the ideal," he urges, "must be translated into the possible. 
 Man cannot live by bread alone — nor on manna." 
 
 His gay and challenging attitude toward life expressed 
 only one mood, for he paid, as men must, for intense buoy- 
 ancy of temper by black despairs. "Damn that Irish tem- 
 perament, anyway!" he writes. "0 God, that I had been 
 made a stolid, phlegmatic, non-nervous, self-satisfied Brit- 
 isher, instead of a wild cross between a crazy Irishman 
 with dreams, desires, fancies — and a dour Scot with his 
 conscience and his logical bitterness against himself — and 
 his eternal drive ! " 
 
 His exaggerations of hope and his moods of broken dis- 
 appointment, his ever-springing faith in men, and in the 
 possibility of just institutions, were more temperamental 
 than logical. Moods of astonished grief, when men showed 
 greed and instability, gave place to humorous and tolerant 
 analysis of characters and events. Even his loyalty to his 
 friends was subject to the slight magnetic deflections of a 
 man of moods. He was true to them as the needle to the 
 pole; and with just the same piquing oscillations, before 
 the needle comes to rest at the inevitable North, 
 
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16 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 Because he had caught, in its capricious rhythms, the 
 subtle movements of human intercourse he trusted himself 
 to express to other men the natural man within his breast, 
 without fear of misconstruction. He contrived to human- 
 ize, in parts, even his government reports. They brought 
 him, year by year, touching letters of gratitude from weary 
 political writers. The patient, logical Scot in him that said, 
 "I am going to take this thing up bit by bit without trying 
 to get a whole philosophy into the work," anchored him to 
 the heaviest tasks as if he were a true-born plodder, while 
 the "wild Irishman" with dreams and desires lighted the 
 way with gleams of Will-o'-the-Wisp. The quicksilver in 
 the veins of the patient Mercutio of railroad rates and de- 
 murrage charges lightened his work for himself and others. 
 Just as in the five years when he served San Francisco, as 
 City and County Attorney, he labored to such effect that 
 not one of his hundreds of legal opinions was reversed by 
 the Supreme Court of the State, so he toiled on these same 
 Annual Reports, so immersed that, as he says, "I even have 
 to take the blamed stuff to bed with me." Fourteen and 
 sixteen hours at his official desk were not his longest hours, 
 and sometimes he snatched a dinner of shredded biscuit from 
 beside the day's accumulations of papers upon his heaped-up 
 desk. He laid upon himself the burden of labor, examining 
 and cross-examining men for hours upon a single point of 
 essential fact — quick to detect fraud and intolerant of hum- 
 bug, — but infinitely patient with those who were merely 
 dull, evading no drudgery, and, above all, never evading 
 the dear pains of building-up and maintaining friendship. 
 
 Louise Herrick Wall, 
 
 March, 1922 
 
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II 
 
 POLITICS AND JOURNALISM 
 
 1884-1894 
 
 Politics — Newspaper Work — New York — ■ Buying into Tacoma 
 News — Marriage — Sale of Newspaper 
 
 Franklin K. Lane's earliest political association, in Cali- 
 fornia, after reaching manhood, was with John H. Wig- 
 more. Wigmore had returned from Harvard, in 1883, with 
 a plan, already matured, for Civic Reform. The Municipal 
 Reform League, created by Wigmore, Lane, and several 
 other young men, was to follow the general outline of boss 
 control, by precinct and ward organization, the difference 
 being that the League members were to hold no offices, en- 
 joy no spoils, and work for clean city politics. Each member 
 of the inner circle was to take over and make himself re- 
 sponsible for a definite city district, making a card index of 
 the name of each voter, taking a real part in all caucus meet- 
 ings — in saloon parlors or wherever they were held — and 
 studying practical politics at first hand. "Blind Boss 
 Buckley" was the Democratic dictator of San Francisco, 
 and against his rSgime the initial efforts of the League were 
 directed. 
 
 It was a giant's task, an impossible task, for a small group 
 of newspaper writers and college undergraduates. The 
 short career of the Municipal Reform League ended when 
 Wigmore went East to study law, leaving Lane determined 
 
 17 
 
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18 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 to increase his efficiency by earning his way through college 
 and the Hastings Law School. 
 
 The first letters of this volume follow the theme of the 
 political interests of the two young men. 
 
 To John H. Wigmore 
 
 Oakland, February 27, 1888 
 
 My dear Wigmore, — I am thinking of getting back in 
 your part of the world myself, and this is what I especially 
 wanted to write you about. I desire to see the world, to 
 rub off some of my provincialisms, to broaden a little before 
 I settle down to a prosaic existence. So, as I say, I want to 
 live in Boston awhile and my only possibility of so doing is 
 to get a position on some Boston paper, something that will 
 afford me a living and allow some little time for social and 
 literary life. However I don't care much what the billet 
 is. I can bring letters of recommendation from all the good 
 newspaper men in San Francisco, both as to my ability at 
 editorial work (I have done considerable for the San Fran- 
 cisco News Letter and Examiner), and at all kinds of repor- 
 torial work. . . . 
 
 I passed the law examination before the Supreme Court 
 last month, so I am now a full-fledged — but not a flying, 
 attorney. I have not determined definitely on going into 
 law. . . . 
 
 Politically speaking we Mugwumps out here are happy. 
 . . . California has been opposed to Cleveland on every 
 one of his great proposals (civil service reform, silver ques- 
 tion, tariff reform), and yet the Republicans must nominate 
 a very strong man to get this State this year. The people 
 admire old Grover's strength so much, he is a positive man 
 and an honest man, and when the people see these two ex- 
 
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POLITICS AND JOURNALISM 19 
 
 ceptional virtues mixed happily in a candidate they grow 
 to love and admire him out of the very idealism of their na- 
 tures. 
 
 But I must not bother the Boston attorney any longer. 
 Write me all you know of opportunities there and believe 
 me always your friend, 
 
 Frank K. Lane 
 
 To John H. Wigmore 
 
 Oakland, May 9, 1888 
 My dear Wigmore, — Of course I would have to stand my 
 chances in getting a position. Newspaper men, perhaps 
 more than any other class, are rated by ability. Civil Serv- 
 ice Reform principles rule in every good newspaper office 
 to their fullest extent. When I wrote you, I was unsettled 
 as to my plans for the coming year. My brother desired to 
 spend a year or so in Boston and I thought of accompanying 
 him. He has changed his plans and so have I. . . . I 
 am regularly on the Chronicle staff, chiefly writing sensa- 
 tional stories. I get a regular salary of twenty -five dollars 
 a week besides some extras, and have as easy and pleasant 
 a billet as there is on the paper, though editorial work would 
 be more to my liking. 
 
 These arrangements do not interfere, however, with my 
 Boston plan, for sooner or later I shall breathe its intellec- 
 tual atmosphere, that I may outgrow provincialism and 
 become intellectual by force of habit rather than will. How 
 long it will be before the wish can be gratified I cannot tell. 
 Probably next year. You see the law is not altogether after 
 my taste. I feel it a waste of time to spend days quarreling 
 like school-boys over a few hundred dollars. I feel all the 
 time as if I must be engaged in some life work which will 
 make more directly for the good of my fellows. I feel the 
 
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20 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 need which the world manifests for broader ideas in econom- 
 ics, politics, the philosophy of life, and all social questions. 
 Feeling so, I cannot coop myself in a law library behind a 
 pile of briefs, spending my days and nights in search of some 
 authority which will save my client's dollar. I am unset- 
 tled, however, as to my permanent work. . . . 
 
 Oakland, September 20, 1888 
 
 . . . The copies of the Massachusetts law have been duly 
 received and put to the best of use. On my motion our 
 Young Men's League appointed a Committee to draft a 
 law for presentation to the Legislature. Judge Maguire, 
 Ferd, 1 and two others, with myself, are on that Committee 
 and we are hard at work. I send to-day a copy of the Ex- 
 aminer containing a ballot reform bill just introduced by 
 the Federated Trades. It is based on the New York law 
 but is very faulty. We are working with that bill as a 
 basis, proposing various and very necessary amendments. 
 We hope to get our bill adopted in Committee as a substi- 
 tute for the one introduced, and believe that the Federated 
 Trades will be perfectly willing to adopt our measure. . . . 
 
 Tell me, please, how you select your election officials in 
 your large cities. Our mode of selection is really the weak 
 point with us, for no matter how good a law we might pro- 
 cure, its enforcement would be left to "boss" tools — cor- 
 ruptionists of the worst class. . . . 
 
 Oakland, December 2, 1888 
 . . . Your letter breathes the sentiments of thousands of 
 Republicans who voted against Cleveland. They are now 
 "just a little" sorry that so good a man is beaten. I never 
 
 1 Ferdinand Vassault, a college friend. 
 
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POLITICS AND JOURNALISM 21 
 
 quite understood your political position. Your letter to 
 Ferd giving your reason was, I must say, not conclusive, for 
 I cannot believe that you can find a greater field of use- 
 fulness or power in the Republican than in the Demo- 
 cratic party, surely not now that the new Democracy — 
 a party aggressive, filled with the reform spirit, and right 
 in the direction it takes, now that such a party is in the 
 field. 
 
 You surely ought to join us on the tariff fight, but then I 
 wish you the best of fortune whatever your choice. 
 
 Ferd and several others with myself are now organizing 
 what will some day be a great state, if not a great national 
 institution. We call it the Young Men's Democratic 
 League 1 — it is to be made up of young men from twenty- 
 one to forty-five ; its scope — national politics, election of 
 President and Congressmen, and its immediate purpose to 
 inform the people on the tariff question. When our Con- 
 stitution is published you shall have one. We expect to 
 organize branches all over the State and in a year or two 
 will be strong in the thousands. 
 
 Your election article was of a singular kind but very good. 
 I have loaned it out among the old crowd. I spoke of it to 
 Judge Sullivan, who is compiling authorities on the "in- 
 tention of the voter" as governing, where the spelling is 
 wrong on a ballot. Sullivan ran for Supreme Justice and 
 ran thousands ahead of his ticket (the Democratic) but 
 thinks that he was defeated by votes thrown out in Alameda 
 and Los Angeles counties because of irregularities in the 
 ballot — in one case his initials were printed "J. D." in- 
 stead of "J. F." — in another instance, his name was 
 printed a little below the title of the office, because of the 
 
 1 This plan seems to have been to enlarge the influence of the League mentioned 
 in a former letter. 
 
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22 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 narrowness of the ticket. If these ballots were counted 
 for him he thinks he would have won. . . . 
 
 Fourteen years later, when the electoral count was made 
 of Franklin K. Lane's ballots for Governor of the State of 
 California, between eight and ten thousand ballots were 
 thrown out on similar ground of "irregularities," and he 
 was counted out, "the intention of the voter" being again 
 frustrated. 
 
 To John H. Wig more 
 
 San Francisco, California, January 29, 1889 
 
 My dear Wigmore, — ... I want to report progress. We 
 now have our bill complete. . . . The bill I send has been 
 adopted by the Federated Trades and will be substituted 
 by them for their bill now before the House. . . . 
 
 On Saturday evening there will be one of those huge 
 "spontaneous" mass meetings (which require so much prep- 
 aration) in support and endorsement of the bill. The 
 most prominent men in both Houses of the Legislature will 
 speak. . . . 
 
 San Francisco, February 17, 1889 
 ... I never have been busier in my life than in the 
 last two weeks. Ballot Reform has taken up a very great 
 portion of my time. I have just returned from a lobbying 
 trip to Sacramento. The bill will not pass, though the best 
 men in both Houses favor it. I went up on the invitation 
 of the chairman of the Assembly Committee to address the 
 Committee. I spoke for an hour and a half. At the end 
 of that time only one man in the group openly opposed the 
 scheme, and he confessed that the bill would do just what I 
 claimed for it, and made this confession to the Committee. 
 
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POLITICS AND JOURNALISM 23 
 
 "But," said he, "it tends to the disintegration of political 
 parties and as they are essential to our life we must not 
 help on their destruction. "... 
 
 The Committee of the Senate decided without any debate 
 on the bill to report adversely to it. I got them to reconsider 
 their vote, and we will have a hearing at any rate before the 
 bill is killed. The Legislature is altogether for boodle. . . . 
 
 Your book has been of the greatest assistance to me. I 
 virtually made my speech from it and left the book with the 
 chairman of the Committee at his special request. ... If 
 it had come out a month sooner we would have stood fifty 
 per cent better chance of getting the bill through, because 
 the papers would have come to the front so much sooner 
 and we would have been thirty days ahead with our bill. I 
 tell you I felt quite proud in addressing the distinguished 
 legislature to refer to "my friend Wigmore's book." . . . 
 
 San Francisco, May 10, 1889 
 ... I am coming nearer to you. On Monday I leave to 
 take up my residence in New York, as correspondent for 
 the San Francisco Chronicle. I do not know where I will 
 be located, but mail addressed to me at the Hoffman House 
 will reach me when I arrive, which will be in about ten days. 
 My purpose is to breathe a new atmosphere for a while so 
 that I may broaden. We must make arrangements soon 
 to meet. I want to know your New York reform friends. . . . 
 
 New York, June 21, 1889 
 This lapse of a couple of weeks means that I have 
 been enjoying the delights of a New York summer, in which 
 only slaves work and many of these find refuge in suicide. . . . 
 
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24 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 Not a single reformer, big or little, have I yet met. Your 
 friend Bishop 1 I have not called on, though I have twice 
 started to do so, and have been switched off. ... I will 
 go within a couple of days for the spirit must be revived. 
 One day early in this week I had an intense desire to visit 
 you immediately and was almost on the verge of letting 
 things go and rush off, but duty held me. . . . 
 
 I see that Bellamy has captured Higginson, Savage, and 
 others and that they are going to work over the Kinsley- 
 Maurice business. "Well, I would to God it would work. 
 Something to make life happier and steadier for these poor 
 women and men who toil and never get beyond a piece of 
 meat and a cot ! There is justification here for a social- 
 economic revolution and it will come, too, if things are not 
 bettered. 
 
 If you have a stray thought let me know it and soon. 
 Your friend, 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 Lane's desire for stimulating companionship in New York 
 was quickly gratified. A spontaneous association of friend- 
 ships, based upon a young delight in life and a vast curiosity 
 of the mind, sprang up among a little group of men of very 
 diverse types. All were strangers in New York with no 
 immediate home ties. "Women played no part in our 
 lives," one of them recalls. "We came together to discuss 
 plays, poetry, politics, anything and everything — the great 
 actors, comic operas, the songs of the streets, science, poli- 
 tics." John Crawford Burns, Lane, Brydon Lamb, Curt 
 Pfeiffer formed the nucleus of what spread out irregularly 
 into larger groupings. 
 
 John Crawford Burns, who was slightly older than the 
 
 1 Joseph Bucklin Bishop, editor of Theodore Roosevelt and His Time. 
 
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POLITICS AND JOURNALISM 25 
 
 rest, a purist, and something of a "dour Scot," was a man 
 of conservative and cultivated tastes and the dean of the 
 group. He was in a business house that imported linens, 
 and lived in a "glorious room with two outside windows, 
 and ample seating capacity," so the friends often met there 
 and learned something of Gothic architecture and of the 
 abominations of slang, in spite of themselves. With Burns, 
 and of his firm, was Brydon Lamb, " also of Scotch descent, 
 but born in America, a delightful combination of strength, 
 sweetness and light. The simple grace of his manner, his 
 unhurried speech, his urbanity, captivated us all. We 
 loved him for what he was, and we considered him our 
 arbiter elegantiarum." Of Lane at that period the same 
 friend writes, "I remember a fine, stocky, muscular pres- 
 ence with a striking head. A massive, commanding man, 
 he was, a persuasive and compelling leader." But none of 
 the men had any sense of anything but complete friendly, 
 boyish equality. "Lane was," Pfeiffer says, "interested 
 in human beings, not problems, excepting as their solution 
 might be made serviceable to the needs of individuals. He 
 had great tolerance for the most unusual opinions. I don't 
 think Lane ever had much interest in the dogmas of science, 
 religion, or philosophy ; he lived by the spirit of them, that 
 cannot be expressed in formulae. He had the peculiar 
 sensitiveness of a poet for words, for colors and sounds, and 
 for moral beauty, and blended with it the statesman's ob- 
 servant awareness of conditions in the world of affairs.' 
 
 At the beginning of their friendship, in 1889, Curt Pfeiffer 
 himself was only nineteen years old, a youth whose family 
 had come from Holland and Germany. He appeared in 
 the boarding-house on 32nd near Broadway, where Burns 
 lived, fresh from three months at the Paris Exposition, a 
 vacation that had followed a course of scientific study at 
 
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26 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 Zurich, Switzerland. The wonders of Paris, a-glitter with 
 the blaze of undreamed-of electrical beauty, and the greater 
 wonder of the scientific discoveries and speculations, of the 
 eighties, as taught at the University of Zurich, gave the 
 young traveler an instant place among the others. Because 
 of his love for exact statement and his scientific approach 
 in discussion, young as he was, he contributed something 
 very real to the group whose chief preoccupation — aside 
 from the joy of living — was with art, government, and 
 literature. 
 
 They read separately, and when a book seemed intolerably 
 good to the discoverer, he brought it in and insisted on their 
 reading parts of it together. Browning, Darwin, the Vedic 
 Hymns, Stevenson, Taine, Buckle, Spencer, Kipling, Sir 
 Henry Maine, on primitive law, and Emerson ! The rela- 
 tion of the men was almost impersonal in the fervor of their 
 explorations into life. Differences of blood and tradition 
 were not only easily bridged but welcomed, because they 
 assured, to the group as a whole, sharper angles of mental 
 refraction — breaking the ray of truth they sought into 
 more of its component colors. 
 
 Pfeiffer recalls that "one Saturday night, under the in- 
 fluence of reading from the Vedic Hymns, and a talk on 
 astronomy, we went up on the roof of our boarding-place, 
 and observed a complete revolution of the starry heavens, 
 from dusk to dawn. We drifted into talk, . . . and when 
 we finally descended to our beds on Sunday morning, we 
 found ourselves drenched to the skin from the drizzling dew. 
 We never forgot that experience, but we never repeated it 
 either." 
 
 His political interests brought Lane into the Reform 
 Club where Progress and Poverty, Henry George's new 
 book, was the center for discussion upon the whole problem 
 
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POLITICS AND JOURNALISM 27 
 
 of the distribution of taxation. Lane and Henry George 
 established a cordial friendship. 
 
 John Crawford Burns says that in 1889 "Lane's chief 
 hero was Cleveland, and his oracle Godkin, of the Evening 
 Post" — later, the Nation. "When I knew him in New 
 York he represented a San Francisco newspaper, the Chron- 
 icle, I think, as correspondent. He was not whole-heartedly 
 in sympathy with his proprietor, nor indeed with the sen- 
 sational aspect of journalism, and he always scoffed at the 
 idea of newspaper writers constituting a modern priesthood. 
 He laughingly justified his association with the Chronicle by 
 saying he gave tone to it. For this and other services, he 
 received, I think, two thousand dollars a year, which even 
 thirty years ago did not admit of luxury and riotous living." 
 
 Lane's whole stay in New York was less than two years 
 in length, but the vital ideas that he shared with disinterested 
 minds made of this period the seed-bed for future intellectual 
 growth. 
 
 In 1891, in spite of the delights of personal friendships, 
 in New York, Lane grew increasingly dissatisfied with the 
 limitations of newspaper corresponding. He wanted a 
 paper of his own, in which he could express without reserve 
 the ideals of social and political betterment with which his 
 mind was teeming. In this mood, the first acclaim of the 
 rapid growth of the pioneer towns of the far Northwest 
 reached him. He saw in this his opportunity, and acted 
 quickly and decisively. He gathered together his own 
 savings, borrowed from his friend, Sidney Mezes, a few 
 more thousand dollars and went to Tacoma, Washington, 
 to buy the Tacoma Evening News. 
 
 As soon as the transfer was well made, Lane threw himself 
 enthusiastically into the politics of the new town, already 
 
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28 LETTERS OP FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 suffering from boss rule. By his editorials he succeeded in 
 stirring up the City Hall, and drove into Alaskan exile the 
 Chief of Police — who, by the way, was said to have be- 
 come immensely rich in Alaska while Lane's paper was 
 running into bankruptcy in Tacoma. But Lane's misad- 
 venture was not wholly due to his civic virtue. He had 
 "bought in" at just the moment when the instruments were 
 tuning up for the prelude to the great panic crash of 1893. 
 Tacoma, and the whole Northwest, had been mainly devel- 
 oped by casual investments of speculative Eastern capital, 
 and this capital, sensitive to change, was being withdrawn 
 to meet home needs. Investors, to protect real interests, 
 were willing to sacrifice their "little Western flyers," at 
 almost any discount. 
 
 As the terminal of the new Northern Pacific Railroad, 
 Tacoma — lying on the bluffs overlooking the great inland 
 sea of Puget Sound, guardianed by the vastness of its moun- 
 tain — was backed by forests whose wealth could scarcely 
 be exaggerated, even by promoter's advertisements. She 
 was noisily proclaimed to be the "Gateway to the Ori- 
 ent," but trade was not yet firmly established with the 
 Orient, and, indeed, what was Washington's wealth of un- 
 cut timber when the capital to develop it was slowly ebbing 
 Eastward ? 
 
 No paper without heavy capitalization, could have sus- 
 tained a policy of political reform, when, in the picturesque 
 vernacular of the time and place, "the bottom had dropped 
 out of the town." A rival newspaper, the Ledger, in order 
 to retrench, began a war on the Printers' Union, to break 
 wages. Lane repudiated the effort made to "rat" his paper 
 and to force the Union out. He sustained his men in their 
 fight to keep the Union rate, and lent them his presses to 
 carry on their propaganda. In after years he said, "As to 
 
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POLITICS AND JOURNALISM 29 
 
 my labor record, it is a consistent one of thirty years length, 
 ever since I stood by the Union in Tacoma, and went 
 broke." Again he wrote to an acquaintance, "I often think 
 of the old days in Tacoma. We were a fighting bunch, and 
 I think most of us are fighting for the same things that we 
 fought for then ; a little bit more decency and less graft in 
 affairs, and a chance for a man to rise by ability and not by 
 pull alone." 
 
 In April, 1893, Lane had married Anne Wintermute — 
 he needed all he could find of cheer in those depressing days. 
 The whole town was beaten to its knees by loss and fore- 
 closure. Lane was struggling to hold together his paper, 
 and save his friend's investment and his own little stake. 
 The one bright interlude of that time for him lay in reading, 
 and in his new friendships. He loved to chant aloud to a 
 group of stranded young fellows gathered in his rooms, in 
 his gay trumpeting way, brave passages from the Barrack- 
 Room Ballads, of Kipling, that were lifting the spirits of the 
 English-speaking world with their freshness and daring. 
 Stevenson, too, with his polished optimism delighted Lane. 
 "I can remember," says one of the group, "just how I 
 heard him read aloud the last words from Stevenson's essay, 
 Aes Triplex, in those melancholy Tacoma days — 'those 
 happy days when we were so miserable !'" : — 
 
 "All who have meant good work with their whole hearts, 
 have done good work, although they may die before they 
 have the time to sign it. . . . Does not life go down with a 
 better grace, foaming in full body over a precipice, than mis- 
 erably straggling to an end in sandy deltas? When the 
 Greeks made their fine saying that those whom the Gods 
 love die young, I cannot help believing they had this sort 
 of death also in their eye. For surely, at whatever age it 
 overtake the man, this is to die young. Death has not been 
 
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30 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 suffered to take so much as an illusion from his heart. In 
 the hot-fit of life, a-tip-toe on the highest point of being, he 
 passes at a bound on to the other side. The noise of the 
 mallet and chisel is scarcely quenched, the trumpets are 
 hardly done blowing, when, trailing with him clouds of 
 glory, this happy-starred, full-blooded spirit shoots into 
 the spiritual land." 
 
 Still believing in the good work he had meant with his 
 whole heart, Lane turned from the bankruptcy of his paper, 
 sold at auction, to write to his friend of new adventures. 
 
 To John H. Wigmore 
 
 Tacoma, October 25, 1894 
 
 My dear Wigmore, — I have not heard from you for a 
 year. You are in my debt at least one, and I think two, 
 letters. I have sent you an occasional paper, just to let 
 you know I was alive and I am hazarding this letter to the 
 old address. . . . 
 
 My affairs here have not prospered and I am thinking of 
 going somewhere else. . . . Do you think Japan has any- 
 thing to offer a man such as myself ? Would there be any 
 chance there for a newspaper run by an American? Are 
 there any wealthy Americans there who would be likely to 
 put up a few thousands for such an enterprise ? . . . 
 
 Life is not the "giddy, reeling dream of love and fame" 
 that it once was, and I have decided on gathering a few 
 essential dollars. Now Japan may not be the place I am 
 looking for, . . . but unless I am greatly mistaken, a man 
 who is up on American affairs and alive to business oppor- 
 tunities could do well in Japan. But then this is all a guess, 
 and I want you to put me right. . . . Yours very truly, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
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Ill 
 
 LAW PRACTICE AND POLITICAL ACTIVITIES 
 
 1894-1906 
 
 Law — Drafting New City Charter — Elected as City and County Attorney — 
 Gubernatorial Campaign — Mayoralty Campaign — • Earthquake — Ap- 
 pointment as Interstate Commerce Commissioner 
 
 Late in the fall of 1894 Lane returned to San Francisco 
 and for some months associated himself with Arthur 
 McEwen, on Arthur McEwen's Letter, a lively political weekly 
 which attacked various forms of civic corruption in San 
 Francisco, and made an especial target of the Southern Pacific 
 Railroad, then in practical control of the State. 
 
 He also formed a law partnership with his brother, George 
 W. Lane, under the firm name of Lane and Lane. In 1895 
 a curious case, estimated as involving about sixty million 
 dollars worth of property, was brought to the young at- 
 torneys. The Star, of San Francisco, described the issue 
 at stake by saying, "One Jose Noe and four alleged grand- 
 children of Jose Noe appear, who pretend that they can show 
 a clear title to an undivided one-half interest in nearly forty- 
 five hundred acres within the city, on which land reside some 
 five thousand or more owners, mostly men of small means." 
 
 Upon investigation Lane and his brother became con- 
 vinced that the suit had been instituted as a blackmailing 
 scheme, in an attempt to force the owners to pay for quit- 
 claim deeds ; they took and energetically fought the case for 
 the defendants, without asking for a retainer. Their clients 
 formed themselves into what they called the San Miguel 
 
 91 
 
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32 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K LANE 
 
 Defense Association. In a year the title of the householders 
 to their little homes was established beyond peradventure. 
 
 With the warmth of Latin gratitude this service was re- 
 membered. In 1898 when Lane ran for his first political 
 office, as City and County Attorney, the San Miguel Defense 
 Association revived its energies, formed a Franklin K. Lane 
 Campaign Club and sent out vivid circulars about Franklin 
 K. Lane, "who nobly fought for us. . . . It is now our 
 turn to stand by him and see that he is elected by a very 
 large majority." Their proclamation ended with the ap- 
 peal, "Vote for Franklin K. Lane, the Foe to Blackmailers." 
 
 As Lane's plurality in this first election was eight hundred 
 and thirty-two votes, there is little doubt that his grateful 
 clients played a real part in that success. 
 
 The Tacoma printers had also sent a testimonial, which 
 was widely distributed in the campaign, as to Lane's friend- 
 ship to labor, saying that they, in gratitude, had made him 
 an honorary member of their Typographical Union. The 
 campaign was made on the rights of the plain people, for 
 its chief issue. 
 
 In the letter that follows, Lane, in 1913, tells of his formal 
 entry into politics, in 1898. 
 
 To P. T. Spurgeon 
 
 Herald, McClure Newspaper Syndicate 
 
 Washington, December SO, 1913 
 Dear Mr. Spurgeon, — In reply to your inquiry of 
 December 29, permit me to say that I got into politics in 
 this way : — 
 
 One day, while on my way to lunch, I met Mayor Phelan, 
 of San Francisco, who asked me if I would become a member 
 of the committee to draft a charter for the city. I said I 
 
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LAW PRACTICE AND POLITICAL ACTIVITIES 33 
 
 would, and was appointed. At that time I was practising 
 law and had no idea whatever that I would at any time run 
 for public office, or take any considerable part in public 
 affairs. I helped to draft the charter, and as it had to be 
 submitted to the people for ratification, I stumped the city 
 for it. Later, when the first election was held under it, 
 my friends on the charter committee insisted that I should 
 accept the Democratic nomination for City Attorney. 
 Under the charter, the City Attorney was the legal adviser 
 of all the city and county officials, and it was his business 
 to define and construe this organic law, and the friends of 
 the charter wished some one who was in sympathy with 
 the instrument to give it initial construction. 
 
 I was nominated by the Democratic party by an 
 independent movement and was elected ; later re-elected, 
 and elected for a third term. After an unsuccessful candi- 
 dacy for the governorship, I was appointed a member of 
 the Interstate Commerce Commission by President Roose- 
 velt. Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To John H. Wigmore 
 
 San Francisco, November 14, 1898 
 My dear Wigmore, — This is a formal note of acknowledg- 
 ment of the service rendered me in the campaign, which 
 has just closed successfully. There were only three Demo- 
 crats elected on the general ticket, the Mayor, Assessor, and 
 myself. I ran four thousand five hundred votes ahead 
 of my ticket. It was a splendid tribute to worth ! I never 
 before realized how discriminating the American public is. 
 A man who scoffs at Democratic institutions must be a 
 tyrant at heart, or a defeated candidate. I tell you the 
 people know a good man when they see one. 
 
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34 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 My opponent was the present Attorney General of the 
 State, W. F. Fitzgerald, a very capable man, and probably 
 the best man on the Republican ticket. He has been 
 steadily in office for thirty years, in Mississippi, Arizona, 
 and California, and this is his first defeat ; and I sincerely 
 regret that I had to take a fall out of such a gentleman. 
 
 Now, the perplexing problem arises as to how long I shall 
 hold office. The term is for two years. The new charter 
 comes up before the coming Legislature for approval in 
 January, and that instrument provides for another election 
 next fall, to fill all City and County offices. . . . 
 
 I don't want to stay in politics, two years in the office will 
 be long enough for me. I hope that I shall make a credit- 
 able record. I can foresee that strong pressure will be 
 brought to bear upon me to act with the Examiner in making 
 things disagreeable for the corporations, and I will have 
 no easy task in gaining the approval of my own party, and 
 of my conscience and judgment at the same time. 
 
 Let me thank you again very earnestly for what you did, 
 and believe me. Yours sincerely, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 The City Charter that Lane had helped to draft, with 
 its many new provisions, never before adjudicated, made 
 his first term as City and County Attorney one requiring 
 an especial amount of laborious legal study. To meet the 
 pressing need, Lane organized his corps of assistants to in- 
 clude several men of marked legal ability and the industry 
 that the task demanded, appointing his brother, George W. 
 Lane, as his first assistant. 
 
 It was partly due to the good team-work of the office that 
 his opinions rendered in four years were as "numerous as 
 those heretofore rendered by the department in about sixteen 
 
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FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 AS CITY AND COUNTY ATTORNEY 
 
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LAW PRACTICE AND POLITICAL ACTIVITIES 35 
 
 years," and that during one of the years of his incumbency 
 "not a dollar of damages was obtained against the city." 
 
 To John H. Wigmore 
 
 San Francisco, September 25, [1899] 
 
 My dear Wigmore, — . . . As an evidence of what I am do- 
 ing I sent you a brief three or four days ago in the Charter 
 case. I have another just filed on the question of county 
 officers holding over under the Charter, a third on the new 
 primary law which is a grand thing if we can make it stick, 
 and a fourth on the taxation of bonds of quasi-public corpora- 
 tions, and a fifth on the taxation of National Bank stock. 
 
 I have hardly seen my baby for six weeks ; have been 
 at the office from nine a.m. to eleven p.m. regularly. And 
 now that I am nearly dead a new campaign is on and I must 
 run again. And, of course, I have enemies now which I 
 hadn't last year. 
 
 Thank you once again for so kindly remembering me. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 Lane's first child, a son, was born in the spring of 1898. 
 He is the "Ned" of the letters — Franklin K. Lane, Jr. 
 Lane's attitude toward children is shown in many of 
 his letters. His own boy gave a strong impetus to his 
 most disinterested social ideals. In writing of the birth 
 of a friend's baby he said, "For the child we act nobly, its 
 call to us is always to our finer side." 
 
 To John H. Wigmore 
 
 San Francisco, November 10 
 
 My dear Wigmore, — This is to be a mere bulletin. I 
 am elected once again — 10,500 majority, the largest re- 
 
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36 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 ceived by any candidate. You expected me to run for 
 Mayor I know. Well, it was offered me — the nomination, 
 I mean — and all my campaign expenses promised. But 
 I couldn't accept, having told the Labor Union people that 
 I was a candidate for City Attorney and not for Mayor. 
 This Labor Union Party is a new one, the outgrowth of 
 the recent strike. They have elected their Mayor, a 
 musician named Schmitz, a decent, conservative young 
 man, who will surprise the decent moneyed people and anger 
 the laboring people with his conservatism. 1 I didn't have 
 one single word of praise from a newspaper in the campaign. 
 They hardly mentioned the fact that I was a candidate. 
 It was jolly good therefore to win as I did. 
 
 And my congratulations to you, my honored friend, Dean 
 Wigmore. Next year I am to publish my Opinions, a 
 copy of which, of course, will go to you, but not by virtue of 
 your office, old man. You are arriving, of course, but there 
 is something better in store. A Federal Judgeship is the 
 thing for you ; and when I get into the Cabinet you shall 
 have it. But don't wait till then. I'm gray and bald now 
 and my boy patronizes me. So don't wait, but get your 
 lines out, and one of these days you'll make it. Where next 
 I shall land I don't know, probably in a law office, praying 
 for clients. . . . Always yours, 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 Lane's first majority in 1898 of 832 votes was increased 
 to 10,500 in 1899, when he was re-elected ; and two years 
 later he won by a still larger majority. A number of his 
 opinions, as City Attorney, were collected and bound in a 
 volume, as none of them had been reversed by the Supreme 
 Court of the State. 
 
 1 Lane lived to smile at his too charitable characterization of this San Francisco 
 
 Mayor. 
 
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LAW PRACTICE AND POLITICAL ACTIVITIES 37 
 
 He took much pleasure in a dinner club that he helped 
 to form. The members were University professors, lawyers, 
 newspaper men, and a few business men. "But," says one 
 of them, " in spirit they were poets, philosophers and 
 prophets. They were aware that their solutions of problems 
 vexing to the brains of other men, would be Utopian, but 
 as they were not willing to be classed with ordinary Uto- 
 pians they named their club Amaurot, after the capital of 
 Utopia, thus signifying that while they dwelt in Utopia, 
 they were not subject to it but were lords of it — the 
 teachers of its wisdom and the makers of its laws." 
 
 His home life absorbed much of his leisure. He and his 
 family had moved into a modest house on Gough Street, 
 in San Francisco, with a view of the bay, Alcatraz Island, 
 and the Marin Hills from the upstairs living-room 
 window — for no house was a home to Lane that had no 
 view — and in the back-yard, among its red geraniums 
 and cosmos bushes, he played Treasure Island and Wild 
 West with his boy. 
 
 In the summer of 1902, Lane was nominated as the Demo- 
 cratic and Non-Partisan candidate for Governor of Cali- 
 fornia. At the Democratic Convention at Sacramento, 
 an onlooker described the excitement among the delegates 
 before a selection was made, "Throughout the night until 
 late afternoon of the second day, without any clear solution 
 of the problem, came the roll-call of the counties, then a 
 wild stampede for the young City and County Attorney 
 of San Francisco, who was borne to the platform. . . . 
 
 "It was Franklin K. Lane who stood a goodly and con- 
 fident figure, waving a palm-leaf fan for quiet. He said : — 
 
 "'I was in the rear of the hall when Governor Budd made 
 his speech and voiced the call of the party for a winner, and, 
 in response to his call, I have taken this platform.'" 
 
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38 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 This note of joyous truculence, with the little out-thrust 
 of the underlip, brought, as so often before and since, 
 laughter and applause. 
 
 A hot and spirited campaign followed. California is 
 naturally Republican, and Lane had many times challenged 
 and attacked the great powers of the State. He made 
 as his chief issues, Irrigation, Prison Reform, and a fairer 
 share in the world's goods for all the people. He traveled 
 far and fast, often speaking six times in a day, at different 
 places, and sometimes riding a hundred and fifty miles in 
 twenty-four hours, over the rough roads of remote counties. 
 
 While campaigning he outlined his notion of public service 
 in this way, "No man should have a political office because 
 he wants a job. A public office is not a job, it is an oppor- 
 tunity to do something for the public. Once in office it 
 remains for him to prove that the opportunity was not 
 wasted. ..." And again he said, — "There is nothing 
 that touches me so, in the little that I have seen in political 
 life, as this, that while it is a game in which men can be 
 mean, contemptible and dastardly, it is a game also that 
 brings out the finer, better, and nobler qualities. I know 
 why some men are in politics to their own financial loss. 
 Because they find it is a great big man's game, which calls 
 for men to fight it, and they want to stand beside their fel- 
 lows and do battle." 
 
 In regretting that he could not attend a Democratic 
 meeting, at Richmond, California, he sent this letter, — 
 
 To Lyman Naugle 
 
 My dear Mr. Naugle, — . . . The cause of Democracy is 
 being given more sincere and thoughtful interest this campaign 
 than for many years. One of its cardinal principles is that 
 
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LAW PRACTICE AND POLITICAL ACTIVITIES 39 
 
 the individual is more important to the State than mere 
 property, and that the welfare of the majority of our citizens 
 must always be paramount and their rights prevail, no mat- 
 ter what the weight of influence in the other side of the bal- 
 ance. It is work and personal worth which make a State 
 great both politically and industrially, and in my estimation 
 they are to be found in largest proportions in the Demo- 
 cratic party. For these reasons I believe there will be a 
 very large change in the vote of this State in our coming 
 election. Reports have reached me from many parts of 
 the State, and I am entirely satisfied that we shall win 
 this fight provided that we do our full share of earnest work, 
 if that be lacking we don't deserve it. . . . Yours for hon- 
 est victory, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 At first Hearst's powerful paper, the San Francisco 
 Examiner, took a negative tone toward Lane's candidacy 
 but soon became dangerously, if covertly, antagonistic. 
 Of Hearst's methods of attack Lane wrote, in detail, on 
 July 3, 1912, to Governor Woodrow Wilson, then Demo- 
 cratic nominee for the Presidency. After enumerating one 
 specific count after another against the Examiner Lane 
 said : — 
 
 "When a boy putting myself through college I was busi- 
 ness manager of a temperance paper which advocated pro- 
 hibition. He [Hearst] published extracts from this paper 
 and credited them to me, and on the morning of election 
 day sent a special train throughout the whole of Northern 
 California containing an issue of his paper, appealing to the 
 saloon-keepers and wine-growers for my defeat. 
 
 "... No editorial word of his disfavor appeared, but 
 in every news article there was in the headline a cunning 
 
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40 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 turn or twist, calculated to arouse prejudice against me. I 
 notice in this morning's issue of the American the same 
 policy is being pursued regarding you. 
 
 "Now the great mistake I made was in not boldly telling 
 the public just what I knew. ... I felt that it was a personal 
 matter with which the public was not concerned, but I know 
 now, as I have gotten older and seen more of politics, that 
 it was a public matter of the first importance, as to which 
 the public should have had knowledge. 
 
 "Later when he [Hearst] budded as a candidate for Pres- 
 ident, in 1904, he sought an interview with me and said 
 that he was not to blame for the policy that had been 
 pursued. Our interview closed with this dialogue : — 
 
 " ' Mr. Lane, if you ever wish anything that I can do, all 
 you will have to do will be to send me a telegram asking, 
 and it will be done.' 
 
 "To which I responded, 'Mr. Hearst, if you ever get a 
 telegram from me asking you to do anything, you can put 
 that telegram down as a forgery.'" 
 
 In a State like California, one of whose chief industries was 
 the growing of wine-grapes, and where the Examiner was 
 the farmer's paper, at least one phase of the attack upon 
 Lane bore heavy fruit. Upon election day the count be- 
 tween Lane and Dr. George Pardee, the Republican can- 
 didate, was found to be close. In the end several thousand 
 votes, unmistakably intended for Lane, were thrown out 
 upon technicalities. Lane was defeated, and Dr. Pardee 
 took office. It was a bitter blow. 
 
 The night when the final bad news was brought to Lane 
 in his home, he called his son, of four, to him, leaning down 
 he put his arm around the boy very gravely and tenderly, 
 and said, "Ned, it isn't my little son, it is Dr. Pardee's little 
 boy that is going to have that white pony." 
 
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LAW PRACTICE AND POLITICAL ACTIVITIES 41 
 
 The boy caught the emotion in his father's voice, and said 
 cheerily, "O, that's all right, Dad. That's all right." 
 
 Lane found that in spite of the loss of the Governorship 
 his circle of personal contacts had been greatly widened by 
 his campaign. He had come to know, and be known by, 
 the men most prominent in California public affairs and he 
 had made, and confirmed, many friendships with men who 
 had given themselves whole-heartedly to his advancement. 
 Of these friendships he wrote, in 1920, to his friend Timothy 
 Spellacy, "Eighteen years I have known you and never a word 
 or act have I heard of, or seen, that did not make me feel 
 that the campaign for Governor was worth while because it 
 gave me your acquaintance, friendship, affection. . . . When 
 I get mad, as I do sometimes, over something that the Irish do, 
 I always am tempted to a hard generalization that I am com- 
 pelled to modify because of you and Mike and Dan O'Neill, 
 in San Francisco — and a few more of the Great Irish." 
 
 Lane's second child, Nancy, was born January 4, 1903. 
 
 Early in that year Lane was given the complimentary 
 vote of his party in the California Legislature for United 
 States Senator. 
 
 He was chosen in April to go to Washington to argue 
 the case of the need of the City of San Francisco for a pure 
 water supply from the Hetch-Hetchy Valley, an unused 
 part of the Yosemite Park. 
 
 A curious opposition to this measure had been worked up 
 in the East by a small group of well-intentioned nature lovers 
 who did not, perhaps, realize that this was one of many 
 thousand valleys in the Sierras, and one not, in any sense, 
 unique in its beauty. The plan proposed to convert a re- 
 mote, mosquito-haunted marsh, dreaded even by hunters 
 
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42 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 because of the "bad-going," into a large lake-reservoir to 
 feed the city of San Francisco. This was the first of Lane's 
 fights to assure to man the use of neglected resources, and 
 at the same time, by great care, to protect natural beauty 
 for his delight. 
 
 While in Washington on this errand, he met President 
 Roosevelt several times. Their informal talks served to 
 increase Lane's strong liking for the vigorous man of action, 
 then at the height of his powers. 
 
 To his friend he writes of all this. 
 
 To John H. Wigmore 
 
 San Francisco, May 9, 1903 
 
 My dear Wigmore, — My trip East was a great success. 
 After leaving you I stayed three or four days in Washington, 
 where I found the Department of the Interior pretty well 
 stacked against me ; I, however, succeeded in having a day 
 fixed upon which an argument would be listened to, and 
 after this victory went to New York, where I met many old 
 friends and made some new ones. . . . 
 
 Upon my return to Washington I had several days of 
 argument before the Department, saw the President [Roose- 
 velt] twice and lunched with him, and then went South; 
 was invited by the Legislature of Texas to . speak before 
 them, which I did with much satisfaction, especially as there 
 were but two Republicans in both houses. 
 
 I stopped with my old friend Mezes, in Austin, who is 
 the dean of the University, . . . and easily the most influ- 
 ential man socially, politically, and educationally in the insti- 
 tution. . . . 
 
 I am having an extremely disagreeable time. The Demo- 
 crats here insist upon my running for Mayor, urging it as 
 
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LAW PRACTICE AND POLITICAL ACTIVITIES 43 
 
 a duty which I owe to the party, because they say I am the 
 only man who can be elected; and as a duty to the city, 
 because they say that the scoundrels who are now in office 
 will continue, and worse ones come in, unless we can elect 
 some clean Democrat. I urge everything against the thing, 
 that comes to my mind, including my poverty, the fact that 
 I made four campaigns in five years, my personal aversion 
 to the office of Mayor, the inability of any one to please the 
 people of San Francisco as Mayor, the conspiracy of the 
 newspapers that exists against a government that is not 
 controlled by them, and the fact that to insist upon my taking 
 this office would be an act of political murder on the part of 
 my friends. . . . Yours as always, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 Heavy and continued pressure, through the spring and 
 summer, was brought, by his party, to bear upon Lane to 
 accept the nomination for Mayor of San Francisco. His 
 letters show his reluctance and distress. The appeal was 
 made personal, with reminders of sacrifices made for him. 
 He at last agreed to run. His judgment of the situation 
 was fully confirmed in the final event. His defeat was un- 
 equivocal. San Francisco had no idea of accepting a 
 Democratic mayor with a leaning toward reform. Lane 
 analysed the political situation in this letter : — 
 
 To John H. Wigmore 
 
 San Francisco, January 26, 1904 
 
 My dear Wigmore, — What the effect of my defeat for 
 Mayor will be, it is of course impossible to say. Its immedi- 
 ate effect has been to throw me into the active practice of 
 law, and thus far I have not starved. It will, of course, not 
 
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44 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 lead to my retirement from politics, but it will postpone 
 no doubt, the realization of some ambitions. I think I 
 wrote you just what my state of mind was previous to the 
 nomination. I did not wish to make the fight, did every- 
 thing that was in my power to avoid the nomination, and 
 even went so far as to hold up the convention in a formal 
 letter which I addressed to it, telling them that I did not 
 wish to be Mayor of San Francisco and begging them to get 
 some one else. 
 
 The fight was along class lines entirely; the employers 
 on one side and the wage earners on the other. The 
 Republican nominee represented the employers, the 
 Union Labor nominee, the wage earners. I stood for good 
 government, and in the battle my voice could hardly be 
 heard. It was a splendid old fight in which every interest 
 that was vicious, violent, or corrupt was solidly against me. 
 And while I did not win the election, I lost nothing in prestige 
 by the defeat, save among politicians who are always look- 
 ing for availability. It was not, in the nature of things, 
 up to me to run for Mayor, but my people all believed 
 that I was assured of election and felt that I was the only 
 man who could possibly be elected. I acted out of a sense 
 of loyalty to my party and a desire to do something to rid 
 the city of its present cursed administration. However, it 
 may in the end be a very fortunate thing, for I know no 
 career more worthless than that of a perpetual office-seeker. 
 
 I received a letter from a friend in New York yesterday 
 telling me that Senator Hill x had told him that the New 
 York delegation would cast its vote for me for Vice-President 
 at the Democratic National Convention, and that he regarded 
 me as the most available man to nominate ; but, of course, 
 I sent back word that that was not to be considered. 
 
 1 In campaigning New York for Cleveland, Lane had met David B. Hill. 
 
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LAW PRACTICE AND POLITICAL ACTIVITIES 45 
 
 I should judge from the Examiner here, that Hearst was 
 making a very strong fight for a delegation from Illinois. 
 His boom seems to me to be increasing. That it is possible 
 for such a man to receive the nomination, is too humiliating 
 to be thought of. . . . Very sincerely yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 The day after his defeat Lane had written to thank a 
 generous friend : — 
 
 To William R. Wheeler 
 
 San Francisco, Wednesday [November, 1903] 
 
 My deak Will, — I can't go to the country without saying 
 to you once more that your self-sacrifice and manliness 
 throughout this campaign have endeared you to me to a de- 
 gree that words cannot convey. 
 
 I had hoped the last day or two that I would be able to 
 make your critics ashamed to look you in the face, and that 
 they would in time come pleading to you for recognition. 
 But now you must be content with knowing that you did a 
 man's part, and set a standard in friendship and loyalty 
 which my boy shall be taught to strive for. 
 
 I earnestly hope that your business relations will not be 
 disturbed by this trouble into which I got you. Had I 
 been out of it Crocker couldn't have won. My vote would 
 largely have gone for Schmitz. 
 
 Give my love to Mrs. Wheeler and believe me, always 
 
 your friend, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 Wheeler, himself a Republican, belonged, at the time, to 
 a firm of irreconcilable Republicans, who had expressed 
 sharp disapproval of his activity in Lane's behalf. 
 
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46 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 Out of office and back to the practise of the law, Lane 
 soon built his private practise on a firmer basis than before. 
 His close identification with the Democratic Party was not 
 impaired, but the frequent demands for attendance at 
 public conventions and meetings he could not leave his 
 practise to accept. In declining one of these invitations 
 he replied : — 
 
 To Orva 0. Williams 
 Iroquois Club, Chicago, Illinois 
 
 San Francisco, April 7, 1904 
 
 . . . Permit me to say that we of the West look to you 
 who are closer to the center of things for leadership. . . . 
 This means only that we must be true to the principles that 
 make us Democrats. . . . The law must not be severe or 
 lenient with any man simply because he is rich nor because 
 he is poor. It must not become the tool of class antagonism 
 for either the persecution of the well-to-do or for the repres- 
 sion of the masses of the people. 
 
 . . . We must resist the base opportunism which would 
 abandon our strong position of devotion to these fun- 
 damental principles of good government for the sake of 
 gaining temporary strength from some passing passion 
 of the hour. To identify our party with an idea which 
 springs from class distrust or class hatred is to gain tem- 
 porary stimulation at the expense of permanent weakness. 
 If we are to heed the voice which bids us cease to be Dem- 
 ocrats in order that we may win, we shall find that we have 
 lost not only the victory of being true, but also the vic- 
 tory at the polls, which can be ours only in case we are true. 
 . . . Our creed is simple and clear, but it cannot be re- 
 cited by those who would make our organization an annex 
 
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LAW PRACTICE AND POLITICAL ACTIVITIES 47 
 
 to the Republican party by catering to that conservatism 
 which seeks only to bring greater benefit to the already 
 wealthy, nor by those who would make it an annex 
 to the Socialist party by joining in every attack, no matter 
 how unjust, upon the wealthy. Sincerely yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To the Iroquois Club of Los Angeles on the same day he 
 wrote, — "It becomes us to consider well the meaning of 
 the signs of the times. Miracles may not be worked with 
 these waves of prosperity. It is in no man's power to say 
 'Peace, be still,' and quiet the troubled sea of panic. But 
 we may make sure that men of steady nerve, of clear head 
 and highest purpose are at the helm. I expect to see the 
 time when the Democratic party will, by fixed adherence 
 to a well-defined course, gain and hold the approval and sup- 
 port of the majority of our people, not for a single election 
 but for a long series of elections, and if we begin now with 
 this end in view we certainly will be prepared for whatever 
 may happen — victory or defeat ; and in both alike we will 
 be proud of our party and give a guarantee for the future." 
 
 While campaigning California for Governor, in 1902, 
 Isadore B. Dockweiler ran on Lane's ticket, for the office of 
 Lieutenant Governor, and Dockweiler still looked to him 
 for counsel. 
 
 To Isadore B. Dockweiler 
 
 San Francisco, April 16, 1904 
 
 My dear Dockweiler, — You ask in your favor of the 
 14th whether California will send a delegation to St. Louis 
 pledged to Mr. Hearst and if this program has been agreed 
 upon, as is the report in Los Angeles. 
 
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48 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 I cannot tell what the Democrats of California will do, 
 but I know what they should do. A delegation should go 
 from this state that is free, unowned, unpledged, made up 
 of men whose prime interest is that of their party and whom 
 the party does not need to bind with pledges. To pledge 
 the delegation is to make the delegates mere pawns, pup- 
 pets, counters, coins to trade with, — so much political 
 wampum. 
 
 The object in holding a national convention is not to 
 please the vanity nor gratify the ambition of any individual, 
 but to select a national standard bearer who will proudly 
 lead the party in the campaign and be a credit to the party 
 and an honor to the nation, if elected. Surely the De- 
 mocracy of California can select candidates who can be de- 
 pended upon to be guided by these considerations. To tie 
 the delegates hand and foot, toss them into a bag, and sling 
 them over the shoulder of one man to barter as he may 
 please, is not consistent with my notion of the dignity of 
 their position, nor does it appeal to me as the most certain 
 manner of making them effective in enlarging and empha- 
 sizing the power of the state. . . . 
 
 As to your suggestion of a program to deliver this state 
 to one candidate — if there is such a program — I am not 
 a party to it, never have been, and never will be. . . . The 
 Democrats of California . . . will do much for the sake of 
 harmony so long as party welfare and public good are not 
 sacrificed ; but they must be permitted to make their own 
 program irrespective of the personal alliances, affiliations, 
 or ambitions of politicians. 
 
 Personally, I am not in active political life. My views 
 upon party questions I do not attempt to impose upon my 
 party, yet I know of no reason why I should hesitate to give 
 them expression. I cannot but believe that if many a man 
 
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LAW PRACTICE AND POLITICAL ACTIVITIES 49 
 
 were more indifferent to his future, he would be more certain 
 to have a future. 
 
 There is one reason which to my mind should forbid my 
 active direction of any organized movement against Mr. 
 Hearst, namely the attitude of his paper during my recent 
 campaign for the governorship. I do not wish it to be said 
 or thought that I am seeking to use our party for purposes 
 of personal retaliation. Whatever reasons for bitterness I 
 may have because of that campaign I am persuaded it does 
 not affect my judgment that it is the part of wisdom to send 
 an unpledged delegation to the national convention. 
 
 The Democrats of California should determine with calm- 
 ness and without passion what course will be most likely 
 to prove a matter of pride to themselves, their state, and 
 the nation, and in that sober judgment act fearlessly. 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 The Pacific Coast, in 1904, still suffered from transporta- 
 tion problems of great complexity. The railroads, whose 
 terminals were here, were few and extraordinarily powerful 
 and had, heretofore, controlled rail traffic, to a large extent, 
 in their own interest. They wanted no regulation or inter- 
 ference from the Interstate Commerce Commission and no 
 Pacific Coast representative on that Commission. The 
 fruit, wheat, and lumber producers of the Western Coast, on 
 the other hand, felt the need of a strong representative to 
 protect their interests against the railroads, and to stabilize 
 freight rates. Lane's record for independence of sinister 
 control, his legal training and energy made him the natural 
 choice of the shippers for this position. 
 
 Benjamin Ide Wheeler, President of the University of 
 California, was a friend of Lane's and also a friend of Presi- 
 
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50 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 dent Roosevelt's. While in the East, in the spring of 1904, 
 Wheeler had a talk with Roosevelt, about Lane's qualifica- 
 tions for the Interstate Commerce appointment. He told 
 Roosevelt why the producers in California needed a man 
 that they could trust to be fair to their interests on the 
 Commission. Roosevelt heartily concurred, and promised 
 to name Lane for the next vacancy. 
 
 When the vacancy occurred, however, just after an over- 
 whelming Republican victory, Roosevelt impulsively gave 
 the appointment to an old friend — Senator Cockrill of 
 Missouri, a Democrat. Wheeler at once telegraphed the 
 President reminding him of the oversight, and to this Roose- 
 velt telegraphed this reply : — 
 
 " Am exceedingly sorry, had totally forgotten my promise 
 about Lane and have nothing to say excepting that I had 
 totally forgotten it when Senator Cockrill was offered the 
 position. I can only say now that I shall put him in some 
 good position suitable to his great talents and experience 
 when the chance occurs. Of course when I made the prom- 
 ise about Lane the idea of getting Cockrill for the position 
 could not be in any one's head. This does not excuse me 
 for breaking the promise, which I should never have done, 
 and of course, if I had remembered it I should not have 
 offered the position to Cockrill. I am very sorry. But as 
 fortunately I have another term, I shall make ample amends 
 to Lane later." 
 
 In September, 1905, while matters were in this position, 
 Lane went to Mexico, as legal adviser for a western rubber 
 company. In October, Roosevelt announced his intention 
 to place Lane on the Interstate Commerce Commission, 
 to fill the annual vacancy that occurred in December. The 
 announcement caused much newspaper comment, especially 
 in the more partisan Republican press, as the coming va- 
 
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LAW PRACTICE AND POLITICAL ACTIVITIES 51 
 
 cancy would leave two Republicans and two Democrats on 
 the Commission. 
 
 When Lane reached the United States he wrote : — 
 
 To Edward B. Whitney 
 
 San Francisco, November 13, 1905 
 My dear Whitney, — I have just returned from a two 
 months' trip through Mexico, from the Rio Grande to Gua- 
 temala, and from the Gulf to the Pacific, and know nothing 
 whatever concerning the Interstate Commerce Commission- 
 ership, save what I have seen in the papers since my return. 
 
 ... I have not put myself in the position of soliciting, 
 either directly or indirectly, this appointment ; I have never 
 even stimulated to a slight degree the activity ... of my 
 friends on my behalf. There is some misgiving in my own 
 mind as to whether acceptance of the position would be of 
 benefit to me either politically, or otherwise. I have no 
 doubt the nomination for Governor can be mine next year 
 without effort, and what the outcome of an election would 
 be in 1906, even in a Republican State, is not now to be 
 prophesied, in view of the somersaults in Ohio and Penn- 
 sylvania of a week ago. Of course, . . . it is a great oppor- 
 tunity to prove or disprove the capacity of this government 
 to control effectively the corporations which seem deter- 
 mined to be its master. 
 
 It does look to me as if the problem of our generation is 
 to be the discovery of some effective method by which the 
 artificial persons whom we have created by law can be 
 taught that they are not the creators, the owners, and the 
 rightful managers of the government. The real greatness 
 of the President's policy, to my notion, is that he has de- 
 termined to prove to the railroads that they have not the 
 
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52 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 whole works, and the policy that they have followed is as 
 short-sighted as it can be. It will lead, if pursued as it has 
 been begun, to the wildest kind of a craze for government 
 ownership of everything. Just as you people in New York 
 City were forced, by the delinquency and corruption of the 
 gas combine, to undertake the organization of a municipal 
 ownership movement, so it may be that the same qualities 
 in the railroads will create precisely the same spirit through- 
 out the country. 
 
 I appreciate thoroughly your position in New York. . . . 
 [Hearst] knows public sentiment and how to develop it very 
 well, and will be a danger in the United States, I am afraid, 
 for many years to come. He has great capacity for dis- 
 organization of any movement that is not his own, and an 
 equal capacity for organization of any movement that is his 
 personal property. He feels with the people, but he has no 
 conscience. . . . He is willing to do whatever for the minute 
 the people may want done and give them what they cry 
 for, unrestrained by sense of justice, or of ultimate effect. 
 He is the great American Pander. 
 
 Reverting again to the Interstate Commerce Commission- 
 ership, I think the railroads here are determined that no 
 Pacific Coast man shall be appointed. That has been the 
 policy of the Southern Pacific since the creation of the Com- 
 mission. . . . 
 
 One of the amusing reports that has come to me is that 
 the railroad feels friendly toward me. I think probably 
 the extent of their friendliness is in acknowledging that I 
 am not a blackmailer. They know that I would not hold 
 them up, just as well as they know that I could not be held 
 up. In the various campaigns that I have made, it has 
 never been suggested that the railroads had any more in 
 fluence with me than they ought to have, or that anybody 
 
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LAW PRACTICE AND POLITICAL ACTIVITIES 53 
 
 else had, and in my fight for the Governorship they did not 
 contribute so much as a single postcard, nor did an indi- 
 vidual railroad man contribute a dollar to the campaign fund. 
 I say this because I heard yesterday that word had gone to 
 the President that I was something of a railroad man, which 
 is about the most amusing thing that I have heard for some- 
 time. The charge never was made in any of my five cam- 
 paigns, and certainly is made only for foreign consumption, 
 and not for home consumption. 
 
 Do not in any way put yourself out regarding this matter. 
 I am satisfied that the President will do just what he wants 
 to do and just what he thinks right, without much respect 
 to what anybody says to him, and I don't want to bring 
 pressure to bear upon him ; but, of course, I want him to 
 know that I have friends who think well of me. I am very 
 appreciative of your offer and efforts, and hope that, whether 
 I am given this position or not, I shall before very long have 
 the opportunity of seeing you in New York. Very sincerely, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Hon. Theodore Roosevelt 
 
 The White House 
 
 San Francisco, December' 9, [1905] 
 
 My dear Mr. President, — I have not written you before 
 because of my expectation that I would see you soon, but 
 as there now seems some doubt as to immediate confirma- 
 tion I will not longer delay expressing the deep gratification 
 which the nomination gave me. You gave the one answer 
 I could have wished to the whispered charge that I was 
 bound by obligation of some sort to the railroads — a charge 
 never made in any form here, not even in the hottest of my 
 five campaigns. My honor stood pledged to you — by the 
 very fact of my willingness to accept the post — that I was 
 
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54 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 free, independent, self-owned, capable of unbiased action. 
 And that pledge remains. 
 
 As to my confirmation, it has been suggested that it was 
 the customary and expected thing for me to go to Washing- 
 ton and help in the fight. This I feel I should not do and 
 have so written to Senator Perkins and others. I do not 
 wish to appear indifferent in the slightest degree to the honor 
 you have done me, or to the office itself, but I feel that you 
 will appreciate without my setting them forth on paper the 
 many reasons which hold me here. This is no time for an 
 Interstate Commerce Commissioner to be on his knees be- 
 fore a United States Senator or to be thought to be in that 
 position. Very respectfully yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Benjamin Ide Wheeler 
 
 President, University of California 
 
 San Francisco, December 15, 1905 
 My dear Mr. Wheeler, — I enclose copy of a letter sent 
 this morning to Mr. Smythe of San Diego, who is tempora- 
 rily with Senator Newlands in Washington. 
 
 I wanted to tell you last night that I had written to the 
 President thanking him for the confidence he had shown in 
 me, and telling him that I did not think it was the right 
 thing for me to go to Washington under present circum- 
 stances. He may have a different notion in this respect, 
 and of course I should be guided by his judgment. ... I 
 have no doubt that many of the Senators would be quite 
 willing to let the President have the law if they could have 
 the Commission. . . . 
 
 Personally I should be most pleased to meet these critical 
 gentlemen of the Senate and give them a very full account 
 of my eventful career. But the fact that I am a Democrat 
 
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LAW PRACTICE AND POLITICAL ACTIVITIES 55 
 
 could not be disproved by my presence in Washington, and 
 I am not likely to apologize for what one of my kindly Repub- 
 lican critics calls "this error of his boyhood." I am con- 
 cerned in this matter because I do not wish to cause the 
 President any embarrassment. He is fighting for far larger 
 things than this appointment represents. He knows his 
 own game, and I am quite willing to stand on a side line 
 and see him play it to a finish, or get in and buck the center 
 if I am needed. 
 
 I must apologize for troubling you with this matter, but 
 I do not wish you to regard me as indifferent or unappre- 
 ciative. And if you think that I am too far up in the clouds 
 I want you frankly to tell me so. Sincerely yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To William E. Smythe 
 
 San Francisco, December 15, 1905 
 
 My dear Mr. Smythe, — I have been out of town for a 
 few days, else I would have acknowledged your kind letter 
 of congratulation sooner. I sent a note the other day 
 to our friend Senator Newlands in recognition of the effort 
 he has been making to secure action upon my appoint- 
 ment, and I certainly regard myself as very fortunate in 
 having one who knows me upon that Committee. 1 
 
 According to the press despatches here I am regarded as 
 something of a monster by the more conservative Senators, 
 a sort of cross between Dennis Kearney and Eugene Debs 
 with a little of Herr Most thrown in. . . . I wish for con- 
 firmation, but not at the price of having it thought that I in 
 any way compromised myself to obtain the Senate's favor- 
 able action. I know that you are not alone in this view as 
 to the wisdom of my going on, for I have received other 
 
 1 The Interstate Commerce Committee. 
 
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56 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 messages to the same effect. But, as you know, the Presi- 
 dent made this appointment upon grounds quite superior 
 to those of political expediency and upon recommenda- 
 tions not at all political in their nature. . . . Very truly 
 yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To John H. Wigmore 
 
 San Francisco, December 21, [1905] 
 
 My dear Wigmore, — Your letter bore good fruit. . . . 
 As for confirmation it is not as likely as I could wish. How- 
 ever, I am enjoying the situation hugely, and if the fight is 
 kept up I may enlarge into a national issue. 
 
 The Press of California (notice the respectful capital) is 
 practically a unit for me. . . . My information is that the 
 President will stand pat. But the fight with the Senate is 
 growing so large that no one can tell what will happen. I 
 have been urged to go to Washington and meet the Sena- 
 tors, but I have refused. . . . Ami not right? 
 
 Remember me very kindly to your wife, and to you both 
 a Merry Christmas. As always yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Benjamin Ide Wheeler 
 President, University of California 
 
 San Francisco, December 22, [1905] 
 
 My dear Mr. Wheeler, — It was mighty good of you to 
 bring me that message of good cheer last night. I have not 
 told you, and cannot now tell you the very great pleasure 
 and gratification you have given me by the many evidences 
 of your personal friendship. To me it is better to have that 
 kind of friendship than any office. 
 
 I have just received a letter from the President [Roose- 
 
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LAW PRACTICE AND POLITICAL ACTIVITIES 57 
 
 velt] that is so fine I want you to know of it at once — but 
 the original I keep for home use. Here it is : — 
 
 "... I thank you for your frank and manly letter. 
 It is just the kind of a letter I should have expected from 
 you. You are absolutely right in refraining from coming 
 here. I shall make and am making as stiff a fight as I know 
 how for you. I think I shall carry you through; but of 
 course nothing of this kind is ever certain. . . ." 
 
 Please remember me most kindly to Mrs. Wheeler and 
 believe me always, faithfully yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 The California earthquake, of April 18, 1906, occurred at 
 about five o'clock in the morning. Lane was living in 
 North Berkeley, across the bay from San Francisco. His 
 house built of light wood and shingles, rocked, and his 
 chimneys flung down bricks, in the successive shocks, but 
 with no serious damage. Meanwhile San Francisco sprang 
 into flames from hundreds of broken gas mains. Lane 
 reached the city early in the morning, and was at once 
 put, by the Mayor, upon the Committee of Fifty to look to 
 the safety of the City. 
 
 Will Irwin wrote this picturesque story of the episode 
 after having heard his friend describe this adventure : — 
 
 "Lane has said since that, although he was brought up in 
 the old West, his was a city life after all. He had never 
 tested himself against primitive physical force, tried him- 
 self out in an emergency, and he had always longed for such 
 a test before he died. When the test came it was a supreme 
 one : the San Francisco disaster. . . . 
 
 " On the last day but one of this visitation the fire, smol- 
 
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58 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 dering slowly in the redwood houses, had taken virtually 
 all the district east of Van Ness Avenue, a broad street 
 which bisects the residence quarter. . . . By this time the 
 authorities had given up dynamiting. Chief Sullivan, the 
 one man among them who understood the use of explosives 
 in fire fighting, was dead. The work had been done by 
 soldiers from the Presidio, who blew up buildings too close 
 to the flames and so only scattered them. Lane stood on 
 the slope of Russian Hill, watching the fire approach Van 
 Ness Avenue, when a contractor named Anderson came 
 along. 'That fire always catches at the eaves, not the 
 foundations,' said Lane. 'It could be stopped right here 
 if some one would dynamite all the block beyond Van Ness 
 Avenue. It could never jump across a strip so broad.' 
 ' But they've forbidden any more dynamiting,' said Ander- 
 son. 'Never mind ; I'd take the chance myself if we could 
 get any explosive,' replied Lane. ' Well, there's a launch 
 full of dynamite from Contra Costa County lying right 
 now at Meigs's Wharf,' said Anderson. Just then Mr. and 
 Mrs. Tom Magee arrived, driving an automobile on the 
 wheel rims. Lane despatched them to Meigs's Wharf for 
 the dynamite. He and Anderson found an electric bat- 
 tery, and cut some dangling wires from a telephone pole. 
 By this time the Magees were back, the machine loaded 
 with dynamite ; Mrs. Magee carrying a box of detonators 
 on her lap. Lane, Anderson, and a corps of volunteers laid 
 the battery and strung the wires. 'How do you want this 
 house to fall ? ' asked Anderson, who understands explosives. 
 'Send her straight up,' replied Lane. 
 
 " ' And I've never forgotten the picture which followed,' 
 Lane has told me since. 'Anderson disappeared inside, 
 came out, and said : "All ready." I joined the two ends of 
 wire which I held in my hands. The house rose twenty feet 
 
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LAW PRACTICE AND POLITICAL ACTIVITIES 59 
 
 in the air — intact, mind you ! It looked like a scene in a 
 fairy book. At that point I rolled over on my back, and 
 when I got up the house was nothing but dust and splinters.' 
 "They went down the line, blowing up houses, schools, 
 churches. Then came bad news. To the south sparks were 
 catching on the eaves of the houses. Down there was a 
 little water in cisterns. Volunteers under Lane's direction 
 made the householders stretch wet blankets over the roofs 
 and eaves. Then again bad news from the north. There 
 the fire had really crossed the avenue. It threatened the 
 Western Addition, the best residence district. The cause 
 seemed lost. Lane ran up and looked over the situation. 
 Only a few houses were afire, and the slow-burning redwood 
 was smoldering but feebly. 'Just a little water would stop 
 this ! ' he thought. The whole water system of San Fran- 
 cisco was gone, or supposedly so, through the breaking of 
 the mains. 'But I had a hunch, just a hunch,' said Lane, 
 'that there was water somewhere in the pipes.' He had 
 learned that a fire company which had given up the fight 
 was asleep on a haystack somewhere in the Western Addi- 
 tion. He went out and found them. They had been work- 
 ing for thirty-six hours; they lay like dead men. Lane 
 kicked the soles of the nearest fireman. He returned only a 
 grunt. The next fireman, however, woke up ; Lane man- 
 aged to get him enthusiastic. He found a wrench, and to- 
 gether he and Lane went from hydrant to hydrant, turning 
 on the cocks. The first five or six gave only a faint spurt 
 and ceased to flow. Then, and just when the fireman was 
 getting ready to go on strike, they turned a cock no more 
 promising than the others, and out spurted a full head of 
 water. No one knows to this day where that water came 
 from, but it was there ! They shut off the stream. 'It will 
 take three engines to pump it to that blaze,' said the fireman. 
 
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60 LETTERS OP FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 He, Lane, and Anderson scattered in opposite directions 
 looking for engines. When twenty minutes later, Lane 
 returned with an engine and company two others had already 
 arrived. But they had not yet coupled the hose up. The 
 companies were quarreling as to which, under the rules of the 
 department, should have the position of honor close to the hy- 
 drant ! Lane settled that question of etiquette with speed 
 and force. They got a stream on the incipient fire, and the 
 water held out. The other side of Van Ness Avenue gradually 
 burned out and settled down into red coals. The Western 
 Addition was saved, and the San Francisco disaster was over." 
 A few days later Lane started to Washington in an at- 
 tempt to raise money for the rebuilding of San Francisco. 
 When he found that Congress would not act in this matter, 
 he, with Senator Newlands, of Nevada, and some others, 
 went to the President and the Secretary of the Treasury to 
 see if Federal help could be secured for the ruined city. 
 
 To William R. Wheeler 
 
 New York, June 23, [1906] 
 
 My dear Will, — I have just returned from Washington, 
 where I hope we have accomplished some good for San 
 Francisco, although it was mighty hard to move anyone 
 except the President and the Secretary of the Treasury. 
 But I did not intend to write of anything but your personal 
 affairs. Yesterday, on the train, I discovered that you had 
 met with another fire. This is rubbing it in, hitting a man 
 when he is down. The Gods don't fight fair. The decent 
 rules of the Marquis of Queensberry seem to have no recog-' 
 nition on Olympus, or wherever the Gods live. I can 
 quite appreciate the strain you are under and the monu- 
 mental difficulties of your situation, dealing as you are with 
 
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LAW PRACTICE AND POLITICAL ACTIVITIES 61 
 
 disspirited old men and indifferent young ones. I hope 
 this last blow will have some benefit which I cannot now 
 perceive, else it must come like almost a knock-out to the 
 concern. Brave, strong, bully old boy, no one knows better 
 than I do what a fight you have been making these last few 
 years and how many unkindnesses fortune has done you. 
 There is not much use either in preaching to one's self or to 
 another, the advantages of adversity. I don't believe that 
 men are made by fighting relentless Fate, the stuff they 
 have is sometimes proved by struggle, — that is the best 
 that can be said for such philosophy. 
 
 More power to you my dear fellow ! I took occasion to 
 give M . . . a warm dose of Bill Wheeler. He is an old 
 sour-ball who thinks he is alive but evidently has been in 
 the cemetery a long time. He talked all right about you, 
 but all wrong about San Francisco. . . . 
 
 Give my regards to the dear wife whose heart is stout 
 enough to meet any calamity, and remember me most 
 warmly to the Boy. Sincerely and affectionately yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 The Hepburn Bill provided for seven men on the Inter- 
 state Commerce Commission, instead of five. Roosevelt 
 intimated that he would appoint two Republicans. All 
 opposition to Lane was then withdrawn. 
 
 To John H. Wigmore 
 
 New York, June 27, [1906] 
 
 My dear Wigmore, — Thanks, and again thanks, for your 
 letter to Senator Cullom and yours to me. It looks now 
 as if with a seven man Commission the objection to my 
 Democracy would cease. Senator Cullom's letter is very 
 
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62 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 reassuring, and I wish that I had met him when in Wash- 
 ington. . . . 
 
 Before another week this business of mine will have come 
 to a head, and I hope soon after to start West, via Chicago. 
 
 If the report to-day is true that Harlan of Chicago is to go 
 on the Commission, you will have two friends on the body. 
 I personally think most highly of Harlan and would be 
 mighty proud to sit beside him. His political fortune seems 
 to have been akin to mine, and we have one dear and cher- 
 ished enemy in common. 
 
 Remember me most kindly to your wife and believe me, 
 faithfully yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 Telegram. To John H. Wigmore 
 
 New York, June 30, [1906] 
 
 Confirmation has to-day arrived thanks to a friend or two 
 like Wigmore. 
 
 Lane 
 
 To William R. Wheeler 
 
 Washington, July 2, [1906] 
 
 My dear Bill, — I have waited until this minute to write 
 you, that I might send you the first greeting from the new 
 office. I have just been sworn in and signed the oath, and 
 to you I turn first to express gratitude, appreciation, and 
 affection. 
 
 My hope is to leave here tomorrow and go to Chicago at 
 once on your affair, and then West. 
 
 Remember me most affectionately to your wife, and be- 
 lieve me always most faithfully yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 At the same time an affectionate letter of appreciation 
 went to Benjamin Ide Wheeler. 
 
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IV 
 
 RAILROAD AND NATIONAL POLICIES 
 
 1906-1912 
 
 Increased powers of Interstate Commerce Commission — Harriman 
 Inquiry — Railroad Regulation — Letters to Roosevelt 
 
 During the late summer of 1906, Lane was in Washington or 
 traveling through the South and West to attend the hear- 
 ings of the Interstate Commerce Commission. The Hep- 
 burn Act of 1906, among other extensions of power to the 
 Commission, brought the express companies of the United 
 States under its jurisdiction, and the Commission began 
 the close investigation into the rates, rules, and practises, 
 that finally resulted in a complete reorganization and zoning 
 of the companies. The new powers given the Commission, 
 by this Act, inspired fresh hope of righting old abuses, as- 
 sociated with railroad finance, over-capitalization and 
 stock-jobbing. The Commission set itself to finding a way 
 out of the ancient quarrel between shippers and railroads 
 in the matters of rebating and demurrage charges. 
 
 In the latter part of the year, President Roosevelt called 
 an important meeting at the White House, for the purpose 
 of deciding whether an inquiry should not be made into the 
 merging of the Western railroads, then under the control 
 of E. H. Harriman. Elihu Root, then Secretary of State ; 
 William H. Taft, Secretary of War; Charles Bonaparte, 
 
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64 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 Attorney General, were present; Chairman Martin A. 
 Knapp and Franklin K. Lane of the Interstate Commerce 
 Commission, and the special Counsel for the Commission — 
 Frank B. Kellogg. The matter of the proposed inquiry was 
 discussed, each man being asked, in turn, to express his 
 opinion. Root and Knapp were not in favor of beginning 
 an investigation of the railroad merger, Buonaparte, Kellogg, 
 and Lane favored an immediate inquiry. Lane declared 
 that, in a few weeks, when the report of the Interstate Com- 
 merce Commission was published, it would be impossible 
 to avoid making the inquiry. 
 
 At this point, President Roosevelt turned to William H. 
 Taft, who as yet had expressed no opinion, saying, " Will, 
 what do you think of this?" Mr. Taft said quietly, "It's 
 right, isn't it? Well, damn it, do it then." And the plans 
 for the famous Harriman Inquiry, the first real step taken 
 toward curbing the power of public utilities, were then taken 
 under consideration. 
 
 During the inquiry, when E. H. Harriman was on the 
 stand for hours, the Commissioners trying to extra ct, by round- 
 about questioning, the admission from him that he would 
 like to extend his control over the railroads of the country, 
 Lane, who had been silent for some time, suddenly turned 
 and asked Harriman the direct question. What would he 
 do with all the roads in the country, if he had the power? 
 With equal candor and simplicity, Harriman replied that he 
 would consolidate them under his own management. This 
 answer rang through the country. 
 
 To Edward F. Adams 
 
 Washington, February 16, 1907 
 My dear Adams, — ... I think the standpoint taken by 
 our rajlroad friends in 1882 is that which possesses their 
 
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RAILROAD AND NATIONAL POLICIES 65 
 
 souls to-day. I am conscious each time I ask a question that 
 there is deep resentment in the heart of the railroad official 
 at being compelled to answer, but that he is compelled to, 
 he recognizes. The operating and traffic officials of the rail- 
 roads are having a very hard time these days with the law 
 departments. They can not understand why the law de- 
 partment advises them to give the information we demand, 
 and I have heard of some most lively conferences in which 
 the counsel of the companies were blackguarded heartily for 
 being cowards, in not fighting the Commission. You cer- 
 tainly took advanced ground in 1882, ... — there can be 
 no such thing as a business secret in a quasi-public cor- 
 poration. . . . Very truly yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Benjamin Ide Wheeler 
 President, University of California 
 
 Washington, March 81, 1907 
 
 My dear Mr. Wheeler, — ... I have taken the liberty 
 of giving Mr. Aladyin, leader of the Group of Toil in the 
 Russian Duma, a note of introduction. He's an immensely 
 interesting young man, a fine speaker and comes from plain, 
 peasant stock. He will talk to your boys if you ask him. 
 
 During these days of panic in Wall Street the President 
 [Roosevelt] has called me in often and shown in many ways 
 that he in no way regrets the appointment you urged. I 
 have been much interested in studying him in time of stress. 
 He is one of the most resolute of men and at the same time 
 entirely and altogether reasonable. No man I know is more 
 willing to take suggestion. No one leads him, not even Root, 
 but no one need fear to give suggestion. He lives up to his 
 legend, so far as I can discover, and that's a big order. 
 
 The railroad men who are wise will rush to the support of 
 
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66 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 the policies he will urge before the next Congress, or they 
 will have national ownership to face as an immediate issue, 
 or a character of regulation that they will regard as intoler- 
 able. 
 
 You will be here again soon and I hope that you will come 
 directly to our house and give us the pleasure of a genuine 
 visit. . . . Sincerely yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Elihu Root 
 
 Washington, February 14, 1908 
 
 My dear Mr. Secretary, — I have lately been engaged 
 in writing an opinion upon the jurisdiction of the Interstate 
 Commerce Commission over ocean carriers engaged in 
 foreign commerce, and it has occurred to me that an ex- 
 tensive American merchant marine might be developed by 
 some legislation which would permit American ships to 
 enjoy preferential through routes in conjunction with our 
 railroad systems. The present Interstate Commerce Law, 
 as I interpret it, gives to the Commission jurisdiction over 
 carriers to the seaboard. It is the assumption of the law 
 that rates will be made to and from the American ports and 
 that at such ports all ships may equally compete for foreign 
 cargo. 
 
 Might it not be possible to extend the jurisdiction of the 
 Commission over all American vessels engaged in foreign 
 trade, and with such ships alone — they alone being fully 
 amenable to our law — permit the railroad which carries 
 to the port to make through joint rates to the foreign point 
 of destination? There is so vast a volume of this through 
 traffic that the preference which could thus be given to the 
 American ship would act as a most substantial subsidy. 
 There may be objections to this suggestion arising either 
 
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RAILROAD AND NATIONAL POLICIES 67 
 
 out of national or international policy which render it un- 
 worthy of further consideration. It has appealed to me, 
 however, as possibly containing the germ of what Mr. Web- 
 ster would have termed a "respectable idea." Faithfully 
 yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To E. B. Beard 
 
 Washington, December 19, 1908 
 
 My dear Mr. Beard, — I have not seen the article in the 
 Call, to which you refer, but have heard of it from a couple 
 of Californians, much to my distress. Of course I appre- 
 ciate that at a time of strain such as that which you shippers 
 and business men of California are now undergoing, it is to 
 be expected that the most conservative language will not be 
 used. . . . The trouble is with the law. ... It is only 
 upon complaint that an order can be made reducing a rate, 
 and I understand that such complaints are at present being 
 drafted in San Francisco and will in time come before us 
 but such matters cannot be brought to issue in a week nor 
 heard in a day, and when I tell you that we have on hand 
 four hundred cases, at the present time, you will appreciate 
 how great the volume of our work is, and that you are not 
 alone in your feeling of indignation or of distress. If you 
 will examine the docket of the Commission, you will find that 
 the cases of the Pacific Coast have been taken care of more 
 promptly within the last two years than the cases in any 
 other part of the United States. I have seen to this my- 
 self, because of the long neglect of that part of the coun- 
 try. ... 
 
 I want to speak one direct personal word to you. You 
 are now protesting against increased rates. I have outlined 
 to you the only remedy [a change in the law] that I see 
 
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68 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 available against the continuance of just such a policy on 
 the part of the railroads, and I think it might be well for 
 you to see that the Senators and Representatives from 
 California support this legislation. It is not calculated 
 in any way to do injustice or injury to the railroads. . . . 
 This is a plan which I have proposed myself, and for 
 which I have secured the endorsement of the Commis- 
 sion. The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce has en- 
 dorsed it. The whole Pacific Coast should follow suit en- 
 thusiastically. 
 
 Please remember that I am not the Commissioner from 
 California ; that I am a Commissioner for the United States ; 
 and that it is not my business to fight the railroads, but to 
 hear impartially what both sides may have to say and be as 
 entirely fair with the railroads as with the shippers. I am 
 flattered to know that the railroad men of the United States 
 do not regard me as a deadhead on this Commission. My 
 aggressiveness on behalf of the shipping public has brought 
 upon my head much criticism, and it would be the greatest 
 satisfaction for those who have been prosecuted for rebating 
 or discovered in illegal practises to feel that they were able 
 in any degree to raise in the minds of the shippers any ques- 
 tion of my loyalty to duty. 
 
 I expect to be in California during January, for a few days, 
 and hope that I may see you at that time. Very sincerely 
 yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To George W. Lane 
 
 Washington, February 13, 1909 
 My dear George, — ... I suppose you haven't seen my 
 interview on the Japanese question. I gave it at the re- 
 quest of the President [Roosevelt], because he said that the 
 
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RAILROAD AND NATIONAL POLICIES 69 
 
 Republican Senators and Congressmen would not stand by 
 him if it was going to be a partisan question in California 
 politics. So I said that I would give the value of my name and 
 influence to the support of his policy, so that Flint, Kahn, 
 et al., could quote me as against any attack by the Democrats. 
 The President has done great work for the Coast. Congress 
 never would have done anything at this time, and by the 
 time it is willing to do something the problem will practically 
 be solved. I am expecting to be roasted somewhat, in 
 California, but I felt that it was only right to stand by the 
 man who was really making our fight without any real 
 backing from the East, and without many friends on the 
 Pacific — so far as the "pollies" are concerned. 
 
 . . . The Harriman crowd seems to think that they will 
 all be on good terms with Taft, but unless I'm mistaken 
 in the man they will be greatly fooled. . . . 
 
 Have you noticed that nice point of constitutional law, 
 dug up by a newspaper reporter, which renders Knox in- 
 eligible as Secretary of State ? He voted for an increase in 
 the salary of the Secretary of State three years ago. They 
 will try to avoid the effect of the constitutional inhibition 
 by repealing the act increasing the salary. Technically 
 this won't do Knox any good, altho' it will probably be up- 
 held by the Courts, if the matter is ever taken into the 
 Courts. 
 
 Roosevelt is very nervous these days but as he said to 
 me the other day, "They know that I am President right 
 up to March fourth." I took Ned and Nancy to see him 
 and he treated them most beautifully. Gave Ned a pair of 
 boar tusks from the Philippines and told him a story about 
 the boar ripping up a man's leg just before he was shot, and 
 to them both he gave a personal card. 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
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70 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 With this letter he sent a copy of a verse written by his 
 daughter, not yet seven. 
 
 " On through the night as the willows go weeping 
 The daffodils sigh, 
 As the wind sweeps by 
 Right through the sky." 
 
 To Charles K. McClatchy 
 
 Sacramento Bee 
 
 Washington, March 20, 1909 
 
 My deae McClatchy, — I am just in receipt of your letter 
 of March 15th, with reference to my running for Governor 
 next year. 
 
 There is nothing in this rumor whatever. I have been 
 approached by a good many people on this matter, and 
 perhaps I have not said as definitely as I should that I had 
 no expectation of re-entering California politics. When I was 
 last in California some of my friends pointed out to me the 
 great opening there would be for me if I would become a 
 Republican and lead the Lincoln-Roosevelt people. There 
 does not seem to be any line of demarcation between a Dem- 
 ocrat and a Republican these days, so that such a change 
 would not in itself be an act of suicide. My own personal 
 belief is that the organization in California on the Repub- 
 lican side could be rather easily beaten, and we could do 
 with California what La Follette did with Wisconsin. But I 
 am trying not to think of politics, and I told those people 
 who came to me that I thought my line of work for the next 
 few years was fixed. 
 
 . . . No one yet knows from Mr. Taft's line of policy 
 what kind of a President he will make. Everybody is giving 
 him the benefit of the doubt. The thing, I find, that hangs 
 over all Presidents and other public men here to terrify them 
 
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RAILROAD AND NATIONAL POLICIES 71 
 
 is the fear of bad times. The greatness of Roosevelt lay, in a 
 sense, in his recklessness. These people undoubtedly have the 
 power to bring on panics whenever they want to and to de- 
 press business, and they will exercise that power as against 
 any administration that does not play their game, and the 
 "money power," as we used to call it, allows the President 
 and Congress a certain scope — a field within which it may 
 move but if it goes outside that field and follows policies 
 or demands measures which interfere with the game as 
 played by the high financiers, they do not hesitate to use 
 their "big stick," which is the threat of business depres- 
 sion. . . . 
 
 There are a lot of things to be done in our State yet before 
 we both pass out. ... As always, very truly yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Lawrence F. Abbott 
 
 Outlook 
 
 Washington, September 22, 1909 
 
 My dear Abbott, — ... President Taft's suggestion of a 
 Commerce Court is a very sensible one. We suggested the 
 institution of such a Court some years ago, so that the ques- 
 tion of nullifying our order will be brought up before men 
 who have special experience. . . . The trouble with the 
 Courts is that they know nothing about the question. 
 Fundamentally it is not . . . law but economics that we deal 
 with. The fixing of a rate is a matter of politics. That is 
 the reason why I have always held that the traffic manager 
 is the most potent of our statesmen. So that we should 
 have a Court that will pass really upon the one question of 
 confiscation — the constitutionality of the rates fixed — 
 and leave experienced men to deal with the economic ques- 
 tions. . . . 
 
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n LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 I have long wanted to see you and have a talk about our 
 work. At times it is rather disheartening. The problem 
 is vast, and we pass few milestones. The one great ac- 
 complishment of the Commission, I think, in the last three 
 years, has been the enforcement of the law as against re- 
 bating. We have a small force now that is used in this 
 connection under my personal direction, and I think the 
 greatest contribution that we have made, perhaps, to the 
 railroads has been during he time of panic when they 
 were kept from cutting rates directly or indirectly and 
 throwing each other into the hands of receivers. 
 
 The great volume of our complaints comes from the ter- 
 ritory west of the Mississippi River and practically all of 
 the larger cities in the inter-mountain country have com- 
 pla'nts pending before us attacking the reasonableness of 
 the rates charged them, and it is to give consideration to 
 these that the Commission, as a body, goes West the first 
 of the month. . . . 
 
 I have just returned from a trip to Europe, and I find 
 that what I said two or three years ago about the United 
 States being the most conservative of the civilized countries 
 is absolutely true. 
 
 By the way, at the Sorbonne at Paris they are exhibiting 
 the chair in which President Roosevelt will sit when he comes 
 to deliver his address and I am thinking that he will have 
 quite as hearty a reception in Paris as in any of our cities. 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To John H. Wigmore 
 
 Washington, December 8, 1909 
 
 My dear Doctor, — ... I think there is but little doubt 
 that De Vries will receive the appointment, though of course 
 
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RAILROAD AND NATIONAL POLICIES 73 
 
 everything here is in absolute chaos. . . . The best symp- 
 tom in my own case is that I have been called in twice to 
 consult over proposed amendments to the law, and the 
 President's [Taft's] reference thereto in his forthcoming 
 message. He seems to think my judgment worth something 
 — more than I do myself, in fact — for down in my heart, 
 though I do not let anybody see it, I am really a modest 
 creature. 
 
 Since my return from the West we have had one merry 
 round of sickness in the house . . . but all are on their feet 
 once more and as gay as they can be with a more or less 
 grumpy head of the household in the neighborhood, (as- 
 suming for the nonce that I am the head of the house- 
 hold). 
 
 The President is going to appoint Lurton. 1 He should 
 have said so when he made up his mind to do it, which was 
 immediately after Peckham's death. He would have saved 
 himself an immense amount of trouble. Lurton seems to 
 have been very hostile to the Interstate Commerce Com- 
 mission, and is too old, but otherwise I hear nothing said 
 against him. I really would like to see Bowers put on the 
 bench very much. He has made a very favorable impression 
 here, and is a clear lawyer, a very strong man, and in sym- 
 pathy with Federal control that's real. 
 
 By the way, I had a talk the other day with Attorney 
 General Wickersham regarding the treatment of criminals, 
 and I believe you can secure through him the initiation of 
 an enlightened policy in this matter. He told me that he 
 was going to make some recommendations in his report, 
 and perhaps the President may deal with the matter slightly 
 in his message. Wickersham is a thoroughly modern proposi- 
 tion, and as he has charge of all the penitentiaries, and his 
 
 1 To the Supreme Bench. 
 
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74 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 recommendations, with relation to parole and such things, 
 absolutely go with the President, I believe you could do 
 more good in an hour's talk with him than you could effect 
 in a year otherwise. If you could run down, during the holi- 
 day vacation, I would bring you two together for a talk on 
 this matter, and you, also, might take up the very live ques- 
 tion with the President of cutting off red-tape in the courts. 
 Give my love to Mrs. Wigmore, and tell her, too, that we 
 would be most delighted to see her here. Faithfully yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 On December 9, 1909, President Taft reappointed Frank- 
 lin K. Lane as a member of the Interstate Commerce Com- 
 mission. 
 
 To Mrs. Franklin K. Lane 
 
 En route to California, Monday, March [1910] 
 
 ... I have spent a rather pleasant day reading, and 
 looking at this great desert of New Mexico and Arizona. 
 No one on board that I know or care to know, but the big 
 sky and my books keep me busy. Do you remember that 
 picture in the Corcoran Gallery with a wee line of land at 
 the bottom and a great high reach of blue sky above, cover- 
 ing nine-tenths of the canvas? I have thought of it often 
 to-day — "the high, irrepressible sky." It is moonlight and 
 the rare air gives physical tone, so that I feel a bit more like 
 myself, as was, than is ordinary. . . . 
 
 I have thought of a lecture to-day and you must keep 
 this letter as a reminder and make me do it one of these days : 
 The Problems of Railroad Regulation. The Traffic Manager 
 as a Statesman : The Unearned Increment of our Railroads. 
 
 And another : The Need of a World Bank : International, 
 and Independent Financial Authority, which shall fix stand- 
 
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RAILROAD AND NATIONAL POLICIES 75 
 
 ards of value, based on no one metal or commodity, but on 
 a great number of staples. 
 
 I have thought much of the farm. It will be so far away 
 and so impracticable of use ! But such an anchor to wind- 
 ward, for two most hand-to-mouth spendthrifts ! . . . 
 
 To Theodore Roosevelt 
 
 Washington, April 29, 1910 
 My dear Mr. Roosevelt, — Mr. Kellogg tells me that he 
 expects to see you in Europe, and I avail myself of his offer 
 to carry a word of welcome to you, inasmuch as I must 
 leave for Europe the day after your arrival in New York, 
 the President having appointed me as a delegate to the 
 International Railway Congress at Berne. 
 
 The country is awaiting you anxiously — not out of mere 
 curiosity to know what your attitude will be, but to lead it, 
 to give it direction. The public opinion which you developed 
 in favor of the "square deal" is stronger to-day than when 
 you left, and your personal following is larger to-day than 
 it ever has been. There is no feeling (or if there is any it 
 is negligible) that the President [Taft] has been consciously 
 disloyal to the policies which you inaugurated or to his pub- 
 lic promises. He is patriotic, conscientious, and lovable. 
 This was your own view as expressed to me, and this view 
 has been confirmed by my personal experience with him. It 
 is also, I believe, the judgment of the country at large. 
 But the people do not feel that they control the government 
 or that their interests will be safeguarded by a relationship 
 that is purely diplomatic between the White House and 
 Congress. In short we have a new consciousness of Democ- 
 racy, largely resulting from your administration, and it is 
 such that the character of government which satisfied the 
 
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76 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 people of twenty years ago is found lacking to-day. Prac- 
 tically all the criticism to which this administration has been 
 subjected arises out of the feeling of the people that their 
 opinions and desires are not sufficiently consulted, and they 
 are suspicious of everything and everybody that is not open 
 and frank with them. 
 
 Outside of a few of the larger states the entire country 
 is insurgent, and insurgency means revolt against taking 
 orders. The prospect is that the next House will be Demo- 
 cratic, but the Democrats apparently lack a realization of 
 the many new problems upon which the country is divided. 
 Their success would not indicate the acceptance of any 
 positive program of legislation ; it would be a vote of lack of 
 confidence in the Republican party because it has allowed 
 apparent party interest to rise superior to public good. The 
 prospect is that every measure which Congress will pass at 
 this session will be wise and in line with your policies, but 
 the people do not feel that they are passing the bills. 
 
 I have presumed to say this much, thinking that perhaps 
 you would regard my opinion as entirely unbiased, and in 
 the hope that I might throw some light upon what I regard 
 as the fundamental trouble which has to be dealt with. 
 Whether you choose to re-enter political life or not, men of 
 all parties desire your leadership and will accept your advice 
 as they will that of none other. 
 
 Pardon me for this typewriting, but I thought that you 
 might prefer a letter in this form which you could read to 
 one in my own hand which you could not read. Believe me, 
 as always, faithfully yours. 
 
 Fhanklin K. Lane 
 
 From Berlin, Lane received from Theodore Roosevelt, 
 dated May 13, 1910, these lines, — 
 
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RAILROAD AND NATIONAL POLICIES 77 
 
 "... I think your letter most interesting. As far as I 
 can judge you have about sized up the situation right. With 
 hearty good wishes, faithfully yours, 
 
 Theodore Roosevelt 
 
 To John H. Wigmore 
 
 Washington, March 2, 1911 
 
 My dear John, — No other letter that I have received has 
 done me as much good or given me as much pleasure, or has 
 been as much of a stimulus, as has yours. The fact that you 
 took the time to go through the Report so carefully is an 
 evidence of a friendship that is beyond all price, and of 
 which I feel most unworthy. I have had the figures checked 
 over, resulting in some slight changes, and will send you a 
 revised copy as soon as it is printed. The newspaper criti- 
 cisms are generally very friendly, although the Financial 
 Chronicle, the Wall Street Journal, and other railway organs 
 are extremely bitter. The Western papers do not seem to 
 have been very much elated over the decision. It has ap- 
 peared to me from the beginning as if they had been " fixed " 
 in advance and that their reports were always biased for 
 the railroads, but the country at large will realize, I think, 
 before long, that the decisions are sound, sensible, and in the 
 public interest. Some of the least narrow of the railroad 
 men also take this view. The best editorial I have seen is 
 in the New York Evening Post. Sincerely yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 P. S. I got this note from Roosevelt this morning, headed 
 The Outlook: — 
 
 "Fine! I am really greatly obliged to you, and I shall 
 read the Report with genuine interest. More power to your 
 elbow ! Faithfully yours." 
 
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78 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 "This report was known," Commissioner Harlan explains, 
 "as the Western Advance Rate Case. It was one of the 
 first of the great cases covering many commodities and 
 applying over largely extended territories. In his opinion 
 denying the rate advances proposed by the carriers, Com- 
 missioner Lane discussed the Commission's new powers of 
 suspending the operation of increased rates pending inves- 
 tigation and the burden of proof in such cases. He mar- 
 shalled a vast array of facts and figures and announced con- 
 clusions that were accepted as convincing by the public at 
 large. He then pointed out that the laws enforced by 
 the Commission sought dominion over private capital for no 
 other purpose than to secure the public against injustice and 
 thereby make capital itself more secure." 
 
 To William R. Wheeler 
 
 Traffic Bureau, Merchants' Exchange 
 
 San Francisco, California 
 
 Washington, June 27, 1911 
 
 Dear Sir, — Adverting to yours of June 22, in re express 
 rates, I beg to advise that nothing can be added to my pre- 
 vious letter unless it is the expression of my personal 
 opinion that a rate should not be made for the carriage of 
 20,000-pound shipments by express. 
 
 We are receiving daily similar complaints to yours, re- 
 specting the nonadjustment of express rates, and if you will 
 call at this office we shall be pleased to reveal the reason 
 for our failure, hitherto, to grant the relief desired. It is 
 extremely warm in Washington at the present time, but if 
 anything could add to the disagreeableness of life in the city 
 it is the unreasoning insistence on the part of the traffic 
 bureaus of the country that express rates shall be fixed over- 
 night. 
 
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RAILROAD AND NATIONAL POLICIES 79 
 
 I desire to say that I have given some year or two of more 
 or less profane contemplation to this question, and have 
 now engaged a large corps of men, under the direction of 
 Mr. Frank Lyon as attorney for, the Commission, to seek a 
 way out of the inextricable maze of express company figures. 
 Whether we will be able to find the light before the Infinite 
 Hand that controls our destinies cuts short the cord, is a 
 question to which no certain answer can be given. Would 
 you kindly advise the importunate members of a most worthy 
 institution, that express rates to San Francisco possess me 
 as an obsessment. My prayer is at night interfered with by 
 consideration of the question — "What should the 100 
 pound rate be by Wells Fargo & Co. from New York to 
 San Francisco ? " And at night often I am aroused from 
 sleep, feeling confident in my dreams that the mystic 
 figure of "a just and reasonable rate," under Section One, 
 on 100-pound shipments to San Francisco, had been de- 
 termined, and awaken with a joyous cry upon my lips, to 
 discover that life has been made still more unhappy by the 
 torture of the subconscious mind during sleep. 
 
 No doubt your shippers are being treated unfairly, both 
 by the express companies and by the Interstate Commerce 
 Commission. This is a cruel world. Congress itself adds 
 to the torture, by almost daily referring to us some bill 
 touching express rates or parcels post, or some such similar 
 service, and while the thermometer stands at 117 degrees 
 in the shade we are requested to advise as to whether ex- 
 press companies should not be abolished. It has only been 
 by the exercise of a rare and unusual degree of self-control 
 ,on my part, and by long periods of prayer, that I have re- 
 frained from advising Congress that I thought express com- 
 panies should be abolished and designating the place to 
 which they should be relegated. 
 
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80 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 As perhaps you may have heard, I shall visit the Pacific 
 Coast in person during the next few weeks, and there I 
 trust I may have the pleasure of meeting you and your noble 
 Governing Committees, to whom I shall explain in person 
 and in detail the difficulties attaching to the solution of 
 this problem. . . . Sincerely yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Lawrence F. Abbott 
 Outlook 
 
 Washington, December 4, 1911 
 
 My dear Abbott, — ... We are making history fast 
 these days, and at the bottom of it all lies the idea, in the 
 minds of the American people, that they are going to use this 
 machine they call the Government. For the centuries 
 and centuries that have passed, government has been some- 
 thing imposed from above, to which the subject or citizen 
 must submit. For the first century of our national life this 
 idea has held good. Now, however, the people have grown 
 in imagination, so that they appreciate the fact that the 
 government is very little more than a cooperative institution 
 in which there is nothing inherently sacred, excepting in so 
 far as it is a crystallization of general sentiment and is a good 
 working arrangement. And the feeling with relation to 
 big business, when we get down to the bottom of it, is that 
 if men have made these tremendous fortunes out of priv- 
 ileges granted by the whole people, we can correct this by 
 a change in our laws. They do not object to men making 
 any amount of money so long as the individual makes it, 
 but if the Government makes it for him, that is another 
 matter. 
 
 I have been meeting . . . with some of the commit- 
 tees, in Congress and out, that are drafting bills regulating 
 
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RAILROAD AND NATIONAL POLICIES 81 
 
 trusts, and I expect something by no means radical as a 
 starter. 
 
 You ask as to leadership in both Houses. There is not 
 much in the Lower House that can be relied upon to do 
 constructive work, so far as I can discover. Our Demo- 
 cratic leaders all wear hobble skirts. But in the Senate 
 there is some very good stuff. 
 
 I expect to be in New York in January, and then I hope 
 to see you. Very truly yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 When he was running for Governor in 1902, Lane made 
 prison reform one of the foremost issues of his campaign. 
 Several years later when a movement was started petitioning 
 the Governor to parole Abraham Ruef, who had served a 
 part of his term in the penitentiary for bribery in San Fran- 
 cisco, Lane signed the petition. This brought a letter of 
 remonstrance from his friend Charles McClatchy, editor 
 and owner of the Sacramento Bee, who felt that such a move- 
 ment was ill-timed and not in the interest of the public good. 
 
 To Charles K. McClatchy 
 Sacramento Bee 
 
 Washington, December 12, 1911 
 
 My dear Charles, — I have your letter regarding the 
 paroling of Abraham Ruef, and, far from taking offense 
 at what you say, I know that it expresses the opinion of 
 probably the great body of our people, but I have long 
 thought that we dealt with criminals in a manner which 
 tended to keep them as criminals and altogether opposed to 
 the interests of society. I am not sentimental on this propo- 
 sition, but I think I am sensible. We are dealing with men 
 
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82 LETTERS OP FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 convicted of crime more harshly and more unreasonably than 
 we deal with dogs. Our fundamental mistake is that we ut- 
 terly ignore the fact that there is such a thing as psychology. 
 We are treating prisoners with the methods of five hundred 
 years ago, before anything was known about the nature of 
 the human mind. . . . There are, of course, certain kinds 
 of men who should for society's sake be kept in prison as 
 long as they live, just as there are kinds of insane people that 
 should be kept in insane asylums until they die. . . . 
 
 I think if you will get the thought into your mind that our 
 present penal system is Silurian and unscientific — the same 
 to-day as it was 10,000 years ago — you will see my stand- 
 point. Our penitentiaries develop criminals, they make 
 criminals out of men who are not criminals to begin with — 
 boys, for instance. They debase and degrade men. The 
 state by its system of punishment reaches into the heart of 
 a man and plucks out his very soul. I am speaking of men 
 who are when they enter responsive to good impulses. . . . 
 
 I thoroughly appreciate the spirit in which you have 
 written me, and I hope that you will get my point of view. 
 I have known Abe Ruef for over twenty-five years. He was 
 a perfectly straight young man and anxious to help in San 
 Francisco. I do not know the influences that turned him 
 into the direction that he took, but I am absolutely certain 
 that that man has suffered mental tortures greater than any 
 that he would have ever suffered if he had gone to a physical 
 hell of fire. He may appear brave, but he is in fact, I will 
 warrant yon, a heart-broken man, because he has failed of 
 realizing his own decent ideals. . . . He never was my 
 friend, politically, socially, or otherwise, but my judgment 
 is that society will be better off if he is allowed the limited 
 freedom that a parole gives and given an opportunity to 
 live up to his own ideal of Abe Ruef. 
 
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RAILROAD AND NATIONAL POLICIES 83 
 
 Regards to Val, your wife, and family. As always, 
 faithfully yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Charles K. McClatchy 
 
 Sacramento Bee 
 
 [Washington, January, 1912] 
 My dear Charles, — I have your note regarding Ruef . 
 ... It seems to me you have made one good point against 
 me, and only one, — that there are poor men in jail who 
 ought to be paroled at the end of a year. Very well, why 
 not parole them ? If they are men who have been reached 
 by public opinion and are subject to it, I see no reason why 
 they should be kept in jail. Every case must be dealt 
 with by itself and to each case should be given the same 
 kind of treatment that I give to Ruef. You will be ad- 
 vocating this thing yourself one of these days, calling it 
 Christian and civilized and denouncing those who do not 
 agree with you as being barbarians. It may be that Ruef 
 fooled me when he was just out of college, but I was a member 
 of the Municipal Reform League which John H. Wigmore, 
 now Dean of the Northwestern University Law School, Ruef 
 and myself started. It did not last very long, but I think 
 that Ruef was as zealous as any of us for good government. 
 
 With many wishes for the New Year, believe me always, 
 my dear Charles, yours faithfully, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To John Crawford Burns 
 London, England 
 
 December 13, 1911 
 
 My dear Burns, — I have felt grievously hurt, at hearing 
 from PfeifFer several times, that you had written him, and 
 
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84 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 nary a word to me. The idea that I should write to you 
 when you had nothing in the world to do but write me, 
 never entered my head. I want you to understand distinctly 
 the position which you now occupy in the minds of your 
 friends. You are a gentleman of leisure, traveling in Europe 
 with an invalid wife, necessarily bored, and anxious to meet 
 with anything that will give you an interesting life. Under 
 the circumstances, you may relieve your mind at any time, 
 of any intellectual bile, by correspondence. ... If you 
 wish something serious to do, I will formally direct you to 
 make a report upon Railway Rates and Railway Service 
 in Europe. This will give you some diversion in between 
 your attacks of religion and architecture. 
 
 Pfeiffer, I presume, has returned from the Far West, but 
 so far I have not heard from him. The last letter I got 
 was from the Yosemite. He seems to have been enchanted 
 with that country. He says there is nothing in Europe 
 to compare with it. It is splendid to see a fellow of his 
 age, and with all of his learning, keep up his enthusiasm. 
 It seems to me that he is more appreciative and buoyant 
 than he was twenty years ago, and he is really very sane. 
 His sympathies, unlike yours, are with the present and not. 
 with the dead past. 
 
 You will be interested in knowing that Mr. T. Roosevelt 
 is likely to be the next Republican nominee for President. 
 Within the last six weeks it has become quite manifest that 
 Taft cannot be elected. . . . And so you see, the whirligig 
 of time has made another turn. Big Business in New York 
 is looking to Roosevelt as a statesman who is practical. The 
 West regards him as the champion of the plain people. He 
 is keeping silent, but no doubt like the negro lady he is 
 quite willing to be "fo'ced." 
 
 On the Democratic side all of the forces have united to 
 
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RAILROAD AND NATIONAL POLICIES 85 
 
 destroy Wilson, who is the strongest man in the West. The 
 bosses are all against him. They recently produced an ap- 
 plication which he had made for a pension, under the Car- 
 negie Endowment Fund for Teachers, which had been 
 allowed to lie idle, unnoticed for a year or so after its re- 
 jection, but owing to campaign emergencies was produced, at 
 this happy moment, to show that Wilson wanted a pension. 
 As a Philadelphia poet whom you never heard of says : — 
 
 " Ah, what a weary travel is our act, 
 Here, there, and back again, to win some prize, 
 Those who are wise their voyage do contract 
 To the safe space between each others' eyes." 
 
 This line is in keeping with my reputation as an early Vic- 
 torian. . . . Do write me some good long letters. You 
 have a better literary style than any man who ever wrote 
 a letter to me, and I love you for the prejudices that are 
 yours. Give my love to your wife. As always yours, 
 
 Fbanklin K. Lane 
 
 To Theodore Roosevelt 
 
 Washington, December 20, 1911 
 
 My deab Colonel, — I have been thinking over what I said 
 yesterday, and I am going to presume upon my friendship 
 and, I may say, my affection for you to make a suggestion : 
 
 Even though the call comes from a united party and 
 under circumstances the most flattering, do not accept it 
 unless you are convinced of two things : (1) that you are 
 needed from a national standpoint and not merely from a 
 party standpoint ; (2) that you are certain of election. 
 
 Sacrifice for one's country is splendid, but sacrifice for 
 one's party is foolish. You must feel assured before ac- 
 ceding to the call, which I believe will certainly come, that 
 it is more than party-wide, and that it is sufficiently strong 
 
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86 LETTERS OF FRANEXIN K. LANE 
 
 to overcome the trend toward Democratic success. If I 
 were asked I would say that I think both of these conditions 
 are present — that the desire to have you again is much 
 broader than any party, and so large that it would insure 
 your victory ; — but no man is as wise a judge of these things 
 as the man himself whose fortunes are at stake. 
 
 Thanking you again for the pleasure of a luncheon, believe 
 me, as always, faithfully yours, 
 
 Feanklin K. Lane 
 
 Roosevelt in a letter marked private and confidential 
 replied : — 
 
 . . . "That is a really kind and friendly letter from you, 
 and I appreciate it. Now I agree absolutely with you that 
 I have no business under any circumstances to accept any 
 such call, even in the greatly improbable event of its coming, 
 unless I am convinced that the need is National, a need of 
 the people and not merely a need of the Party. But as for 
 considering my own chances in any such event, my dear 
 fellow, I simply would not know how to go about it. I am 
 always credited with far more political sagacity than I 
 really possess. I act purely on public grounds and then 
 this proves often to be good policy too. I assure you with 
 all possible sincerity that I have not thought and am not, 
 thinking of the nomination, and that under no circumstances 
 would I in the remotest degree plan to bring about my 
 nomination. I do not want to be President again, I am not 
 a candidate, I have not the slightest idea of becoming a 
 candidate, and I do not for one moment believe that any 
 such condition of affairs will arise that would make it necessary 
 to consider me accepting the nomination. But as for the 
 effect upon my own personal fortunes, I would not know how 
 to consider it, because I would not have the vaguest idea 
 
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RAILROAD AND NATIONAL POLICIES 87 
 
 what the effect would be, except that according to my own 
 view it could not but be bad and unpleasant for me person- 
 ally. From the personal standpoint I should view the 
 nomination to the Presidency as a real and serious mis- 
 fortune. Nothing would persuade me to take it, unless 
 it appeared that the people really wished me to do a given 
 job, which I could not honorably shirk. . . ." 
 
 To Samuel G. Blythe 
 
 Washington, January 6, 1912 
 
 My dear Sam, — ... I, too, have been reading William 
 James. His Varieties of Religious Experience is the only 
 philosophic work that I was ever able to get all the way 
 through. This thing gave me real delight for a week. 
 
 Have just read Mr. John Bigelow's Reminiscences, or bits 
 thereof, and find that the aforesaid John is much like another 
 John that we know in this city, the fine friend of the Pan- 
 American Bureau. He seems to have been a dignified and 
 solemn gentleman who carried on correspondence with a 
 great many men for a number of years, without . . . hav- 
 ing indulged in a flash of humor in all his respectable 
 days. . . . 
 
 Will you support me for Supreme Court Justice? I see 
 that I am mentioned. Between us, I am entirely ineligible, 
 having a sense of humor. As always yours, 
 
 Lane 
 
 To Sidney E. Mezes 
 President, University of Texas 
 
 Washington, February 15, 1912 
 
 My dear Sid, — Your weather has been no worse than ours, 
 I want you to understand ; in fact, not so bad. I think the 
 
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88 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 glacial period is returning and the ice cap is moving down 
 from the North Pole. 
 
 The Supreme Bench I could not get because I am a Demo- 
 crat, and the President could not afford to appoint another 
 Democrat on the Bench. I do not know when McKenna goes 
 out, and I am not going to be disturbed about it anyway. If I 
 had not been unlucky enough to be born in Canada I could 
 be nominated for President this year. Things are in a 
 devil of a condition. We could have elected Wilson, hands 
 down, if it had not been for Hearst's malevolent influence. 
 He is at the bottom of all this deviltry. His aim is to 
 kill Wilson off and nominate Clark, and Clark is in the lead 
 now, I think. God knows whether he can beat Taft or 
 not. It looks to me as if Taft will be nominated. I have 
 a feeling somehow that the Roosevelt boom won't materi- 
 alize. 
 
 My love to the Missis and to Mr. House. As always 
 yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To John H. Wigmore 
 
 Washington, February 19, 1912 
 
 My dear John, — For two weeks there has been standing 
 on my desk a most elegantly bound set of your Cases on 
 Torts sent to me by Little, Brown & Co. at your request. 
 You do not need to be told, I know, how much I appreciate 
 a thing that comes from you and how poverty stricken 
 I am when it comes to making adequate return. I can 
 prove that I have been working hard, but my work does 
 not crystallize into anything which is worth sending to a 
 friend. 
 
 The fact is that I have never worked as hard in my life as 
 I have lately. I get to my office about nine, and without 
 
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RAILROAD AND NATIONAL POLICIES 89 
 
 going out of my room (for I take my lunch at my desk), 
 stay until six, and work at home every night until half past 
 eleven, and then take a volume of essays or poems to bed 
 with me for half or three-quarters of an hour, and so to 
 sleep. 
 
 If the man in the White House had as much sense as I 
 have, he would name you for the Supreme Bench without 
 asking, and "draft" you, as Roosevelt says. By the way, 
 I gave the suggestion of "draft" in a talk I had with him a 
 month or so ago. 
 
 The political situation is interesting, but altogether un- 
 lovely. ... It looks as if Clark might be the nominee on 
 the Democratic side. Taft is gaining in strength, and some- 
 how I cannot feel that Roosevelt will ever be in it, although 
 you know how I like him. The situation seems a bit arti- 
 ficial. 
 
 Give my love to Mrs. John. As always yours, 
 
 Fkanklin K. Lane 
 
 To George W. Lane 
 
 Washington, February 23, 1912 
 
 My dear George, — ... Yesterday I delivered an address 
 before the University of Virginia on A Western View of 
 Tradition — which when it is printed I will send out to 
 you — and in the afternoon was taken up to Jefferson's 
 home, Monticello. It is on a mountain, the top of which 
 he scraped off. It overlooks the whole surrounding country, 
 most of which at that time he owned. He planned the whole 
 house himself, even to the remotest details, the cornices and 
 the carvings on the mantels, the kind of lumber of 
 which the floors were to be made, the character of the 
 timbers used, the carving of the capitals on the columns, 
 the folding ladder that was used to wind up the clock 
 
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90 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 over the doorway, the registers on the porch that recorded 
 the direction in which the wind was coming, as moved by 
 the weather-vane on the roof, the little elevator beside 
 the fireplace . . . and a thousand other details. 
 
 ... I would like nothing better if I had any kind of skill 
 in using my hands than to take a year off and build a house. 
 It is a real religion to create something, and you do not need 
 a great deal of money to make a very beautiful little place. 
 You must have one large room, and the house must be on 
 some elevation, and you must get water, water, and water. 
 ... It is water that makes land valuable in California or 
 anywhere else. Affectionately yours, 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To Carl Snyder 
 
 Washington, March 6, 1912 
 
 My dear Carl, — I have this minute for the first time seen 
 the copy of Collier's, for February 24, 1912, and therefore 
 for the first time my eyes lighted upon your most delicious 
 roast of the Commerce Court. . . . 
 
 I do not know what the outcome of this movement will 
 be. The only settled policy of government is inertia. The 
 House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations, 
 I believe, proposes to abolish the appropriation for the 
 Court, which looks like a cowardly way to get at the thing, 
 but perhaps it is most effective. However, I really doubt 
 if they will have the nerve to do this. It is a mighty critical 
 year, I think, in our history. It looks to me as if the reac- 
 tionaries were going to get possession of both parties, and 
 that a third party will be needed and nobody will have the 
 nerve to start it. Roosevelt has got everything west of the 
 Mississippi excepting Utah and Wyoming, in my judgment. 
 That he will be able to get the nomination I am not so sure ; 
 
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RAILROAD AND NATIONAL POLICIES 91 
 
 but he does not care a tinker's damn whether he gets it 
 himself or not. That is the worst of it because the people 
 won't give anything to a man that he does not want. . . . 
 Well, we are living in mighty interesting times anyway. 
 As always yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 On February 22, 1912, Lane delivered the annual address 
 at the University of Virginia. He spoke on American Tra- 
 dition, saying that as Americans are physically, industrially, 
 and socially the "heirs of all the ages" our supreme tradi- 
 tion is a "hatred of injustice." That one of the great ex- 
 periments that a Democracy should make is to find a more 
 equitable distribution of wealth "without destroying in- 
 dividual initiative or blasting individual capacity and 
 imagination." This address brought a letter from Oliver 
 Wendell Holmes, Justice of the Supreme Court. 
 
 To Franklin K. Lane 
 
 March 17, 1912 
 
 My dear Sir, — Let me thank you at once for your Vir- 
 ginia address, which I have just received and just read — 
 read with the greatest pleasure. I admire its eloquence, 
 its imagination, its style. I sympathize with its attitude 
 and with most of its implications. I gain heart from its tone 
 of hope. I am old — by the calendar at least — and at times 
 am more melancholy, so that it does me good to hear the 
 note of courage. One implication may carry conclusions 
 to which I think I ought to note my disagreement, — the 
 reference to unequal distribution. I think the prevailing 
 fallacy is to confound ownership with consumption of prod- 
 ucts. Ownership is a gate, not a stopping place. You tell 
 
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n LETTERS OP FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 me little when you tell me that Rockefeller or the United 
 States is the owner. What I want to know is who consumes 
 the annual product, and for many years I have been saying 
 and believing that to think straight one should look at the 
 stream of annual products and ask what change one would 
 make in that under any regime. The luxuries of the few are 
 a drop in the bucket — the crowd now has all there is. The 
 difference between private and public ownership, it seems 
 to me, is mainly in the natural selection of those most com- 
 petent to foresee the future and to direct labor into the 
 most productive channels, and the greater poignancy of 
 the illusion of self-seeking under which the private owner 
 works. . The real problem, under socialism as well as under 
 individualism, is to ascertain, under the external economic 
 and inevitable conditions, the equilibrium of social desires. 
 The real struggle is between the different groups of pro- 
 ducers of the several objects of social desire. The bogey 
 capital is simply the force of all the other groups against the 
 one that is selling its product, trying to get that product for 
 the least it can. Capital is society purchasing and consum- 
 ing — Labor is society producing. The laborers unfortu- 
 nately are often encouraged to think capital something up 
 in the sky which they are waiting for a Franklin to bring 
 down into their jars. I think that is a humbug and lament 
 that I so rarely hear what seem to me the commonplace^ 
 that I have uttered, expressed. Your fine address has set 
 me on my hobby and you have fallen a victim to the charm 
 of your own words. Very truly, yours, 
 
 O. W. Holmes 
 
 P. S. Of course I am speaking only of economics not of 
 political or sentimental considerations — both very real, 
 but as to which all that one can say is, if you are sure that 
 
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RAILROAD AND NATIONAL POLICIES 93 
 
 you want to go to the show and have money enough to buy a 
 ticket, go ahead, but don't delude yourself with the notion 
 that you are doing an economic act. I make the only re- 
 turn I can in the form of the single speech I have made for 
 the last nine years. 
 
 To Oliver Wendell Holmes 
 
 Justice of the Supreme Court 
 
 Washington, March 20, 1912 
 
 My dear Mb. Justice, — I sincerely thank you for the 
 warmth and generosity of your comment on my Virginia 
 speech. Your economic philosophy is fundamentally, I 
 think, the same as mine — that the wealth produced is a 
 social product. And men may honestly differ as to how best 
 that stream of foods and other satisfactions may be in- 
 creased in volume, or more widely distributed. May I 
 carry your figure of the stream further by suggesting that 
 the riparian owner in England has the superior right, but 
 in an arid country the common law rule is abandoned be- 
 cause under new conditions it does not make for the greatest 
 public good ? The land adjoining feels the need of the water, 
 and society takes from one to give to the other. 
 
 The last century was devoted to steaming up in produc- 
 tion. This century, it appears to me, will devote itself more 
 definitely to distribution. It is nonsense, of course, to say 
 that because the rich grow richer the poor grow poorer ; 
 but the poor are not the same poor, they, too, have found 
 new desires. Civilization has given them new wants. 
 Those desires will not be satisfied with largesse, and with the 
 machinery of government in their hands the people are bound 
 to experiment along economic lines. They will certainly 
 find that they get most when they preserve the captain of 
 industry, but may it not be that his imagination and fore- 
 
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94 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 thought may be commanded by society at a lower share of 
 the gross than he has heretofore received, or in exchange for 
 something of a different, perhaps of a sentimental nature ? 
 
 . . . Please pardon this typewritten note, but my own 
 hand, unlike your copper-plate, is absolutely illegible. I 
 have been raised in a typewriter age. 
 
 Again thanking you for your letter, believe me, with the 
 highest regard, faithfully yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To John H. Wigmore 
 
 Washington, April 3, 1912 
 
 My dear John, — You overwhelm me. . . . You have 
 no right to say such nice things to an innocent and trusting 
 young thing like myself. The flat, unabashed truth is 
 that I appreciate your letter more than any other that I 
 have received concerning that speech. By way of indicating 
 the interest which it has excited I send you copies of some 
 correspondence between Mr. Justice Holmes and myself. 
 
 Our plans for the summer are very unsettled. The prob- 
 ability is that we will go up to Bras D'Or Lakes, in Cape 
 Breton, where we can have salt-water bathing and sailing 
 and be most primitive. I should like greatly to run over 
 with you to Europe, and, by way of making the tempta- 
 tion harder to resist, let me know how you expect to go, 
 and where. 
 
 Give my love to the Lady Wigmore. As ever yours, 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To Daniel Willard 
 President, Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company 
 
 Washington, June 19, 1912 
 My dear Mr. Willard, — That was a warm cordial note 
 that you sent me regarding my University of Virginia 
 
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RAILROAD AND NATIONAL POLICIES 95 
 
 address, and what you say of my sentiments confirms my 
 own view that property must look to men like yourself for 
 protection in the future — men who are not blind to public 
 sentiment and whose methods are frank. The worst enemy 
 that capital has in the country is the man who thinks 
 that he can "put one over" on the people. An institution 
 cannot remain sacred long which is the creator of injustice, 
 and that is what some of our blind friends at Chicago do 
 not see. Very truly yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To John McN aught 
 New York World 
 
 Washington, March 23, 1912 
 My dear John, — I am very glad indeed to hear from you 
 and to know that you are in sympathy with my "eloquent" 
 address at the University of Virginia. You give me hope 
 that I am on the right track. As for Harmon and repre- 
 sentative government, you won't get either. . . . Please 
 see Mr. R. W. Emerson's Sphinx, in which occurs this line : 
 
 " The Lethe of Nature can't trance him again 
 Whose soul sees the perfect, which his eye seeks in vain." 
 
 Fancy me surrounded by maps of the express systems 
 of the United States, digging through the rates on uncleaned 
 rice from Texas to the Southeast, dribbling off poetry to a 
 man who sits in a tall tower overlooking New York, who 
 once had poetry which has per necessity been smothered ! 
 Dear John, read your Bible, and in Second Kings you will 
 find the story of one Rehoboam, that son of Solomon, who 
 was also for Harmon and representative government. 
 
 I am looking out of the window at the funeral procession 
 for the Maine dead, and it strikes me that our dear friend 
 
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96 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 Cobb has overlooked one trick in his campaign against T. R. 
 Of course he has other arrows in his quiver, and no doubt 
 this one will come later, but why not charge T. R. with 
 having blown up the Maine? No one can prove that he 
 did not do it. He then undoubtedly was planning to be- 
 come President and knew that he never could be unless he 
 was given a chance to show his ability as a soldier-patriot. 
 He stole Panama of course, and is there any reason to be- 
 lieve that a man who would steal Panama would hesitate 
 at blowing up a battleship ? 
 
 I hope you . . . are giving over the life of a hermit — 
 not that I would advise you to take to the Great White Way, 
 but the side streets are sometimes pleasant. As always, 
 devotedly yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
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V 
 EXPRESS CASE— CABINET APPOINTMENTS 
 
 1912-1913 
 
 Politics — Democratic Convention — ■ Nomination of Wilson — Report on 
 Express Case — Democratic Victory — Problems for New Administration 
 — On Cabinet Appointments 
 
 To Albert Shaw 
 Review of Reviews 
 
 Washington, April 30, 1912 
 
 My dear Doctor, — ... You certainly are very much 
 in the right. Everything begins to look as if the Republi- 
 can party would prove itself the Democratic party after all. 
 Our Southern friends are so obstinate and so traditional, 
 and so insensible to the problems of the day, that while they 
 are honest they are too often found in alliance with the 
 Hearsts and Calhouns. The Republican party, on the other 
 hand, seems to have courage enough to take a purgative 
 every now and then. 
 
 We must find ways of satisfying the plain man's notion 
 of what the fair thing is, or else worse things than the recall 
 of judges will come to pass. Every lawyer knows that the 
 law has been turned into a game of bridge whist. People 
 are perfectly well satisfied that they can submit a question 
 to a body of fair-minded and honest men, take their con- 
 clusion, and get rid of all our absurd rules of evidence and 
 our unending appeals. 
 
 97 
 
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98 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 And as to economic problems, people are going to solve 
 a lot of these along very simple lines. I think I see a great 
 body of opinion rising in favor of the appropriation by the 
 Government of all natural resources. 
 
 We saw a lot of the Severances while they were here. 
 Cordy made a great argument in the Merger Case, but if he 
 wins, we won't get anything more than a paper victory — 
 another Northern Securities victory. 
 
 Please remember me very kindly to Mrs. Shaw, and be- 
 lieve me, as always sincerely yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Curt G. Pfeiffer 
 
 Washington, May 21, 1912 
 
 My dear Pfeiffer, — I am acknowledging your note 
 on the day when Ohio votes. This is the critical day, for 
 if T. R. wins more than half the delegation in Ohio, he is 
 nominated and, I might almost say, elected. But I find that 
 the Democrats feel more sure of his strength than the Re- 
 publicans do. Have you noticed how extremely small the 
 Democratic vote is at all of the primaries, not amounting 
 to more than one-fourth of the Republican vote ? 
 
 . . . The Democrats are in an awkward position. If 
 Roosevelt is nominated, one wing will be fighting for Under- 
 wood, to get the disaffected conservative strength, while 
 the other wing will be fighting for Bryan, so as to hold as 
 large a portion of the radical support as possible. Oh, well, 
 we have all got to come to a real division of parties along 
 lines of tendency and temperament and have those of us 
 who feel democratic-wise get into the same wagon, and those 
 who fear democracy, and whose first interest is property, 
 flock together on the tory side. As always, yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
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EXPRESS CASE — CABINET APPOINTMENTS 99 
 
 To George W. Lane 
 
 Washington, July 2, 1912 
 
 My dear George, — I am off tomorrow for Baddeck, 
 Cape Breton, where I shall probably be until the 1st of Sep- 
 tember or thereabouts — if I can endure that long period 
 of country life and absence from the political excitement 
 of the United States. 
 
 It looks, as I am writing, as if Wilson were to be nominated 
 at Baltimore. If he is he will sweep the country; Taft 
 won't carry three states. 1 Wilson is clean, strong, high- 
 minded and cold-blooded. To nominate him would be a 
 tremendous triumph for the anti-Hearst people. I have 
 been over at the convention several times. Hearst defeated 
 Bryan for temporary chairman by making a compact with 
 Murphy, Sullivan and Taggert. . . . Bryan has fought a 
 most splendid fight. I had a talk with him. He was in 
 splendid spirits and most cordial. The California delega- 
 tion headed by Theodore Bell has been made to look like a 
 lot of wooden Indians. Bell himself was shouted down with 
 the cry of "Hearst ! Hearst !", the last time he rose to speak. 
 The delegation is probably the most discredited one in the 
 entire convention. . . . 
 
 My summer, I presume, will be put in chiefly in sailing a 
 small yawl with Gilbert Grosvenor, rowing a boat, fishing a 
 little, and walking some. My diet for the next two months 
 will consist exclusively of salmon and potatoes, cod-fish 
 and potatoes, and mutton and potatoes. 
 
 I have just completed my report in the Express Case, 
 a copy of which will be sent you. It has been a most 
 tremendous task, and the work has not yet been com- 
 pleted for we have to pass upon the rates in October; 
 but I am in surprisingly good condition — largely, per- 
 1 Taft carried Vermont and Utah. 
 
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100 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 haps, because the weather has been so cool for the last 
 month. . . 
 
 All happiness, old man ! Affectionately yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 "Lane had a long look ahead," says James S. Harlan, 
 "that often reminded one of the extraordinary prevision 
 of Colonel Roosevelt. One striking instance of this was in 
 connection with this Express Case. 
 
 "Early in the progress of the investigation of express 
 companies undertaken by him in 1911, at the request of the 
 Interstate Commerce Commission, Lane warned a group 
 of high express officials gathered around him that unless 
 they promptly coordinated their service more closely to the 
 public requirements, revised their archaic practices, re- 
 adjusted and simplified their rate systems so as to eliminate 
 discriminations, the frequent collection of double charges 
 and other evils, and gave the public a cheaper and a better 
 service, the public would soon be demanding a parcel post. 
 
 "The suggestion was received with incredulous smiles, 
 one of the express officials saying, apparently with the full 
 approval of them all, that a parcel post had been talked of 
 in this country for forty years and had never got beyond 
 the talking point, and never would. As a matter of fact, there 
 was little, if any, movement at that time in the public press 
 or elsewhere for such a service by the government. But 
 Lane's alert mind had sensed in the current of public thought 
 a feeling that there was need of a quicker, simpler, and cheaper 
 way of handling the country's small packages, and he saw 
 no way out, other than a parcel post, if the express companies 
 stood still and made no effort to meet this public need. 
 
 "Within scarcely more than a year Congress, by the Act 
 of August 24, 1912, had authorized a parcel post and such a 
 
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EXPRESS CASE— CABINET APPOINTMENTS 101 
 
 service was in actual operation on January 1, 1913. It 
 was not until December of the latter year that the express 
 companies were ready to file with the Commission the in- 
 genious and entirely original system Lane had devised for 
 stating express rates. The form was so simple that even 
 the casual shipper in a few minutes' study could qualify him- 
 self for ascertaining the rates, not only to and from his own 
 home express station but between any other points in the 
 country. But by that time the carriage of the country's small 
 parcels had permanently passed out of the hands of the express 
 companies into the hands of the postal service, by which 
 Lane's unique form for stating the express rates was adopted 
 as the general form of showing its parcel post charges." 
 
 To Oscar S. Straus 
 
 Washington, July 3, 1912 
 
 My dear Mr. Straus, — I thank you heartily for your 
 appreciative note regarding my University of Virginia talk. 
 I wanted to say something to those people, especially to the 
 younger men, that would make them doubt the wisdom of 
 staying forever with systems and theories not adapted to 
 our day. 
 
 As I write, word comes that Woodrow Wilson has been 
 nominated. I do not know him, but from what I hear he 
 promises if elected to be a real leader in the war against in- 
 justice. The world wants earnest men right now — not 
 cynics, but men who believe, whether rightly or wrongly; 
 and the reason that the East is so much less progressive 
 as we say, than the West, is because the East is made up so 
 largely of cynics. 
 
 Thanking you once more for your appreciative words, 
 believe me, sincerely yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
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102 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 To Benjamin Ide Wheeler 
 President, University of California 
 
 Baddeck, Nova Scotia, July 31, [1912] 
 
 My dear Mr. Wheeler, — Your letter followed me here, 
 where at least one can breathe. This really is a most beauti- 
 ful country filled with self-respecting Gaelic-speaking Scotch 
 from the islands of the north — crofters driven here to make 
 place for sheep and fine estates on their ancestral homes in 
 the Highlands. 
 
 I am proud of your words of commendation. The express 
 job is the biggest one yet. I believe we've done a real serv- 
 ice both to the country and to the express companies. The 
 latter will probably live if their service and their rates im- 
 prove. Otherwise the Government will put them out of 
 business, requiring the railroads to give fast service for any 
 forwarder, as in Germany. 
 
 Politically, things look Wilson to me. Taft won't be in 
 sight at the finish. It will be a run between Wilson and 
 T. R. I can't name five states that Taft is really likely to 
 carry. My friends in Massachusetts say Wilson will win 
 there, and so in Maine. Well, I suppose you and I are in 
 the same sad situation — eager to break into the fight but 
 bound not to do it. Do you know I believe that T. R. has 
 discovered, and just discovered, that it is our destiny to be 
 a Democracy. Hence the enthusiasm which Wall Street 
 calls whiskey. . . . Sincerely yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To George W. Lane 
 
 Washington, September 17, 1912 
 
 My dear George, — I am mighty glad to get your Labor 
 Day letter, but sorry that its note is not more cheerful and 
 gay. I can quite understand your position though. We 
 
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EXPRESS CASE— CABINET APPOINTMENTS 103 
 
 are all obsessed with the desire to be of some use and un- 
 willing to take things as they are. I do not know a pair of 
 more rankly absurd idealists than you and myself, and along 
 with idealism goes discontent. We do not see the thing 
 that satisfies us, and we can not abide resting with the thing 
 that does not satisfy us. We are of the prods in the world, 
 the bit of acid that is thrown upon it to test it, the spur 
 which makes the lazy thing move on. 
 
 This summer I saw a great deal of a man . . . [who was] 
 perfectly complacent. . . . And I noticed that he took no 
 acids of any kind — never a pickle, nor vinegar, nor salad 
 — but would heap half a roll of butter on a single sheet of 
 bread and eat sardines whole. And I just came to the con- 
 clusion that there was something in a fellow's stomach that 
 accounted for his temperament. If I ever get the time I am 
 going to try and work out the theory. The contented people 
 are those who generate their own acid and have an appetite 
 for fats, while the discontented people are those whose crav- 
 ing is for acids. A lack of a sense of humor and a love for 
 concrete facts, as opposed to dreams, goes along with the 
 first temperament. You just turn this thing over and see 
 if there is not something in it. I am long past the stage of 
 trying to correct myself ; I am just trying to understand a 
 lot of things — why they are. . . . 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To John H. Wigmore 
 
 Washington, July 3, 1912 
 
 My dear John, — Of course you may keep the Napoleon 
 book. It is intended for you. Your criticism of T. R.'s 
 literary style is appreciated, and no doubt he lacks in pre- 
 cision of thought. 
 
 Now we shall have a chance to see what a college president 
 
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104 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 can do as President of the United States. I believe Wilson 
 will be elected. What a splendid jump in three years that 
 man has made ! They tell me he is very cold-blooded. We 
 need a cold-blooded fellow these days. . . . 
 
 September 21, 1912 
 
 . . . You will by this time have picked up all the poli- 
 tics of the time. Wilson is strong, but not stronger than 
 he was when nominated. T. R. is gaining strength daily, 
 that is my best guess. He has the laboring man with him 
 most enthusiastically but not unanimously, of course. The 
 far West — Pacific Coast — is his. All the railroad men 
 and the miners. . . . 
 
 I am not sure of Wilson. He is not "wise" to modern 
 conditions, I fear. Tearing up the tariff won't change 
 many prices. Doesn't he seem to talk too much like a pro- 
 fessor and too little like a statesman? Hearst is knifing 
 him for all he is worth. He has fixed in the workingmen's 
 minds that Wilson favors Chinese immigration. 
 
 Well, when am I to see you again? And how is Mrs. 
 John ? How I do wish you were here ! As always, 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To Timothy Spellacy 
 
 Washington, September 30, 1912 
 
 My dear Tim, — I have your fine, long letter of Septem- 
 ber 23, and this is no more than just an acknowledgment. 
 I am glad to know that you are taking so hearty an interest 
 in the campaign. It is really too bad that you did not stay 
 longer in Baltimore and see Bryan win out all along the 
 line. 
 
 I don't want a position in the Cabinet. I am not look- 
 ing for any further honors, but I want to help Wilson make 
 
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EXPRESS CASE — CABINET APPOINTMENTS 105 
 
 a success of his administration, for I think he will be elected. 
 I am afraid that he will become surrounded by Southern 
 reactionaries — men of his own blood and feeling, who are 
 not of the Northern and more progressive type. We have 
 got to cut some sharp corners in doing the things that are 
 right. By this I don't mean that we will do anything that 
 is wrong ; but from the standpoint of the Southern Demo- 
 crat it is illegal to have a strong central government — one 
 that is effective — and we have got to have such a govern- 
 ment if we are going to hold possession of the Nation. The 
 people want things done. Wilson is a bit too conservative 
 for me, but maybe when he realizes the necessity for strength 
 he will be for it. 
 
 I am sorry for B . Poor chap ! His alliance with 
 
 Hearst undid years of good work. ... As always yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Adolph C. Miller 
 
 Washington, October 18, 1912 
 My dear Adolph, — I have postponed until the last min- 
 ute writing you regarding my proposed visit in California. 
 I see now clearly that it is impossible for me to get out there 
 this fall. The Express Case ... is still on my hands, and 
 with all of my energy I shall not be able to get rid of it until 
 the first of the year at least. . . . Moreover (and this is a 
 personal matter that I wish you would not say anything 
 about) ... I am doing my work in a great deal of pain, 
 and have been for the last three or four weeks. ... I can- 
 not work as hard as I did some time ago. . . . 
 
 I rebel at sickness as much as I do at death. The scheme 
 of existence does not appeal to me, at the moment, as the 
 most perfect which a highly imaginative Creator could have 
 invented. My transcendental philosophy seems a pretty 
 
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106 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 good working article when things are going smoothly, but 
 it is not quite equal to hard practical strain, I fear. 
 
 Politically things look like Wilson, though I suppose T. R. 
 will get California and a lot of other states. I think he will 
 beat Taft badly. The new party has come to stay, and it 
 will be a tremendous influence for good. I don't take any 
 stock in the talk about T. R's personal ambition being his 
 controlling motive. I think that he has found a religious pur- 
 pose in life to which he can devote himself the rest of his 
 days, not to get himself into office but to keep things 
 moving along right lines. 
 
 Remember me most kindly to your wife and President 
 Wheeler. As always yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To William F. Mc Combs 
 
 Chairman, Democratic National Committee 
 
 Washington, October 19, 1912 
 Dear Mr. McCombs, — I cannot go to California and 
 make speeches for Governor Wilson without resigning from 
 the Commission. Four years ago two Republican members 
 of the Commission were strongly urged at a critical time in 
 the campaign to get into Mr. Taft's fight so as to help with 
 the labor vote. I insisted that they should not do it, and 
 the matter was brought before the Commission, and we then 
 decided that no member of the Commission should take 
 part in politics. So you see when the telegrams began to 
 come in this year, urging that I go out to California and the 
 other Pacific Coast states, I was compelled to say that I 
 was estopped by my position of four years ago. 
 
 I have never wanted to get into a campaign as much as 
 I have this one. Governor Wilson represents all that I 
 have been fighting for, for the last twenty years in my State ; 
 
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EXPRESS CASE— CABINET APPOINTMENTS 107 
 
 but I think that it would be almost fatal to the independence 
 and high repute of this Commission for its members to take 
 part in a national campaign. We have so much power that 
 we can exercise upon the railroads and upon railroad men 
 that any announcement made by a member of this Com- 
 mission could properly be construed as a threat or a sugges- 
 tion that should be heeded by the wise. I know that this 
 view of the matter will appeal to you as entirely sensible 
 when you reflect upon it, and to my impatient friends in 
 California, to whom it has been very hard to say no. 
 
 I am glad to see that you are holding the fight up so hard 
 at the tail end of the campaign. That is when Democratic 
 campaigns have so often been lost. Governor Wilson is 
 maintaining himself splendidly, and our one danger has 
 been over-confidence. Sincerely yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 About the political situation he wrote to one of his former 
 Assistants in the City and County Attorney's office in San 
 Francisco 
 
 To Hugo K. Asher 
 
 Washington, October 22, 1912 
 
 My deak Hugo, — I have your long letter which you prom- 
 ised in your telegram. Now, old man, I want to have a 
 perfectly open talk with you. I understand your attitude 
 of affectionate ambition for me, and I am mighty proud of 
 it, that after the years we were associated together, the ups 
 and downs we had, you feel the way you do. 
 
 Wilson is going to be elected unless some miracle happens, 
 and I would tremendously like to get out to California and 
 speak to the people once more. You do not know just how 
 the old lust for battle has come over me. Following your 
 
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108 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 telegram came a letter from McCombs, the Chairman of 
 the National Committee, saying that he had received a lot 
 of telegrams urging him to have me go and that Governor 
 Wilson would like me to. But I wrote him precisely as I 
 have you. If the members of this Commission once get 
 into politics, the institution is gone to hell, for we can make 
 or unmake any candidate we wish. This is the most power- 
 ful body in the United States, and we must act with a full 
 sense of the responsibility that is on us. . . . 
 
 As for being a member of Wilson's Cabinet, I don't want 
 to be. In the first place I can't afford it. There is no Cabi- 
 net man here who lives on his salary, and as you know, I 
 have got nothing else. I save nothing now out of the salary 
 that I get, and if the social obligations of a Cabinet position 
 were placed upon me I would have to run in debt. . . . 
 
 Furthermore, I am doing just as big work and as satis- 
 factory work as any member of the Cabinet. The work that 
 a Cabinet officer chiefly does is to sign his name to letters or 
 papers that other people write. There is very little con- 
 structive work done in any Cabinet office. While the glam- 
 our of intimate association with the President — the honor 
 that comes from such a position — appeals to me, for I still 
 have all my old-time vanity and love of dignity and appre- 
 ciation ; yet the position that I occupy is one of so much 
 power, and I am conscious so thoroughly of its usefulness, 
 that I do not want to change it. I should be more or less 
 close to the President anyway, I presume. His friends are 
 my friends, and I shall have an opportunity to help make 
 his administration a success by advising with him, if he 
 desires my advice. 
 
 Now, old man, I have talked to you very frankly, and I 
 know that you will understand just what I mean. If I were 
 out of office I would have been in Wilson's campaign a year 
 
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EXPRESS CASE— CABINET APPOINTMENTS 109 
 
 ago. If I wanted a Cabinet position now I would resign 
 from the Commission and go out to help him. I think prob- 
 ably if I felt that California's vote was necessary to Wilson's 
 success and that I could help to get it, I would take the latter 
 course, although it is not clear that that would be my duty, 
 in view of conditions in the Commission. 
 
 With warmest regards, believe me, as always, faithfully 
 yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Francis G. Newlands 
 Reno, Nevada 
 
 Washington, October 28, 1912 
 
 My dear Senator, — I am delighted at the receipt of 
 your long letter, for I have been very anxious to know how 
 you felt about your own State. Of course it has been a fore- 
 gone conclusion for some time that Wilson would carry the 
 United States, but I was desirous that you should carry 
 Nevada for your own sake. . . . 
 
 In my judgment the Interstate Trades Commission needs 
 all of your concentrated energy for the next year. The 
 bill should be your bill, and you should be the leading au- 
 thority upon the matter. 
 
 Wilson should look to you for advice along this line of 
 dealing with the trust problem. He will, if you have the 
 greater body of information upon the subject. Of course 
 Roosevelt did not know where he was going as to his Trades 
 Commission, and he would not have had any opportunity 
 were he elected to go any farther, . . . because that Com- 
 mission has got to feel its way along. Wilson, you can see 
 from his speeches, has swallowed Brandeis' theory without 
 knowing much about the problem, but he certainly has 
 handled himself well during the campaign. . . . What 
 
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110 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 he does will very largely depend, I think, upon those who 
 surround him. He must have access to sources of informa- 
 tion outside of the formal administrative officers who make 
 up his Cabinet. This is a very delicate way of saying that 
 he must have a sort of "kitchen cabinet" made up of men 
 like you and myself who will be willing to talk frankly to 
 him, and whom he will listen to with confidence and respect. 
 If he can get the Southerners into line with the Northern 
 Democrats he can make over the Democratic Party and 
 give it a long lease of life. If he cannot do this, and his party 
 splits, Roosevelt's party will come into possession of the 
 country in four years, and hold it for a long time. . . . 
 
 I am glad to see that you have been able to take so per- 
 sonal and direct an interest in the campaign. Faithfully 
 yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 Following the news of the Democratic victory, in the elec- 
 tion of Woodrow Wilson to the Presidency, Lane sent these 
 letters : — 
 
 To Woodrow Wilson 
 Trenton, N. J. 
 
 Washington, November 6, 1912 
 My dear Governor, — The door of opportunity has opened 
 to the Progressive Democracy. I know that you will enter 
 courageously. The struggle of the next four years will be 
 to persuade our timid brethren to follow your leadership, 
 "gentlemen unafraid." I am persuaded from my experience 
 here that no President can be a success unless he takes the 
 position of a real party leader — the premier in Parliament 
 as well as a chief executive. The theoretical idea of the 
 President's aloofness from Congress — of a President dealing 
 
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EXPRESS CASE— CABINET APPOINTMENTS 111 
 
 with the National Legislature as if he were an independent 
 government dealing with another — is wrong, because it 
 has been demonstrated to be ineffective and ruinous. We 
 need definiteness of program and cooperation between 
 both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. There is generally 
 one end of the Avenue that does not know its own mind, 
 and sometimes it is one, and sometimes the other. 
 
 Your friends have been made happy through the cam- 
 paign by the manner in which you have conducted your- 
 self. You spoiled so many bad prophecies. 
 
 With heartiest of personal congratulations, believe me. 
 faithfully yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To William Jennings Bryan 
 
 Washington, November 6, 1912 
 
 My dear Mr. Bryan, — The unprecedented heroism of 
 your fight at Baltimore has borne fruit, and every man who 
 has fought with you for the last sixteen years rejoices that 
 this victory is yours. Now comes the time when it is to 
 be proved whether we are worthy of confidence. We shall 
 see whether Democrats will follow a wise, aggressive, 
 modern leadership. Faithfully yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To James D. Phelan 
 
 Washington, November 6, 1912 
 
 Dear Phelan, — Hurrah ! Hurrah! and again Hurrah! 
 You have done nobly. The victory in California came late, 
 but it was none the less surprising and gratifying. We can 
 dance like Miriam, as we see the enemies of Israel go down 
 in the flood. 
 I shall expect to see you here before long. With warm- 
 
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112 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 est congratulations to you personally. As always, sincerely 
 yours, 
 
 Fbanklin K. Lane 
 
 To Herbert Harley 
 
 Washington, November 18, 1912 
 
 My dear Mb. Hahley, — ... There are many hopeful 
 signs, as you say, not the least of which is that the Su- 
 preme Court has at last been moved to amend its equity 
 rules. The whole agitation for judicial recall will do good 
 because it will not lead to judicial recall but to the securing 
 of a superior order of men on the bench and to simplified 
 procedure. I find that it is better to decide matters 
 promptly and sometimes wrongly than to have long delays. 
 The people have very little confidence in our courts, and 
 this is because of one reason : Our judges are not self -owned ; 
 either they are dominated by a political machine or by asso- 
 ciations of an even worse character. Few men on the bench 
 are corrupt ; many of them are lazy, and others are chosen 
 from the class who feel with property interests exclusively. 
 I am heartily in sympathy with a movement such as that 
 you are promoting. It is in my opinion a very practical 
 way — perhaps the only practical way — of heading off 
 universal judicial recall. This is a Democracy and the people 
 are going to have men and methods adopted that will give 
 them the kind of judicial procedure that they want. They 
 are not going to be unfair unless driven to be radical by 
 intolerable conditions. . . . Sincerely yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 Immediately after Woodrow Wilson's election in Novem- 
 ber, telegrams and letters from different parts of the country, 
 and especially from his many friends in California, began 
 
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EXPRESS CASE— CABINET APPOINTMENTS 113 
 
 to reach Lane asking that he should consider himself avail- 
 able for a Cabinet position, offering support and requesting 
 his permission for them to make a strong effort in his behalf. 
 This he emphatically refused, saying that he was not a can- 
 didate, but in spite of his refusals, editorials began to appear 
 in many Western papers. 
 
 To Charles K. McClatchy 
 
 Sacramento Bee 
 
 Washington, November 25, 1912 
 My dear Charles, — I received your note and this morning 
 have a copy of the paper containing the cartoon on "Un- 
 finished Business," the original of which, by the way, I 
 should like to have for my library. . . . 
 
 I know absolutely nothing about the suggestion made 
 by the Call as to my being appointed to the Cabinet. I 
 rather think that it was Ernest Simpson's friendly act, 
 though I have not heard from him at all. Three men have 
 been to me from the Coast who wanted to be in the Cabinet, 
 and I have told each one the same thing : — That I was not 
 a candidate ; that no one would speak to the President for 
 me with my consent ; but that I would not say that I would 
 not accept an appointment, because I would do almost any- 
 thing to make Wilson's administration a success, for I be- 
 lieve that he has faced the right way and the only difficulty 
 that he will have will be in securing strong enough sup- 
 port to carry out his own policies. I think he lacks some- 
 what in adroitness and that his campaign was much less 
 radical than he would voluntarily have made it. I do not 
 know him and shall not go near him unless he sends forme. 
 If he does send for me I shall tell him the truth regarding 
 anybody of whom he speaks to me. I shall advocate no- 
 
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114 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 body. I am not going to be a job peddler or solicitor. My 
 present position makes all the demand upon my imagination, 
 initiative, and capacity that my abilities justify. I could 
 not work any harder or do any better work for the people 
 in any position that the Government has to give. I am 
 not at all enamored of the honor of a Cabinet place. 
 
 Now, I am talking to you in the utmost frankness as if you 
 were sitting just across the table from me. Of course what 
 I am saying to you is absolutely private and personal. . . . 
 
 We will just let this matter rest "on the knees of the gods," 
 and I shall try to serve with as little personal ambition 
 moving me as is possible with a man who has some tempera- 
 ment. Sincerely yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Ernest S. Simpson 
 San Francisco, Col. 
 
 Washington, November 26, 1912 
 
 My dear Simpson, — How it ever entered into your head 
 to give me so splendid a boom for a position in Wilson's 
 Cabinet I do not know. Someone suggested that the tip 
 came from Ira Bennett at this end, and I see that the Sacra- 
 mento Bee suggests that the railroads wish to remove me 
 from my present sphere of troublesomeness ; but my own 
 guess is that your own good heart and our long-time friend- 
 ship was the sole cause of this most kindly act. 
 
 Some of the California papers, I notice, have had edi- 
 torials saying I should stay where I am (which is not a dis- 
 agreeable fate to be condemned to, barring a slight surplus 
 of work), but of course Wilson is not going to appoint anyone 
 to his Cabinet because of pull. He has a more difficult job 
 than any President has ever had since Lincoln, because he 
 has to reconcile a progressive Northern Democracy with a 
 
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EXPRESS CASE— CABINET APPOINTMENTS 115 
 
 conservative Southern Democracy, and satisfy one with 
 policies and another with offices. My guess is that he will 
 have to turn over the whole question of patronage practically 
 to his Cabinet and that he will become the actual leader of 
 his party and attempt to formulate the legislative policies 
 of the party. He has a distinct ideal of what the Presi- 
 dency may be made. Whether he can make good under 
 conditions so apparently irreconcilable is a question that 
 time only can answer. His political family he will choose 
 for himself. They ought to be the very largest men that 
 our country can produce, and I am not fool enough to think 
 that I am entitled to be in such a group. 
 
 With the warmest thanks, my dear Simpson, for your 
 kindness, believe me, as always, cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Fairfax Harrison 
 
 Washington, November 26, 1912 
 
 My dear Mr. Harrison, — That is an exceedingly inter- 
 esting and philosophical presentation of your reason for 
 adherence to the Progressive Party. I understand your 
 point of view and I sympathize with it thoroughly. I had 
 the hope that Colonel Roosevelt would carry several of the 
 Southern states. The Democratic party of the North is 
 distinct from the Democratic party of the South, at least 
 I fear that it is.. The next four years will demonstrate the 
 possibility of these two elements living together in effective 
 cooperation. If Governor Wilson is a mere doctrinaire 
 the present victory will be of no value to the Democratic 
 party, but may be of great value to the country, for the 
 horizontal cleavage in the two parties will become manifest, 
 unmistakable, and open, and out of the breaking up will 
 come a re-alignment upon real lines of tendency. If President 
 
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116 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 Wilson attempts to do anything which satisfies the reason- 
 able demand of the progressive North he will run counter to 
 the traditional policy of the South ; that is to say, effective 
 regulation of child labor, of interstate corporations — railroad 
 and industrial — flood waters, irrigation projects. [These,] 
 and a multitude of other matters make necessary the wiping 
 out of state lines to the extent that a national policy shall 
 be supreme over a state policy. As our good Spanish friend 
 said some centuries ago, "Where two men ride of a horse 
 one must needs ride behind." 
 
 This fact is stronger than any written word, and facts 
 are the things which statesmen deal with. If the South 
 is large enough to see this — if it has grown to have national 
 vision — the hope of the Northern Democrat can be real- 
 ized. Otherwise the traditionalists of both North and South 
 will make a party by themselves, and the rest of the country 
 will follow in your lead into the new party or a new party 
 
 With warm regards, believe me, cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To James P. Brown 
 
 Washington, November 27, 1912 
 My dear Jim, — I see your point of view and am glad you 
 have taken the position that you have, because you can 
 demonstrate whether there is anything excepting a sawed- 
 off shot-gun that will compel some editors to tell the 
 truth. . . . 
 
 I shall not read your pamphlet because I have too much 
 other reading that I am compelled to do. My own guess, 
 being totally ignorant on the subject, is that you have vio- 
 lated the Sherman Law, but everybody knows that the 
 Sherman Law should be amended and the conditions stated 
 upon which there may be combination. Do get out of your 
 
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EXPRESS CASE— CABINET APPOINTMENTS 117 
 
 head, however, the idea that a railroad corporation and an 
 industrial corporation are subject to the same philosophy, 
 as to competition. One is necessarily a monopoly and there- 
 fore must be regulated ; the other is not necessarily a mo- 
 nopoly, and the least regulation that it can be subjected to 
 the better. We have let things go free for so long that we 
 have created a big problem that sane men must deal with 
 sensibly ; not admitting all there is to be right, but recog- 
 nizing every natural and legitimate economic tendency. 
 With warm regards, believe me, as always, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Adolph C. Miller 
 
 Washington, December 4, 1912 
 
 My dear Adolph, — Hon. J. J. Loudon, Minister from 
 the Netherlands to the United States, left last night for 
 San Francisco and will be there about the ninth of the month. 
 I have told him somewhat of you and I want you to call on 
 him. He is one of the most charming men in Washington, 
 really a poet in nature. He loves the beautiful and good 
 things of the world and is totally unspoiled by success and 
 position. . . . 
 
 It is very good to know that you and President Wheeler 
 have a sort of mutual agreement on me for a Cabinet position, 
 but I don't think of it for myself. ... I find that I do 
 not have the ambition that I once had, excepting to do the 
 work in hand just as well as possible, and I am altogether im- 
 patient with the way I do it. I should like to see you Sec- 
 retary of the Treasury. There is to be some change made 
 in our currency laws during the next four years, and a man 
 of perfectly sane, level mind is tremendously needed to guide 
 Wilson in this matter, for I guess he is very ignorant upon 
 the subject. Especially is this true if Bryan goes into the 
 
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118 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 Cabinet. E. M. House, who is Sid Mezes' brother-in-law, 
 is as close to Wilson as any other man, and I will drop him 
 a note, telling him something about you, for I know that 
 he is interested in selecting Cabinet officers as he has been 
 talking to me about possible Attorney Generals. I have 
 told him that I wanted nothing. . . . 
 
 Mezes is the same adroit diplomat that he has always 
 been, since receiving the Presidency at Texas. He is doing 
 big things for his University and says that in two or three 
 years he will be in a position to retire, and will retire and 
 spend the most of his time in Europe ; but unless my guess 
 is wrong, his ambition has at last been fired and he will look 
 for other worlds to conquer if he achieves what he is after 
 in Texas. Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Edward M. House 
 
 Washington, December 13, 1912 
 My dear Mr. House, — Another suggestion as to the At- 
 torney Generalship. . . . Have you ever heard of John H. 
 Wigmore who is now Dean of the Law Department of the 
 Northwestern University ? He is one of the most remark- 
 able men in our country. . . . He has written the greatest 
 law book produced in this country in half a century, Wig- 
 more on Evidence, besides several minor works. There is 
 no lawyer at the American bar who is not familiar with his 
 name and his work. . . . 
 
 . . . Wigmore is a Progressive democrat with a capital 
 P. and a small d ; can give reason for his faith based on 
 his philosophy of government. He has national vision 
 and has rare good common sense. The man who can write 
 a good law book is rarely one who would make a good lob- 
 byist, although Judah P. Benjamin was this sort of genius. 
 
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EXPRESS CASE— CABINET APPOINTMENTS 119 
 
 So with Wigmore. He is practical, wise, in the sense that 
 this word is used by the boys on the street; knows men 
 and knows how to deal with them; never lets theory get 
 the better of judgment; commands as much respect for 
 his strength as for his reasonableness; has the enthusiasm 
 of a boy for all good things ; and has infinite capacity for 
 hard work; can say "No" without developing personal 
 bitterness ; and is above all a gentleman in face, manner, 
 and nature. All this I have said with enthusiasm, but every 
 word of it is true. I have known him for thirty years. . . . 
 
 He would not thank me for writing this letter, I know. 
 The only way he could be had to serve would be by per- 
 suading him that he is absolutely needed. . . . 
 
 You have brought this long letter upon your own head 
 by the gracious nature of your invitation to me to advise 
 with you. Very truly yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Benjamin Ide Wheeler 
 President, University of California 
 
 Washington, December 23, 1912 
 
 Dear Dr. Wheeler, — What you say regarding the Presi- 
 dent-to-be is extremely interesting. That he is headstrong, 
 arbitrary, and positive, his friends admit. These are real 
 virtues in this day of slackness and sloppiness. I have just 
 returned from New York where I have talked with McAdoo 
 and House who are extremely close to him, and advising 
 him regarding his Cabinet, and they tell me he is a most 
 satisfactory man to deal with. He listens quite patiently 
 and makes up his mind, and then " stays put." His Cabinet 
 will be his advisers but no one will control him. 
 
 I heard him make that speech at the Southern Society 
 dinner, which was really much larger than the audience 
 
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120 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 could understand. It was a presentation of the theory 
 that the thought of the nation determined its destiny and 
 that we could only have prosperity if our ideal was one 
 of honor. His warning to Wall Street, that an artificial 
 panic should not be created, was done in a most impressive 
 way. . . . 
 
 1 was asked to give the names of men from California 
 who would make good Cabinet material, and I named Phelan 
 and Adolph Miller. The currency question will be the big 
 problem in the next two or three years, and I should like 
 Wilson to have the benefit of as sane a mind as Miller's ; 
 but I fancy that even if everything else was all right there 
 might be some difficulty in getting a college professor to 
 appoint another college professor. 
 
 I hope we shall see you here soon. With holiday greetings 
 to Mrs. Wheeler and the Boy, believe me, as always, faith- 
 fully yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Sidney E. Mezes 
 President, University of Texas 
 
 Washington, December 23, 1912 
 
 My dear Sid, — I have your letter enclosing a telegram 
 from Miller. I received a note from him acknowledging the 
 telegram. He was evidently extremely delighted at being 
 remembered. The sturdy, strong old Dutchman has a whole 
 lot of sentiment in him; and he makes few friends, has 
 drawn pretty much to himself, I think, and falls back upon 
 those whom he has known in earlier days. I sent a note 
 to Mr. House regarding him. He would be a splendid man 
 to have here in some capacity connected with the Govern- 
 ment, now that we are to deal with currency matters. I told 
 Mr. House that he could find out all about Miller from you. 
 
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EXPRESS CASE— CABINET APPOINTMENTS 121 
 
 I saw House a couple of times in New York. He cer- 
 tainly is an adroit and masterful diplomat. The fact is 
 I do not know that I have seen a man who is altogether so 
 capable of handling a delicate situation. By some look 
 of the eye or appreciative smile at the right moment he gives 
 you to understand his sympathy with and full comprehension 
 of what you are saying to him. They tell me in New York 
 that he is really the man closest to Wilson, and he tells 
 me that Wilson is a delightful man to deal with because he 
 has got a mind that is firm as a rock. . . . 
 
 I send my Christmas greetings to you both. We have a 
 sick little girl on our hands, but she is coming along all right 
 now. As always yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To John H. Wigmore 
 
 Washington, January 8, 1913 
 
 My dear John, — ... You may not know it, but I sug- 
 gested your name to Mr. House, an intimate of President- 
 elect Wilson, for Attorney General. ... He told me that 
 he gave the letter to Governor Wilson. . . . 
 
 Like so many of the Southerners, I fear that Wilson's 
 idea is that he can declare a general policy and be indifferent 
 as to the men who carry it out. There is a certain lack of 
 effectiveness running through the South which makes for 
 sloppiness and a lack of precision. I have found that gen- 
 eralizations do not get anywhere. The strength of any 
 proposition lies in its application. The railroads and the 
 trusts and the packers, and all the others who are violating 
 the statutes, are indifferent as to how big the law is and 
 upon what sound principles it is based, provided they have 
 a lot of speechmakers to enforce the law. They don't care 
 what the law is ; their only concern is as to its enforcement. 
 
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122 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 I am going to give the Democratic Party four years of honest 
 trial, and then if it has not more precision, definiteness, and 
 clearness of aim, am going to call myself a Progressive, or 
 a Republican, or something else. 
 
 Wilson is strong, capable of keeping his own counsel, 
 and capable of making up his own mind. In these three 
 respects he differs materially from our present President 
 whose last flop on the arbitration of the Panama Canal prop- 
 osition is characteristic. . . . 
 
 Now, old man, let me say to you that you must take the 
 very best of care of yourself, for we need you more than 
 anybody else in this country, right at this time. As always 
 yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To John H. Wigmore 
 
 Washington, January 20, 1913 
 
 My dear John, — I have received both of your letters, 
 and I am very glad that you made that mistake regarding 
 my address for it brought me two letters instead of one. 
 
 I received your Continental Legal History months ago and 
 thought that I had acknowledged it with all kinds of appre- 
 ciation, but perhaps I only thought the things. ... I 
 turned the book over to Minister Loudon of the Netherlands 
 who knew the Dutch professor who had written one of the 
 articles, and the rascal has not returned the book, but I 
 shall get it from him one of these days. . . . 
 
 Washington is now greatly stirred because Wilson has 
 frowned upon the Inaugural Ball — a very proper frown, to 
 my way of thinking — but inasmuch as all of the merchants 
 who advance money for the inaugural ceremonies recoup 
 themselves from the receipts from the Inaugural Ball, there 
 is much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, and 
 
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EXPRESS CASE— CABINET APPOINTMENTS 123 
 
 Wilson will enter Washington, in my judgment, a very un- 
 popular president, locally. The fact is, I think, he is apt 
 to prove one of the most tremendously disliked men in Wash- 
 ington that ever has been here. 
 
 He has a great disrespect for individuals, and so far as 
 I can discover a very large respect for the mass. His code 
 is a little new to us ; and I feel justified in proceeding upon 
 the theory that every man should help him, and that it is 
 within his (Wilson's) proper function to throw Mr. Every- 
 man down whenever public good requires it, and that his 
 silence never estops him from interfering at any time. Per- 
 haps you cannot make out just what this means. I am dic- 
 tating, sitting in my room at home with a very bad cold, 
 and perhaps I do not know precisely what I mean myself; 
 but I am trying to say that under all circumstances Wilson 
 regards himself as a free man, and that he is bound by no 
 ties whatever to do anything or to follow any course ; that 
 he recognizes no such thing as consistency, or logic, or grati- 
 tude, as in the slightest embarrassing him. . . . 
 
 I do hope that the President will get some capable effective 
 administration officers who will take the burden of pat- 
 ronage off his shoulders and give him a chance to think on 
 the money question, which is his big problem. I like his 
 Chicago speech, I like his New York speech, but I do not 
 find many people who understand him, because he is really 
 a sort of philosopher. He teaches the psychology of new 
 thought, the influence and effect of thought upon government. 
 
 I have written an article for the World's Work which is 
 to appear in March, entitled What I Am Trying To Do, 
 but it is really sort of an answer to one or two articles that 
 they have had upon the railroad side of the question of reg- 
 ulation — a demonstration of the chaotic condition of things 
 that existed prior to the establishment of the Commission ; 
 
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124 LETTERS OP FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 and that the effect of regulation has been to increase 
 railroad earnings and put things upon a stable and more 
 satisfactory basis. ... I find that I have a copy of the 
 proofs in the office and I am going to send it to you and 
 ask you to criticise it. . . . 
 
 With my love to your good wife, believe me, as always, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Joseph N. Teal 
 
 Washington, January 20, 1913 
 
 My dear Joe, — ... You know we practically have 
 the power now to make a physical appraisement. . . . We 
 should not ourselves attempt to arrive at cost. That is a 
 very hard thing for the railroads to furnish. They have 
 taken good care to destroy most of the books and papers 
 that would show cost. 
 
 Politically, I hear of no news. Wilson is able to keep 
 his own counsel more perfectly than anybody I have ever 
 known, and nobody comes back from Trenton knowing 
 anything more than when he went. . . . The money 
 question is going to be the big one, and it looks to me 
 as though certain gentlemen were preparing to intimidate 
 him with a panic, which they won't do because he will appeal 
 to the country. He has got splendid nerve, and while Wash- 
 ington won't like him a little, little bit, the country, I think, 
 will put him down as a very great President. As always, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Edward M. House 
 
 Washington, January 22, 1913 
 
 Dear Mr. House, — You ask me what is the precise polit- 
 ical situation on the Pacific Coast as to various candidates 
 for the Cabinet. 
 
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EXPRESS CASE— CABINET APPOINTMENTS 125 
 
 As I have told you, I am to be eliminated from consider- 
 ation. California has but one candidate, one who was in 
 Governor Wilson's primary campaign and who made the 
 fight for him in that state, in the person of James D. Phelan 
 whom you have met. . . . Recognition given to Phelan 
 will be given to the foremost man in the progressive fight in 
 California. . . . He is a brilliant speaker and a man of 
 excellent business judgment. . . . He has fine social quality 
 and sufficient money to maintain such a position in proper 
 dignity. Not to recognize him in some first-class manner 
 would be a triumph for his enemies — and his enemies are 
 the crooks of the state. 
 
 Joseph N. Teal who is spoken of from Oregon as a possible 
 Secretary of the Interior, is a good lawyer and a most public- 
 spirited man who has been identified with every sane move- 
 ment for progress in that state. He is a man of means and 
 is deeply interested in questions of conservation and the 
 improvement of our waterways. . . . 
 
 ... As a matter of party politics I do not think that any 
 Pacific Coast state can be made Democratic by the appoint- 
 ment of a member of the Cabinet from it ; as a matter of 
 national politics, it seems to be necessary that that part 
 of the country should have a voice in the council of the Pres- 
 ident. 
 
 Now, I want to say a word or two on a more important 
 matter. You realize, I presume (and Governor Wilson 
 evidently does) that there is talk of a probable panic in the 
 air. He dealt with this matter masterfully in his New York 
 speech. Worse things than panic can befall a nation. We 
 must preserve our self-respect as a self-governing people. 
 But what is the cause of this loose talk? Apprehension. 
 The business interests of the country do not know what 
 they are to expect. As a party we are too much given to gen- 
 
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126 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 eralization ; we have too little precision of thought. You 
 will notice how the New York papers of yesterday speak 
 of Governor Wilson's bill regarding the regulation of trusts. 
 This is something definite, and does not frighten because 
 it is known. The problems we have to deal with — the tar- 
 iff, currency, and trusts — should all be dealt with in this 
 same manner. The Administration should have a definite 
 program on each one of these questions ; and I mean by 
 that, bills framed in conference between the leaders which 
 should be presented as party measures at the very first pos- 
 sible moment. I have information that the banks are al- 
 ready saying that they will stop loans until these questions 
 are dealt with. This is the way by which panic can be pro- 
 duced. The country is too prosperous to allow a widespread 
 industrial panic if the measures favored by the Govern- 
 ment commend themselves to the people as sane and neces- 
 sary. Why can't we, as the boys on the street say, "beat 
 them to it" ? If Congress is called by the middle of March, 
 and the tariff is quickly put out of the way, and a currency 
 bill promptly follows, we can restore the mind of the country 
 to its normal state by midsummer. You know that this 
 problem of government is largely one of psychology. The 
 doctor must speak with definiteness and certainty to quiet 
 the patient's nerves, and the doctor is the party as repre' 
 sented in the President and Congress. 
 
 With warm regards to Mrs. House, believe me, as always, 
 cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Mitchell Innes 
 
 Washington, February 26, 1913 
 My dear Mr. Innes, — I received your pamphlet and 
 have read it through with the deepest interest. These young 
 
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EXPRESS CASE— CABINET APPOINTMENTS 127 
 
 men 1 are deserving of the strongest encouragement. I 
 have no criticism whatever to make of their prospectus — for 
 that word, I presume, without slight, can be properly used. 
 
 My conviction is that we can find no solution for the prob- 
 lems of social, political, economic, or spiritual unrest. "The 
 man's the man" philosophy has taken hold of the world. 
 We have lost all traditional moorings. We have no religion. 
 We have no philosophy. Our age is greater than any other 
 that the world has seen. We have been lifted clear off our 
 feet and taken up into a high place where we have been 
 shown the universe. The result has been a tremendous 
 and exaggerated growth of the ego, and we have regarded 
 ourselves as masters of everything, and subject to nothing. 
 Agnosticism led to sensualism, and sensualism had its foun- 
 dation in hopelessness. We are materialists because we have 
 no faith. This thing, however, is being changed. We are 
 coming to recognize spiritual forces, and I put my hope for 
 the future, not in a reduction in the high cost of living, nor 
 in any scheme of government, but in a recognition by the 
 people that after all there is a God in the world. Mind 
 you, I have no religion, I attend no church, and I deal all 
 day long with hard questions of economics, so that I am 
 nothing of a preacher ; but I know that there never will come 
 anything like peace or serenity by a mere redistribution of 
 wealth, although that redistribution is necessary and must 
 come. 
 
 If I were these young men and wished to concentrate 
 upon some economic question, I should put my time in on 
 the cost of distribution. . . . That is the economic problem 
 of the next century — how to get the goods from the farm 
 to the people with the lowest possible expenditure of effort ; 
 
 1 A group of young men organized for social and political betterment, who sought 
 advice. 
 
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128 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 how to get the manufactured product from the factory to 
 the house with the least possible expense. I have an idea 
 that we have too many stores, too many middlemen, too 
 much waste motion. So that I have only two thoughts to 
 suggest : — The first is that the ultimate problem is to sub- 
 stitute some adequate philosophy or religion for that which 
 we have lost ; and the second is to concentrate on the simple 
 economic problem. Have we the cheapest system of dis- 
 tribution possible? . . . Sincerely yours, 
 
 Fkanklin K. Lane 
 
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VI 
 
 SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR 
 
 1913-1915 
 
 Appointment as Secretary of the Interior — Reorganization of the De- 
 partment — Home Club — Bills on Public Lands 
 
 His appointment, as Secretary of the Interior, came to Lane 
 in a letter from President-elect Wilson, stating that he was 
 being "drafted" by the President for public service in his 
 Cabinet. The letter was written about the middle of Feb- 
 ruary, 1913. The urgent manner of the appointment was 
 caused by Lane's frankly-expressed reluctance to leave his 
 work on the Interstate Commerce Commission, where op- 
 portunity for yet fuller accomplishment had been assured 
 by his recent appointment as Chairman of the Commission. 
 Seven years of application to the intricate problems of ad- 
 justment between the conflicting claims of the public, the 
 shippers, and the railroads, did not solve all the issues in- 
 volved in new and profoundly interesting cases coming up 
 for adjudication. In addition to this natural desire to ex- 
 pand and perfect the technique of administration of his 
 Commission, Lane dreaded the great increase in social and 
 financial demands involved in a Cabinet position. In addi- 
 tion to these reasons, the change in service would mean 
 work with men that he knew only slightly, if at all, and 
 under a President whom he had never met. Perhaps the 
 consideration that weighed more heavily than any of these, 
 
 129 
 
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130 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 in his feeling of reluctance, was that the portfolio of the 
 Department of the Interior, with its congeries of ill-assorted 
 bureaus was in itself unattractive to a man with Lane's love 
 of logical order. His liking for strong team-work and for 
 the building of morale among a force of mutually helpful 
 workers seemed to have no possible promise of gratification 
 among bureau chiefs as unrelated as those of the General 
 Land Office, the Indian Office, the Bureau of Pensions, 
 Patent Office, Bureau of Education, Geological Survey, 
 Reclamation Service, and Bureau of Mines. 
 
 It was, therefore, with something of the spirit of a drafted 
 man that Lane set his face toward his new work. Members 
 of his immediate family recall days of depression after the 
 appointment first came, but the cordial response of the press 
 of the country to his appointment, the flooding in of many 
 hundreds of letters and telegrams of congratulation, and 
 President Wilson's own cordiality — lifted Lane's mood to 
 its normal hopefulness. 
 
 In relating the history of the appointment itself, Arthur 
 W. Page, of the World's Work, writes, after talking with 
 E. M. House of the matter, "House recommended Lane, as 
 perhaps the one man available, adapted to any Cabinet 
 position from Secretary of State down. At one time Lane 
 was slated for the War Department, at another time an- 
 other department and finally placed as Secretary of the In- 
 terior because being a good conservationist, as a Western 
 man he could promote conservation with more tact and less 
 criticism than an Eastern man." 
 
 Confronted by a complex and definite task, Lane's mind 
 quickened to the attack. The situation of the Indian 
 seized his sympathy. In his first official report he wrote, 
 "That the Indian is confused in mind as to his status and 
 very much at sea as to our ultimate purpose toward him is 
 
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SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR 131 
 
 not surprising. For a hundred years he has been spun round 
 like a blindfolded child in a game of blindman's buff. Treated 
 as an enemy at first, overcome, driven from his lands, nego- 
 tiated with most formally as an independent nation, given 
 by treaty a distinct boundary which was never to be changed 
 'while water runs and grass grows,' he later found himself 
 pushed beyond that boundary line, negotiated with again, 
 and then set down upon a reservation, half captive, half 
 protege." 
 
 With this at heart Lane wrote a letter of vigorous appeal 
 to John H. Wigmore to become his First Assistant. 
 
 To John H. Wigmore 
 
 Washington, March 9, 1913 
 My deah John, — I want you as my First Assistant. It 
 is absolutely essential that I should have you ! ! I am aim- 
 ing to gather around me the largest men whom I can secure 
 and to form a cabinet of equals. Four years of this life 
 here would bring a great deal of satisfaction to you. You 
 would meet the distinguished men of the world. It is the 
 center of all the great law movements of the world, — for 
 peace, international arbitration, reform in procedure, and 
 such matters. Beside that, we have two or three of the 
 greatest problems to meet and solve that have ever been 
 presented to the American people. First in the public 
 mind is the land problem. How can we develop our lands 
 and yet save the interest of the Nation in them ? Second, 
 and I think perhaps this should be first, is the Indian prob- 
 lem. Here we have thousands of Indians, as large a popu- 
 lation as composes some of the States, owning hundreds of 
 millions of dollars' worth of property which is rapidly rising in 
 value. I am their guardian. I must see that they are 
 
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132 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 protected. They have schools over which we have abso- 
 lute control — the question of teachers that they are to 
 have, the question of the kind of education that they are 
 to be given, the question of industry that they are to pur- 
 sue. Their morals, I understand, are in a frightful state, 
 largely owing to our negligence and the lack of enforcement 
 of our laws. We can save a great people; and the First 
 Assistant has this matter as his special care. I do not 
 know of any place in the United States which calls for as 
 much wisdom and for as great a soul as this particular job. 
 I will give you men under you over whom you will have 
 entire control and who will be to your liking. I will give 
 you men to sit beside you at the table who will be of your 
 own class. You can do more good in four years in this place 
 than you can possibly do in forty where you are now. 
 There are a lot of men who can teach law, and lots of men 
 who can write the philosophy of the law, but there are few 
 men who can put the spirit of righteousness into the busi- 
 ness, social, and educational affairs of an entire race. Think 
 of that work ! Beside that you have the constructive work 
 in framing and helping to frame a line of policy as to the 
 disposition of our national lands — the opening of Alaska. 
 
 Now, John, I have looked over the entire United States 
 and you are the only man that I want. The salary is five 
 thousand a year. You can live on that here without em- 
 barrassment. The President will be delighted to have you, 
 and you will find him treating you with the same considera- 
 tion and giving you the same dignity that he does all the 
 members of his Cabinet; all the Supreme Court. I have 
 never seen a man more considerate, more reasonable. Dr. 
 Houston, who has become Secretary of Agriculture, left 
 Washington University in St. Louis, under an arrangement 
 by which he can return at the end of his term. You, doubt- 
 
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SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR 133 
 
 less, could make a similar arrangement, and if you wish to, 
 you will have plenty of opportunity to give one or two 
 courses of lectures in the University during the year. 
 
 I have thougbtrseriously of going out to see you, but with 
 Cabinet conditions as they are it is impossible, for we are 
 passing upon important questions now that prevent that. 
 I am very selfish in urging you to this, but I am also giving 
 you an opportunity to do work that will be more congenial 
 than any you have ever done, and to be with a more con- 
 genial lot of people. If there is any doubt in your mind let 
 me know, but don't say "No" to me. The country needs 
 you. You have done a great work. There is nothing 
 higher to be done in your line. Now come here and help 
 in a great constructive policy. Sincerely and affectionately, 
 
 Fkanklin K. Lane 
 
 To Walter H. Page 
 
 World's Work 
 
 Washington, March 12, 1913 
 
 My dear Page, — I have just now seen your letter of 
 March 2nd, else it would have had earlier recognition. 
 
 The President is the most charming man imaginable to 
 work with. Most of us in politics have been used to being 
 lied about, but there has been a particularly active set of 
 liars engaged in giving the country the impression that W. 
 W. was what we call out West a "cold nose." He is the 
 most sympathetic, cordial and considerate presiding officer 
 that can be imagined. And he sees so clearly. He has no 
 fog in his brain. 
 
 As you perhaps know, I didn't want to go into the Cab- 
 inet, but I am delighted that I was given the opportunity 
 and accepted it, because of the personal relationship ; and 
 I think all the Cabinet feel the way that I do. If we can't 
 
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134 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 make this thing a success, the Democratic Party is abso- 
 lutely gone, and entirely useless. 
 
 I hope next time you are down here I shall see you. Cor- 
 dially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Edtoin Alderman 
 President, University of Virginia 
 
 Washington, March 17, 1913 
 
 My dear Dr. Alderman, — Your letter of the 14th gives 
 me exceptional satisfaction, . . . because it brings with it 
 extremely good news. You say you will win in your fight 1 
 and that rejoices me even more than it does to be told of the 
 real satisfaction that you get out of my appointment. 
 
 It was a surprise to me. It came at the last minute. I 
 had to introduce myself to the President-elect the day be- 
 fore the inauguration. I find him consideration itself in 
 Cabinet meetings and he never seems to be groping. In 
 my mental processes I find myself constantly like a man 
 climbing a mountain, pushing through belts of fog, but his 
 way seems clear and definite. 
 
 You certainly would feel at home around the Cabinet 
 table, and all of us would rejoice to see you there. ... I 
 shall take your note home to Mrs. Lane and show it to her 
 with much pride. . . . Sincerely yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Theodore Roosevelt 
 
 Washington, March 24, 1913 
 
 My dear Colonel, — I have received a great many hun- 
 dred letters, but I think I can honestly say that no other 
 one has given me the pleasure that yours has. I am strug- 
 
 1 After a long serious illness Dr. Alderman was regaining health. 
 
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SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR 135 
 
 gling hard to get the reins of this six-horse team in my hands 
 and every day I feel more acutely the weight of the respon- 
 sibility that I bear. The last few weeks have been put in 
 being interviewed by Senators and Congressmen, who wish 
 to name men for the few positions in the office. It has been 
 rather enjoyable, and they have been fair and by no means 
 peremptory. The hardest place I have to fill is that of 
 Commissioner of Indian Affairs. How absurd to try to get 
 a man to handle the interests of an entire race, owning a 
 thousand million dollars' worth of property, and have to 
 offer a salary of $5,000 a year ! 
 
 I hope that you will feel free to give me the benefit of any 
 advice as to the conduct of my department that may hap- 
 pen to come to you out of your great experience. As al- 
 ways, faithfully yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Lawrence F. Abbott 
 Outlook 
 
 Washington, April 9, 1913 
 
 My dear Lawrence, — The Japanese are reducing the 
 value of California lands by buying a piece in a picked val- 
 ley, paying any price that is demanded. They swarm then 
 over this particular piece of property until they reduce the 
 value of all the adjacent land. No one wishes to be near 
 them ; with the result that they buy or lease the adjoining 
 land, and so they radiate from this center until now they 
 have possession of some of the best valleys. Really the 
 influx of the Japanese is quite as dangerous as that of the 
 Chinese. The proposed legislation in California is not 
 to exclude Japanese alone, but to make it impossible for 
 any alien to own land, at least until he declares his in- 
 tention to become a citizen. Inasmuch, of course, as 
 
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136 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 Orientals can not become citizens, this disbars them from 
 owning land. 
 
 There is, of course, as in all things Californian, a good deal 
 of hysteria over this matter, and I think your Progressive 
 friends are trying to put the Democrats in a bit of a hole 
 by making it appear that the Democrats are being influ- 
 enced by the Federal Government to take a more conserv- 
 ative course than the Progressives desire. 
 
 My information is that some restrictive legislation will be 
 passed by the legislature, no matter what Japan's attitude 
 may be, but Japan's face will be saved and every need met 
 if the legislation is general in terms. . . . 
 
 April 20, 1913 
 ... I do not like the sudden turn that Johnson seems 
 to have taken in the last day or two but I still have faith 
 that those people out there will do the sensible thing and 
 allow us to save Japan's face while very properly excluding 
 the Japanese from owning land in California; and I have 
 no objection whatever to excluding all the Englishmen and 
 Scotchmen who flock in there without any intention of be- 
 coming citizens. As always, yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To William M. Bole 
 
 Great Falls Tribune 
 
 Washington, May 26, 1913 
 
 My dear Mr. Bole, — That is just the kind of a letter that 
 I want and that is helpful to me. As to the settler, I have 
 one policy — to make it as easy as possible under the law for 
 the bona fide settler to get a home, and to make it just as diffi- 
 cult as possible for the dummy entryman to get land, which he 
 will sell out to monopolies. These Western lands are needed 
 for homes for the people, not as a basis of speculation. 
 
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SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR 137 
 
 As to the Reclamation Service. . . . There really was a 
 very bad showing made by the Montana projects. It was dis- 
 heartening to feel that we had spent so many million dollars 
 and that the Government was looked upon as a bunko sharp 
 who had brought people into Montana where they were slowly 
 starving to death. The Government has returned to Mon- 
 tana almost as much as her public lands have yielded, whereas 
 in other states, like Oregon and California, less than a quarter 
 of the amount they have yielded has been returned to them. 
 
 Ever since I came here Senators and Congressmen have 
 been overwhelming me with curses upon the Reclamation 
 Service, and I thought I ought to find out for myself just 
 what the facts were. I gave every one a chance to tell his 
 story. Now I am being overwhelmed with protests against 
 the discontinuance of this work. Every state is insisting 
 that I shall now start up some new enterprises or continue 
 some old ones, and I do not know where the money is going 
 to come from. We are bound to be short of funds even to 
 continue existing work, if we can get no money out of proj- 
 ects that are really under way, and there seems to be a 
 unanimity of opinion among Western Senators and Con- 
 gressmen that payment by the settlers must be postponed, 
 because they are having a hard enough time as it now is. I 
 certainly am not going to be a party to gold-bricking the 
 poor devil of a farmer who has been told by everybody that 
 he is being charged twice as much as he ought to be charged 
 by the Government. . . . Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Fairfax Harrison 
 
 Washington, June 10, 1913 
 
 My dear Mr. Harrison, — I have not had a minute for a 
 personal letter in a month. Hence my shabbiness toward 
 
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138 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 you. Condorcet's Vie de Turgot, I am sorry to say, I have 
 not read. Does he say anything as to how to make a rec- 
 lamation project pay, or as to what is the best method of 
 teaching Indians, or how much work a homesteader should 
 do on his land before being entitled to patent? These are 
 the great and momentous questions that fill my mind. 
 
 I had thought perhaps that as a member of the Cabinet 
 I would have an, opportunity, say once a month or so, to 
 think upon questions of statecraft and policy, but I find 
 myself locked in a cocoon — no wings and no chance for 
 wings to grow. 
 
 As to my inability to get to you of a Sunday, let me tell 
 you that that is the one day when somewhat undisturbed I 
 catch up with the week's work. "Ah, what a weary travel 
 is our act, here, there and back again to win some prize." 
 
 I hope some of these nights to be able to make you ac- 
 quainted with some of my colleagues. They are a charm- 
 ing lot. Every one has a sense of humor and as little par- 
 tisanship as possible, and still bear the title of Democrat. 
 You would enjoy every one of them, including Bryan, who 
 is fundamentally good. 
 
 With kindest regards, cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Frank Reese 
 
 Washington, July 2, 1913 
 
 My dear Frank, — I am delighted to get your letter and 
 to know that I still stand well with my California friends, 
 especially yourself, but I am not going to run for United 
 States Senator. Of course, I am not making a virtue of 
 not running, and I certainly am gratified to know that you 
 at least think that I could be elected. My work here is 
 just as interesting as any work that a Senator has. Under 
 
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SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR 139 
 
 this primary system I do not believe there is any chance for 
 a man who has not got a great deal of money. The candi- 
 date must devote practically a year of his time to make the 
 race, must be able to support his family and himself in the 
 meantime. . . . Now, when I knew you first I had no 
 money. I have the same amount to-day, so that you see 
 there is no possibility of my getting into such a fight. 
 Furthermore, we have Phelan as a candidate, and it seems 
 to me he ought to be acceptable. There was also some talk 
 of Patton getting into the race, and he is a good man. 
 Thankfully and cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 Early in July, 1913, Lane started on a tour of investiga- 
 tion of National Reclamation projects, Indian reservations 
 and National Parks. With him went Adolph C. Miller, who 
 had become the Director of the Bureau of National Parks in 
 May. They turned to the Northwest, beginning in Minn- 
 esota and then proceeding to Montana, Wyoming, and Wash- 
 ington. That he might be thoroughly informed as to condi- 
 tions in each place, Lane sent ahead of him an old friend and 
 trusted employee, W T illiam A. Ryan, whose part it was to go 
 over each project or reservation and find what the causes for 
 complaint were, where poor work had been done, what groups 
 and individuals were dissatisfied, and why. In no way was 
 William Ryan to let it be suspected that he was in any way 
 identified with the Department of the Interior.. Traveling in 
 this way, two weeks ahead of the Secretary, Ryan was able 
 to put a complete report of each project in Lane's hands 
 some time before he arrived, so that the Secretary was 
 thoroughly familiar with all complaints and conditions before 
 he was met on the train by the representatives of the Depart- 
 ment, who naturally wished to show him only the best work. 
 
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140 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 In addition to this, Lane everywhere held public meetings, 
 inviting all settlers to meet him and make their complaints. 
 
 This plan enabled him to cover the ground touched by his 
 Department in a comparatively short time. He traveled 
 by night, wherever possible, and interviewed all those who 
 wished to see him upon business from seven in the morning 
 until twelve or one at night. Sometimes, in a day, he went 
 a hundred and fifty miles in an automobile, spoke to many 
 groups of farmers in different places, heard their complaints 
 against the Department, and told them what the Govern- 
 ment was trying to do for them. 
 
 During this first tour of inspection Lane reached Port- 
 land, Oregon, the latter part of August, and received a tele- 
 gram from the President asking him to go directly to Denver, 
 there to represent the President and address the Confer- 
 ence of Governors, on August 26th. 
 
 Lane left the completion of the proposed itinerary of in- 
 vestigation, in Oregon, to Miller and turned back to Col- 
 orado. He made the opening address at the Governors' 
 Conference and then rejoined his party in San Francisco, 
 the first of September. Here, after several days of confer- 
 ences and speeches, while standing in the sun reviewing the 
 Admission Day parade of the Native Sons, he collapsed. 
 This proved to be an attack of the angina pectoris which, 
 several years later, returned with violence. For three weeks 
 he was ill, but at the end of that time, against the doctor's 
 orders, he insisted upon returning to Washington to his work. 
 
 To Mark Sullivan 
 Collier's Weekly 
 
 Washington, November 6, 1913 
 My dear Sullivan, — I want to thank you for your sym- 
 pathetic notice regarding my hard luck out in California, 
 
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FRANKLIN K. LANE, MBS. LANE, MBS. MILLER, AND 
 ADOLPH C. MILLEB 
 
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SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR 141 
 
 a nd to let you know that I am in just as good shape now as 
 A have been for twenty years. 
 
 At the end of your little comment you spoke of conditions 
 m the lower grades of the Department as being almost as 
 bad as if they were corrupt. I have not your article before 
 me, but I think this is the meat of it. I wish you would tell 
 me just what you mean by this. I know that lots of things 
 come to men like you that do not reach my ears, although 
 I have retained pretty well my old newspaper faculty of 
 smoking things out. 
 
 If we have anything here that is almost rotten, I want to 
 know it before it gets thoroughly rotten. I have found a 
 lot of things that were wrong, and have set most of them 
 right. There has already been a great improvement; for 
 instance, in Indian affairs. Under the last Administration, 
 for example, the highest bid on 200,000 acres of Indian 
 oil lands was one-eighth royalty and a bonus of one dollar 
 an acre. We recently leased 10,000 of these same acres at 
 one-sixth royalty and a bonus of $500,000. 
 
 I have had an examination made into probate matters, 
 in Oklahoma, and found an appalling condition of things. 
 In one county where there are six thousand probate cases 
 pending, all involving the interests of Indian minors, the 
 guardians in three thousand cases were delinquent in filing 
 reports, and otherwise in complying with the law. This 
 week I have arranged with the Five Civilized Tribes to 
 institute a cooperative method of checking up all of these 
 accounts and giving them personal consideration ; espe- 
 cially appointing an attorney to look after the interests of 
 these minors in each of the counties in eastern Oklahoma. 
 We are to aid the Oklahoma courts in cleaning up the State. 
 
 Let me have any facts that will be of help . Cordially yours, 
 
 Fkanklin K. Lane 
 
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142 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 To Edward M. House 
 
 Washington, November 19, 1913 
 
 My dear Colonel, — I had a call last Sunday morning 
 from Mr. Blank of New York, who came to feel me out on 
 the reorganization of the Democratic party in New York 
 City, with particular reference to the question of how to 
 treat one William R. Hearst. . . . 
 
 . . . [He] has been working for some years, evidently 
 in more or less close but indirect alliance with Hearst, 
 through Clarence Shearn and a man named O'Reilly, who 
 is Hearst's political secretary. In re-creating the Demo- 
 cratic organization in New York, he felt it necessary to take 
 Hearst's assistance. 
 
 I was perfectly frank with him, saying that Hearst would 
 be pleased no doubt to reorganize a new Tammany Hall, or 
 any other Democratic organization, provided he could run 
 it. He would stand in with anybody and be as gentle as a 
 queen dove for the purpose of destroying the existing or- 
 ganization, but that he was a very overbearing and arbi- 
 trary man, with whom no one could work in creating a new 
 organization, unless he regarded himself as an employee of 
 Hearst. Moreover, I did not see how it was possible to 
 take Hearst and his crowd, even on a minority basis, so long 
 as they were fighting the Administration, and that I under- 
 stood Hearst had recently more emphatically than ever 
 read himself out of the Democratic Party. I told Blank 
 that ... I should not expect any cooperation between the 
 Federal Government and an organization in which Hearst 
 was a factor. However, I said that I knew nothing what- 
 ever as to the feeling of any member of the Cabinet or the 
 President respecting the matter, because I had not discussed 
 the matter with them. 
 
 ... I am writing this because I want you to know what 
 
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SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR 143 
 
 is going on. Evidently Blank came over from New York 
 on the midnight train and had no other business here except 
 to see me, and perhaps others, on this matter. . . . Cor- 
 dially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 When President Wilson took Franklin K. Lane from the 
 Interstate Commerce Commission to put him in his Cabinet 
 there arose the question of his successor, on the Commis- 
 sion. After consulting Lane, the President appointed in 
 his place, John Marble, also of California. A few months 
 after his appointment Mr. Marble died suddenly, and Lane 
 lost one of his closest friends. 
 
 To James H. Barry 
 San Francisco Star 
 
 Washington, December 1, 1913 
 
 My dear Jim, — I didn't get your telegram until Mon- 
 day, but I had taken care of you in the same way that I 
 took care of myself, in regard to flowers. I bought three 
 bunches, one for you, one for Mrs. Lane, and one for myself. 
 
 The most surprising thing, my dear Jim, is the manner 
 in which Mrs. Marble has taken John's death. We took 
 her to our house, where the morning after his death she told 
 me that she had talked with him ; that he had chided her 
 on breaking down constantly. Since then, both morning 
 and evening, she says she has seen him and talked with him. 
 The result is a spirit on her part almost of gayety, at times. 
 She is really reconciled to his going, because he has told her 
 that it was best and that he has other work to do. 
 
 I don't know what to say of all this. It mystifies me. 
 It has tended greatly to support me against the depth of 
 
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144 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 sorrow which I felt at the beginning. There is no evidence 
 of hysteria on her part, whatever. She dictated to Mrs. 
 Lane, who was sitting beside her, some of the things that 
 John said to her. It certainly is a glorious belief, at 
 such a time, and I am not prepared to say that it is not so, 
 and that its manifestations are not real. 
 
 ... It is an impossible thing to get a man to take his 
 place, either on the Commission or in our hearts. I be- 
 lieve that he worked himself to death. . . . Affectionately 
 yours, 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To Edward F. Adams 
 
 Washington, January 10, 1914 
 
 My dear Mr. Adams, — ... Our most difficult problem 
 is that of water. Colorado, for instance, claims that all of 
 the water that falls within her borders can be used and 
 should be used exclusively for the development of Colorado 
 lands. Southern California has made a protest against 
 my giving rights of way in the upper reaches of the Colorado 
 for the diversion of water on to Colorado lands saying that 
 Imperial Valley is entitled to the full normal flow of 
 the Colorado. The group of men who hold land in Mexico 
 south of the Imperial Valley make the same claim. Arizona 
 wishes to have a large part of this water used on her soil, 
 and the people of Colorado are divided as to whether the 
 water should be carried over on to the eastern side of the 
 Rockies or allowed to flow down in its natural channel on 
 the western side. 
 
 We have a similar trouble as to the Rio Grande, which 
 rises in Colorado, where the Coloradans claim all the water 
 can be used and can be put to the highest beneficial use. 
 New Mexico, Texas, and Old Mexico all claim their right to 
 
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SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR 145 
 
 the water for all kinds of purposes. If we recognize Colo- 
 rado's full claim there is probably enough water in Colorado 
 to irrigate all of her soil, but portions of Wyoming, Nebraska, 
 Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah would 
 remain desert. 
 
 If you can tell me how to solve this problem so as to 
 recognize the right that you claim Colorado has, and to 
 maintain the rights that the Federal Government and the 
 adjoining States have, I shall certainly be deeply grateful. 
 
 With all good wishes for the New Year, believe me as 
 always, affectionately yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 The Hon. Woodrow Wilson 
 The White House 
 
 Washington, March 11, 1914 
 My dear Mr. President, — I have your note of yesterday 
 referring to me the correspondence between yourself and 
 the Civil Service Commission on the question of the partic- 
 ipation of women Civil Service employees in woman suf- 
 frage organizations. I think perhaps I am a prejudiced 
 partisan in this matter for I believe that the women should 
 have the right to agitate for the suffrage. Furthermore, I 
 think they are going to get the suffrage, and that it would 
 be politically unwise for the administration to create the 
 impression that it was attempting to block the movement. 
 I should think it the part of wisdom for you personally to 
 make the announcement that women Civil Service employ- 
 ees will be protected in the right to join woman suffrage 
 organizations and to participate in woman suffrage parades 
 or meetings. This is practically what the Civil Service 
 Commission says, but in a more careful, lawyer-like man- 
 ner, whereas whatever is said should be said in a rather ro- 
 
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146 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 bust, forthright style. The real thing that we are after in 
 making regulations as to political activity is to keep those 
 who are in the employ of the Government from using their 
 positions to further their personal ends or to serve some 
 political party. What they may do as individuals outside 
 of the Government offices is none of our business, so long as 
 they do nothing toward breaking it down as a merit serv- 
 ice, do not discredit the service, or render themselves unfit 
 for it. . . . 
 
 The spoils system is a combination of gratitude and black- 
 mail. The merit system is an attempt to secure efficiency 
 without recognizing friendship or fear. We can safely allow 
 the participation of merit system employees in an agitation 
 so long as they do not go to the point where official advan- 
 tage may be had through the agitation by securing a reward 
 through party success. . . . 
 
 I believe you might well make a statement of two or 
 three hundred words in which you could state your decision 
 with the philosophy that underlies it, in such a manner as to 
 make the women understand that you are taking a liberal 
 attitude and yet protecting the full spirit of the Civil Serv- 
 ice idea. Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 In March 1914, for the second time, Lane was invited to 
 the University of California to receive a degree. This was 
 an honor from his Alma Mater that he greatly desired. The 
 previous year, the reorganization of his Department and 
 the pressure of new work, had made it impossible for him 
 to leave Washington. But this year he had promised 
 to go. 
 
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SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR 147 
 
 To Benjamin Ide Wheeler 
 President, University of California 
 
 Washington, 13 [March, 1914] 
 [The day I was to be with you.] 
 
 My dear Doctor, — I was prepared to leave last Friday 
 — tickets, reservations all secured. I had made a mighty 
 effort. My conservation bills were not all out of Committee 
 but I had arranged to get them out. The House was to 
 caucus and the Senate to confer, and I had written pleading 
 letters and made my prayers in person that my bills should 
 be included in the program. On Thursday, the War De- 
 partment refused the use of an engineer for the Alaskan 
 railroad. In one day I drafted and secured the passage of 
 a joint resolution giving me the man I wanted. The war 
 scare had subsided and I had seen the Mediators who said 
 that nothing would be doing for two weeks. So I went to 
 the Cabinet meeting prepared to say goodbye. Then came 
 a bomb — two European powers served notice that they 
 would hold us responsible for what was likely to happen in 
 Mexico City upon the incoming of Zapata and Villa, and 
 wanted to know how prepared we were. We left the Cab- 
 inet divided as to what should be done. A group of us met 
 in the afternoon and decided to ask for another meeting. 
 I carried the message. The reply was that the matter must 
 be held over till the next meeting, and meanwhile we were 
 asked to suggest a program. Then I sent my message to you. 
 I have told this to no one but Anne. You deserve no less 
 than the fullest statement from me. Please treat it as the 
 most sacred of secrets. Always gratefully yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 The following letter, written about a year after Lane's 
 entry into the Cabinet, shows what, in the course of a year, 
 
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148 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 he had been able to accomplish in building the men of his 
 heterogeneous department into a cooperative social unit 
 by means of what he called his "Land Cabinet" and the 
 Home Club. 
 
 To Albert Shaw 
 Review of Reviews 
 
 Washington, April 8, 1914 
 
 My dear Mr. Shaw, — Of course I saw the Review for 
 April before your copies arrived, for somebody was good 
 enough to tell me that there was a good word in it for me, 
 and no matter how busy I am I always manage to read a 
 boost. . . . 
 
 You ask what I am doing to bring about team-work in 
 the Department. Many things. As you probably don't 
 know, this has been a rather disjointed Department. It 
 was intended originally that it should be called the Home 
 Department, and its Secretary the Secretary for Home Af- 
 fairs. How we come to have some of the bureaus I don't 
 know. Patents and Pensions, for instance, would not seem 
 to have a very intimate connection with Indians and Irri- 
 gation. Education and Public Lands, the hot springs of 
 Arkansas, and the asylum for the insane for the District of 
 Columbia do not appear to have any natural affiliation. 
 The result has been that the bureaus have stood up as in- 
 dependent entities, and I have sought to bring them together, 
 centering in this office. 
 
 One of the first things I did was to form what is called a 
 Land Cabinet, made up of the Assistant Secretaries, the 
 Commissioner of the Land Office, and the Director of the 
 Geological Survey. We meet every Monday afternoon and 
 go over our problems together. The Reclamation Commis- 
 
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SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR 149 
 
 sion is another organization of a similar sort, and we have 
 constant conferences between the heads of bureaus which 
 have to do with different branches of Indian work, lands, 
 irrigation, and pensions. 
 
 Some time ago in order to develop greater good feeling 
 between the heads of the bureaus we organized a noonday 
 mess, at which all the chiefs of bureaus and most of their 
 assistants take their luncheon. . . . 
 
 But the largest work, I think, in the way of promoting the 
 right kind of spirit within the Department was the organiza- 
 tion of the Home Club. This is a purely social institution, 
 which the members themselves maintain. We have now 
 some seventeen hundred members, all pay the same ini- 
 tiation fee and the same dues, and all meet upon a common 
 ground in the club. Our club house is one of the finest old 
 mansions in this city, formerly the residence of Schuyler 
 Colfax. . . . It is a four-story building in LaFayette Square, 
 within a half a block of the White House. This house we 
 have furnished ourselves in very comfortable shape without 
 the help of a dollar from the outside, and we maintain it 
 upon dues of fifty cents a month. Each night during the 
 week we have some form of entertainment in the club — 
 moving pictures, or a lecture, or a dance, or a musicale. 
 
 I organized this club for the purpose of showing to these 
 people of moderate salaries what could be done by coopera- 
 tion. It is managed entirely by the members of the Depart- 
 ment. There is no caste line or snobbery in the institution, 
 and for the first time the people in the different bureaus are 
 becoming acquainted with each other, and enjoy the oppor- 
 tunities of club life. The idea should be extended. We 
 should have in the city of Washington a great service club, 
 covering a block of land, containing fifteen or twenty thou- 
 sand members, in which for a trifle per month we could get 
 
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150 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 all of the advantages of the finest social and athletic club 
 that New York contains. In the Home Club we have a 
 billiard room, card rooms, a library, and a suite of rooms 
 especially set aside for the ladies. We are fitting up one of 
 the larger rooms as a gymnasium for the young men and 
 boys, and expect to have bowling alleys, and possible tennis 
 courts on a near-by lot. In this way I meet many of those 
 who work with me, whom I never would see otherwise, and 
 from the amount of work that the Department is doing, 
 which is increasing, I am quite satisfied that it has helped 
 to make the Department more efficient. Cordially yours, 
 
 Fkankxin K. Lane 
 
 To Charles K. Field 
 Sunset Magazine 
 
 Washington, April 18, 1914 
 
 My dear Charles, — ... My picture on the cover of 
 the May Sunset is altogether the best one I have had taken 
 for some time, and the Democratic donkey is encourag- 
 ingly fat. 
 
 I wish in some way it were possible to impress upon our 
 Western Senators and Congressmen the advisability of 
 putting through the bills that I have before Congress in 
 line with my report — a general leasing bill, under which 
 coal, oil, and phosphate lands could be developed by lease, 
 and a water power bill. As it is now, a man runs the risk 
 of going to jail to get a piece of coal land that is big enough 
 to work ; and the very bad situation in the oil field in Cali- 
 fornia is entirely due to the inapplicability of our oil land 
 laws. We have a couple of million acres of good phosphate 
 lands withdrawn, totally undeveloped because no one can 
 get hold of them, and no capital will go into our Western 
 power sites because we can give at present only a revocable 
 
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SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR 151 
 
 permit, whereas capital wants the certainty of a fixed 
 term. 
 
 I have tried to draft laws, copies of which I inclose, that 
 are the best possible under the circumstances. I mean by 
 that, that they are reasonable and will be passed by Con- 
 gress if the West can only show a little interest in them, 
 but so far the men who have been fighting them are Western- 
 ers. Why ? For no better reason than that these gentle- 
 men are in favor of having all of the public lands turned over 
 to the states. It is useless to argue this question as to 
 whether it is right or wrong, because Congress would never 
 do it, so that opposition to these bills is simply opposition 
 to further development of the West. 
 
 Now if you can punch these people up a bit in some way 
 and make them understand that the West should want to 
 go ahead, rather than block development for all time, . . . 
 you will be rendering a public service. 
 
 With these few remarks I submit the matter to your 
 prayerful consideration. As always, cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Frederic J. Lane 
 
 Washington, April 27, 1914 
 
 My dear Fritz, — I have just received your letter in re- 
 lation to Stuart. I sent you a letter on Saturday saying 
 that Daniels was going to recommend him. Of course, 
 if he can't pass the physical examination that is the end of 
 it, but I would let him try. . . . 
 
 Ned is a great deal like Stuart — smart and lazy, but you 
 know that all boys can't be expected to come up to the 
 ideal conduct of their fathers at sixteen and eighteen. They 
 go through life a damn sight more human. I don't see any 
 reason why a fellow should work if he can get along without 
 
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152 LETTERS OF FRANEXIN K. LANE 
 
 it, and the trouble is that your boy is spoiled by you, and my 
 boy is spoiled by his mother ! You have raised Stuart on 
 the theory that he was a millionaire's son and, as such, he 
 can't take life very seriously. 
 
 I am figuring now on getting Ned off to some boarding- 
 school where he will have more discipline than I can give 
 him. The truth is that both of us, having had rather a 
 prosaic Christian bringing up, have cultivated the idea in 
 our youngsters that it is a good thing to be a sport, and the 
 aforesaid youngsters are living up to it. If there was a 
 school in the country where they taught boys the different 
 kinds of trees, and the different rocks and flowers, birds, 
 and fish, with some good sense, and American history, I 
 would like to send Ned to it. . . . Affectionately yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Edward E. Leake 
 Treasury Department 
 San Francisco, California 
 
 Washington, May 26, 1914 
 
 My dear Ed, — I have yours of the 21st. I know that 
 you are sincere, old man, when you tempt me with the gov- 
 ernorship, and you write in such a winning manner that my 
 blood quickens, but really it is quite out of the question. 
 I want to see California lined up strongly on the Democratic 
 side. I also want to see Phelan come to the Senate and I 
 am ready to do all that I can to help out the old State, but 
 my work is cut out for me here and until I have put over 
 some of the things that I believe will benefit the West as a 
 whole, I do not believe I should relinquish the reins of this 
 particular portfolio. It is an honor to me, a big one, to be 
 considered by my friends for the governorship and I know 
 that they would stand gallantly behind me, and when I 
 
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SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR 153 
 
 send this negative answer, you must believe me when I say 
 that I send it with considerable regret. 
 
 I shall be very glad to see you at this end, when you are 
 here, and you need no excuse to camp on my doorstep. 
 Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To William R. Wheeler 
 
 Washington, June 6, 1914 
 My dear Bill, — I am extremely sorry to hear of your 
 being robbed. That comes from being wealthy. Poor 
 Lady Alice Isabel ! How outraged and disconsolate she 
 must be ! If that diamond tiara I gave her is gone tell her 
 I will replace it the first time I visit Tiffany's. Of course 
 this only holds good as to the one I gave her. . . . You 
 know, I have often wondered if a burglar should get into 
 our house what he would find worth taking away. I have 
 some small burglary insurance on my house, but this was so 
 I could turn over and sleep without coming down stairs 
 with a shotgun. What were you doing, going to Sacra- 
 mento, anyway ? Any fellow who goes to Sacramento gets 
 into trouble. That is the home of Diggs, Caminetti, and 
 Hiram Johnson. I see that Johnson is going to be re-elected 
 Governor, and that the other two are going to jail. I hope 
 that all three will lead better lives in the future. 
 
 Well, old man, if you need a new suit of clothes or any- 
 thing in the line of underwear, let me know. I have gotten 
 to the point where I have been wearing what Ned does not 
 take, and I will pass some of them along to you. . . . 
 
 There is nothing new here. I fear that I shall not get up 
 to Alaska, as I promised myself, for Congress will be in 
 session for some time, and I am striving desperately to get 
 my conservation bills through. Moreover, just what phase 
 
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154 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 the Mexican situation will take cannot be foreseen, from day 
 to day. I was broken-hearted at not being able to get out 
 to California, but just at that particular time — while I 
 was about to go, tickets and everything purchased — the 
 President called upon me to do something which held me 
 back. The toll bills will probably pass next week, by a 
 majority of nine. Then the trust bills will come up in the 
 Senate and every man will have to make a speech. . . . 
 Cordially yours, 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 The next letter has been included because it shows Lane's 
 direct and unequivocal method when defending a subordi- 
 nate whom he thought unfairly criticized. He quoted, and 
 in office practised, Roosevelt's maxim of giving a man his 
 fullest support as long as he thought him worthy to be en- 
 trusted with public business. The names are omitted here 
 for obvious reasons. 
 
 To 
 
 Washington, June 10, 1914 
 
 My Dear Billy, — I have your letter of June 9th, relating 
 to summer residence homesteads, and referring sneeringly 
 several times to Blank. I wonder if you realize that Blank 
 is my appointee and my friend. [He] has done you no 
 wrong, and he intends to do the public no wrong. He is as 
 public-spirited as you are, but you differ with him as to 
 certain phases of our land policy, though not so widely as 
 you yourself think. Is that any reason why you should 
 discredit him ? Is it not possible for men to differ with you 
 on questions of public policy without being crooks? Your 
 talk has started Chicago talking; nothing definite, just 
 whispers. Is this fair to Blank? Is it fair to me? . . . 
 
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SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR 155 
 
 Is the test of a man's public usefulness decided by his views 
 as to whether the desert lands should be leased or home- 
 steaded ? 
 
 I am saying this to you in the utmost friendliness, because 
 I think that your attitude is not worthy of your own ideal of 
 yourself, and it certainly does not comport with my ideal of 
 you, which I very much wish to hold. Surely honest men 
 may differ as to whether grazing lands should be leased, 
 and if Blank is not honest then it is your duty to the public 
 service and to me to show this fact. 
 
 At the bottom of your letter you say, "This report will 
 introduce you to Mr. Blank." Now it just so happens that 
 that line should read "This report will introduce you to 
 Mr. Lane," for I am responsible for that report. It was not 
 written until after he had consulted with me, and I dictated 
 an outline of its terms. ... As always, cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To his Brother on his Birthday 
 
 Washington, [August, 1914] 
 
 . . . This is somewhere around your birthday time, 
 isn't it? Well, if it is, you are about forty-nine years of 
 age and I look upon you as the one real philosopher that I 
 know. I'd trade all that I have by way of honors and office 
 for the nobility and serenity of your character. You feel 
 that you have not done enough for the world. So do we all. 
 But you have done far more than most of us, for you have 
 proved your own soul. You have made a soul. You have 
 taught some of us what a real man may be in this devilish 
 world of selfishness. What other man of your acquaintance 
 has the affection of men who know him for the nobility of 
 his nature? I don't know one. You know many who are 
 lovable, like sympathetic like myself, brilliant, sweet- 
 
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156 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 tempered, — lots of them. But who are the noble ones ? 
 Who look at all things asking only, "What is worthy?" 
 And doing that thing only. You tell the world that you 
 will not conform to all its littlenesses. That, I haven't at 
 all the courage to do. You tell the world that you are not 
 willing to feed your vanity with your everlasting soul. 
 Where are the rest of us, judged by that test ? 
 
 Ah, my dear boy, you have inspired many a fellow you 
 don't know anything about, with a desire to emulate you, 
 and always to emulate something that is genuine and big 
 in you — not a trick of speech or a small quality of mind 
 or manner. I envy you — and so do many. Nancy could 
 tell you why you are worth while. She knows the genuine 
 from the spurious. She knows the metal that rings true 
 when tests come. 
 
 So there, . . . put all this inside of your smooth noddle 
 and take a drink to me — a drink of "cald, cald water." 
 
 And I just want you to understand that I am in no self- 
 deprecatory mood right now, for I am in my office at eight 
 o'clock of a Saturday evening, working away with all my 
 might on some damned land cases, having had a dinner at 
 my desk, consisting of two shredded-wheat biscuits with 
 milk, and one pear. Now you can realize what a virtuous, 
 self-appreciative mood I am in. No man denies himself 
 dinner for the sake of work without being really vain. 
 
 And what is this I hear about your having neuritis and 
 going to the hospital ? Damn these nerves, I say ! Damn 
 them ! I have to swelter here because I can't let an electric 
 fan play on my face, nor near me, without getting neuralgia. 
 And swelter is the word, for it has been 104°-5°, with humid- 
 ity, to boot, this week. 
 
 Nerves — that means a wireless system, keen to perceive, 
 to feel, to know the things hidden to the mass. I look for- 
 
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SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR 157 
 
 ward to years of torture with the accursed things. The 
 only thing that relieves, and of course it does not cure, is 
 osteopathy, stimulating the nerve where it enters the spine. 
 But never let them touch the sore place. That is fatal. It 
 raises all the devils and they begin scraping on the strings 
 at once. 
 
 Well, by the time this reaches you I hope you will be quite 
 a bit fitter. Avoid strain. Don't lift. Don't carry. If 
 you stretch the infernal wires they curl up and squeal. 
 
 May the God of Things as they Are be good to you. . . . 
 Mother may know all about us. How I wish I could know 
 that it was so. You have the philosophy that says — 
 "Well, if it is best, she does." I wish I had it. My God, 
 how I do cling to what scraps of faith I have and put them 
 together to make a cap for my poor head. With all the 
 love I have. 
 
 Frank 
 
 To Cordenio Severance 
 
 Washington, September 24, 1914 
 
 My dear Cordy, — I have just received your note. Why 
 don't you come down here and spend three or four days 
 resting up ? Nancy and Anne will be delighted to cart you 
 around in the victoria and show you all the beautiful trees 
 and a sunset or two, and we will give you some home cook- 
 ing and put you on your feet, and then you will have an 
 opportunity to beg forgiveness for not having gone up to 
 Essex. I am mighty sorry that you have been ill. If we 
 had had the faintest notion that you were, we would have 
 stayed in New York to see you, but as it was we came down 
 on the Albany boat and we went directly from the boat to 
 the train. I think that we would have stopped over two 
 or three hours and seen you anyway if it had not been for 
 
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158 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 the presence of our dog, who was regarded by the women as 
 the most important member of the family. 
 
 Did you ever travel with a dog ? We came down through 
 Lake George, and the Secretary of the Interior sat on a beer 
 box in the prow of the steamship, surrounded by automobiles 
 and kerosine oil cans and cooks and roustabouts, because 
 they would not let a dog go on the salon deck. Only my 
 sense of humor saved me from beating my wife and child, 
 and throwing the dog overboard. On the train some mem- 
 ber of the family had to stay with the dog and hold his paw 
 while he was in the baggage car. The trouble with you and 
 me is that we are not ugly enough to receive such attention. 
 If we had undershot jaws and projecting teeth and no nose, 
 we probably would be regarded with greater tenderness and 
 attention. 
 
 Ned is at Phillips-Exeter and is the most homesick kid 
 you ever heard of. He writes two letters a day and has sent 
 for his Bible, and tells us he is going to church. If that is 
 no evidence, then I am no judge of a psychological state. 
 
 Come on down. Faithfully yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Hon. Woodrow Wilson 
 The White House 
 
 Washington, October 1, 1914 
 
 Dear Mr. President, — Mother Jones called on me yes- 
 terday and I had a very interesting and enjoyable chat with 
 her. During our talk some reference was made to the ster- 
 ling qualities of your Secretary of Labor, for whom she en- 
 tertains the highest regard. She told me this little story 
 about him : — 
 
 One evening sometime ago, when there was a strike of 
 some workmen in Secretary Wilson's town, she was in the 
 
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SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR 159 
 
 Secretary's home waiting to see him. The Secretary was 
 engaged in another room with representatives of those op- 
 posed to the strikers, and she overheard their talk. One 
 of the men said, "Mr. Wilson, you have a mortgage on this 
 house, I believe." 
 
 The reply was in the affirmative. 
 
 "Then," said the speaker, "if you will see that this strike 
 is called away from our neighborhood — we don't ask you 
 to terminate it, but merely to see that the strikers leave our 
 town — if you will do this, we will take pleasure in present- 
 ing you with a large purse and also in wiping off the mort- 
 gage on your home." 
 
 Mr. Wilson arose, his voice trembling and his arm lifted, 
 and said, "You gentlemen are in my house. If you come 
 as friends and as gentlemen, all of the hospitalities that this 
 home has to offer are yours But if you come here to bribe 
 me to break faith with my people, who trust me and whom 
 I represent, there is the door, and I wish you to leave im- 
 mediately." 
 
 Mother Jones concluded by saying, "Mr. Wilson never 
 tells this story, but I heard it with my own ears, and I know 
 what a real man he is." 
 
 I wish that you could have heard the story yourself. I 
 am telling it to you now, for I know how pleased you will be 
 to hear of it, even in this indirect way. Faithfully yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 On November 30, 1914 Colonel Roosevelt wrote to Lane 
 saying, — 
 
 "That's a mighty fine poem on Uncle Sam's Thanks- 
 giving ! I wish you would give me a chance to see you 
 sometime. 
 
 "I do not know Mr. Garrison and perhaps he would resent 
 
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160 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 my saying that I think he has managed his Department 
 excellently; but if you think he would not resent it, pray 
 tell him so. I hear nothing but good of you — but if I did 
 hear anything else I should not pay any heed to it. . • ." 
 
 To Theodore Roosevelt 
 
 Washington, December 3, 1914 • 
 
 My deab Colonel, — I have just received your note of 
 November 30th, and I am very much gratified at your refer- 
 ence to my Thanksgiving lines. You may be interested 
 in knowing that the Home Club, before which I read these 
 lines, is an institution that I organized since becoming Sec- 
 retary, for the officers and employees of my Department. . . . 
 
 You may rest assured that I shall convey your message 
 to Mr. Garrison, and I know that he will be just as pleased 
 to receive it as I am in being able to carry it. . 
 
 . . . The work of the Department keeps me pretty 
 closely to my desk, so that I have few opportunities of get- 
 ting away from Washington. I certainly shall not let a 
 chance of seeing you go by without taking advantage of it. 
 Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Hon. Woodrow Wilson 
 The White House 
 
 Washington, January 9, 1915 
 
 My dear Mr. President, — That was a bully speech, a 
 corker ! You may have made a better speech in your life 
 but I never have heard of it. Other Presidents may have 
 made better speeches, but I have never heard of them. It 
 was simply great because it was the proper blend of philos- 
 ophy and practicality. It had punch in every paragraph. 
 
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SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR 161 
 
 The country will respond to it splendidly. It was jubilant, 
 did not contain a single minor note of apology and the 
 country will visualize you at the head of the column. You 
 know this country, and every country, wants a man to lead 
 it of whom it is proud, not because of his talent but because 
 of his personality, — that which is as indefinable as charm 
 in a woman, and I want to see your personality known to 
 the American people, just as well as we know it who sit 
 around the Cabinet table. Your speech glows with it, and 
 that is why it gives me such joy that I can't help writing 
 you as enthusiastically as I do. Sincerely yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Lawrence F. Abbott 
 , Outlook 
 
 Washington, January 12, 1915 
 
 My dear Mr. Abbott, — I enclose you two statements 
 made with reference to our public lands water power bill 
 and our western development bill. The power trust is fight- 
 ing the power bill, although as amended by the Senate 
 Committee it is especially liberal and fair and will bring 
 millions of dollars into the West for development of water 
 power. There seems to be no real opposition to the western 
 development bill, generally called the leasing bill, excepting 
 from those who believe that all of our public lands should 
 be turned over to the States. 
 
 These are non-partisan measures. They have been 
 drafted in Consultation with Republicans and Progressives, 
 as well as Democrats, and I regard them as the ultimate 
 word of generosity on the part of the Federal Government, 
 because all of the money produced is to go into western 
 development. If these bills are killed, I fear that the West 
 will never get another opportunity to have its withdrawn 
 
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162 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 lands thrown open for development upon terms as satis- 
 factory to it. 
 
 It is easy to understand why men who already have great 
 power plants on public land should be opposing such a bill 
 as our power bill, and equally easy to understand why the 
 coal monopolists should be fighting off all opportunity 
 for any competitor to get into the field. The oil men are 
 anxious for such legislation. Of course this legislation is 
 not ideal, because it is the result of compromise between 
 minds, as to methods. The power bill is vitally right in 
 one thing; that the rights granted revert at the end of 
 fifty years to the Government, if the Government wishes to 
 take the plant over. The development bill is right, be- 
 cause it sets aside a group of archaic laws under which 
 monopoly and litigation and illegal practices have thrived. 
 
 Both of these bills have passed the House, and are before 
 the Senate. I trust that the fixed determination of those 
 who are hostile to them will not prevail. Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 This letter, duplicated, was sent to several editors of 
 magazines, to inform the public as to pending legislation. 
 
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VII 
 EUROPEAN WAR AND PERSONAL CONCERNS 
 
 1914-1915 
 
 Endorsement of Hoover — German Audacity — LL.D. from Alma 
 Mater — England's Sea Policy — Christmas Letters 
 
 To William Jennings Bryan 
 
 Washington, November 17, 1914 
 
 My dear Mr. Secretary, — If it is true that the State 
 Department is not informed regarding Mr. Hoover and his 
 entire responsibility, I can send to you to-day his attorney, 
 Judge Curtis H. Lindley, of San Francisco, who stands at 
 the head of our bar. 
 
 I know of Mr. Hoover very well. He is probably the 
 greatest mining engineer that the world holds to-day, and is 
 yet a very young man. He is a graduate of Stanford Uni- 
 versity. 
 
 I suppose that you do not wish to make any statement 
 regarding Mr. Hoover, but I should fancy that there is no 
 objection to Mr. Fletcher making any statement that he 
 desires. There are hundreds of thousands of people in 
 the United States to-day who are anxious to know how the 
 things that they are preparing for the different European 
 countries, especially for the Belgians, can be sent to them. 
 Some information along this line might be very helpful. 
 Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
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164 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 To John Crawford Burns 
 
 Rome, Italy 
 
 Washington, January 22, 1915 
 
 My dear John, — I have often thought of you during these 
 last few months, and wished for a good long talk so some 
 of the kinks in my own brain might be straightened out. 
 It looks to me very much as if the war were a stalemate. 
 Even if England throws another million men into the field 
 in May I can't see how she can get through Belgium and 
 over the Rhine. Germany is practically self-supported, 
 excepting for gasoline and copper, and no doubt a consider- 
 able amount of these are being smuggled in, one way or 
 another. The Christians are having a hard time reconciling 
 themselves to existing conditions. . . . England is making a 
 fool of herself by antagonizing American opinion, insisting 
 upon rights of search which she never has acknowledged as to 
 herself. If she persists she will be successful in driving from 
 her the opinion of this country, which is ninety per cent in 
 her favor, although practically all of the German-Americans 
 are loyal to their home country. We have some ambition 
 to have a shipping of our own, and England's claim to own 
 the seas, as Germany puts it, does not strike the American 
 mind favorably. No doubt this will be regarded by you as 
 quite an absurdity, that we should have any such dream, 
 but I find myself from day to day feeling a twinge or two of 
 bitterness over England's stubbornness, which seems to be 
 as irremovable a quality as it was in some past days. . . . 
 
 Your little Nancy is no longer little. She is up to my ear, 
 has gone out to several evening parties, is at last going to 
 school like other girls, keeps up her violin, and is very much 
 of a joy. . . . 
 
 I knew that you would like our Ambassador. Cultivate 
 him every chance you get. Affectionately yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
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EUROPEAN WAR AND PERSONAL CONCERNS 165 
 
 On February 20, 1915, Lane went to San Francisco and 
 formally opened the Panama Pacific Exposition, as the per- 
 sonal representative of the President. He spoke on "That 
 slender, dauntless, plodding, modest figure, the American 
 pioneer, . . . whose long journey . . . beside the oxen is 
 at an end." 
 
 To Alexander Vogelsang 
 
 En route, near Odgen, Utah, February 22, 1915 
 
 My dear Aleck. — You are the best of good fellows, and 
 I don't see any reason why I should not tell you so, and of 
 my affection for you. Don't mind the slaps and raps that 
 you get, regarding the high duty you perform. The people 
 respect you as an entirely honest and efficient public servant. 
 It did my heart good to hear the men I talked with speak so 
 appreciatively of you. I enjoyed my two days with you 
 as I have not enjoyed any two days for many years. The 
 best thing in all this blooming world is the friendship that 
 one fellow has for another. I would truly love to have the 
 President know our Amaurot crowd, but I can't quite plan 
 out a way by which it could be done. ... As always, 
 affectionately yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To John H. Wigmore 
 
 En route to Chicago, February 25, 1915 
 My dear John, — I have read your preface with great 
 satisfaction. It will, no doubt, renew your self-confidence 
 to know that it has my approval. You make some pro- 
 found suggestions which would never in the world have 
 occurred to me. The American believes that the doctrine 
 of equality necessarily implies unlimited appeal. This is 
 
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166 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 my psychological explanation for the unwillingness to give our 
 judges more power. Another explanation is that the Amer- 
 ican people are governed by sets of words, one formula being 
 that this is a government by law, hence the judge must 
 have no discretion and rules must be arbitrary and fixed. 
 
 I had a roaring good time in San Francisco. Spoke to 
 fifty thousand people, and more, who could not hear me. 
 Made a rotten speech and met those I loved best, so I am 
 not altogether displeased with having taken the trip after all. 
 
 Hope your arm is doing finely. Give my love to your 
 dear wife. Affectionately yours, 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To John Crawford Burns 
 
 Rome, Italy 
 
 Washington, March 3, 1915 
 
 My dear John, — All things are so large these days that 
 I can not compress them within the confines of a letter. I 
 mean, don't you know, that there is no small talk. We are 
 dealing with life and death propositions, life or death to 
 somebody all the time. 
 
 I suppose if you were a few years younger you would be 
 over in the trenches, or up in England getting ready. From 
 all we hear, the Scotchmen are the only fellows that the 
 Germans really are afraid of or entirely respect. The posi- 
 tion of a neutral is a hard one. We are being generously 
 damned by the Germans and the aggressive Irish for being 
 pro-British, and the English press people and sympathizers 
 in this country are generously damning us as the grossest of 
 commercialists who are willing to sell them into the eternal 
 slavery of Germany for the sake of selling a few bushels of 
 wheat. Neither side being pleased, the inference is reason- 
 able that we are being loyal to our central position. . . . 
 
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EUROPEAN WAR AND PERSONAL CONCERNS 167 
 
 I went out recently and opened the San Francisco Fair, 
 parading at the head of a procession of a hundred thousand 
 people. The Fair is truly most exquisitely beautiful. 
 There are many buildings that would even, no doubt, please 
 your most fastidious eye. 
 
 We have tried to get a Shipping Bill through which would 
 allow us to get into South American and other trade, but 
 the Republicans have blocked us, not because they feared we 
 would get mixed up with the war but because they don't 
 want us to do a thing that would further Government owner- 
 ship of anything. 
 
 The Administration is weak, east of the Alleghanies ; and 
 strong, west of the Alleghanies. Bryan is a very much larger 
 man and more competent than the papers credit him with 
 being. The President is growing daily in the admiration of 
 the people. He has little of the quality that develops affec- 
 tion, but this, I think, comes from his long life of isolation. 
 
 We regard ourselves as very lucky in the men we have 
 in the foreign posts, notwithstanding the attacks made upon 
 us by your press. . . . 
 
 I wish you would convey my hearty respects to His Excel- 
 lency, the Ambassador, and to your wife, of whose return 
 to health I am delighted to hear. Cordially yours, 
 
 Lane 
 
 To Edward J. Wheeler 
 Current Opinion 
 
 Washington, March 4, 1915 
 
 Dear Mr. Wheeler, — I am extremely obliged to you for 
 your appreciative letter regarding my speech, 1 but don't 
 publish it in the Poetry Department or you will absolutely 
 ruin my reputation as a hard working official. No man 
 
 1 On the American Pioneer. 
 
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168 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 in American politics can survive the reputation of being a 
 poet. It is as bad as having a fine tenor voice, or knowing 
 the difference between a Murillo and a Turner. The only 
 reason I am forgiven for being occasionally flowery of speech 
 is that I have been put down as having been one of those 
 literary fellows in the past. Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To John Crawford Bums 
 
 Rome, Italy 
 
 Washington, March 13, 1915 
 
 My dear John, — I have received three letters from you 
 within the last two weeks, greatly to my joy. Your first 
 and longest letter, but not a word too long, I thought so 
 very good that I had it duplicated on the typewriter and 
 sent a copy to each member of the Cabinet, excepting Bryan, 
 whom you refer to in not too complimentary a manner. On 
 the same day that I received this letter I received one from 
 Pfeiffer, presenting the American merchants' point of view, 
 who desire to get goods from Germany, a copy of which I 
 inclose. So I put your letter and his together, and told 
 them all who you both are. Thus, old man, you have be- 
 come a factor in the determination of international policy. 
 Several members of the Cabinet have spoken with the 
 warmest admiration of your letter, one scurrilous indi- 
 vidual remarking that he was astonished to learn that I had 
 such a learned literary gent as an intimate friend. 
 
 We are just at present amused over the coming into port 
 of the German converted cruiser Eitel, with the captain and 
 the crew of the American bark, William P. Frye, on board. 
 The calm gall of the thing really appeals to the American 
 sense of humor. Here is a German captain, who captured 
 a becalmed sailing ship, loaded with wheat, and blows her 
 
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EUROPEAN WAR AND PERSONAL CONCERNS 169 
 
 up; sails through fifteen thousand miles of sea, in danger 
 every day of being sunk by an English cruiser, and then 
 calmly comes in to an American port for coal and repairs. 
 The cheek of the thing is so monumental as to fairly cap- 
 tivate the American mind. What we shall do with him, of 
 course, is a very considerable question. He can not be 
 treated as a pirate, I suppose, because there can not be 
 such a thing as a pirate ship commanded by an officer of 
 a foreign navy and flying a foreign flag. But he plainly pur- 
 sued the policy of a pirate, and I am expecting any day to 
 find Germany apologizing and offering amends. But there 
 may be some audacious logic by which Germany can justify 
 such conduct. Talking of Belgium, I was referred the 
 other day to the report of the debates in the House of Com- 
 mons found in the 10th volume of Cobbett's Parliamentary 
 Reports, touching the attack on Copenhagen by England 
 in 1808, in which the Ministry justified its ruthless attack 
 upon a neutral power in almost precisely the same language 
 that Von Bethmann Hollweg used in justifying the attack on 
 Belgium, and Lord Ponsonby used the sort of reasoning 
 then, in answer to the Government, that England is now 
 using in answer to Germany. I was distrustful of the 
 quotations that were given to me and looked the volume 
 up, and found that England was governed by much the same 
 idea that Germany was — just sheer necessity. Of course, 
 your answer is that we have traveled a long way since 1808. 
 Doesn't it look to you an impossible task for England and 
 France to get beyond the Rhine, or even get there? Eng- 
 land, of course, has hardly tried her hand in the game yet 
 and if the Turk is cleaned up she will have a lot of Austra- 
 lians and others to help out in Belgium. Sir George Paish 
 told me they expect to have a million and a half men in the 
 field by the end of this summer. 
 
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170 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K LANE 
 
 Pf eiffer comes here to-day to spend a couple of days trying 
 to do something for the State Department; I don't know 
 just what, but I shall be mighty glad to see the old chap. 
 I haven't seen anything of Lamb since his return. 
 
 Do write me again. Affectionately yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 On the sixteenth of March Lane again started for San 
 Francisco, crossing the continent for the third time within 
 a month. Vice-President Marshall, Adolph C. Miller, 
 now of the Federal Reserve Board, and Franklin D. Roose- 
 velt, assistant Secretary of the Navy, who were going out 
 to visit officially the Exposition, were the principal members 
 of the party. In Berkeley, on March twenty-third, 1915, 
 Lane received his degree from the University of California. 
 In conferring this degree President Wheeler said : — 
 
 "Franklin K. Lane, — Your Alma Mater gladly writes 
 to-day your name upon her list of honour, — in recognition 
 not so much of your brilliant and unsparing service to state 
 and nation, as of your sympathetic insight into the insti- 
 tutions of popular government as the people intended them. 
 An instinctive faith in the righteous intentions of the average 
 man has endowed you with a singular power to discern the 
 best intent of the public will. Men follow gladly in your 
 lead, and are not deceived. 
 
 "By direction of the Regents of the University of Cali- 
 fornia I confer upon you the degree of Doctor of Laws : — 
 
 "Creative statesman in a democracy; big-hearted 
 American." 
 
 On December 7, 1915, upon receiving a copy of the diploma 
 Lane wrote in acknowledgement to Dr. Wheeler, — "I 
 have the diploma which it has taken all the talent of the 
 
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EUROPEAN WAR AND PERSONAL CONCERNS 171 
 
 office to translate. I had one man from Columbia, another 
 from the University of Virginia, one from Nebraska, and 
 one at large at work on it. Thank you. It takes the place 
 of honor over my mantel." 
 
 To William P. Lawlor 
 Justice, Supreme Court of California 
 
 Washington, April 13, 1915 
 My dear Judge, — I have read Eddy O'Day's poem with 
 great delight. Along toward the end it carries a sentiment 
 that our dear old friend John Boyle O'Reilly expressed in 
 his poem Bohemia, in which he speaks of those, 
 
 " Who deal out a charity, scrimped and iced, 
 In the name of a cautious, statistical Christ." 
 
 I have never been able to write a line of verse myself, 
 although I have tried once in a while, but long ago my in- 
 capacity was proved. Pegasus always bucks me off. 
 
 I am sorry you took so seriously what I had to say of the 
 wedding invitation, but you know I am one of those very 
 sentimental chaps, who loves his friends with a great devo- 
 tion, and when anything good comes to them I want to know 
 of it first, and no better fortune can come to any man than 
 to marry a devoted, high-minded woman. 
 
 Your rise has been a joy to me, because neither you nor 
 I came to the bar nor to our positions by conventional 
 methods. The union spirit is very strong among lawyers, 
 and if a man has ideas outside of law, or wishes to humanize 
 the law, he is regarded with suspicion by his fellows at the 
 bar. You have proved yourself and arrived against great 
 odds. No man that I know has ever had such a testimonial 
 of public confidence as you received in the last election. 
 I hope that with the hard work much joy will come to you. 
 
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172 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 Mrs. Lane has just dropped in and wishes me to send 
 you her warm regards. Always sincerely yours, 
 
 Feanklin K. Lane 
 
 To William G. McAdoo 
 Secretary of the Treasury 
 
 Washington, April 27, 1915 
 
 My dear Mac, — Here is a man for us to get next to. He 
 is a Harriman, a Morgan, a Huntington, a Hill, a Bismarck, 
 a Kuhn Loeb, and a damn Yankee all rolled into one ! Can 
 you beat it? His daughter also looks like a peach. I do 
 not know the purpose of this financial congress in which these 
 geniuses from the hot belt are to gather; but unless I am 
 mistaken you are looking around for some convenient re- 
 treat to go to when this Riggs litigation is over and you are 
 turned out scalpless upon a cruel world. Here is your 
 chance ! Tie up with Pearson. He has banks, railroads, 
 cows, horses, mules, land, girls, alfalfa, clubs, and is con- 
 nected with every distinguished family in North and South 
 America. 
 
 This man, Dr. Hoover, is a genius. When I knew him he 
 was giving lessons in physical training ; but, now, like my- 
 self, he is an LL.D., and, of course, as a fellow LL.D. 
 I have got to treat his friend properly. So I pass him along 
 to you. Please see that he has the front bench and is called 
 upon to open the congress with prayer, which, being a 
 Yankee and a pirate, he undoubtedly can do in fine fashion. 
 
 When he comes, if you will let me know, I shall go out 
 to meet him in my private yacht; take him for a drive in 
 my tally-ho ; give him a dinner at Child's, and take him 
 to the movies at the Home Club. 
 
 I shall also ask Redfield to invite him to the much-heralded 
 shad luncheon, to which I have received the fourth invitation. 
 
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EUROPEAN WAR AND PERSONAL CONCERNS 173 
 
 Do you think he would like to meet my friend, Jess Willard ? 
 Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 A letter from John Burns, from Rome, spoke sarcastically 
 of the American attitude of neutrality toward the European 
 war, and of what he called the "new American motto — 
 'Trust the President.'" 
 
 To John Crawford Burns 
 Rome, Italy 
 
 Washington, May 29, 1915 
 
 My dear John, — I saw Pfeiffer, Lamb, and Mezes the 
 other day up in New York. Mezes lives among Hebrews, 
 Lamb is broken-hearted that he can not get into the war, 
 and Pfeiffer is trying to get England to let his German goods 
 through Holland. Lamb and Pfeiffer do not agree as to 
 England's duty to allow non-contraband on neutral ships 
 to pass unmolested. 
 
 England is playing a rather high game, violating inter- 
 national law every day. . . . England's attempt to starve 
 Germany has been a fizzle. Germany will be better off 
 this summer than she was two years ago, have more food 
 on hand. There are no more men in Germany outside of 
 the Army. Practically every one has been called out who 
 could carry a gun, but the women are running the mills and 
 the prisoners are tilling the farms. Von Hindenburg will 
 come down upon Italy, when he has lured the Italians up 
 into some pass and given them a sample of what the Russians 
 got in East Prussia. 
 
 You see I am in quite a prophetic mood this afternoon. 
 
 Tell me if you understand Italy's position — just how 
 
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174 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 she justifies herself in entering the war? I have seen no 
 authoritative justification that I thought would hold water. 
 The Coalition ministry in England is weaker than the 
 Liberal ministry. Lord Northcliffe, who is the Hearst of 
 England, has become its boss. Inasmuch as you object 
 to our new motto, "Trust the President," I offer as a sub- 
 stitute, "Trust Lord Northcliffe, Bonar Law, and the Philos- 
 opher of Negation." The dear bishops won't give up their 
 toddy, so England must go without ammunition. Germany 
 is standing off Belgium, England and France, with her right 
 hand ; Russia with her left, and is about to step on Italy. 
 Germany has not yet answered our protest in the Lusitania 
 matter. Neither has England answered our protest, sent 
 some three months ago, against the invasion of our rights 
 upon the seas. I was very glad to read the other day that 
 while only eighty per cent of English-made shells explode, 
 over ninety per cent of American-made shells explode. 
 Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To E. W. Scripps 
 Scripps McRae Syndicate 
 
 Washington, June 1, 1915 
 
 My dear Mr. Scripps, — I am extremely glad to get your 
 letter — and such a hearty, noble-spirited letter. It came 
 this morning, and was so extraordinary in its patriotic spirit 
 that I took it to the White House and left it with the Pres- 
 ident. 
 
 I am sure that great good will come of the effort you are 
 making to gather the people in support of the President. 
 The poor man has been so worried by the great responsi- 
 bilities put upon him that he has not had time to think or 
 deal with matters of internal concern. ... He is extremely 
 
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EUROPEAN WAR AND PERSONAL CONCERNS 175 
 
 appreciative of the spirit you have shown. I have a large 
 number of matters in my own Department — Alaskan rail- 
 road affairs and proposed legislation — that I ought to take 
 up with him ; but I can not worry him with them while 
 international concerns are so pressing. 
 
 I feel that at last the country has come to a consciousness 
 of the President's magnitude. They see him as we do who 
 are in close touch with him. . . . My own ability to help him 
 is very limited, for he is one of those men made by nature 
 to tread the wine-press alone. The opportunity comes now 
 and then to give a suggestion or to utter a word of warning, 
 but on the whole I feel that he probably is less dependent 
 upon others than any President of our time. He is conscious 
 of public sentiment — surprisingly so — for a man who sees 
 comparatively few people, and yet he never takes public sen- 
 timent as offering a solution for a difficulty ; if he can think 
 the thing through and arrive at the point where public senti- 
 ment supports him, so much the better. He will loom very 
 large in the historian's mind two or three decades from now. 
 
 In the fall I am going to ask you to lend a hand in support 
 of my conservation bills, which look like piffling affairs now 
 in contrast with the big events of the day. 
 
 Once more I thank you heartily for your letter. Cordially 
 yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To George W. Wickersham 
 
 Washington, July 18, 1915 
 
 My dear and distinguished Sir, — I once knew a vain- 
 glorious chap who wrote a poem on the Crucifixion of Christ. 
 The refrain was, — 
 
 " Had I been there with three score men, 
 Christ Jesus had not died." 
 
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176 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 All of us feel "that-a-way" once in a while when we think 
 of Germany, Mexico, and sich. I shall have a few words 
 to say upon the German note next Tuesday. 1 They will 
 be short and somewhat ugly Anglo-Saxon words, utterly 
 undiplomatic, and I hope that some of them will be used. 
 
 There is no man who has a greater capacity for indignation 
 than the gentleman who has to write that note, and no man 
 who has a sincerer feeling of dignity, and no man who dis- 
 likes more to have a damned army officer, filled with strut- 
 titudinousness, spit upon the American Flag — a damned 
 goose-stepping army officer ! 
 
 This morning comes word that they tried to torpedo the 
 Orduna, but failed by a hair. This does not look like a 
 reversal of policy. Of course those chaps think we are 
 bluffing because we have been too polite. We have talked 
 Princetonian English to a water-front bully. I did not 
 believe for one moment that our friends, the Germans, were 
 so unable to see any other standpoint than their own. 
 
 I saw eX-secretary Nagle here the other day. We were 
 at the same table for lunch at the Cosmos Club. One of 
 the men at the table said, "I think Lane ought to have been 
 appointed Secretary of State." Nagle's usual diplomacy 
 deserted him, and with a face evidencing a heated mind 
 replied, "Oh, my God, that would never do, never do ; born 
 in Canada." So you see I am cut out from all these great 
 honors. Is this visiting the sins of the fathers upon the 
 children ? 
 
 I wish you joy in your work and I wish I could lay some 
 of my troubles on your shoulders. Mrs. Lane and I are 
 going up to see you just as soon as we get the chance. I had 
 to decline to address the American Bar Association because 
 I did not want to be away from here for a week. This is 
 1 Day of Cabinet meeting. 
 
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EUROPEAN WAR AND PERSONAL CONCERNS 177 
 
 Sunday, and I am trying to catch up some of my personal 
 mail which has been neglected for six weeks. Thus you may 
 know that I am in the Government Service. 
 
 I send you by this mail a copy of my speech in San Fran- 
 cisco, which has been gotten up to suit the artistic taste of 
 my private secretary. As always, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Frederic J. Lane 
 
 Washington, July 21, 1915 
 
 My dear Fritz, — I wish I could think of something I could 
 do for you dear people back there. I haven't heard from 
 George for a long while, but I hope he is getting something 
 in mind that makes him think life worth living. It is 
 strange that every lawyer I know would like to be situated 
 just as George is, with a little farm in a quiet dell. Last 
 night I talked with Senator Southerland. It is his hope 
 sometime to reach this ideal. And the other night I talked 
 with Justice Lamar, and told him of George's life, and he 
 said that he had dreamt of such an existence for fifty years 
 but has never been able to see his way to its realization. 
 
 There is no chance of our getting out to the Coast this 
 year. The President expects us to be within call, and I 
 am very much interested in the Mexican question, as to 
 which I have presented a program to him which so far he 
 has accepted. These are times of terrible strain upon him. 
 I saw him last night for a couple of hours, and the respon- 
 sibility of the situation weighs terribly upon him. How 
 to keep us out of war and at the same time maintain our 
 dignity — this is a task certainly large enough for the 
 largest of men. 
 
 Conditions politically are very unsettled, and much will 
 turn I suppose on what Congress does. More and more 
 
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178 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 I am getting to believe that it would be a good thing to have 
 universal military service. To have a boy of eighteen given 
 a couple of months for two or three years in the open would 
 be a good thing for him and would develop a very strong 
 national sense, which we much lack. The country believes 
 that a man must be paid for doing anything for his country. 
 We even propose to pay men for the time they put in drilling, 
 so as to protect their own liberties and property. This 
 is absurd ! We must all learn that sacrifices are necessary 
 if we are to have a country. The theory of the American 
 people, apparently, is that the country is to give, give, give, 
 and buy everything that it gets. 
 
 Hope things are going well with you. Drop me a line 
 when you can. Affectionately, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To John Crawford Burns 
 Rome, Italy 
 
 Washington, July 30, 1915 
 
 My dear John, — Things have come to such a tension here 
 that I doubt the wisdom of my discussing international 
 politics with you ; nevertheless, I want you not to be weary 
 in well-doing, but continue to give me the views of the Tory 
 Squire. I hope that your admiration for Balfour will prove 
 justified. Of course, our press, which can not be said to 
 sympathize strongly with the conservative side, makes it 
 appear that Lloyd George is now bearing a great part in 
 the work of securing ammunition. This is the inevitable 
 result of allowing the people to vote. The man who has the 
 people's confidence proves to be the most useful in a time of 
 emergency. However, it may be that Balfour is himself 
 directing all that Lloyd George does. 
 
 This morning's papers contain an official statement from 
 
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EUROPEAN WAR AND PERSONAL CONCERNS 179 
 
 Petrograd suggesting that the English get to work upon the 
 west line. This seems to me extremely unkind, inasmuch 
 as the English have already lost over 300,000 and have fur- 
 nished a large amount of money to Russia, I understand. 
 
 Pfeiffer sent me an article the other day from a German 
 professor, in which he said that the three million men that 
 Kitchener talked about was all a bluff. Pfeiffer keeps 
 sending me long protests against England's attitude re- 
 garding our trade, which seem to me to be fair statements 
 of international law. 
 
 The word that I get rather leads me to believe that the 
 war will last for at least another year and a half, which is 
 quite in line with Kitchener's prophecy, but where will all 
 these countries be from a financial standpoint at the end of 
 that time ? I fancy some of them will have to go into bank- 
 ruptcy and actually repudiate their debt, and what will 
 become by that time of the high-spirited French, who are 
 holding three hundred and fifty miles of line against eleven 
 held by the British and thirty by the Belgians ? 
 
 Yesterday I received a request from a German Inde- 
 pendence League for my resignation, as I was born under 
 the British flag and was supposed to be influential with 
 the President, who has recently sent a very direct and 
 business-like letter to Germany. My answer was that they 
 had mistaken my nationality. My real name was Lange 
 and my father had stricken out the G. ! Affectionately yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Eugene A. Avery 
 
 Washington, August 2, 1915 
 
 My dear Avery, — I am very glad to hear from you and 
 to get your verse. I had a glorious time at Berkeley. I 
 could have received no honor that would have given me 
 
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180 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 greater satisfaction, but oh ! as I look over that old list of 
 professors and associate professors ! I don't know a tenth 
 of them, and I never heard of half of them. How far I am 
 removed from the scholastic life, and how far we both are from 
 those old days when you used to sit with your pipe in your 
 mouth, in front of your cabin, and discourse to me upon 
 God and men ! 
 
 Well, we don't any of us know any more about God, but 
 we know something more about man. But after all is said 
 and done, I guess I like him about as much as I did in the 
 enthusiastic days when we used to quiz old Moses. The 
 streak of ideality that I had then I still retain. The reason 
 that I have remained a Democrat is because I felt that we 
 gave prime concern to the interests of men, as such, and had 
 more faith that we could help on a revolution. 
 
 These are times of trial. The well we look into is very 
 deep. The stars are not very bright. It is hard to find 
 our way, but the pilot has a good nerve. I know the trouble 
 that Ulysses had with Scylla and Charybdis. 
 
 Thank you, old man, very heartily for your word of cheer. 
 Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To John F. Davis 
 
 Washington, August 2, 1915 
 My dear John, — I am very glad to get your letter of 
 July 28, telling me your views regarding the last note. I 
 believe the paragraph to which you refer was absolutely 
 essential to make Germany understand that we meant busi- 
 ness; that she could not have taken our opposition 
 seriously is evidenced by her previous note, and which, I 
 think, was as insulting as any note ever addressed by one 
 power to another. Think of the absurd proposition, that 
 
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EUROPEAN WAR AND PERSONAL CONCERNS 181 
 
 we should be allowed a certain number of ships to be pre- 
 scribed by Germany upon which our people could sail ! Of 
 course, if we accepted her conditions, we would have to 
 accept the conditions that any other belligerent, or neutral, 
 for that matter, might impose. What becomes of a neutral's 
 rights under these conditions? 
 
 The Leenalaw case shows that Germany can do exactly 
 what we have been asking her to do; namely, give people 
 a chance to get off the ship before they blow her up. This 
 is good sense and good morals ; and the whole neutral world 
 is behind us. If, in response to our note, Germany had 
 said, "We regret the destruction of American lives, and are 
 willing to make reparation, and have directed our submarines 
 that they shall not torpedo any ships until the ship has been 
 given an opportunity to halt," there would have been no 
 trouble ; but Germany evidently did not take us seriously. 
 Our English was a bit too diplomatic. 
 
 I am writing you thus frankly, and in confidence, of 
 course, because I respect your opinion greatly. Cordially 
 yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 In the middle of August, Lane joined his family at Essex-on- 
 Champlain, New York, for a few days. While there he 
 went with Mr. and Mrs. James S. Harlan to Westport, some 
 miles further south on the lake, to see the summer boat races 
 and water sports. Mr. Harlan's motor-boat, the Gladwater, 
 which had been built on his dock by Dick Mead, won the 
 race, and that evening on their return Lane gave the fol- 
 lowing letter to the successful builder : — 
 
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182 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 August 21, 1915 
 
 To "Dick" Mead on winning the race at Westport in 
 
 the Gladwater. 
 
 We wonder sometimes why man was made, so full is life 
 of things that terrorize, that sadden and embitter. This 
 life is a sea ; tranquil sometimes but so often fierce and cruel. 
 And you and I are conscript sailors. Whether we will or 
 no we must sail the sea of life, and in a ship that each must 
 build for himself. To each is given iron and unhewn timber, 
 to some more and to some less, with which to fashion his 
 craft. Then the race really starts. 
 
 Some of us build ships that are no more than rafts, form- 
 less, lazy things that float. Fair weather things for moon- 
 light nights. But others, high-hearted men of vision, will 
 not be satisfied to drift with the current or accept the easy 
 way. They know that they can do better than drift, and 
 they must ! The timber and the iron become plastic under 
 their touch. The dreams of the long night they test in the 
 too-short day. They make and they unmake; they drop 
 their tools perhaps for a time and drift; they despair and 
 curse their impatient and unsatisfied souls. But rising, they 
 set to work again, and one day comes the reward, the planks 
 fit together, and feeling the purpose of the builder, clasp each 
 other in firm and beautiful lines ; the unwilling metal at 
 last melts into form and place and becomes the harmonious 
 heart of the whole — and so a ship is born that masters the 
 cruel sea, that cuts the fierce waves with a knife of courage. 
 
 To dream and model, to join and file, to melt and carve, to 
 balance and adjust, to test and to toil — these are the 
 making of the ship. And to a few like yourself comes the 
 vision of the true line and the glory of the victory. Sin- 
 cerely yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
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EUROPEAN WAR AND PERSONAL CONCERNS 183 
 
 To John Crawford Burns 
 Rome, Italy 
 
 Washington, August 81, 1915 
 
 My dear John, — ... I met three friends of yours in 
 New York the other day, Lamb, Fletcher, and Pfeiffer, to 
 whom I told in my dismal way, the correspondence that we 
 have been carrying on, and all sympathized with me very 
 sincerely. 
 
 Things look brighter now. The President seems to have 
 been able to make Germany hear him at last. I am very 
 much surprised that you think we ought to enter the war. 
 Now that you have secured Italy to intervene, what is the 
 necessity? What have you to offer by way of a bribe? 
 I see that you are distributing territory generously. Or do 
 you think that we should go in because we were threatened 
 as England was — although she says it was Belgium that 
 brought her in ? Fletcher is very much for fighting ; Lamb 
 says that the Allies will win in the next two weeks. Pfeiffer 
 thinks that nobody will win. I can't tell you what I think. 
 If I were only nearer I would have more fun with you. 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Sidney E. Mezes 
 President of the College of the City of New York 
 
 Washington, September 7, 1915 
 My dear Sid, — I enclose a more formal letter for presenta- 
 tion to your friend, Baron de . Why in hell you should 
 
 plague me with this thing, except that I am the only real 
 good-natured man connected with the Government, I don't 
 understand. Speaking of good nature reminds me that 
 you are a clam ; in fact, a clam is vociferous alongside of 
 you. 
 
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184 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 As you know I have been guiding the affairs of this 
 Government for the past three months, and have received 
 advice from every man, woman, and child in the country, 
 including the German-American Union, the Independent 
 Union, the Friends of Peace, the Sons of Hibernia, and all 
 the other troglodytes that live ; and yet, you alone have not 
 thought me of sufficient consequence to advise me as to 
 what to do with the Kaiser or Carranza or Hoke Smith or 
 Roosevelt. 
 
 Before you go back to work why don't you come down 
 here and spend a day or two? We can have a perfectly 
 bully time, and I will tell you how to run your University 
 and you can tell me how to run the Government. . . . 
 
 I have not seen House nor heard from him, though I have 
 wanted to talk with him more than with any other human 
 being, these three months gone. Yours as always, 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To Cordenio Severance 
 
 Washington, September 13, 1915 
 
 My dear Cordy, — I envy you very much the opportunity 
 that you have to entertain Miss Nancy Lane. 1 When she 
 is herself, she is a most charming young lady. She has 
 powers of fascination excelled by few. If she grows angry, 
 owing to her artistic temperament, and throws plates at 
 you or chases you out of the house with a broom, you must 
 forgive her because you know that great artists like Sarah 
 Bernhardt often have this failing. 
 
 Perhaps you do not know it, but she used to be a great 
 violinist in her younger days. I doubt if she knows one 
 string from another now. The only strings that she can 
 play on are your heart strings, or mine, or any other man's 
 
 1 Born January i, 1903. 
 
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EUROPEAN WAR AND PERSONAL CONCERNS 185 
 
 that comes into her neighborhood. I shall rely upon your 
 honor not to propose to her, because she is already engaged 
 to me ; in fact, we have been engaged nearly twelve years, 
 and if she should become engaged to you, I will sue you for 
 stealing her affections and will engage the firm of Davis 
 Kellogg and Severance to prosecute my suit. If she says 
 anything about a desire to get back to school, you can put 
 it down as a bluff, and I trust that you will not swamp her 
 with attentions and with company lest it should turn her 
 head. She is accustomed to the simple life — a breakfast 
 of oatmeal porridge, a luncheon of boiled macaroni, and a 
 dinner of hash — these are the three things that she is used 
 to. If she shows any disposition to be affectionate toward 
 you or Aunt Maidie, I trust that you will repress her with an 
 iron hand. The young women of this day, as you know, are 
 very forward, and these new dances seem to be especially 
 designed to destroy maiden modesty. 
 
 . . . You may tell her that her brother seems to be very 
 anxious to hear from her, being solicitous two or three times 
 a day as to the mail. I judge from this that he is expecting 
 a letter from her — or someone else. 
 
 You are very good to be giving my little one such a fine 
 time. My love to Maidie. Cordially yours, 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To Frederick Dixon 
 Christian Science Monitor 
 
 Washington, October 7, 1915 
 
 Dear Mr. Dixon, — I have your letter of October 1st. 
 You have asked me a very difficult question, which is really 
 this : — How to get into a man's nature an appreciation of our 
 form of government and its benefits ? 
 
 I cannot answer this question. There are certain natures 
 
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186 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 which do not sympathize with the exercise of or the develop- 
 ment of common authority, which is the essence of De- 
 mocracy. They are instinctively monarchists. They love 
 order more than liberty. They do not see how a balance 
 can be struck between the two. By force of environment 
 and education their sons may see otherwise. I know of 
 no other way of making Americans, than by getting into 
 them by enviroment and education a love for liberty and 
 a recognition of its advantages. Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Robert H. Patchin 
 
 Washington, November 27, 1915 
 
 My dear Patchin, — Mrs. Lane and I would be delighted 
 to join in your fiesta to Mrs. Eleanor Egan, but we just 
 can't. Why? Because we have a dinner on December 
 2nd, also because we are neutral. . . . 
 
 We can not countenance any one who has been in jail. 
 To have been in jail proves poverty. Nor do we regard it as 
 fitting that a young woman should have been torpedoed 
 and spent forty-five minutes in the water splashing around 
 like Mrs. Leeks or Mrs. Aleshine. If she was torpedoed 
 why didn't she go down or up like a heroine? Then she 
 would have had an atrocious iron statue erected in her honor 
 among the other horrors in Central Park. After her experi- 
 ence she will doubtless be more sympathetic toward those 
 of us who are torpedoed daily and weekly and monthly and 
 have to splash around for the amusement of a curious 
 public. 
 
 I hope your dinner of welcome and rejoicing will be as 
 gay as the cherubic smile of the Right Honorable Egan. 
 Cordially, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
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EUROPEAN WAR AND PERSONAL CONCERNS 187 
 
 To Francis R. Wall 
 
 Washington, November 27, 1915 
 My dear Wall, — I wish that I had time for a long letter 
 to you, such as yours to me. But I am only to-day able to 
 get at my personal correspondence which has accumulated 
 in the last six weeks. These have been times of annual 
 reports and estimates, and we have a large number of 
 internal troubles which need constant attention. 
 
 I am afraid that we are going to have a great deal of 
 trouble in getting our preparedness program through, be- 
 cause of dissension in our own ranks and because the Repub- 
 licans are so anxious to take advantage of this emergency 
 to raise the tariff duties and to gain credit for whatever is 
 done in the way of preparation. We are too much dom- 
 inated by partisanship to be really patriotic. This is a 
 very broad indictment, but it seems to be justified. Of 
 course, the people like Bryan and Ford, and the women 
 generally, are moved by a philosophy that is too idealistic, 
 and some of them are only moved, I fear, by an intense ex- 
 aggerated ego. If I would have to name the one curse of 
 the present day, I would say it is the love of notoriety and 
 the assumption by almost everyone that his judgment is 
 as good as that of the ablest. Of course, the trouble with 
 the ablest people is that they are so largely moved by forces 
 that do not appear on the surface, that one does not know 
 that the views they express are really their own judgment. 
 Democracy seems to be government by suspicion, in large 
 part. We have faith in ourselves, but not in each other. 
 A man to be a good partisan seems called upon to believe 
 that every man of different view is a crook or a weakling. 
 This is the Roosevelt idea. And half of it is the Bryan idea. 
 
 I wish that I could see you, old man, and have one of 
 our old time talks. . . . 
 
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188 LETTERS OF FRANKUN K. LANE 
 
 I shall bear in mind what you say as to the availability of 
 your service, but I hope it may not be necessary to take you 
 from that land of sunshine and dreams that seems so remote 
 from this center of intrigue and trouble. Affectionately yours , 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To John H. Wigmore 
 
 Washington, December 8, 1915 
 
 My dear John, — ... Things are not looking at all nice 
 as to Germany and Austria. I know that the country is 
 not satisfied, at least part of it, with our patience, but I 
 don't see just what else we can do but be patient. Our ships 
 are not needed anywhere, and our soldiers do not exist. 
 To-day brings word of the blowing up of an American ship. 
 Of course, we do not know the details but the thing looks ugly. 
 Wasn't the President's message on the hyphenated gentle- 
 men bully ? You could not have beaten that yourself. And 
 your dear friend T. Roosevelt, did certainly write himself 
 down as one large and glorious ass in his criticism of the 
 message. He hates Wilson so, that he has just lost his mind. 
 I wish I didn't have to say this about Roosevelt, because 
 I am extremely fond of him (which you are not), but 
 a poorer interview on the message could not have been 
 
 written. ... As always yours, 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 The following letter was written to Mrs. Adolph Miller 
 when she was in a hospital in New York. 
 
 To Mrs. Adolph C. Miller 
 
 Washington, December 12, [1915] 
 
 My dear Mary, — We have just returned from Church and 
 all morning I have been thinking of you and Adolph — 
 praying for you I suppose in my Pagan way. 
 
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EUROPEAN WAR AND PERSONAL CONCERNS 189 
 
 Poor dear girl, I know you are brave but I'd just like to hold 
 your hand or look steadily into your eyes, to tell you that 
 you have the best thing that this world gives — friends 
 who are one with you. I can see old Adolph with his grim- 
 ness and his great love, which makes him more grim and 
 far more mandatory, what a sturdy old Dutch Calvinist he 
 is ! He really is more Dutch than German — Dutch modi- 
 fied by the California sun — and Calvinist sweetened by 
 you and Boulder Creek, and Berkeley and William James 
 and B. I. Wheeler and his Saint of a Mother. Well, let 
 him pass, why should I talk of him when you really want 
 me to talk of myself ! 
 
 Last night we had the Gridiron dinner, and the President 
 made an exalted speech. He is spiritually great, Mary, 
 and don't you dare smile and think of the widow ! We 
 are all dual, old Emerson said it in his Essay on Free Will, 
 and Adolph can tell you what old Greek said it. And this 
 duality is where the fight comes in, and the two people walk 
 side by side, to-day is Jekyll's day, and tomorrow is Hyde's, 
 and so they alternate. 
 
 Well, the Gridiron was a grind on Bryan and Villard and 
 Ford, and a boost for preparedness and Garrison and the 
 Army and Navy. Tell Adolph they had a Democratic mule, 
 two men walking together under a cover, the head end 
 reasonable, the hind end kicking — the front end of course 
 represented the Wilson crowd and the hind end the Bryan- 
 Kitchen, — and the two wouldn't work together. The 
 whole thing was splendidly done and was a lesson to the 
 few Democrats who were there — which they won't learn. 
 
 Nancy went to her second party last night — a joyous 
 thing in a new evening cloak of old rose, which made her 
 feel that Cleopatra and the Queen of Sheba and Mrs. Gait 
 and all other exalted ladies had nothing on her. What 
 
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190 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 a glorious thing life would be if we could remain children, 
 with all the simple joys and none of the horrors that age 
 brings on. There is certainly a good fifty per cent chance 
 that this fine spirit will marry some damn brute who will 
 worry and harass the soul out of her. For so the world 
 goes. • I hope she'll be as fortunate as you have been. 
 
 To-night we go to the Polks to see Mrs. Martin Egan 
 who was on a torpedoed ship in the Mediterranean, and 
 although she couldn't swim floated forty-five minutes till 
 rescued. You must know the Polks well. She has very 
 real charm and your old Mormon of a husband will desert 
 his other fairies for her. 
 
 Now I have gossiped and preached and prophesied and 
 mourned and otherwise revealed what passes through a 
 wandering mind in half an hour, so I send you, at the close 
 of this screed, my blessing, which is a poor gift, and I would 
 send you the parcel post limit of my love if it weren't for 
 Anne and Adolph, who are narrow-minded Dutch Calvinists. 
 May good fortune betide you and bring you back very soon 
 to the many whose hearts are sympathetic. 
 
 Frank 
 
 To Mrs. Magnus Andersen 
 
 Washington, D.C., December 24, [1915] 
 
 My dear Matjdie, — It is Christmas eve, and while Nancy 
 and Anne are filling the mysterious stockings, I am writing 
 these letters to the best of brothers and sister. It has been 
 a long, a disgracefully long time since I wrote you, but I 
 have kept in touch pretty well through George and 
 Anne. ... So you have now a philosophy — something 
 to hang to ! I am glad of it. The standpoint is the valu- 
 able thing. There are profound depths in the idea that 
 lies under Christian Science, but like all other new things it 
 
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EUROPEAN WAR AND PERSONAL CONCERNS 191 
 
 goes to unreasonable lengths. "Be Moderate," were the 
 words written over the Temple on the Acropolis, and this 
 applies to all things. This world is curiously complex, and 
 no one knows how to answer all our puzzles. Sometimes 
 I think that God himself does not. There is a fine poem 
 by Emerson called, The Sphinx, which is the most hopeful 
 thing that I have found, because it recognizes the dual world 
 in which we live, for everything goes not singly but in pairs 
 
 — good and evil, matter and mind. Then, too, you may 
 be interested in his essay on Fate. 
 
 Dear Fritz — dear, dear boy, how I wish I could be there 
 with him, though I could do no good. . . . Each night 
 I pray for him, and I am so much of a Catholic that I pray 
 to the only Saint I know or ever knew and ask her to help. 
 If she lives her mind can reach the minds of the doctors 
 just as surely as there is such a thing as transmission 
 of thought between us, or hypnotism. I don't need her to 
 intercede with God, but I would like her to intercede with 
 man. Why, oh why, do we not know whether she is or not ! 
 Then all the universe would be explained to me. The only 
 miracle that I care about is the resurrection. If we live 
 again we certainly have reason for living now. I think that 
 belief is the foundation hope of religion. Anne has it with 
 a certainty that is to me nothing less than amazing. And 
 people of noble minds, of exalted spirits, not necessarily of 
 greatest intellects have it. George has it in his own way, 
 and he is certainly one of the real men of the earth. The 
 President has it strongly. He is, in fact, deeply, truly re- 
 ligious. The slanders on him are infamous.. 
 
 . . . We are to have the quietest possible Christmas. 
 No one but ourselves at dinner — I give no presents at all 
 
 — for financially we are up to our eyebrows. I probably 
 will work all day except for an hour or two which I shall 
 
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192 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 use in playing with Nancy, for her gay spirit will not allow 
 anything but the Christmas spirit to prevail. She is so 
 like our Dear One, so determined, cheerful, hopeful, 
 courageous, yet very shy. Ned will be out all night 
 at dances and tomorrow too, for he is a most popular chap 
 and very well-behaved indeed. His manners are excellent 
 and he has plenty of dash. He is learning these things now 
 which I learned only after many years, the little things which 
 make the conventional man of the world. 
 
 I hope that you will find the New Year one of great peace 
 of mind and real serenity of soul. May you commune with 
 the Spirit of the Infinite and find yourself growing more 
 and more in the spiritual image of the Dear One. 
 
 My tenderest love to you and to your good high-hearted 
 man, and to the Boy. 
 
 Feank 
 
 To Mrs. Adolph C. Miller 
 
 Washington [1915] 
 
 This is a Christmas letter and is addressed: — "To a 
 Brave Young Woman. " I am afraid it is not just as cheery 
 and merry as it should be because, you see, it's like this, I 
 am poor — very, very poor, and I have very good taste 
 — very, very good taste. Now those two things can't get 
 on together at Christmas. Then, too, I am busy — very, 
 very busy, so I don't have time to shop. Now if you were 
 very, very poor and had very, very good taste and were very, 
 very busy and couldn't shop — how in heaven could you 
 buy anything for anyone? 
 
 I did take half an hour or so to look at things, and things 
 were so ugly that were cheap that of course I couldn't buy 
 them without confessing poor taste, or they were so very 
 expensive that I couldn't buy them without confessing bank- 
 
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EUROPEAN WAR AND PERSONAL CONCERNS 193 
 
 ruptcy. Now there you are! So what could a poor boy 
 do but come home empty-handed, nothing for Anne or 
 Nancy or Ned or you — not even something for myself! 
 And I need things, socks and pipe, and better writing paper 
 than this, and music and toothpaste and some new clothes, 
 and a house near your palace, and a more contented spirit 
 and another job and Ahellofalotof things. Don't get 
 nervous about me, because I'm not going to kill myself for 
 lack of all these things, although a true-born Samurai, loyal 
 to Bushido might do so. For it is dishonor not to be rich 
 at Christmas time ; not to feel rich, anyway. But then let 
 me see what I've got ! There's Anne ! I expect if sold on 
 the block, at public auction, say in Alaska, where women 
 are scarce, she would bring some price; but her digestion 
 isn't very good and her heart is quite weak and her hair is 
 falling out. But these things, of course, the auctioneer 
 wouldn't reveal. She would make a fine Duchess, but the 
 market just now is overstocked with Duchesses. And she 
 is a good provider when furnished with the provisions. 
 
 Now there is Ned — he could hire out as a male assistant 
 to a female dancer and get fifty a week, perhaps. Nancy 
 couldn't even do that. They are both liabilities. So there 
 you are, with Duchesses on the contraband list, and Nancy 
 not old enough to marry a decayed old Pittsburg million- 
 aire, I will be compelled to keep on working. For my assets 
 aren't what your noble husband would call quick, though 
 they are live. I really don't know what to do. I shall wait 
 till Anne comes home and then, as usual, do what she says. 
 
 I really did look for something for you. But the only 
 thing I saw that I thought you would care for was a brooch, 
 opal and diamonds for seven hundred and seventy-five dol- 
 lars, so I said you wouldn't care for it. But I bought it 
 for you & la Christian Science. You have it, see ? I think 
 
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194 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 you have it, that I gave it to you. And that Adolph doesn 't 
 know it, see ? 
 
 Well you have the opal and I am happy because you are 
 enjoying it. Such fire ! What a superb setting ! And such 
 refined taste, platinum, do you notice ! oh, so modest ! No 
 one else has any such jewel. How Henry will admire it 
 — and how mystified Adolph is ! Tell him you bought it 
 out of the money you saved on corned beef. How I shall 
 enjoy seeing you wear it, and knowing that it bears in its 
 fiery heart all the ardent poetry that I would fain pour out, 
 but am deterred by my shyness. But you will understand ! 
 Each night you must take it out just for a glimpse before 
 saying your prayers. The opal is from Australia, the 
 platinum from Siberia, the diamonds from Africa, the setting 
 was designed in Paris. And here it is, the circle of the world 
 has been made to secure this little thing of beauty for you. 
 What symbolism ! 
 
 I hope it will make you happy, and cause you to forget 
 all your pain and weakness. It has given me great hap- 
 piness to give you this little gift. And so we will both have 
 a merry Christmas. 
 
 Fkank 
 
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VIII 
 
 AMERICAN AND MEXICAN AFFAIRS 
 
 1916 
 
 On Writing English — Visit to Monticello — Citizenship for Indians 
 — On Religion — American-Mexican Joint Commission 
 
 To William M. Boh 
 Great Falls Tribune 
 
 Washington, December 29, 1915 
 
 Dear Bole, — I am very much gratified by the manner 
 in which you treated my annual report. Certainly my 
 old newspaper training has stood me in good stead in writ- 
 ing my reports. In fact it always has, for while I was Cor- 
 poration Counsel in San Francisco, and a member of the 
 Interstate Commerce Commission, I wrote legal opinions 
 that were intelligible to the layman, and I tried to present 
 my facts in such manner as to make their presentation in- 
 teresting. The result was that the courts read my opinions 
 and sustained them, but whether they were equally impres- 
 sive upon the strictly legal mind, I have my doubts, because 
 you know inside the "union" there is a strong feeling that 
 the argot of the bar must be spoken and the simplest legal 
 questions dealt with in profound, philosophic, latinized 
 vocabulary. 
 
 I remember that after I was elected Corporation Counsel, 
 when I was almost unknown to the bar of San Francisco, I 
 began to hear criticism from my legal friends that my opin- 
 
 195 
 
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196 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 ions were written in English that was too simple, so I in- 
 dulged myself by writing a dozen or so in all the heavy style 
 that I could put on, writing in as many Latin phrases and 
 as much old Norman French as was possible. This was by 
 way of showing the crowd that I was still a member of the 
 union. 
 
 I find that all our scientific bureaus suffer from the same 
 malady. These scientists write for each other, as the 
 women say they dress for each other. One of the first 
 orders that I issued was that our letters should be written in 
 simple English, in words of one syllable if possible, and on 
 one page if possible. 
 
 Soon after I came here I found a letter from one of our 
 lawyers to an Indian, explaining the conditions of his title, 
 that was so involved and elaborately braided and beaded 
 and fringed that I could not understand it myself. I out- 
 raged the sensibilities of every lawyer in the Department, 
 and we have five hundred or more of them, by sending this 
 letter back and asking that it be put in straightaway Eng- 
 lish. . . . Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Mrs. Adolph C. Miller 
 
 Washington, [January 1, 1916] 
 
 Having just sent a wire to you I shall now indulge my- 
 self in a few minutes talk with that many-sided, multiple- 
 natured, quite obvious-and-yet-altogether-hidden person who 
 is known to me as Mary Miller. 
 
 The flash of brilliant crimson on the eastern side of the 
 opal, do you catch it? Now that is the flash of courage, 
 the brilliant flame that will lead you to hold your head high. 
 ... I like very much what you say as to wearing our jewel 
 "discreetly but constantly." No combination of words 
 
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AMERICAN AND MEXICAN AFFAIRS 197 
 
 could more perfectly express the relationship which this 
 bit of sunrise has established between us — devotion, loy- 
 alty, telepathic communication without publicity. I am 
 sure you are belittling yourself, . . . you are a game bird, 
 — good, you understand, but with a tang, a something 
 wild in flavor, a touch of the woods and mountain flowers 
 and hidden dells in bosky places, and wanderings and sweet 
 revolt against captivity. . . . 
 
 This is my first line of the New Year. Anne is a true 
 daughter of Martha this morning — her heart is troubled 
 with many things, getting ready for the raid of the Huns 
 this afternoon. She says she will write when she re-pos- 
 sesses herself of her right arm. Good health ! 
 
 Some days later 
 
 ... I have been receiving your wireless messages all 
 week, my dear Mary, and not one was an S. O. S. Good ! 
 The fair ship Mary Miller is safe. Hurrah! She never 
 has been staunch, but she was the gayest thing on the sea, 
 and when her sails were all set from jib to spanker she made 
 a gladsome sight, and some speed. 
 
 Of course, being so gay she was venturesome. That's 
 where the Devil comes in. He is always looking about for 
 the gay things. He hates anything that doesn't make medi- 
 cine for him. If you are gay you are likely to be venture- 
 some, and if venturesome, you can be led astray. So the 
 good ship Mary Miller instead of hugging the shore took a 
 try at the vasty deep and got all blown to pieces. Then 
 she sent out a cry for help. The wireless worked and now 
 with a little puttering along in the sunshine and a lazy sea, 
 she will be her gay self once more, and like Kipling's Three 
 Decker will "carry tired people to the Islands of the Blest." 
 
 That was a most charming letter you sent me, a real bit 
 of intimate talk. Anne read it first. She is very careful as 
 
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198 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 to my reading. And I was glad to know that she could 
 discover nothing in it which might injuriously affect my 
 trustful young mind. Anne is really a good woman. I 
 don't believe in husband's abusing their wives, publicly. 
 Good manners are essential to happiness in married life. 
 We are short on manners in this country, and that explains 
 the prevalence of divorce. How much better, as our friend 
 L. Sterne once said, "These things are ordered in France." 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To Edward F. Adams 
 San Francisco Chronicle 
 
 Washington, January 11, 1916 
 
 My dear Adams, — I have yours of the 2nd. Of course, 
 you can not sue the United States to get possession of its 
 property without the consent of the United States ; but I 
 will forgive you for all your peculiar and archaic notions re- 
 garding government lands and schools and sich, because I 
 love you for what you are and not because of your inheri- 
 tance of old-fashioned ideas. 
 
 As I am dictating this letter I look up at the wall and dis- 
 cover there the head of a bull moose, and that bull moose 
 makes me think of all the things you said four years ago 
 about Roosevelt. And now he is to be again the master 
 of your party — perhaps not a candidate, because he may 
 be guilty of an act of self-abnegation and put away the 
 crown, or take it in his own hands and place it upon some 
 one else's brow. 
 
 I remember the manner — the scornful, satirical, some- 
 times pitiful and sometimes abusive manner — in which 
 you treated the Bull Moose ; and so we are going to have a 
 great spectacle, the Bull Moose and the Elephant kissing 
 each other at Chicago ; and seated on the Elephant's shoul- 
 
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AMERICAN AND MEXICAN AFFAIRS 199 
 
 ders will be the crowned mahout with the big barbed stick 
 in his hand, telling you which way to turn and when to kneel ! 
 
 Of course, you will abuse us all for our land policies, but 
 overlook the fact that the brutalities of these policies were 
 committed in other days — those good, old Republican 
 days. It really is a wonder that you are not cynical and 
 that you still have enthusiasm. I should not be surprised 
 if you said your prayers and had belief in another world, 
 where all the bad Democrats would sizzle to the eternal 
 joy of the good Republicans. In those days I shall look up 
 to you and I know that you will not deny me the drop of 
 cold water. 
 
 I shall be very much interested in seeing what kind of a 
 fist our man Claxton makes out of your school system, and 
 I hope you can use him as a means of arousing interest in 
 the schools. That is one trouble with the public school 
 system, because we get our education for nothing we treat 
 it as if it was worth nothing — I mean those of us who are 
 parents. We never know that the school exists except to 
 make some complaint about discipline or taxes. 
 
 May you live long and be happy. Always yours, 
 
 Fbanklin K. Lane 
 
 From time to time as vacancies occurred on the Supreme 
 Bench, letters and telegrams came to Lane from friends 
 that begged him to allow them to urge his appointment to 
 this office. In 1912, 1914, and 1916 the newspapers in 
 different parts of the country mentioned him as a probable 
 appointee. While, as a young lawyer, this office had seemed 
 to him to be one greatly to be desired, after he came to 
 Washington and knew more of the nature of the cases that 
 necessarily formed the greater part of the work passed upon 
 by the Supreme Court, his interest waned. As early as 
 
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200 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K LANE 
 
 1913 he wrote of the decisions of the Interstate Commerce 
 Commission, "If we are wise, we are not to be terrorized 
 by our own precedents." An office in which there was little 
 opportunity for constructive or executive work grew to have 
 less and less attraction for him. 
 
 To Carl Snyder 
 
 Washington, January 22, 1916 
 
 My dear Carl, — I am your most dutiful and obedient 
 servant; the aforesaid modest declaration being induced 
 by your letter of January fifth, offering to place me on the 
 Bench. I regret greatly that you are not the President of 
 the United States, but he seems to have a notion that it 
 would be a shame to spoil an excellent Secretary of the 
 Interior. 
 
 Talking of robes, there is an idea in Chesterton that is 
 not bad, that all those who exercise power in the world wear 
 skirts — the judge, who can officially kill a man ; the woman, 
 who can unofficially do the same thing ; and the King, who 
 is the State ; likewise the Pope, who can save the souls of all. 
 
 Garrett was in to-day, and if you haven't seen him since 
 his return, edge up next to him. He is full of facts, some of 
 which are new to us. 
 
 I guess I am to credit you with that little editorial in 
 Collier's, eh ? Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Mrs. Franklin K. Lane 
 Atlantic City 
 
 Washington, February 5, 1916 
 
 Most respected Lady, — Having just returned from lunch- 
 eon and being in the enjoyment of a cigar of fine aroma 
 
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AMERICAN AND MEXICAN AFFAIRS 201 
 
 I sit me down for a quiet talk. I am visualizing you as by 
 my side and addressing you in person. 
 
 First, no doubt, you will care to hear of the reception 
 given at the White House last evening. According to your 
 directions, I first dined with the Secretary of Agriculture, 
 his wife, and a lady from Providence. . . . Going then to 
 the White House we socialized for a few minutes before 
 proceeding down stairs. The President expressed himself 
 as regretting your absence, and the President's lady, having 
 heard from you, expressed solicitude as to your health. I 
 loitered for a few minutes behind the line and then betook 
 me to the President's library, where I spent most of the 
 evening hearing the Postmaster General tell of the great 
 burden that it was to have a Congress on his hands., Ber- 
 nard Shaw writes of the Superman, and so does, I believe, 
 the crazy philosopher of Germany. I was convinced last 
 night that I had met one in the flesh. . . . 
 
 The President is cheerful, regarding his Western tour as 
 one of triumph. His lady still wears the smile which has 
 given her such pre-eminence. Mrs. Marshall was in line, 
 looking like a girl of twenty. Those absent were the Wife 
 of the Secretary of War, the wife of the Secretary of the 
 Interior, and the wife of the Secretary of Labor. . . . 
 
 You have two most excellent children, dear madam — a 
 youth of some eighteen years who has a frisky wit and a 
 more frisky pair of feet. Your daughter is a most charming 
 witch. I mean by this not to refer to her age . . . but 
 to that combination of poise, directness, tenderness, fire, 
 hypocrisy, and other feminine virtues which go to make up 
 the most charming, because the most elusive, of your sex. 
 I am inclined to believe that Mr. Ruggles, of Red Gap, 
 would not regard either your son or your daughter as fitted 
 for those high social circles in which they move by reason 
 
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202 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 of the precision of their vocabulary or their extreme reserve 
 in manner, both being of very distinct personality. One is 
 flint and the other steel, I find, so that fire is struck when 
 they come together. While engaged, however, in the game 
 of draw poker, these antipathetic qualities do not reveal 
 themselves in such a manner as to seriously affect domestic 
 peace. I have spent two entire evenings with your chil- 
 dren, much to my entertainment. That I will not be able 
 to enjoy this evening with them is a matter of regret, but 
 I am committed to a dinner with the Honorable Kirke Por- 
 ter, and tomorrow evening I believe that I am to dine with 
 the lady on R. Street, the name of the aforesaid lady being 
 now out of my mind, but you will recall her as having a bril- 
 liant mind and very slight eyebrows. 
 
 Neither the President nor myself alluded to the late la- 
 mented oversight on his part, and on meeting the members 
 of the Supreme Court I did not find that by the omission 
 to appoint me on said Court the members thereof felt that 
 a great national loss had been suffered. No one, in fact, 
 throughout the evening alluded to this miscarriage of wis- 
 dom. . . . 
 
 . . . Much solicitude was expressed by many of those 
 present regarding your health. I told them in my off-hand 
 manner that I was enjoying your absence greatly. . . . 
 
 Having now had this most enjoyable talk with you, I 
 shall delight myself with an hour's discussion of oil leases 
 upon the Osage Reservation with one Cato Sells. 
 
 Believe me, my dear madam, your most respectful obe- 
 dient, humble, meek, modest, mild, loyal, loving, and dis- 
 consolate servant, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
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AMERICAN AND MEXICAN AFFAIRS 203 
 
 To Will Irwin 
 
 Washington, February 11, 1916 
 Dear Will, — So you are off for the happiest voyage you 
 have ever made, with the girl of your heart, to see the 
 whole world being changed and a new world made. What 
 a joy ! Don't put off returning too long. Remember that 
 books must be timely now, and after you have a gizzard 
 full of good chapter headings, come back and grind. 
 
 Nancy entirely approves of your wife and her books. As 
 always yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To 
 
 Washington, February 29, 1916 
 ... It is none of my business, but I have just seen an 
 article coming out over your name respecting Pinchot, the 
 wisdom of which I doubt. I have never found any good 
 to come by blurring an issue by personal contest or antago- 
 nisms. You asked me when you left if you might not come 
 in once in a while and talk with me, and I am taking the 
 liberty in this way of dropping in on you, for I am deeply 
 interested in water power development and want to see 
 something result this Session. 
 
 I have no time to waste in fighting people, and I have 
 found that by pursuing this policy I can promote measures 
 that I favor. To fight for a thing, the best way is to show 
 its advantages and the need for it, and ignore those who do 
 not take the same view, because there is an umpire in Con- 
 gress that must balance the two positions, and therefore I 
 can rely upon the strength of my position as against the 
 weakness of the other man's position. If those who are in 
 favor of water power development get to fighting each other, 
 nothing will result. 
 
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204 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 I am giving you the benefit of this attitude of mine for 
 your own guidance. It may be entirely contrary to the 
 policy that you, or your people, wish to pursue and my only 
 solicitude is that the things I am for, should not be held 
 back any longer by personal disputes. Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Hon. Woodrow Wilson 
 The White House 
 
 Washington, March 13, 1916 
 
 My dear Mr. President, — I shall be pleased to go to the 
 San Diego Exposition, on my way to San Francisco, and say 
 a word as your representative at its opening. 
 
 I hope that you may find your way made less difficult 
 than now appears possible, as to entering Mexico. My 
 judgment is that to fail in getting Villa would ruin us in the 
 eyes of all Latin- Americans. I do not say that they respect 
 only force, but like children they pile insult upon insult if 
 they are not stopped when the first insult is given. If I 
 can be of any service to you by observation or by carrying 
 any message for you to anybody, while I am West, I trust 
 that you will command me. I can return by way of Ari- 
 zona and New Mexico. . . . Faithfully yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 Lane re-opened the California International Exposition 
 at San Diego, where, voicing the President's regret that he 
 could not himself be present, Lane said, — "He had in- 
 tended to make this trip himself ; but circumstances, some to 
 the east of him and some to the south of him, made that 
 impossible. . . . Pitted against him are the trained and 
 cunning intellects of the whole world, . . . and no one can be 
 more conscious than is he that it is difficult to reconcile pride 
 
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FRANKLIN K. LANE WITH ETHAN ALLEN, SUPERINTENDENT OF 
 RAINIER NATIONAL PARK 
 
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AMERICAN AND MEXICAN AFFAIRS 205 
 
 and patience. I give you his greeting therefore, not out of a 
 heart that is joyous and buoyant, but out of a heart that is 
 grave and firm in its resolution that the future of our Re- 
 public and all republics shall not be put in peril." 
 
 From San Diego he went north to San Francisco, to see 
 his brother Frederic J. Lane, who had been ill for some 
 months. After a few days with him Lane returned to his 
 desk, in Washington. 
 
 To Frederic J. Lane 
 
 Washington, April 26, 1916 
 My dear FritE, — ... I certainly will not despair of 
 your being cured until every possible resource has been ex- 
 hausted. The odds, it seems to me, are in your favor. 
 Whenever Abrams and Vecchi say that they have done all 
 that they can, if you are still in condition to travel, I want 
 you to try the Arkansas Hot Springs and I will go down 
 there to meet you. . . . 
 
 I wrote you from the train the other day on my way to 
 Harpers Ferry, where I took an auto and went down through 
 the Shenandoah Valley and across the mountains to Char- 
 lottesville, where the University of Virginia is. I went 
 with the Harlans. Anne joined us at Charlottesville. . . . 
 We visited Monticello, where Jefferson lived, and saw a 
 country quite as beautiful as any valley I know of in Cali- 
 fornia, not even excepting the Santa Clara Valley, in prune 
 blossom time. Those old fellows who built their houses a 
 hundred years ago knew how to build and build beautifully. 
 We have no such places in California as some that were 
 built a hundred and fifty years ago in Virginia, and they 
 did not care how far they got away from town, in those 
 days. 
 
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206 LETTERS OF FRANEXIN K. LANE 
 
 Jefferson's house is up on the top of a hill, as are most of 
 the others, — there are very few on the roads. Most of 
 them are from a mile to five miles back, and although the 
 land is covered with timber they built of brick, and im- 
 ported Italian laborers to do the wood-carving. When I 
 think of how much less in money and in trouble make a 
 place far more magnificent in California, I wonder our 
 people have not lovelier places. Of course, the difference is 
 that in Virginia there were just three classes of people — 
 the aristocrat, the middle class, and the negroes. The 
 aristocracy had the land, the middle class were the artisans, 
 and the negroes the slaves. The only ones who had fine 
 houses were the aristocracy, whereas with us the great mass 
 of our people are business and professional men of compara- 
 tively small means and we have few men who build palaces. 
 
 Things have blown up in Ireland, I see, and the Irish 
 are going to suffer for this foolish venture. This man Case- 
 ment who is posing as the George Washington of the Irish 
 revolution, has held office all his life under the English Gov- 
 ernment and now draws a pension. His last position was 
 that of Consul General at Rio de Janeiro. I got a pam- 
 phlet from him a year or so ago, in which he proposed an 
 alliance between Germany, the Republic of Ireland, and the 
 Republic of the United States, which should control the 
 politics of the world. . . . 
 
 Doesn't the thought of Henry Ford as Presidential can- 
 didate . . . surprise you? It looks to me very much as if 
 the Ford vote demonstrates Roosevelt's weakness as a can- 
 didate. Last night I went to dinner at old Uncle Joe Can- 
 non's house, and as I came out Senator O'Gorman pointed 
 to Uncle Joe and Justice Hughes talking together and said, 
 "There is the old leader passing over the wand of power to 
 the new leader. "... 
 
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AMERICAN AND MEXICAN AFFAIRS 207 
 
 Well, old man, I know that I do not need to tell you to 
 keep your spirits up and your faith strong. Give me all 
 the news, good as well as bad. Affectionately yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Frank I. Cobb 
 
 New York World 
 
 Washington, May 8, 1916 
 My dear Cobb, — Here is a memorandum that has been 
 drafted respecting the leasing bill, that we are now pushing 
 to have taken up by the Senate. This bill, as you know, 
 covers oil, phosphate, and potash lands. . . . There are 
 three million acres of phosphate lands, two and a half mil- 
 lion acres of oil lands, and a small acreage of potash lands, 
 under withdrawal now, that cannot be developed because 
 of lack of legislation. . . . 
 
 The situation here is tense. Of course, nobody knows 
 what will be done. I favor telling Germany that we will 
 make no trade with her, and if she fails to make good her 
 word we will stop talking to her altogether. I am getting 
 tired of having the Kaiser and Carranza vent their impu- 
 dence at our expense, because they know we do not want to 
 go to war and because they want to keep their own people 
 in line. . . . Cordially yours, 
 
 Lane 
 
 To George W. Wickersham 
 
 Washington, May 17, 1916 
 
 My dear Wickersham, — I am just back from a trip to 
 South Dakota, where I, by ritual, a copy of which is inclosed 
 for your perusal, made citizens out of a bunch of Indians 
 who never can become hyphenates, and for this reason your 
 letter has remained unanswered. 
 
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208 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 And just because we love you, and love ourselves even 
 better, we will break all rules, precedents, promises, appoint- 
 ments, agreements, and covenants of all kinds whatsoever, 
 and steal over to see you a week from Saturday. Just 
 what hour I will wire you, and what time we can stay de- 
 pends upon things various and sundry. But you may de- 
 pend upon it that it will be as long a time as a very flexible 
 conscience will permit. 
 
 Remember me, in terms of endearment, to that noble 
 lady who desolated Washington by her departure. As 
 always, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To H. B. Brougham 
 
 Washington, May 20, 1916 
 
 Dear Mr. Brougham, — ... I recently returned from 
 the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota where I 
 admitted some one hundred and fifty competent Indians 
 to full American citizenship in accordance with a ritual. . . . 
 The ceremony was really impressive and taken quite se- 
 riously by the Indians. Why should not some such cere- 
 mony as this be used when we give citizenship to foreigners 
 who come to this country? Surely it tends to instil pa- 
 triotism and presents the duties of citizenship in a manner 
 that leaves a lasting impression. Here is a story that 
 should be interesting to all, if properly presented. Cor- 
 dially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 Indian Ritual Admission to Citizenship 
 
 The Secretary stands before one of the candidates and says : — 
 "Joseph T. Cook, what was your Indian name?" 
 "Tunkansapa," answers the Indian. 
 
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AMERICAN AND MEXICAN AFFAIRS 209 
 
 "Tunkansapa, I hand you a bow and arrow. Take this bow 
 and shoot the arrow." 
 
 The Indian does so. 
 
 "Tunkansapa, you have shot your last arrow. That means 
 you are no longer to live the life of an Indian. You are from this 
 day forward to live the life of the white man. But you may keep 
 that arrow. It will be to you a symbol of your noble race and of 
 the pride you may feel that you come from the first of all Ameri- 
 cans." 
 
 Addressing Tunkansapa by his white name. 
 
 "Joseph T. Cook, take in your hands this plough." Cook does 
 so. "This act means that you have chosen to live the life of the 
 white man. The white man lives by work. From the earth we 
 must all get our living, and the earth will not yield unless man pours 
 upon it the sweat of his brow. 
 
 "Joseph T. Cook, I give you a purse. It will always say to 
 you that the money you gain must be wisely kept. The wise 
 man saves his money, so that when the sun does not smile and 
 the grass does not grow he will not starve." 
 
 The Secretary now takes up the American flag. He and the 
 Indian hold it together. 
 
 "I give into your hands the flag of your country. This is the 
 only flag you ever will have. It is the flag of free men, the flag 
 of a hundred million free men and women, of whom you are now 
 one. That flag has a request to make of you, Joseph T. Cook, 
 that you repeat these words." 
 
 Cook then repeats the following after the Secretary. 
 
 "Forasmuch as the President has said that I am worthy to be a 
 citizen of the United States, I now promise this flag that I will 
 give my hands, my head, and my heart to the doing of all that 
 will make me a true American citizen." 
 
 The Secretary then takes a badge upon which is the American 
 eagle, with the national colors, and, pinning it upon the Indian's 
 breast, speaks as follows : — 
 
 "And now, beneath this flag, I place upon your breast the em- 
 blem of citizenship. Wear this badge always, and may the eagle 
 
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210 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 that is on it never see you do aught of which the flag will not be 
 proud." 
 
 To Frederic J. Lane 
 
 Washington, June 6, 1916 
 
 My dear Fritz, — We have a letter from Mary this morn- 
 ing saying you are holding your own pretty well, which is 
 mighty good news, and that Abrams is still convinced that 
 he is right, which is also good news. By the same mail I 
 learn that Hugo Asher was hit by a train and nearly killed. 
 Whether he will recover or not is a question. Asher is a 
 most lovable fellow and loyal to the core. It would break 
 my heart to have him go. I got into my fight with Hearst 
 over Asher. His people demanded that I should fire Asher, 
 and I refused to do it. 
 
 I guess you are beaten on Roosevelt, old man. The word 
 that we get here is that he is done for at Chicago. Of course 
 before this gets to you the nomination will be made. My 
 own thought has been that he laid too much stress on the 
 support of big business. To have Gary, and Armour, and 
 Perkins as your chief boomers doesn't make you very popu- 
 lar in Kansas and Iowa. Hughes may be the easiest man 
 to beat, after all, because he vetoed the Income tax amend- 
 ment in New York, a two-cent fare bill, and other things 
 which are pretty popular. He is a good man, honest and 
 fine, but not a liberal. The whole Congressional push has 
 been for Hughes for months, but I haven't believed that 
 he would accept the nomination. I made the prophesy 
 to some newspaper men the other day that Roosevelt would 
 get in and endorse Hughes with both fists. They were in- 
 clined to doubt this, but I still believe that I am right. . . . 
 
 To-day, comes word that Kitchener has been drowned and 
 Yuan Shi Kai poisoned. Heaven knows whose turn comes 
 
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AMERICAN AND MEXICAN AFFAIRS 211 
 
 next. Just think of three such events within a week as 
 that sea battle off Denmark, the greatest naval battle of 
 the world ; the torpedoing of the Secretary of War and all 
 of his staff ; and the poisoning of the Emperor of China. I 
 doubt if there ever was a period in the whole history of the 
 world when things moved as fast and there was as much 
 that was exciting. Of course now we have it all thrown onto 
 a screen in front of our faces, whereas a hundred years ago 
 we would have had to wait for perhaps a year before know 
 ing that the Emperor of China had been killed. Neverthe- 
 less I think there is more passion and violence on exhibition 
 to-day than at any time in a great many years. 
 
 I had a talk with the President the other day which was 
 very touching. He made reference to the infamous stories 
 that are being circulated regarding him with such indigna- 
 tion and pathos that I felt really very sorry for him. I 
 suppose that these stories will be believed by some and made 
 the basis of a very nasty kind of campaign. But there is 
 no truth in them and yet a man can't deny them. It is a 
 strange thing that when a man is not liable to any other 
 charge they trump up some story about a woman. . . . 
 
 Now my dear boy, may you have a continuance of cour- 
 age, for there is no telling what day the tide may turn and 
 things swing your way. We know so damned little about 
 nature yet. Affectionately yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Hon. Woodrow Wilson 
 
 The White House 
 
 Washington, June 8, 1916 
 
 My dear Mr. President, — I see by the papers that it is 
 repeatedly announced that you are writing the platform. 
 Now I want to take the liberty of saying that this is not 
 
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212 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 altogether good news to me. Our platform should contain 
 such an appreciation of you and your administration, that 
 you could not write it, much less have it known that you 
 have written it. It should be one long joyful shout of ex- 
 ultation over the achievements of the Administration, and 
 I can't quite see you leading the shout. 
 
 The Republican party was for half a century a construc- 
 tive party, and the Democratic party was the party of 
 negation and complaint. We have taken the play from 
 them. The Democratic party has become the party of con- 
 struction. You have outlined new policies and put them 
 into effect through every department, from State to Labor. 
 Therefore, our platform should be generously filled with 
 words of boasting that will hearten and make proud the 
 Democrats of the country; a plain tale of large things 
 simply done. 
 
 If there is any truth at all in the newspaper statement 
 and any purpose in making it, perhaps the end that is de- 
 sired might be reached by a statement that you are not 
 undertaking to write the platform, but that at the request 
 of some of the leaders you are giving them a concrete state- 
 ment of your foreign policy. Faithfully yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Mrs. Franklin K. Lane 
 
 Essex on Champlain, N. Y. 
 
 Washington, June 22, 1916 
 My dear Anne, — I am just back this minute from Brown 
 [University] where I had a right good time. I arrived in 
 the morning early and kept the Dean waiting for me for a 
 half an hour. . . . 
 
 After breakfast I went over to the University grounds, 
 which are very quaint, on the crest of a hill with fine old 
 
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AMERICAN AND MEXICAN AFFAIRS 213 
 
 buildings, and there found that Hughes was the hero of the 
 day, of course ; every step he took he was cheered. He was 
 very genial about it. We marched in our robes, down 
 through the winding streets of this old New England town 
 to a meeting house one hundred and seventy-five years old, 
 and there we sat in pews, while the President of Brown, 
 Mr. Faunce, gave the degrees in Latin. I have not heard 
 so much Latin since I left school. There were a pretty 
 good looking lot of boys, about half of them New Englanders 
 and about half of them Westerners. We heard some ora- 
 tions by the students and then marched up the hill again 
 where we had lunch, and then went over to a great tent on 
 the campus where William Roscoe Thayer — who wrote 
 the life of Hay — President Faunce, Judge Brown, Mr. 
 Hughes, and I spoke. 
 
 I spoke for about half an hour. My speech fitted in 
 very well, because Thayer preceded me, and he spoke of the 
 lack of an American spirit ; I had already prepared a speech 
 upon the abundance of American spirit, 1 so that I answered 
 Thayer, and answered him with scorn. I told him that if 
 New England was growing weak in her American pride or 
 her vigor that we would take these boys and carry them out 
 West where there was not any lack of virility or hardiness 
 or red blood, and that if they wanted to know whether the 
 American was willing to fight or not, to go to any recruit- 
 ing office of the United States to-day and see how crowded 
 it was. I told them about our pioneers, who were taking 
 up ten or twelve million acres of land, the men who had 
 gone to Alaska, and then turned upon the real proposition 
 which was that there was a difference between national 
 spirit and martial spirit. 
 
 War used to be the only opportunity for glory or romance 
 
 1 Speech published in book entitled, The American Spirit. 
 
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214 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 or achievement, while there are a million other opportuni- 
 ties now open, because man's imagination has grown. In 
 the morning the College had given honorary degrees of 
 LL.D. to Brand Whitlock and Herbert Hoover. So when 
 I came to the close of my talk I told them about Hoover's 
 Belgian work, and that Brand Whitlock had refused to leave 
 Brussels; and while there was no English and no French 
 and no Italian and no Spanish and no other flag in Brussels, 
 the Stars and Stripes in front of the American Legation had 
 never come down, and the Belgian peasant when he went 
 to his work in the morning took his hat off in honor of our 
 flag, and I asked those people to stand with me in front of 
 that peasant to take their hats off and take heart. 
 i Well, I had the crowd with me right along. Then Hughes 
 came and he took American Spirit as his text, and he made 
 it quite evident what his campaign is going to be; that it 
 is going to be a charge, veiled and very poorly supported 
 by facts, that we have not known where we were going, that 
 we were vacillating, that we did not have any enthusiasm, 
 that we did not arouse the people and make them feel proud 
 that they were Americans. How in the mischief he is going 
 to get away with this, I do not understand. Whom were 
 we to be mad at — England, or Germany, or everybody in 
 the world? Were we to war with the entire outfit? He 
 seems to be able to have satisfied the Providence Journal, 
 which is run by an Australian who has been running the 
 spy system for the British Embassy, and has been printing 
 a lot . . . about Germany and all the German press. If 
 he can get away with this he is some politician. I see that 
 Teddy has had an understanding with him. Von Meyer 
 was there yesterday to hold a conference with him. 
 
 But I do not think that we lost anything in the discussion 
 of yesterday. There were not any Democrats there who 
 
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AMERICAN AND MEXICAN AFFAIRS 215 
 
 were not on their toes at the end of the meeting ; but, of 
 course, practically everybody in Rhode Island is a Repub- 
 lican. It is the closest thing to a proprietary estate that I 
 have ever seen. 
 
 ... I left at 6 o'clock and on my way back met Presi- 
 dent Vincent, of Minneapolis, and George Foster Peabody. 
 You knew that Frank Kellogg was nominated, 1 didn't you, 
 Clapp running third ? ... 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Mrs, Adolph Miller 
 
 Washington, July 4, 1916 
 
 ... I see you with blooming cheeks and star-lit eyes 
 peeping out from under a sun-bonnet, enshrined in all the 
 glories of the mountain redwoods, and I long to be with you 
 if only to get some of the freshness and joy of the Califor- 
 nia mountains into my rather desolate soul. 
 
 How is the old clam ? Do his lips come together in that 
 precise Prussian way, and does he order the universe about ? 
 Or does a new spirit come over him when he gets with na- 
 ture? Is she a soothing mistress who smooths his stiff 
 hair with her soft hand, and pats his cheek and nestles him 
 in her arms, and with her cool breath makes him forget a 
 federal, or any other kind, of reserve ? 
 
 Why has nature been so unkind to me as to make me a 
 lover but always from afar, never to come near her, never 
 to compel me to a sweet surrender, never to give me peace 
 and contentment, never to so surround me as to keep out 
 the world of fools and follies and pharisees ? 
 
 You know, I would like to write some servant girl novels. 
 I believe I could do it. My love-making would either be 
 rather tame and stiff or too intensely early Victorian. But 
 
 1 For the United States Senate. 
 
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216 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 I should like to swing off into an ecstasy of large turgid 
 words and let my mind hear the mushy housemaid cry, 
 "Isn't that just too sweet !" . . . 
 
 I enclose a copy of my speech made at Brown University. 
 Perhaps it will interest that old farmer potato bug. He does 
 not deserve to have it said, but I miss him very much. 
 Please obey him an' you love me. Cut out all social activi- 
 ties, giving yourself up to the acquisition of a few more of 
 the right kind of corpuscles in your too-blue blood. As 
 always, yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Mrs. Franklin K. Lane 
 Essex-on-Champlain 
 
 Washington, July 4, 1916 
 
 . . . There is no news that I can give you. The wea- 
 ther is very warm. Politics is growing warmer. I think 
 Heney will run for Senator in California, probably against 
 Hiram Johnson. Will Crocker is also said to be a candidate 
 for the Republican nomination. I could get the nomina- 
 tion by saying that I would accept. Phelan told me yes- 
 terday that he would see that all the necessary money was 
 raised, — that I could win in a walk. Dockweiler says the 
 same thing. The latter is here and we have seen much of 
 each other. What do you say if I run for Senator? I 
 really feel very much tempted to do it at times because 
 things have been made so uncomfortable by some of my 
 fool colleagues who have butted in on my affairs ; and then 
 I feel I would like the excitement of the stump and to make 
 the personal appeal once more. You could go round with 
 me over the State in an automobile. While I would not 
 insist upon your making speeches for me, I know that your 
 presence would add greatly to my success. 
 
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AMERICAN AND MEXICAN AFFAIRS 217 
 
 There is no telling what way this campaign may go. It 
 may be a landslide for Wilson, it may be a landslide the 
 other way. We have the hazards because we have the de- 
 cision of questions. There is bound to be a lot of objection 
 to whatever course we take with regard to Mexico. I fear 
 from what Benjamin Ide Wheeler told me the other day 
 that Germany any day may decide to put her submarines 
 into active service again on the old lines, especially if things 
 on land go as they have been going lately against the Teu- 
 tons. 
 
 ... I shall not decide in favor of accepting the nomi- 
 nation until I hear from you. In the meantime don't lose 
 any sleep over it. And so my Nancy has a beau? Well, 
 the little rascal must be given some good advice now. So 
 I shall turn my attention to her. . . . 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 Washington, July 24, 1916 
 . . . To-day I have spent most quietly, — had Bill 
 Wheeler up for breakfast and then went to the Cosmos Club 
 for lunch with Dockweiler. He is very anxious to get a 
 Catholic on the Mexican Commission and so am I. I want 
 Chief Justice White, but I fear the President won't ask 
 him. . . . 
 
 Dear old Dockweiler is an awfully good man. . . . From 
 youth he has gauged every act by his conception of the will 
 of God, and in doubt has asked God's representative, the 
 priest. What a comforting thing to have a church like 
 that ; it makes for happiness, if it does not make for prog- 
 ress. Why is it that progress must come from discontent? 
 The latter is the divine spark in man, no doubt, 
 " O to be satisfied, satisfied, 
 Only to lie at Thy feet." 
 
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218 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 is a hymn we used to sing in church. We yearn to be satis- 
 fied and yet we know because we are not satisfied we 
 grow. . . . 
 
 "The mystical hanker after something higher," is reli- 
 gion, and yet it should not be all of religion; for man's 
 own sake there should be some cross to which one can cling, 
 some Christ who can hear and give peace to the waves. I 
 wish I could be a Catholic, and yet I can not feel that once 
 you have a free spirit that it is right to go back into the mon- 
 astery, and shut yourself up away from doubts, making your 
 soul strong only through prayer. There are two principles 
 in the world fighting all the time, and the one makes the 
 other possible. There is no "perfect," there is a "better" 
 only. And in this fight one does not become better by 
 prayer — prayer is only the ammunition wagon, the supply 
 train, where one can get masks for poison gas and cartridges 
 for the guns. 
 
 Pfeiffer said a good thing the other day, quite like him 
 to say it, too. We were talking of churches and he said he 
 never went to one because he did not believe in abasing or 
 prostrating himself before God, he saw no sense in it ; God 
 didn't respect one for it, and moreover he was part of God 
 himself and he couldn't prostrate himself before himself. 
 I asked him if he didn't recognize humility as a virtue, and 
 he said, "No, ■the higher you hold your head the more God- 
 like you are." 
 
 Humility, to me, seems to be the basis of sympathy. We 
 stoop to conquer in that we are not self-assertive and self- 
 assured, for if we "know" that we are right we can not know 
 how others think or feel. We can not grow. 
 
 You know there are two great classes of people, those 
 who are challenged by what they see, and those who are 
 not. Now the only kind who grow are the former. But 
 
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AMERICAN AND MEXICAN AFFAIRS 219 
 
 what is it to grow? If we "evermore come out by that 
 same door wherein we went" surely there is no object in 
 being curious. Can there be growth when we are in an 
 endless circle ? . . . 
 
 Now after all my struggle, I fall back not on reason but 
 on instinct, on a primal desire, and perhaps this is my rudi- 
 mentary soul, the mystical hanker after something higher. 
 That is a real thing. The purpose of nature seems to be to 
 put it into me and make it very important to me. That 
 being so I can not overlook it, and must obey it. The thing 
 that pleases me as I look back upon it, is the thing I must 
 do ; that sets the standard for me ; that is morals and re- 
 ligion. If there is any chap who the day after sings with 
 joy over being a devil — that man I never heard of — but 
 if he takes delight in what he did that was fiendish, then he 
 must follow and should follow that bent until he sees that 
 it is fiendish. He has to have more light. But I really 
 don't believe there is any such fellow, who clearly sees what 
 he did and rejoices in it. All of us sing, "I want to be an 
 angel." There is the whole of revelation, and all things 
 that tend to make us gratify that desire are good. I guess 
 that is pragmatism, in words of one syllable. 
 > You see that all religion comes from a desire to know 
 something definite. We prayed logically, in the old time, 
 to the devil and tried to propitiate him, so that harm would 
 not come to us. That is stage number one in our climb. 
 Then we find the good spirit and pray to him to whip the 
 devil, which is stage number two. Then we ask the good 
 spirit to give us strength to whip the devil ourselves. That 
 is stage number three. Buddha and Christ come in the 
 number three stage, and that is where we are. We may 
 find, as stage number four, that the good spirit is only a 
 muscle in our brain or a fluid in our nerves, which we 
 
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220 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 strengthen, and become masters of ourselves — greater, 
 stronger, more clear-sighted — without any outside Great 
 Spirit. That we are all things in ourselves, and that we are, 
 in making ourselves, making the God. I fancy that is Pfeif- 
 fer's idea. It is Mezes', I believe. Then comes in the 
 mystery of transmitting that highly developed spirit. A 
 woman of such a super-soul may marry a man of most car- 
 nal nature whose children are held down to earth and gross 
 things, and her fine spirit is lost, unless it lives elsewhere. 
 So we come back to the question, how is the good preserved ? 
 "Never any bright thing dies," may be true, but if so it 
 means an immortality of the spirit. This is all confusion 
 and despair. We do not see where we are going. But we 
 must climb, we must grow, we must do better, for the same 
 reason that our bodies must feed. The rest we leave with 
 all the other mysteries. . . . 
 
 July 28, 1916 
 
 I am going to dinner . . . and before I go alone into a 
 lonesome club, I must send a word to you. Not that I 
 have any particular word to say, for my mind is heavy, nor 
 that you will find in what I may say anything that will 
 illumine the way, but why should we not talk ? What ! 
 may a friend not call upon a friend in time of vacancy to lis- 
 ten to his idle babble ? O these pestiferous dealers in facts 
 and these prosy philosophers, the world must have surcease 
 from them and wander in the great spaces. To idle to- 
 gether in the sweet fields of the mind — this is companion- 
 ship, when thoughts come not by bidding, and argument 
 is taboo ; to have the mind as open as that of a child for all 
 impressions, and speak as the skylark sings, this is the mood 
 that proves companionship. 
 
 I shall be lonely to-night, going into a modern monastery 
 
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AMERICAN AND MEXICAN AFFAIRS 221 
 
 and driving home alone. The world is all people to me. I 
 lean upon them. They induce thought and fancy. They 
 give color to my life. They keep me from looking inward, 
 where, alas ! I never find that which satisfies me. For of 
 all men I am most critical of myself. Others when they go 
 to bed or sit by themselves may chuckle over things well 
 done ; or find satisfaction in the inner life, as George does ; 
 but not so with me. Thrown on myself I am a stranded 
 bark upon a foreign shore. And this I know is not as it 
 should be. Each one should learn to stand alone and find 
 in contemplation and in fancy the rich material with which 
 to fashion some new fabric, or build more solidly the sub- 
 stance of his soul. 
 
 I like to have you talk, as in your latest letter, of the mak- 
 ing of yourself. It seems so much more possible than that 
 I could do the same. But I am a miserable groping creature, 
 cast on a sea of doubt, rejecting one spar to grasp another, 
 and crying all the time against the storm, for help. I do 
 not know another man who has tortured himself so insist- 
 ently with the problems that are unsolvable. You are 
 firmer in your grasp, and when you get something you cling 
 to it and push your way like a practical person toward the 
 shore, that shore of solid earth which is not, but by the push- 
 ing you realize the illusion, or the reality, of progress. 
 
 Here I am talking loosely of the greatest things, and 
 perhaps pedantically; well, we agreed to talk, didn't we, 
 of anything and everything? You have the birds, the 
 lake, the mountains beyond, the children next door, and the 
 Fairy all our own, and I have my desk to look at and outside 
 brick blocks and the sky. If I ever do hypnotize myself 
 into any kind of faith, or find contentment in any one thing, 
 it will be the sky. The reason I like the water is because 
 it is so much like the sky. There is an amplitude in it that 
 
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222 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K LANE 
 
 gives me chance for infinite wanderings. The clouds and 
 the stars are somehow the most companionable of all things 
 that do not walk and talk. 
 
 Well, we have walked a bit together and have come to 
 the edge of the field where we look off and see the unending 
 stretch of prairie and the great dome. . . . 
 
 Frank 
 
 To William R. Wheeler 
 
 Washington, August 21, 1916 
 
 My dear Bill, — Owing to your departure I have been 
 laid up in bed, ill for a week. You left on Thursday and 
 on Friday night I went to bed. . . . The doctors don't 
 know what I had, excepting that I had things with "itis" 
 at the end of them. I have had allopaths, Christian Scien- 
 tists, osteopaths, and Dockweilers. The latter has been my 
 nurse at night, his chief service being to keep me interested 
 in the variety of his snoring. I really have had one damn 
 hell of a time. The whole back and top of my head blew 
 out, and I expected an eruption of lava to flow down my 
 back. The only explanation of it is a combination of air- 
 drafts and a little too much work and worry. I am now 
 somewhat weak, but otherwise in pretty good condition. . . . 
 
 I have no intention of saying anything in reply to Pin- 
 chot. He wrote me thirty pages to prove that I was a liar, 
 and rather than read that again I will admit the fact. 
 
 My regards to the Lady Alice Isabel. As always affec- 
 tionately yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To James Harlan 
 
 [August, 1916] 
 
 My dear Jim, — I am writing you from my bed where I 
 
 have been laid up for a few days with a hard dose of tonsilli- 
 
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AMERICAN AND MEXICAN AFFAIRS 223 
 
 tis. Don't know what happened but the wicked bug got me 
 and I have suffered more than was good for my slender soul. 
 
 I am so glad to hear of your Mother's improvement. 
 Bless her noble heart ! I hope she lives a long time to give 
 you the inspiration of that beautiful smile. 
 
 The Mexican business does not hasten as I had hoped. 
 Brandeis' withdrawal was a great surprise to us and I can't 
 quite understand it. Meantime the railroad situation en- 
 grosses our attention fully, and Mexico can wait. . . . 
 
 Hughes' speeches have been a surprise and disappointment 
 to me. . . . One might fancy a candidate for Congress 
 doing no better but not a man of such record and position. 
 I think your dear old party relies upon holding the regular 
 party men out of loyalty and protection, and buying enough 
 Democrats and crooks to get the majority. But I don't 
 believe it can be done. The Republican organization is 
 perfect, but the people are not as gullible as once they were. 
 
 Tell me some more about the Latin-American. How 
 much form should I put on ? Can you warm up to them ? 
 How do you get the truth out of them ? And how do you 
 get them to stay by their word ? What are they suspicious 
 of, silence or volubility? Do they expect you to ask for 
 more than you expect to get? Do they appreciate candor 
 and fair dealing, or must you be crafty and indirect? If 
 they expect the latter I am not the man for the job, but I 
 can be patient and listen. My love to the Lady Maud. 
 
 Frank 
 
 To Hon. Woodrow Wilson 
 
 The White House 
 
 Washington, August 28, 1916 
 
 My dear Mr. President, — I have had talks this morning 
 with three men, all of them Democrats, all of them strongly 
 
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224 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 for you under any circumstances. None of them are re- 
 lated to railroads or to labor unions. Two of them have 
 recently been out of this city and believe that they have a 
 knowledge of the feeling of the country. All express the 
 same view and I want to tell it to you in case you write a 
 message to Congress. 
 
 They say that the people do not grasp the meaning of 
 your statement that society has made its judgment in favor 
 of an eight-hour day. This, the people think, is a mat- 
 ter that can be arbitrated. They ask why can't it be arbi- 
 trated ? They say that the country feels that you have lined 
 yourself up with the labor unions irrevocably for an eight- 
 hour day, as against the railroads who wish to arbitrate 
 the necessity for putting in an eight-hour day immediately, 
 and irrespective of the additional cost to the railroads. 
 They say that the men are attempting to bludgeon the rail- 
 roads into granting their demand which has not been shown 
 to the people to be reasonable. This demand is that the 
 men should have ten hours pay for eight hours work or less. 
 They say that if this question cannot be arbitrated, the 
 railroads must yield on every question and that freight rates 
 and passenger rates instead of going down, as they have for 
 the past twenty years, must inevitably increasingly go up. 
 They say that the people do not realize that you have been 
 willing to entertain any proposition made by the railroads, 
 but that you have stood steadfastly for something which 
 the men have demanded. 
 
 Now, all of this indicates a lack of knowledge of what your 
 position has been. I am giving you the gist of these con- 
 versations because they represent a point of view so that 
 if you desire you may meet such criticism. 'J A 
 
 You must remember, Mr. President, that the American 
 people have not had for fifty years a President who was 
 
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AMERICAN AND MEXICAN AFFAIRS 225 
 
 not at this period in a campaign bending all of his power to 
 purely personal and political ends. Your ideality and un- 
 selfishness are so rare that things need to be made particu- 
 larly clear to them. Faithfully yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 In the beginning of September Lane was appointed Chair- 
 man of the American-Mexican Joint Commission, the other 
 Americans being Judge George Gray, of Delaware, and John 
 R. Mott, secretary of the Young Men's Christian Associa- 
 tion. The Mexican members were Luis Cabrera, Minister 
 of Finance, Alberto Pani, and Ignatio Bonillas, afterward 
 Ambassador to Washington. 
 
 It was the hope of the Administration that this Commis- 
 sion would lay the foundation for a better understanding 
 between America and Mexico. The Commission started 
 its work in New London, but later as the hearings dragged 
 on, they went to Atlantic City. 
 
 Just before this Commission was named, Lane wrote to 
 his brother, "I have been turned all topsy turvy by the 
 Mexican situation. I have suggested to the President the 
 establishment of a commission to deal with this matter 
 upon a fundamental basis, but Carranza is obsessed with 
 the idea that he is a real god and not a tin god, that he holds 
 thunderbolts in his hands instead of confetti, and he won't 
 let us help him." 
 
 To Alexander Vogelsang 
 Acting Secretary of the Interior 
 
 American-Mexican Joint Commission 
 September 29, 1916 
 
 My dear Aleck, — Don't worry about yourself. Don't 
 worry about the office. You will be all right, and so will 
 
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226 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 the office. I am not worrying about you because I haven't 
 got time to. I'll take your job if you will take mine. The 
 interpreting of a city charter is nothing to the interpreting 
 of the Mexican mind. Dealing with Congress is not so 
 difficult as dealing with Mexican statesmen. I have had 
 some jobs in my life, but none in which I was put to it as I 
 am in this. Now I have not only a question as to what to 
 do in the making of a nation, the development of its oppor- 
 tunity, the education of its people, the establishment of its 
 finances, and the opening of its industries in the establish- 
 ment of its relations with other countries, but also the prob- 
 lem as to where the men can be found that can carry out 
 the program, once it is made. If I were only Dictator I 
 could handle the thing, I think, all right. The hardest part 
 of all is to convince a proud and obstinate people that they 
 really need any help. 
 
 . . . Remember me to the noble bunch of fellows who 
 add loyalty to pluck, pluck to capacity. Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Frederic J. Lane 
 
 American-Mexican Joint Commission 
 September 29, 1916 
 
 My dear Fritz, — I sent you a wire the other night just 
 to let you know that I was thinking of you. I am now 
 steaming down Long Island Sound in the midst of a rain- 
 storm and with fog all around us, in the Government's boat 
 Sylph. We are on our way to Atlantic City where the con- 
 ference will continue, the hotel at New London having been 
 closed. . . . 
 
 It looks to me at long range as if Johnson would surely 
 carry California. Whether Wilson will, or not, is a ques- 
 tion. I hope to God he may. Whether I shall get an op- 
 
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AMERICAN AND MEXICAN AFFAIRS 227 
 
 portunity to get out and stump for him depends entirely 
 upon this Commission, which is holding me down hard. 
 We are working from ten in the morning till twelve at night, 
 and not making as rapid progress as we should because of 
 the Latin-American temperament. They want to start a 
 government afresh down there ; that is, go upon the theory 
 that there never was any government and that they now 
 know how a government should be formed and the kind of 
 laws there should be, disregarding all that is past, and basing 
 their plans upon ideals which sometimes are very imprac- 
 ticable. They distrust us. They will not believe that we 
 do not want to take some of their territory. 
 
 I despair often, but I take new courage when I think of 
 you, of the struggle you are making and the brave way in 
 which you are making it. What a superbly glorious thing 
 it would be if you could master the hellish fiend that has 
 attacked you ! . . . 
 
 My best love to you, dear Fritz, affectionately yours, 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To Frank I. Cobb 
 New York World 
 
 American-Mexican Joint Commission 
 Atlantic City, November 11, 1916 
 
 My dear Cobb, — My very warm, earnest, and enthusias- 
 tic congratulations to you. You made the best editorial 
 campaign that I have ever known to be made. I would 
 give more for the editorial support of the New York World 
 than for that of any two papers that I know of. The re- 
 sult in California turned, really as the result in the entire 
 West did, upon the real progressivism of the progressives. 
 It was not pique because Johnson was not recognized. No 
 man, not Johnson nor Roosevelt, carries the progressives 
 
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228 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 in his pocket. The progressives in the East were Perkins 
 progressives who could be delivered. The West thinks for 
 itself. Johnson could not deliver California. Johnson 
 made very strong speeches for Hughes. The West is really 
 progressive. . . . 
 
 Speaking of the election, there are two things I want you 
 to bear distinctly in mind, my dear Mr. Cobb. One is 
 that the states which the Interior Department deals with 
 are the states which elected Mr. Wilson. . . . And the sec- 
 ond is that we kept the Mexican situation from blowing up 
 in a most critical part of the campaign, which is also due to 
 the Secretary of the Interior, damn you ! In fact, next to 
 you, I think the Secretary of the Interior is the most impor- 
 tant part of this whole show ! Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To R. M. Fitzgerald 
 
 American-Mexican Commission 
 Atlantic City, November 12, 1916 
 
 Dear Bob, — I am very glad to get your telegram. I 
 know that it took work, judgment, and finesse to bring about 
 the result that was obtained in California. What a splen- 
 did thing it is to have our state the pivotal state! The 
 eastern papers are attempting to make it appear that the 
 state turned toward Wilson because of the slight put upon 
 Johnson by Hughes. These people in the East are not 
 large enough to understand that the people think for 
 themselves out West, and are not governed by little 
 personalities, that we don't play "Follow the leader," as 
 they do here. The real fact is that Roosevelt undertook to 
 deliver the progressives and could not do it in the West, 
 Now we must hold all these forward-looking people in line 
 with us and make the Democratic party realize the dream 
 
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AMERICAN AND MEXICAN AFFAIRS 229 
 
 that you and I had of it when we were boys, thirty years 
 ago, and took part in our first campaign. There is room for 
 only two parties in the United States, the liberal and the 
 conservative, and ours must be the liberal party. Cordially 
 yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To James K. MoffiM 
 
 Atlantic City, November 12, 1916 
 
 My dear Jim, — It was fine of you to send me that tele- 
 gram, and I am not too modest to "allow," as Artemus 
 Ward used to say, as how the Interior Department is rather 
 stuck up over the result. The Department certainly had 
 not been very popular in the West. . . . All of us will be 
 taken a bit more seriously now, I guess. I wired Cushing 
 and the others who led in the fight and I am going to write 
 a note to Benjamin Ide Wheeler, who from the first, be it 
 said to his credit, claimed California for Wilson. Wheeler 
 is certainly a thoroughbred. I wish I could get your way 
 soon and see you all, and rejoice with you. 
 
 I have just received a telegram from Bryan, reading : — 
 "Shake. Many thanks. It was great. The West, a 
 stone which the builders rejected, has become the head of 
 the corner." Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Benjamin Ide Wheeler 
 
 Atlantic City, November 14, 1916 
 Dear Mr. Wheeler, — I know that you rejoice with all 
 of us. You were the first man to tell me that Wilson would 
 carry California, and I never believed it as truly as you did, 
 but I have taken many occasions lately to say that you were 
 a true prophet. And speaking of prophets, what a lot have 
 
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230 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 been unmade ! Did you see that I wanted to bet a hat with 
 George Harvey that he could not name four states west of 
 the Alleghenies that would go for Hughes ? The truth about 
 the thing, as I see it, is that you can't deliver the Western 
 man and you can't deliver the true progressive, anyhow. 
 The people of the East are in a far more feudal state than 
 the people of the West. Here they live by sufferance, by 
 favor; they are helpless if they lose their jobs. Out there 
 hope is high in their hearts and they feel that there is a fair 
 world around them, in which they have another chance. 
 The resentment was strong against Roosevelt undertaking 
 to turn over his vote. Of course I am glad of Johnson's 
 election, as he is a strong, stalwart chap, capable of tremen- 
 dous things for good. He will probably be a presidential 
 candidate four years from now, and I see no man now who 
 can beat him, nor should he be beaten unless we have a 
 good deal better material than our run of . . . rank oppor- 
 tunists. 
 
 I am working on a treadmill here. Perhaps by the time 
 you come on in December I will be able to report something 
 accomplished. But oh ! the misery of dealing with people 
 who are eternally suspicious and have no sense of good faith ! 
 
 We went with the Millers to the James Roosevelt place 
 up at Hyde Park on the Hudson, just before election, and 
 had an exquisite time. I put in four or five days campaign- 
 ing, and this was the end of my trip. My speeches were 
 all made in New York where I thought they might count, 
 but the organizations were too perfect for us. 
 
 President Wilson will leave a mere shadow of a party, un- 
 less he takes an interest in reorganizing it. He has drawn 
 a lot of young men to him who should be tied together, as 
 we were in the early Cleveland days. Of course, we must 
 have a cause, not merely a slogan. 
 
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AMERICAN AND MEXICAN AFFAIRS 231 
 
 Mrs. Lane is here while I am writing this and she sends 
 her love to both you and your wife, as do I. As always, 
 cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Roland Cotton Smith 
 
 Sunday, [January 7? 1917] 
 
 My dear Dr. Smith, — I know that you are human enough 
 to like appreciation and so I am sending you this word, — 
 no more than I feel ! 
 
 Your address of this morning was a bit of real literature. 
 It produced the effect you desired without making a bid 
 for it. It was as subtle and full of suggestion as Jusserand's 
 book on France and the United States. You gave an at- 
 mosphere to the old building as an institution, which made 
 every one of us feel something more of ennobling standards 
 and traditions. You touched emotion. Many an old chap 
 there felt called upon suddenly and apologetically to blow 
 his nose. And the crowning bit of fine sentiment was ask- 
 ing us all to rise, as you read the list of the distinguished 
 ones who had worshipped there. You have the art of mak- 
 ing men better by not preaching to them. So here is my 
 hand in admiration and in gratitude. Sincerely, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To James H. Barry 
 
 San Francisco Star 
 
 Washington, [January 9, 1917] 
 
 My dear Jim, — That card of yours spoke to me so directly 
 and warmly from the heart, that it revived in my memory 
 all the long years of our friendship, and made me feel that 
 the world had been good to me beyond most men, in that 
 it had brought a "few friends and their affection tried." 
 
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232 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 These are to be trying years — these next four — and it 
 will take courage and rare good sense to keep this old ship 
 on her true path. You have a part and so have I. We 
 take our turn at the wheel. May God give us strength 
 and steadiness ! 
 
 Please give my greetings to your fine boys, and to all the 
 old group that are still with you, and know that always I 
 hold you in deep affection. Sincerely, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
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IX 
 
 CABINET TALK AND WAR PLANS 
 
 1917 
 
 Cabinet Meetings — National Council of Defense — Bernstorff — War 
 — Plan for Railroad Consolidation — U-Boat Sinkings Revealed — 
 Alaska 
 
 To George W. Lane 
 
 Washington, February 9, 1917 
 
 My dear George, — I am going to write you in confidence 
 some of the talks we have at the Cabinet and you may keep 
 these letters in case I ever wish to remind myself of what 
 transpired. A week ago yesterday, (February 1st), the 
 word came that Germany was to turn "mad dog" again, 
 and sink all ships going within her war zone. This was 
 the question, of course, taken up at the meeting of the 
 Cabinet on February 2nd. The President opened by saying 
 that this notice was an "astounding surprise." He had 
 received no intimation of such a reversal of policy. Indeed, 
 Zimmermann, the German Minister of Foreign Affairs, had 
 within ten days told Girard that such a thing was an "im- 
 possibility." At this point Lansing said that he had good 
 reason to believe that Bernstorff had the note for fully ten 
 days before delivering it, and had held it off because of the 
 President's Peace Message to Congress, which had made it 
 seem inadvisable to deliver it then. In answer to a question 
 
 233 
 
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234 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 as to which side he wished to see win, the President said 
 that he didn't wish to see either side win, — for both had 
 been equally indifferent to the rights of neutrals — though 
 Germany had been brutal in taking life, and England only 
 in taking property. He would like to see the neutrals 
 unite. I ventured the expression that to ask them to do 
 this would be idle, as they could not afford to join with us 
 if it meant the insistence on their rights to the point of war. 
 He thought we might coordinate the neutral forces, but was 
 persuaded that an effort to do this publicly, as he proposed, 
 would put some of the small powers in a delicate position. 
 We talked the world situation over. I spoke of the likeli- 
 hood of a German-Russian-Japanese alliance as the natural 
 thing at the end of the war because they all were nearly in 
 the same stage of development. He thought the Russian 
 peasant might save the world this m sfortune. The fact 
 that Russia had been, but a short time since, on the verge 
 of an independent peace with Germany was brought out as 
 evidencing the possibility of a break on the Allies' side. 
 His conclusion was that nothing should be done now, — 
 awaiting the "overt act" by Germany, which would take 
 him to Congress to ask for power. 
 
 At the next meeting of the Cabinet on February 6th, 
 the main question discussed was whether we should convoy, 
 or arm, our merchant ships. Secretary Baker said that 
 unless we did our ships would stay in American ports, and 
 thus Germany would have us effectively locked up by her 
 threat. The St. Louis, of the American line, wanted to go 
 out with mail but asked the right to arm and the use of guns 
 and gunners. After a long discussion, the decision of the 
 President was that we should not convoy because that made 
 a double hazard, — this being the report of the Navy, — 
 but that ships should be told that they might arm, but that 
 
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CABINET TALK AND WAR PLANS 235 
 
 without new power from Congress they should not be fur- 
 nished with guns and gunners. 
 
 The President said that he was "passionately" determined 
 not to over-step the slightest punctilio of honor in dealing 
 with Germany, or interned Germans, or the property of 
 Germans. He would not take the interned ships, not even 
 though they were being gutted of their machinery. He 
 wished an announcement made that all property of Germans 
 would be held inviolate, and that interned sailors on mer- 
 chant ships could enter the United States. If we are to 
 have war we must go in with our hands clean and without 
 any basis for criticism against us. The fact that before 
 BernstorfF gave the note telling of the new warfare, the ships 
 had been dismantled as to their machinery, was not to move 
 us to any act that would look like hostility. 
 
 February 10 
 
 Yesterday we talked of the holding of Girard as a hostage. 
 Lansing said there was no doubt of it. He thought it an 
 act of war in itself. But did not know on what theory it 
 was done, except that Germany was doing what she thought 
 we would do. Germany evidently was excited over her 
 sailors here, fearing that they would be interned, and over 
 her ships, fearing that they would be taken. I said that 
 it seemed to be established that Germany meant to do 
 what she said she would do, and that we might as well act 
 on that assumption. The President said that he had always 
 believed this, but thought that there were chances of her 
 modifying her position, and that he could do nothing, in 
 good faith toward Congress, without going before that body. 
 He felt that in a few days something would be done that 
 would make this necessary. 
 
 So there you are up to date — in a scrappy way. Now 
 
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236 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 don't tell what you know. Ned is flying at Newport News. 
 He sent me a telegram saying that the President could go 
 as far as he liked, ' ' the bunch ' ' would back him up . Strange 
 how warlike young fellows are, especially if they think that 
 they are preparing for some usefulness in war. That's the 
 militaristic spirit that is bad. Much love to you and 
 Frances. Give me good long letters telling me what is in 
 the back of that wise old head. 
 
 F. K. 
 
 To George W. Lane 
 
 February 16, [1917] 
 
 My dear George, — That letter and proposed wire were 
 received and your spirit is mine — the form of your letter 
 could not be improved upon — and you are absolutely 
 sound as to policy. 
 
 At the last meeting of the Cabinet, we again urged that 
 we should convoy our own ships, but the President said that 
 this was not possible without going to Congress, and he was 
 not ready to do that now. The Navy people say that to 
 convoy would be foolish because it would make a double 
 target, but it seems to me the right thing to risk a naval ship 
 in the enforcement of our right. 
 
 At our dinner to the President last night he said he was 
 not in sympathy with any great preparedness — that Europe 
 would be man and money poor by the end of the war. I 
 think he is dead wrong in this, and as I am a member of 
 the National Council of Defense, I am pushing for every- 
 thing possible. This week we have had a meeting of the 
 Council every day — the Secretary of War, Navy, Interior, 
 Commerce, and Labor — with an Advisory Commission 
 consisting of seven business men. We are developing a 
 plan for the mobilization of all our national industries and 
 
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CABINET TALK AND WAR PLANS 237 
 
 resources so that we may be ready for getting guns, muni- 
 tions, trucks, supplies, airplanes, and other material things 
 as soon as war comes — if not too soon. It is a great organ- 
 ization of industry and resources. I think that I shall urge 
 Hoover as the head of the work. His Belgian experience 
 has made him the most competent man in this country for 
 such work. He has promised to come to me as one of my 
 assistants but the other work is the larger, and I can get 
 on with a smaller man. He will correlate the industrial 
 life of the nation against the day of danger and immediate 
 need. France seems to be ahead in this work. The essentials 
 are to commandeer all material resources of certain kinds 
 (steel, copper, rubber, nickel, etc.) ; then have ready all 
 drawings, machines, etc., necessary in advance for all muni- 
 tions and supplies ; and know the plant that can produce 
 these on a standard basis. 
 
 The Army and Navy are so set and stereotyped and stand- 
 pat that I am almost hopeless as to moving them to do the 
 wise, large, wholesale job. They are governed by red-tape, 
 — worse than any Union. 
 
 The Chief of Staff fell asleep at our meeting to-day — 
 Mars and Morpheus in one ! 
 
 To-day's meeting has resulted in nothing, though in Mex- 
 ico, Cuba, Costa Rica, and Europe we have trouble. The 
 country is growing tired of delay, and without positive leader- 
 ship is losing its keenness of conscience and becoming inured 
 to insult. Our Ambassador in Berlin is held as a hostage for 
 days — our Consuls' wives are stripped naked at the border, 
 our ships are sunk, our people killed — and yet we wait and 
 wait ! What for I do not know. Germany is winning by her 
 bluff, for she has our ships interned in our own harbors. 
 
 Well, dear boy, I'm not a pacifist as you see. Much love, 
 
 Frank 
 
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238 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 To George W. Lane 
 
 Washington, February 20, [1917] 
 
 Dear George, — Another Cabinet meeting and no light 
 yet on what our policy will be as to Germany. We evidently 
 are waiting for the "overt act," which I think Germany will 
 not commit. We are all, with the exception of one or two 
 pro-Germans, feeling humiliated by the situation, but noth- 
 ing can be done. 
 
 McAdoo brought up the matter of shipping being held 
 in our ports. It appears that something more than half of 
 the normal number of ships has gone out since February 1st, 
 and they all seem to be getting over the first scare, because 
 Germany is not doing more than her former amount of 
 damage. 
 
 We were told of intercepted cables to the Wolfe News 
 Agency, in Berlin, in which the American people were rep- 
 resented as being against war under any circumstances — 
 sympathizing strongly with a neutrality that would keep all 
 Americans off the seas. Thus does the Kaiser learn of Amer- 
 ican sentiment ! No wonder he sizes us up as cowards ! . . . 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To Frank I. Cobb 
 
 Washington, February 21, 1917 
 
 My dear Cobb, — I have told Henry Hall that he should 
 come down here and give the story of how Bernstorff handled 
 the newspaper men, and thus worked the American people. 
 . . . He ought to get out of the newspaper men themselves, 
 and he can, the whole atmosphere of the Washington situ- 
 ation since Dernberg left, — Bernstorff 's little knot of 
 society friends, chiefly women, the dinners that they had, 
 his appeals for sympathy, the manner in which he would 
 offset whatever the State Department was attempting to get 
 
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CABINET TALK AND WAR PLANS 239 
 
 before the American people. He would give away to news- 
 paper men news that he got from his own government before 
 it got to the State Department. He would give away also 
 the news that he got from the State Department before the 
 State Department itself gave it out, and he had a regular 
 room in which he received these newspaper men, and handed 
 them cigars and so on, and carried on a propaganda against 
 the policy of the United States while acting as Ambassador 
 for Germany, the like of which nobody has carried on since 
 GenSt ; and worse than his, because it was carried on secretly 
 and cunningly. . . . 
 
 Hall will be able to get a ripping good story, I am satisfied, 
 — a good two pages on " Modern Diplomacy," which will 
 reveal how long-suffering the United States has been. 
 Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To George W. Lane 
 
 Washington, February 25, 1917 
 My dear George, — On Friday we had one of the most 
 animated sessions of the Cabinet that I suppose has ever 
 been held under this or any other President. It all arose 
 out of a very innocent question of mine as to whether it 
 was true that the wives of American Consuls on leaving 
 Germany had been stripped naked, given an acid bath to 
 detect writing on their flesh, and subjected to other in- 
 dignities. Lansing answered that it was true. Then I 
 asked Houston about the bread riots in New York, as to 
 whether there was shortage of food because of car shortage 
 due to vessels not going out with exports. This led to a dis- 
 cussion of the great problem which we all had been afraid 
 to raise — Why shouldn't we send our ships out with guns 
 or convoys ? Daniels said we must not convoy — that 
 
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240 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 would be dangerous. (Think of a Secretary of the Navy 
 talking of danger!) The President said that the country 
 was not willing that we should take any risks of war. I said 
 that I got no such sentiment out of the country, but if the 
 country knew that our Consuls' wives had been treated 
 so outrageously that there would be no question as to the 
 sentiment. This, the President took as a suggestion that 
 we should work up a propaganda of hatred against Germany. 
 Of course, I said I had no such idea, but that I felt that in 
 a Democracy the people were entitled to know the facts. 
 McAdoo, Houston, and Redfield joined me. The President 
 turned on them bitterly, especially on McAdoo, and re- 
 proached all of us with appealing to the spirit of the Code 
 Duello. We couldn't get the idea out of his head that we 
 were bent on pushing the country into war. Houston 
 talked of resigning after the meeting. McAdoo will — 
 within a year, I believe. I tried to smooth them down by 
 recalling our past experiences with the President. We have 
 had to push, and push, and push, to get him to take any for- 
 ward step — the Trade Commission, the Tariff Commission. 
 He comes out right but he is slower than a glacier — and 
 things are mighty disagreeable, whenever anything has to 
 be done. 
 
 Now he is being abused by the Republicans for being slow, 
 and this will probably help a bit, though it may make him 
 more obstinate. He wants no extra session, and the Repub- 
 licans fear that he will submit to anything in the way of 
 indignity or national humiliation without "getting back," 
 so they are standing for an extra session. The President 
 believes, I think, that the munitions makers are back of the 
 Republican plan. But I doubt this. They simply want 
 to have a "say"; and the President wants to be alone and 
 unbothered. He probably would not call Cabinet meetings 
 
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CABINET TALK AND WAR PLANS 241 
 
 if Congress adjourned. Then I would go to Honolulu, 
 where the land problem vexes. 
 
 I don't know whether the President is an internationalist 
 or a pacifist, he seems to be very mildly national — his 
 patriotism is covered over with a film of philosophic humani- 
 tarianism, that certainly doesn't make for "punch" at such 
 a time as this. 
 
 My love to you old man, — do write me oftener and tell 
 me if you get all my letters. 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To George W. Lane 
 
 Washington, March 6, [1917] 
 Well my dear George, the new administration is launched 
 — smoothly but not on a smooth sea. The old Con- 
 gress went out in; disgrace, talking to death a bill to en- 
 able the President to protect Americans on the seas. The 
 reactionaries and the progressives combined — Penrose 
 and La Follette joined hands to stop all legislation, so 
 that the government is without money to carry on its 
 work. 
 
 It is unjust to charge the whole thing on the La Follette 
 group; they served to do the trick which the whole Re- 
 publican machine wished done. For the Penrose, Lodge 
 people would not let any bills through and were glad to get 
 La Follette's help. The Democrats fought and died — 
 because there was no "previous question" in the Senate 
 rules. 
 
 The weather changed for inauguration — Wilson luck 
 — and the event went off without accident. To-day, we 
 had expected a meeting of the Cabinet to determine what 
 we should do in the absence of legislation, but that has gone 
 over, — I expect to give the Attorney General a chance to 
 
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242 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K LANE 
 
 draft an opinion on the armed ship matter. I am for prompt 
 action — putting the guns on the ships and convoying, if 
 necessary. Much love. 
 
 K. F. 
 
 To Edward J. Wheeler 
 Current Opinion 
 
 Washington, March 15, 1917 
 
 My dear Mr. Wheeler, — I wish that I could be with you 
 to honor Mr. Howells. But who are we, to honor him ? Is 
 he not an institution ? Is he not the Master ? Has he not 
 taught for half a century that this new and peculiar man, 
 the American, is worth drawing? Why, for an American 
 not to take off his hat to Howells would be to fail in appre- 
 ciation of one's self as an object of art — an unlikely, be- 
 littling, and soul-destroying sin. 
 
 I do not know whether Howells is a great photographer or 
 a great artist ; but this I do know, that I like him because he 
 sees through his own eyes, and I like his eyes. If that be 
 treason, make the most of it. Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To George W. Lane 
 
 Washington, April 1, 1917 
 My dear George, — I took your letter and your proposed 
 wire as to our going into war and sent them to the President 
 as suggestions for his proposed message which in a couple 
 of days will come out — what it is to be I don't know — 
 excepting in spirit. He is to be for recognizing war and 
 taking hold of the situation in such a fashion as will eventu- 
 ally lead to an Allies' victory over Germany. But he goes 
 - unwillingly. The Cabinet is at last a unit. We can stand 
 Germany's insolence and murderous policy no longer. 
 
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CABINET TALK AND WAR PLANS 
 
 Burleson, Gregory, Daniels, and Wilson were the last to 
 come over. 
 
 The meetings of the Cabinet lately have been nothing less 
 than councils of war. The die is cast — and yet no one has 
 seen the message. The President hasn't shown us a line. 
 He seems to think that in war the Pacific Coast will not be 
 strongly with him. They don't want war to be sure — no 
 one does. But they will not suffer further humiliation. 
 I sent West for some telegrams telling of the local feeling 
 in different States and all said, " Do as the President says." 
 Yet none came back that spoke as if they felt that we had 
 been outraged or that it was necessary for humanity that 
 Germany be brought to a Democracy. There is little pride 
 or sense of national dignity in most of our politicians. 
 
 The Council of National Defense is getting ready. I 
 yesterday proposed a resolution, which was adopted, that 
 our contracts for ships, ammunition, and supplies be made 
 upon the basis of a three years' program. We may win in 
 two years. If we had the nerve to raise five million men at 
 once we could end it in six months. 
 
 The first thing is to let Russia and France have money. 
 And the second thing, to see that Russia has munitions, of 
 which they are short — depending largely, too largely, upon 
 Japan. I shouldn't be surprised if we would operate 
 the Russian railroads. And ships, ships ! How we do need 
 ships, and there are none in the world. Ships to feed Eng- 
 land and to make the Russian machine work. Hinden- 
 burg is to turn next toward Petrograd — he is only three 
 hundred miles away now. I fear he will succeed. But 
 that does not mean the conquest of Russia ! The lovable, 
 kindly Russians are not to be conquered, — and it makes 
 me rejoice that we are to be with them. 
 
 All sides need aeroplanes — for the war that is perhaps 
 
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244 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 the greatest of all needs ; and there Germany is strongest. 
 Ned will go among the first. He is flying alone now and is 
 enjoying the risk, — the consciousness of his own skill. 
 Anne is very brave about it. 
 
 This is the program as far as we have gone : Navy, to make 
 a line across the sea and hunt submarines ; Army, one million 
 at once, and as many more as necessary as soon as they can 
 be got ready. Financed by income taxes largely. Men and 
 capital both drafted. 
 
 I'm deep in the work. Have just appointed a War-Secre- 
 tary of my own— an ex-Congressman named Lathrop Brown 
 from New York, who is to see that we get mines, etc., at 
 work. I wish you were here but the weather would be 
 too much for you, I fear. Very hot right now ! 
 
 Sometime I'll tell you how we stopped the strike. It 
 was a big piece of work that was blanketed by the 
 Supreme Court's decision next day. But we came near to 
 having something akin to Civil War. Much love, my dear 
 boy. 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 Grosvenor Clarkson, Director of the Council of National 
 Defense, in recording the activities of that body says : — 
 
 " It is, of course, well known that Secretary Lane, as a mem- 
 ber of the Council of National Defense, played a dramatic 
 and successful part in the settlement of the threatened great 
 railroad strike of March, 1917. By resolution of the Council 
 of National Defense of March 16, 1917, Secretary Lane 
 and Secretary of Labor Wilson, as members of the Council, 
 and Daniel Willard, President of the Baltimore and Ohio 
 Railroad, and Samuel Gompers of the Advisory Commission, 
 were designated to represent the government, at the meeting 
 in New York with the representatives of the railroad brother- 
 
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CABINET TALK AND WAR PLANS 245 
 
 hoods and railroad executives — the meeting that stopped 
 the strike." 
 
 To Frank I. Cobb 
 
 New York World 
 
 Washington, April 12, 1917 
 My dear Frank, — I have your note and am thoroughly 
 in sympathy with it. The great need of France at this 
 moment is to get ships to carry the supplies across the water. 
 It is a secret, but a fact, that France has 600,000 tons of 
 freight in New York and other harbors waiting to ship. I 
 am in favor of taking all the German ships under requisition, 
 paying for their use eventually, but this is a matter of 
 months. Immediately, I think we should take all the 
 coastwise ships, or the larger portion of them. The Navy 
 colliers and Army transports can be put into the business of 
 carrying supplies to France. 
 
 We are to have a meeting of the Council of National De- 
 fense to-day, and I am going to take this matter up. I have 
 been pushing on it for several weeks. As to the purchasing 
 of supplies, I think we ought to protect the Allies, especially 
 Russia, but, of course, we cannot touch their present con- 
 tracts. . . . 
 
 To George W. Lane 
 
 Washington, April 15, 1917 
 My dear George, — I enclose a couple of confidential 
 papers that will interest you. The situation is not as happy 
 in Russia as it should be. The people are so infatuated with 
 their own internal reforms that there is danger of their making 
 a separate peace, which would throw the entire strength of 
 Germany on the west front, and compel us to go in with mil- 
 lions of men where we had thought that a few would suffice. 
 
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246 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K LANE ._„ 
 
 My work on the National Council of Defense lately has 
 been dealing with many things, chiefly mobilization of our 
 railroads and the securing of new shipping. At my sugges- 
 tion to Mr. Willard he called together the leading forty-five 
 railroad presidents of the United States, and I addressed 
 them upon the necessity of tying together all of the railroads 
 within one unit and making a single operating system of the 
 250,000 miles. They met the proposition splendidly and 
 appointed a committee to effect this. It will require some 
 sacrifice on the part of the railroads, and considerable on 
 the part of the shippers ; for free time on cars will have to be 
 cut down, some passenger trains taken off, and equipment 
 allowed to flow freely from one system to the other under 
 a single direction, no matter who owns the locomotives or the 
 cars. I put it up to them as a test of the efficiency of private 
 ownership. 
 
 On the shipping side we are not only going about the task 
 of building a thousand wooden ships, under the direction of 
 Denman and Goethals, but we are going to take our coastwise 
 shipping off, making the railroads carry this freight, and 
 put all available ships into the trans-Atlantic business. We 
 want, also, to get some steel ships built. The great trouble 
 with this is the shortage of plates and the shortage of ship- 
 yards. In order to effect this, I expect we will have to post- 
 pone the building of some of our large dreadnaughts and 
 battle cruisers, which could not be in service for three years 
 anyhow. Whether we will succeed in getting the Secretary 
 of the Navy to agree to this is a question, but I am going to 
 try. 
 
 We, of course, are going to press into service at once the 
 German and Austrian ships, such of them as can be 
 repaired and will be of use in the freight business, but we 
 will not confiscate them. We will deal with them exactly 
 
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CABINET TALK AND WAR PLANS 247 
 
 as we will deal with American ships, paying at the end of 
 the war whatever their services were worth. This spirit of 
 fairness is to animate us throughout the war. Of course 
 enemy warships were seized as prizes of war, but there are 
 very few of these, and of no considerable value. I do not 
 believe they can be of any use. 
 
 England is sending over Mr. Balfour with a very high 
 Commission. These gentlemen will arrive here this week, 
 and I expect with them Viviani and Joffre, from France. 
 We will have intimate talks with them and gain the benefit 
 of their experience. I expect Mr. Balfour to make some 
 speeches that will put England in a more favorable light, and 
 the presence of Joffre will stimulate recruiting in our Army 
 and Navy. He is the one real figure who has come out of 
 the war so far, 
 
 We are raising seven billions ; three billions to go to the 
 Allies, largely for purchases to be made here. Money con- 
 tributions pass unanimously, but there is to be trouble over 
 our war measures respecting conscription and the raising 
 of an adequate army. Some pacifists and other pro-Germans 
 are cultivating the idea that none but volunteers should be 
 sent to Europe. Some are also saying Germany can have 
 peace with us if she stops her submarine warfare. I doubt 
 if that line of agitation will be successful before Congress. 
 Certainly it will not be successful with the President or the 
 Cabinet. We are now very happily united upon following 
 every course that will lead to the quickest and most complete 
 victory. 
 
 The greatest impending danger is the drive on the east 
 front into Russia, possibly the taking of Petrograd, and the 
 weakness on the part of the Russians because of so large a 
 socialistic element now in control of Russian affairs. We 
 offered Russia a commission of railroad men to look over 
 
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248 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 their railroad systems and advise with them as to the best 
 means of operating them. At first Russia inclined to wel- 
 come such a commission, but later the offer was declined 
 because of local feeling. We intend to send a commission 
 ourselves to Russia, possibly headed by McAdoo or Root, 
 and on this commission we will have a railroad man with ex- 
 pert knowledge who can be of some service to them, I hope. 
 The Russian and the French governments have ordered 
 hundreds of locomotives and tens of thousands of cars in 
 this country, a large part of which are ready for shipment, 
 but which cannot be shipped because of lack of shipping 
 facilities. Affectionately yours, 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 Grosvenor Clarkson, who was first Secretary and then 
 Director of the Council of National Defense, writes in 
 February, 1922, this account of the work of the Council : — 
 
 "As early as February 12, 1917, or nearly two months 
 before we went into the war, Secretary Lane presented reso- 
 lutions at a joint meeting of the Council of National Defense 
 and its Advisory Commission, to the effect that the Council 
 ' Call a series of conferences with the leading men in each 
 industry, fundamentally necessary to the defense of the 
 country in the event of war.' The resolutions also proposed 
 that the Council at once proceed to confer with those familiar 
 with the manner by which foreign governments in the war 
 enlisted their industries and, further, that the Council 
 should establish a committee to investigate and report upon 
 such regulations as to hours and safety of labor as should 
 apply to all war labor. 
 
 "Secretary Lane's resolution was referred to the Ad- 
 visory Commission, and on February 13, at a joint meeting 
 of the Council and Commission, the matter was thoroughly 
 
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CABINET TALK AND WAR PLANS 249 
 
 discussed. Out of this resolution grew the famous cooper- 
 ative committees of the Advisory Commission. Here was 
 the inception of the dollar-a-year man. 
 
 "This organization, set up by the Advisory Commission, 
 furnished for the first eight or ten months of our partici- 
 pation in the war, almost the only thing in the way of a war 
 machine under the government on the civilian or industrial 
 side. 
 
 " In the first week of May, 1917, the Council of National 
 Defense called to Washington representatives of each state 
 in the Union, to confer with the federal government as to the 
 common prosecution of the war. The state delegates, con- 
 sisting of many Governors and in each case of leading cit- 
 izens of the respective commonwealths, were received by the 
 six Cabinet officers, forming the Council, in the office of 
 Secretary Baker in April. 
 
 "Secretary Lane thought that the most effective way to 
 wake the country up out of its dream of security was to tell 
 the truth about the submarine losses, the country up to 
 that time not having really appreciated what the losses 
 amounted to. He said, 'The President is going to address 
 the State representatives at the White House, and I am going 
 to urge him to cut loose on the submarine losses,' and he 
 asked me to prepare a memorandum for him to give to the 
 President. This I did. The President, however, apparently 
 decided not to go into the subject, and Secretary Lane, with 
 a courage that can only be appreciated by those who knew 
 the atmosphere of official Washington at that time, decided 
 to take the bull by the horns himself, and at the next meeting 
 with the representatives with the Council in Secretary 
 Baker's office, Secretary Lane . . . cut loose and told the 
 actual truth about submarine losses at that time. . . . 
 The next morning it was the story of the day in the news- 
 
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250 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 papers and it did as much to arouse the country as a whole 
 as to what we were up against as any one thing that occurred 
 during this period, save only the President's war message 
 itself. 
 
 "Secretary Lane became chairman of the field division 
 of the Council of National Defense toward the end of the 
 war. This was the body that guided and coordinated the 
 work of the 184,000 units of the state, county, community, 
 and municipal Councils of Defense, and of those of the 
 Woman's Committee of the Council — no doubt the greatest 
 organization of the kind that the world has ever known." 
 
 To George W. Lane 
 
 Washington, May 3, 1917 
 
 These are great days. Their significance will not be 
 realized for many years. We are forming a close union with 
 France and England. The most impressive sight I have ever 
 seen was that at Washington's tomb last Sunday. We went 
 down on the Mayflower — the French and the English com- 
 missions and the members of the Cabinet. Viviani and 
 Balfour spoke. Joffre laid a bronze palm upon Washington's 
 tomb, then stood up in his soldierly way and stood at salute 
 for a minute. Balfour laid a wreath of lilies upon the tomb, 
 and leaned over as if in prayer. Above the tomb, for the 
 first time, flew the flag of another country than our own, the 
 Stars and Stripes, and on either side, the British Jack and 
 the French Tricolor. This is a combination of the Democ- 
 racies of the world against feudalism and autocracy. 
 
 I heard a story from one of Joffre's aides. Joffre, by the 
 way, is the quietest, sweetest, most naive, and babylike in- 
 dividual I ever met. All of the women, as well as the men, 
 are in love with him. When he met Nancy, at a garden 
 
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CABINET TALK AND WAR PLANS 251 
 
 party, he kissed her on both cheeks. Nancy, as you may 
 imagine, was ecstatically delighted. This simple, grave, 
 kindly soldier sat in his room while the Germans came march- 
 ing upon Paris, saying nothing. Every few minutes an aide 
 would come in and move the French markers back upon the 
 map, and the German markers forward, toward Paris. Day 
 after day he saw this advance, but said nothing. At last 
 when they came to the valley of the Marne, an aide came in 
 and marked the map, showing that the Germans were within 
 thirty miles of Paris. Then Joffre quietly said, "This thing 
 has gone far enough," and taking up a pad of paper he called 
 to his troops to stand fast and die upon the Marne, if neces- 
 sary, to save France. There is nothing finer than this in 
 history. 
 
 Joffre has a skin like a baby. He has the utmost frank- 
 ness and simplicity of speech. When McAdoo asked him 
 at the White House if the present drive was satisfactory, he 
 said in the most innocent way, "I am not there." Viviani, 
 who is the head of the French Commission, is as jealous as 
 a prima donna, terribly jealous of Joffre, (which makes 
 Joffre feel most uncomfortable) because, of course, Joffre is 
 the hero of the Marne. 
 
 I spoke at the Belasco Theatre the other day for the 
 benefit of the French war relief fund, introducing Ambas- 
 sador Herrick and the lecturer, a young Frenchman. Joffre 
 and Viviani were in a box. Every mention of the name 
 of Joffre brought the people to their feet. Yesterday I 
 spoke again at a meeting of the State Councils of De- 
 fense and I enclose you what the New York Post had to 
 say. 
 
 Last night I dined with Balfour. I have seen quite a 
 little of him. He is sixty-nine years old and stands about 
 six feet two. He is a perfect type of the aristocratic English- 
 
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252 LETTERS OF FRANELIN K. LANE 
 
 man, with a charming smile. His real heart is in the study 
 of philosophy. Anne sat next to him at dinner and he told 
 her that he believed in a personal God, personal identity 
 after death, and answer to prayer, which is a remarkable 
 statement of faith for one who has lived through our scien- 
 tific age. I think at bottom he is a mystic. 
 
 On all sides they are frank in telling of their distress. We 
 did not come in a minute too soon. England and France, 
 I believe, were gone if we had not come in. It delights me 
 to see how much sympathy there is with England as well as 
 with France. The Irish alone seem to be unreconciled with 
 England as our ally. 
 
 Ned got your letter, and I suppose in time will answer it, 
 I had the question put to me by Baker yesterday as to 
 whether I wished him to go to the other side, and I had to 
 say frankly that I did. It was to me the most momentous 
 decision that I have made in the war. He has passed his 
 final test, and I hope that he will get his commission in a 
 few days. 
 
 To-night we give a dinner to the Canadians, Sir George 
 Foster, the acting Premier, and Sir Joseph Polk, the Under 
 Secretary of External Affairs, who, by the way, was born in 
 Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, and says he heard 
 our father preach. 
 
 The country's crops are going to be short, I fear, and we 
 have had little rain. Ships and grain — these are the two 
 things that we must get. Ships, to carry our grain and our 
 locomotives and rails, and grain to keep the fighters alive. 
 The U-boats are destroying twice as much as the produc- 
 ing tonnage of the world. We need every bushel that 
 California can produce. With much love, affectionately 
 yours, 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
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CABINET TALK AND WAR PLANS 253 
 
 To Frank I. Cobb 
 New York World 
 
 Washington, May 5, 1917 
 
 My dear Cobb, — I had a long talk with Hoover yesterday. 
 He tells me that the U-boat situation is really worse than I 
 stated it. There is no question but that the actual sink- 
 ings amounted to more than 300,000 tons in a week, and if 
 we add those put out of business by mines, they will exceed 
 400,000 tons. The French are absolutely desperate. One 
 of the French ministers told Hoover that they had fixed on 
 the first of November as their last day, if the United States 
 had not come in. Admiral Chocheprat told me, with tears 
 in his eyes, three nights ago, that they felt themselves help- 
 less. They were absolutely at the mercy of the submarines 
 because of their lack of destroyers, and they had feared we 
 were preparing to defend our own shores rather than fight 
 across the water. I know that the latter has been the policy 
 of the heads of the Navy Department. 
 
 Do not, I beg of you, minimize the immediate danger. 
 This is the time to defend the United States ; and the United 
 States is woefully indifferent to its dangers and to the needs 
 of the situation. We have been carrying on a ship-building 
 program with reference to conditions after the war. It is 
 only within ten days that we have realized that the end of 
 the war will be one of defeat unless we build twice as fast as 
 we proposed to build. You know that I am not pessimistic. 
 It is not my habit to look upon the gloomy side of things. It 
 is no kindness to the American people or to France or Eng- 
 land to give them words of good cheer now. This war is 
 right at this minute a challenge to every particle of brains 
 and inventive skill that we have got. 
 
 Please treat this as entirely confidential. Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
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254 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 May 8 
 
 The only dissention in the Council is over the use that 
 will be made of Hoover. Houston, I think, is rather making 
 a mistake, though it may work out all right. I hope it will. 
 
 Don't "bat" us; we are a nervous lot right now. . . . 
 
 "Lane was among the first to grasp the bigness of the 
 danger to the allied cause," James S. Harlan says, "in Ger- 
 many's underwater attack on the merchant marine of the 
 world. He also realized the magnitude of the task of frus- 
 trating the new peril and the need of prompt measures to 
 save the situation. Lane had no anxieties or hesitations in 
 his personal contact with big men ; but he had a genuine 
 fear of small men when big things were doing. And so in 
 this great emergency he naturally thought of Schwab. How 
 well I recall the fine force and vigor in his expression when, 
 rising from his chair and standing with clenched fist pointed 
 at me, he said in substance : — 'The President ought to send 
 for Schwab and hand him a treasury warrant for a billion 
 dollars and set him to work building ships, with no govern- 
 ment inspectors or supervisors or accountants or auditors 
 or other red tape to bother him. Let the President just put 
 it up to Schwab's patriotism and put Schwab on his honor. 
 Nothing more is needed. Schwab will do the job.' 
 
 "This was a full year before Schwab was called down to 
 Washington to talk over the question of building ships." 
 
 To Will Irwin 
 Paris, France 
 
 Washington, July 21, 1917 
 
 My dear Will, — I have just received your letter. Thank 
 you very much for what you say of my speech. I am doing 
 
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CABINET TALK AND WAR PLANS 255 
 
 my damndest to keep things going here but it is awfully hard 
 work, because the minute my head raises above the water 
 some neighboring ship plugs it. 
 
 I think you are dead right in staying with the Post. The 
 feeling here is that we are not getting real facts regarding 
 the desperateness of the U-boat situation. We need to be 
 told facts in order to have our minds challenged. We are 
 not cowards, and T hope you will give us realistic pictures of 
 just what is happening if you can. . . . 
 
 My boy is the youngest lieutenant in the Army — nine- 
 teen. He goes next week to Illinois as an instructor in avia- 
 tion, and I suppose in a little while when he gets the 
 machines, he will be crossing over. 
 
 With warm affection, my dear Will. Always yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Robert Lansing 
 Secretary of State 
 
 Beverly, Massachusetts. [August, 1917] 
 
 My dear Lansing, — I had lunch yesterday with Colonel 
 House who asked me what I thought should be done as to 
 the Pope's appeal for peace. I told him I thought it should 
 be taken seriously. He agreed and asked what the President 
 should say. I answered that, inasmuch as all the evidence 
 pointed to the conclusion that the German Centerists and 
 Austria were responsible for this appeal, that we could not 
 afford to have them feel that we were for a policy of annihila- 
 tion, — for this would be playing the War Party's game and 
 would place the burden on us of continuing the war. And 
 this we could neither afford [to do] at home or abroad. 
 This opportunity should be seized, I said, to make plain not 
 so much our terms of peace as the things in Germany that 
 seemed to make peace difficult, — Germany's attitude to- 
 
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256 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 ward the world, the spirit against which we are fighting. 
 That we wished peace ; that we had been patient to the limit ; 
 that we had come in in the hope that we could destroy the 
 idea in the German mind that it could impose its authority 
 and system, by force, upon an unwilling world ; that we were 
 not opposed to talking peace, provided, at the outset, and as 
 a sine qua non, the Central Powers would assume that Govern- 
 ment by the Soldier was not a possibility in the 20th century. 
 
 The Colonel said that he had written the President to 
 this same effect. That he had written you, or not, he did 
 not say. So I am telling you the Colonel's view for your 
 own benefit. He thought that the Allies would strongly insist 
 upon concerted action, putting aside the Pope's appeal, and 
 that this had to be resisted, for we should play our own game. 
 
 I find all I meet here strong for the war, but of course I 
 only meet the high-spirited. There is much feeling that we 
 are going about it too mechanically, with too little emotion 
 and passion. ... As always, 
 
 Lane 
 
 Toward the middle of August, Lane started for Mount 
 Desert to inspect the proposed National Park created there 
 through the public-spirited devotion of George B. Dorr. 
 This northern trip was taken to decide whether he would 
 accept, as Secretary of the Interior, this addition to the 
 National Parks. Two years later in writing to Senator 
 Myers, Chairman of the Committee on Public Lands, of 
 this National Park, the only one east of the Mississippi, 
 Lane said, "The name Lafayette is substituted for that 
 of Mount Desert, the name proposed by the former bill, 
 and I consider it singularly appropriate that the name of 
 Lafayette should be commemorated by these splendid 
 mountains facing on the sea, on what was once a corner of 
 
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CABINET TALK AND WAR PLANS 257 
 
 Old France, and with it the early friendship of the two 
 nations which are so closely allied in the present war." 
 
 To Henry Lane Eno 
 Bar Harbor, Maine 
 
 Washington, Saturday, [September 2, 1917] 
 
 There are not many weeks in a man's life of which he can 
 say that one was without a flaw, that it could not have been 
 improved upon in company, comfort, or surroundings. And 
 all these things, my dear Mr. Eno, I can affirm of the days 
 spent with you. I have a better opinion of my fellows and 
 of my country because of them. Perhaps, after all, that is 
 as complete a test as any other. As I look back I think of 
 but one thing that gives occasion for regret — we had too 
 few good, mind-stretching talks, you, Dorr, and myself. But 
 those we had were certainly not about affairs of small con- 
 cern. We indulged ourselves as social philosophers, psy- 
 chologists, war-makers, and international statesmen. The 
 world was ours, and more — the worlds beyond. To do 
 things worth while by day, and to dream things worth while 
 by night, and to believe that both are worth while, that 
 is the perfect life. If one can't get to Heaven by following 
 that course, then are we lost. 
 
 I am sending a line to Dorr, noble, unselfish, high-spirited, 
 broad-minded gentleman that he is. . . . Sincerely and 
 heartily yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To George Dorr, 
 
 Bar Harbor, Maine 
 
 Washington, [September 2, 1917] 
 
 My dear Mr. Dorr, — You do not know what good you 
 did my tired politics-soaked soul by showing me, under such 
 
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258 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 happy conditions, the beauties and the possibilities of your 
 island. And I came to know two men at least, whose heads 
 and hearts were working for a less pudgy and flat-footed 
 world. ... To have enthusiasm is to beat the Devil. So I 
 have you down in my Saints' book. 
 
 You know a man in politics is always looking about for 
 some place to which he can retire when the whirligig brings 
 in another group of more popular patriots. Now I can 
 frankly say that if I could have an extended term of exile 
 on your island with you and your friends, I would feel recon- 
 ciled to banishment from politics for life, provided however 
 (I must say this for conscience' sake) that we had time and 
 money to make the Park what it should be — a demonstra- 
 tion school for the American to show how much he can add 
 to the beauty of Nature. 
 
 A wilderness, no matter how impressive and beautiful, 
 does not satisfy this soul of mine, (if I have that kind of 
 thing). It is a challenge to man. It says, "Master me! 
 Put me to use ! Make me something more than I am." 
 So what you have done in the Park — the Spring House and 
 the Arts Building, the cliff trails and the opened woods, show 
 how much may be added by the love and thought of man. 
 
 May the Gods be good to you, the God of Mammon im- 
 mediately, that your dreams may come true, and that you 
 may give to others the pleasure you gave to yours sincerely, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Hon. Woodrow Wilson 
 The White House 
 
 Washington, September 21, 1917 
 
 My dear Mr. President, — It will interest you to know 
 that the Commission which I sent up this year to Alaska to 
 look into the Alaskan Railroad matters has just returned. 
 
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CABINET TALK AND WAR PLANS 259 
 
 The engineer on this Commission was Mr. Wendt, who was 
 formerly Chief Engineer of the Pittsburg and Lake Erie 
 Railroad, and who is now in charge of the appraisal of east- 
 ern roads under the Interstate Commerce Commission. He 
 tells me that our Alaskan road could not have been built 
 for less money if handled by a private concern; that he 
 has never seen any railroad camps where the men were pro- 
 vided with as good food and where there was such care 
 taken of their health. They have had no smallpox and but 
 one case of typhoid fever. No liquor is allowed on the line 
 of the road. The road in his judgment has followed the 
 best possible location. Our hospitals are well run. The com- 
 pensation plan adopted for injuries is satisfactory to the men. 
 I have directed that all possible speed be made in connect- 
 ing the Matanuska coal fields with Seward. This involves 
 the heaviest construction that we will have to undertake, 
 which is along Turnagain Arm, but by the middle of next 
 year, no strikes intervening, and transportation for supplies 
 being available, this part of the work should be done. 
 Faithfully and cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 In Lane's Annual Report of the Secretary of the Interior, 
 dated November 20, 1919, he writes of the Alaskan rail- 
 road enterprise : — "One of the first recommendations made 
 by me in my report of seven years ago was that the Govern- 
 ment build a railroad from Seward to Fairbanks in Alaska. 
 Five years ago you intrusted to me the direction of this 
 work. The road is now more than two-thirds built and 
 Congress at this session after exhaustively examining into 
 the work has authorized an additional appropriation suffi- 
 cient for its completion. The showing made before Congress 
 was that the road had been built without graft ; every dollar 
 
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260 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 has gone into actual work or material. It has been built 
 without giving profits to any large contractors, for it has been 
 constructed entirely by small contractors or by day's labor. 
 It has been built without touch of politics ; every man on the 
 road has been chosen exclusively for ability and experience." 
 
 This memorandum touching the early history of Alaska 
 was found in Lane's files. 
 
 Manuscript Note 
 
 Washington, December 29, 1911 
 
 Last night I dined with Charles Henry Butler, reporter 
 for the Supreme Court and a son of William Allen Butler, 
 for so long a leader of the New York bar. 
 
 In the course of the evening Mr. Charles Glover, Pres- 
 ident of the Riggs National Bank, told me this bit of history. 
 That when he was a boy, in the bank one day Mr. Cochran 
 came to him and handed him two warrants upon the United 
 States Treasury, one for $1,400,000. and the other for 
 $5,800,000. He said, "Put those in the safe." Mr. Glover 
 did so, and they remained there for a week, when they were 
 sent to New York. Mr. Glover said "These warrants were 
 the payment of Russia for the Territory of Alaska. Why 
 were there two warrants? I never knew until some years 
 later, when I learned the story from Senator Dawes, who 
 said that prior to the war, there had been some negotiations 
 between the United States and Russia for the purchase of 
 Alaska, and the price of $1,400,000. was agreed upon. In fact 
 this was the amount that Russia asked for this great terri- 
 tory, which was regarded as nothing more than a barren 
 field of ice. 
 
 "During the war the matter lay dormant. We had more 
 
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CABINET TALK AND WAR PLANS 261 
 
 territory than we could take care of. When England, how- 
 ever, began to manifest her friendly disposition toward the 
 Confederacy, and we learned from Europe that England and 
 France were carrying on negotiations for the recognition of 
 the Southern States, and possibly of some manifestation by 
 their fleets against the blockade which we had instituted, 
 (and which they claimed was not effective and merely a 
 paper blockade), we looked about for a friend, and Russia 
 was the only European country upon whose friendship we 
 could rely. Thereupon Secretary Seward secured from 
 Russia a demonstration, in American ports, of Russian 
 friendship. Her ships of war sailed to both of our coasts, the 
 Atlantic and Pacific, with the understanding that the expense 
 of this demonstration should be met by the United States, 
 out of the contingent fund. It was to be a secret matter. 
 "The war came to a close, and immediately thereafter 
 Lincoln was assassinated and the administration changed. 
 It was no longer possible to pay for this demonstration, 
 secretly, under the excuse of war, but a way was found for 
 paying Russia through the purchase of Alaska. The warrant 
 for $1,400,000. was the warrant for the purchase of Alaska, 
 the warrant for $5,800,000. was for Russia's expenses in her 
 naval demonstration in our behalf, but history only knows 
 the fact that the United States paid $7,200,000. for this 
 territory, which is now demonstrated to be one of the richest 
 portions of the earth in mineral deposits." 
 
 To Eon. Woodrow Wilson 
 
 The White House 
 
 Washington, November 3, 1917 
 
 My dear Mr. President, — On April 7, 1917, the Council 
 of National Defense adopted a report, submitted by the 
 
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262 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 Chairman of the Executive Committee on Labor of the Ad- 
 visory Commission of the Council, urging that no change in 
 existing standards be made during the war, by either em- 
 ployers or employees, except with the approval of the Council 
 of National Defense. . . . 
 
 The next step for producing efficiency must be no strikes. 
 
 The annual convention of the American Federation of 
 Labor, consisting of international unions, will be held at 
 Buffalo on November 12th. I would urge that about thirty 
 executives of the unions, which more directly control essen- 
 tial war production, be invited to confer with you prior to 
 that date, to determine on a policy which will prevent the 
 constant interruption of production for war purposes. The 
 Commissioners of Conciliation of the Department of Labor 
 and the President's Commission have a wonderful record 
 of accomplishments for settling strikes after they have oc- 
 curred. Organized labor should give the Government the 
 opportunity to adjust controversies before strikes occur. 
 
 At this conference it could safely be made plain that for 
 the war, employers would agree not to object to the peaceable 
 extension of trade unionism; that they would make no 
 efforts to "open" a "closed shop" ; that they would submit 
 all controversies concerning standards, including wages and 
 lockouts, to any official body on which they have equal repre- 
 sentation with labor, and would abide by its decisions; 
 that they would adhere strictly to health and safety laws, 
 and laws concerning woman and child labor ; that they would 
 not lower prices now in force for piece work, except by 
 Government direction; that if a union in a "closed" shop 
 after due notice was unable to furnish sufficient workers, 
 any non-union employees taken on would be the first to be 
 dismissed on the contraction of business, and the shop re- 
 stored to its previous "closed" status; that the only barrier 
 
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CABINET TALK AND WAR PLANS 263 
 
 in the way of steady production is the unwillingness of the 
 unions to uphold the proposition of settlement before a 
 strike, instead of after a strike. 
 
 The imminence of this convention seems to me to make 
 some step necessary at this time. I would take the matter 
 up with Secretary Wilson were he here, and have sent a 
 copy of this letter to him. You undoubtedly can put an 
 end to this most serious situation by calling on the inter- 
 national labor leaders to take a stand that will not be so 
 radical as that taken in England, and yet will insure to the 
 men good wages and good conditions, and make sure that 
 our industry will not be paralyzed. Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To J. O'H. Cosgrave 
 New York World 
 
 Washington, December 21, 1917 
 
 My dear Jack, — My spirit does not permit me to give you 
 an interview on the moral benefits of the war. This would 
 be sheer camouflage. Of course, we will get some good out 
 of it, and we will learn some efficiency — if that is a moral 
 benefit — and a purer sense of nationalism. But the war 
 will degrade us. That is the plain fact, make sheer brutes 
 out of us, because we will have to descend to the methods 
 that the Germans employ. 
 
 So you must go somewhere else for your uplift stuff. 
 Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K Lane 
 
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X 
 CABINET NOTES IN WAR-TIME 
 
 1918 
 
 Notes on Cabinet Meetings — School Gardens — A Democracy Lacks 
 Foresight — Use of National Resources — Washington in Wartime — 
 The Sacrifice of War — Farms for Soldiers 
 
 Notes on Cabinet Meetings 
 Found in Lane's Files 
 
 February 25, 1918 
 
 As I entered the building this morning Dr. Parsons 1 met 
 me. I asked how the cyanide plant was getting on. His 
 reply was to ask if he might request the War Department 
 to allow us to make the contract — that he could have the 
 whole thing done in two days. This is where we are at the 
 end of more than six months of effort. It is hopeless! 
 We find the process, everything ! — but cannot get the 
 contract, through the intricate, infinite fault-findings and 
 negligence of the War Department. 
 
 Manning 1 came to see me to say that he expected, after 
 the Overman bill was passed, that the President would take 
 over the gas work — order it into the War Department. 
 He had been asked twice if he could be tempted by a uni- 
 form into that Department, and had said that he was freer 
 as a civilian, — had planned the work and gathered the force 
 as a civilian, and would not leave the Department. He 
 
 1 Of the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines. 
 264 
 
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CABINET NOTES IN WAR-TIME 265 
 
 felt damned sore and indignant, that a work so well done 
 should be the subject of envy, and possibly be made less 
 effective and useful. . . . 
 
 Everit Macy lunched with me and told me the sad story 
 of the mishandling of labor affairs by the Shipping Board. 
 He had gone to the Pacific Coast and with his colleagues, 
 Coolidge and others, made an agreement with the ship- 
 building trades. Five dollars and twenty-five cents for 
 machinists, etc. In Seattle, however, because of one firm's 
 bidding for labor, he. felt that there would have to come a 
 strike before this schedule would be accepted. Before he 
 got back the threatened strike came, and then the demand 
 of the men for a ten per cent bonus was acceded to, upset- 
 ting all other settlements in San Francisco, Portland, Los 
 Angeles, etc. Result, ten per cent gain everywhere. And 
 now the Eastern and Southern men ask the Pacific scale, and 
 he can't see how it can be avoided, nor can I. They will 
 have to standardize all wages. 
 
 Poor chap, his advice was scorned, for he protested against 
 the bonus being given to Seattle, and as he said, " If it had 
 not been war-time I would have resigned." To increase 
 the men in the South, to this unprecedented scale, will not 
 get more ships, he fears, but less, for they will not work if 
 they have wages in four days, equal to seven days' needs. 
 I advised for standardization. He said the Navy wouldn't 
 hear of it, as it would demoralize their yards. . . . 
 
 Politics, politics, curse of the country ! It has gotten 
 into the whole war program. Hoover and McAdoo are at 
 swords drawn. Hoover had a cable signed by the three 
 Premiers, George, Clemenceau, and Orlando, crying for 
 wheat and charging us with not keeping our word — and 
 starvation threatening all three countries — in fact, almost 
 sure, because we have not been able to get the wheat to the 
 
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LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 ships; and with starvation will come revolution, if it gets 
 bad enough. ... I asked Hoover about this on Sunday 
 night, . . . and he said that a list of eight hundred cars 
 had been on McAdoo's desk for a week. . . . 
 
 (McChord said on the bench 1 to-day that he thought 
 Hoover seventy -five per cent right.) 
 
 March 1, [1918] 
 
 Yesterday, at Cabinet meeting, we had the first real talk 
 on the war in weeks, yes, in months ! Burleson brought 
 up the matter of Russia, . . . would we support Japan in 
 taking Siberia, or even Vladivostock ? Should we join 
 Japan actively — in force ? 
 
 The President said "No," for the very practical reason 
 that we had no ships. We had difficulty in providing for 
 our men in France and for our Allies, (the President never 
 uses this word, saying that we are not "allies"). How 
 hopeless it would be to carry everything seven or eight thou- 
 sand miles — not only men and munitions, but food ! — for 
 Japan has none to spare, and none we could eat. Her men 
 feed on rice and smoked fish, and she raises nothing we 
 would want. Nor could the country support us. So there 
 was an end of talking of an American force in Siberia ! Yes, 
 we were needed — perhaps as a guarantee of good faith on 
 Japan's part that she would not go too far, nor stay too 
 long. But we would not do it. And besides, Russia would 
 not like it, therefore we must keep hands off and let Japan 
 take the blame and the responsibility. 
 
 The question is not simple, for Russia will say that we 
 threw her to Japan, and possibly she would rush into Ger- 
 many's arms as the lesser of evils. My single word of cau- 
 tion was to so act that Russia, when she "came back," 
 
 1 The Interstate Commerce Commission. 
 
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CABINET NOTES IN WAR-TIME 267 
 
 should not hate us, for there was our new land for develop- 
 ment — Siberia — and we should have front place at that 
 table, if we did not let our fears and our hatred and our con- 
 tempt get away with us now. 
 
 Daniels whispered to-day that Russia had five fast cruisers 
 in the Baltic, which could raid the Atlantic and put our ships 
 off the sea. He had wired Sims to see if they couldn't be 
 sunk. I hope it is not too late ; surely England must have 
 done something on so important a matter, though she is 
 slow in thinking. And how is anyone to get there with the 
 Baltic full of submarines and mines ! The thought is horri- 
 ble, the possibilities ! We certainly have made a bad fist 
 of things Russian from the start. They have deserted us 
 because they were trying to drive the cart ahead of the 
 horse, economical revolution before political revolution, 
 socialism ahead of liberty with law. And they know we are 
 capitalistic, because we do not approve of socialism by force. 
 
 March 12, [1918] 
 
 Nothing talked of at Cabinet that would interest a nation, 
 a family, or a child. No talk of the war. No talk of Russia 
 or Japan. Talk by McAdoo about some bills in Congress, 
 by the President about giving the veterans of the Spanish 
 war leave, with pay, to attend their annual encampment. 
 And he treated this seriously as if it were a matter of first 
 importance ! No word from Baker nor mention of his mis- 
 sion or his doings. . . . 
 
 To Franklin K. Lane, Jr. 
 
 Somewhere in France 
 
 Washington, February IS, 1918 
 
 My dear boy, — ... We are anxiously awaiting some 
 word telling where you are, what you are doing, and how you 
 
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268 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 got on in your trip. I thought your cablegram was a model 
 of condensation, quite like that of Caesar, "Veni, vidi, 
 vici.". . . 
 
 Sergeant Empey has just left the office with a letter to 
 the Secretary of War, asking that he be given a commission. 
 He has been lecturing among the cantonments and wants 
 to get back to France. ... He says that the boys in the 
 cantonments are anxious to go across, and that they are 
 beginning to criticise us because they do not have their 
 chance. But they will all get there soon enough for them. 
 Our national problem is to get ships to carry them, and to 
 carry the food for the Allies. . . . We have undertaken 
 to supply a certain amount of food to the other side, and our 
 contract, so far, has not been fulfilled. During December 
 and January, however, this was, of course, due to railroad 
 conditions. 
 
 You are a long way off, but you must not visualize the 
 distance. Nothing so breaks the spirit as to dwell upon un- 
 fortunate facts. Some one day or another you had to leave 
 the nest, and this is your day for flying. Wherever you 
 are, with people whose language you understand only im- 
 perfectly, with a civilization that is somewhat strange, and 
 under conditions that often-times will be trying, don't adopt 
 the usual attitude of the American in a foreign country and 
 wonder "why the damn fools don't speak English." No 
 doubt some of the French will pity you because of your 
 delinquency in their language. 
 
 Another thing that differentiates us from other people 
 is our lavishness in expenditure, and in what appears to 
 us to be their "nearness.". . . From these same thrifty 
 French have come great things. They have always been 
 great soldiers ; they have led the world in the arts, especially 
 in poetry, painting and fiction — perhaps, too, I should 
 
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CABINET NOTES IN WAR-TIME 269 
 
 add architecture. So that men who are careful of their 
 pennies are not necessarily small in their minds. . . . 
 
 I have less doubt, however, of your ability to get on with 
 the Frenchman than I have with the Englishman. . . . 
 You will have difficulty — at least I should — in under- 
 standing the rather heavy, sober, non-humorous English- 
 man. . . . He is always a self-important gentleman who 
 regards England as having spoken pretty much the last 
 word in all things, and who will abuse his own country, his 
 countrymen, and institutions, frankly and with abandon, 
 but will allow no one else this liberty. He is not a "quitter " 
 though, and he has done his bit through the centuries for 
 the making of the world. 
 
 . . . See as many people as you can, present all your 
 letters, accept invitations. Remember that while you are 
 there and we miss you, we are not spending our time in 
 moping. Every night we go to dinner and we chatter with 
 the rest of the magpies, as if the world were free from suffer- 
 ing. Last night I talked with Paderewski for an hour on the 
 sorrows of Poland, and it was one long tale of horror. . . . 
 
 To-day the Russians are calling their people back to arms 
 
 to stop the oncoming Germans. Foolish, foolish idealists 
 
 who believed that they could establish what they call an 
 
 economic democracy, without being willing to support their 
 
 ideal in modern fashion by force. The best of things can 
 
 not live unless they are fought for, and while I do not think 
 
 that their socialism was the best of anything, it was their 
 
 dream. . . . With much love, my dear boy, your 
 
 Dad 
 
 To George W. Lane 
 
 February 16, 1918 
 
 My dear George, — ... Things are going much better 
 
 with the War Department. My expectation is that this war 
 
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270 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 will resolve itself into three things, in this order : — ships 
 for food, aeroplanes, big guns. We must, as you know, do 
 all that we can to keep up the morale of our own people. 
 There is a considerable percentage of pacifists, and of the 
 weak-hearted ones, who would like to have a peace now upon 
 any terms, but the treatment that Russia is receiving, after 
 she had thrown down her arms, indicates what may be ex- 
 pected by any nation that quits now. 
 
 . . . The prospects for democratization of Germany is 
 not as good as it was a year ago, when we came in, because 
 of their success in arms due to Russia's debacle. The people 
 will not overthrow a government which is successful, nor 
 will they be inclined to desert a system which adds to Ger- 
 many's glory. It is a fight, a long fight, a fight of tremen- 
 dous sacrifice, that we are in for. I said a year ago that it 
 would be two years. Then I thought that Russia would 
 put up some kind of front. Now I say two years from this 
 time and possibly a great deal longer. Lord Northcliffe 
 thinks four or six or eight years. 
 
 Ned writes me that things are very gloomy and glum in 
 England and in Ireland, where he has been. He was out in 
 an air raid, in several of them, in London, not up in the air, 
 but from the ground could see no trace of the airships that 
 were dropping bombs on the town. The Germans seem to 
 have discovered some way by which they can tell where 
 they are without being able to see the lights of the city, for 
 now they have bombarded Paris when it was protected, on 
 a dark night, by a blanket of fog, and London also under 
 the same conditions. The compass is not much good, the 
 deviations are so great. It may be that the clever Huns 
 have found some way of piloting themselves surely. 
 
 We are starting two campaigns through the Bureau of 
 Education which may interest you. One is for school gar- 
 
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CABINET NOTES IN WAR-TIME 271 
 
 dens. To have the children organized, each one to plant 
 a garden. The plan is to raise vegetables which will save 
 things that can be sent over to the armies, and also give the 
 children a sense of being in the war. Another thing we are 
 trying to do is educate the foreign born and the native born 
 who cannot read or write English. If you are interested 
 in either of these two things we will send you literature, and 
 you can name your own district, and we will put you at 
 work. . . . 
 
 Well, my dear fellow, I long very much for the sun and 
 the sweetness of California these days, but I could not en- 
 joy myself if I were there, because I am at such tension that 
 I must be doing every day. Do write me often, even though 
 I do not answer. Affectionately yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Albert Shaw 
 Review of Reviews 
 
 Washington, March 7, 1918 
 
 My dear Dr. Shaw, — I have your letter of March 4th. 
 The thing that a democracy is short on is foresight. We do 
 not have enough men like the General Staff in Germany 
 who can think ten and twenty years ahead. We are too 
 much embedded and incrusted in the things that flow 
 around us during the day, and think too little of the future. 
 For five, long, weary years, I have been agitating for the 
 use of the water powers of the United States. We estimate 
 the unused power in tens and tens of millions of horse-power. 
 Right in New York you have in the Erie Canal 150,000 
 horse-power, and on the Niagara river you have probably a 
 million unused. If you had a great dam across the river 
 below the rapids we should have water power in chains, like 
 fire horses in their stalls, that could be brought out at the 
 
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272 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 time of need. But we are thinking in large figures these 
 days, and while we used to be afraid to ask for a few hun- 
 dred thousand dollars we now talk in millions, and some day 
 we may realize that to put the cost of a week's war into 
 power plants in the United States would be money well 
 invested. . . . 
 
 We have no law under which private capital feels justi- 
 fied in investing a dollar in a water power plant where public 
 lands are involved, because the permit granted is revokable 
 at the pleasure of the Secretary of the Interior, and capital 
 does not enjoy the prospect of making its future returns 
 dependent upon the good digestion of the Secretary. But 
 if we get this bill, which I enclose, through, we will be able 
 to handle the powers on all streams on the public lands and 
 forests and on all navigable waters, and give assurance to 
 capital that it will be well taken care of if it makes the in- 
 vestment. . . . 
 
 I am greatly pleased at the kind things you say about me. 
 The longer I am in office the more of an appetite I have for 
 such food. Hoover x can only commit one fatal mistake — 
 to declare a taffyless day. Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Edward J. Wheeler on February 1, 1917, he had 
 written : — 
 
 "It is an outrage that we should have a total of nearly 
 six million acres of land withdrawn for oil, three million 
 for phosphates, and one million for water power sites, potash, 
 etc., and allow session after session of Congress to pass with- 
 out producing any legislation that will sensibly open these 
 reserves to development. The extreme conservationists, 
 who are really for holding the lands indefinitely in the Fed- 
 
 1 Hoover at this time was Food Administrator. 
 
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CABINET NOTES IN WAR-TIME 273 
 
 eral Government and unopened, and the extreme anti- 
 conservationists, who are for turning all the public lands 
 over to the States, have stood for years against a rational 
 system of national development." 
 
 Although a great part of the energy of the Department 
 of the Interior was, of necessity, diverted to forward war 
 enterprises and to supply war necessities — chemical, metal- 
 lurgical, statistical — Lane steadily pressed forward the 
 conduct of the normal activities of the department. In 
 his report for the year 1918, he briefly summarizes this 
 work, — "The distribution, survey, and classification of 
 our national lands; the care of the Indian wards of the 
 Nation, their education, and the development of their vast 
 estate; the carrying forward of our reclamation projects; 
 the awarding and issuance of patents to inventors; the 
 construction of the Alaskan railroad and the supervision of 
 the Territorial affairs of Alaska and Hawaii ; the payment 
 of pensions to Army and Navy veterans and their depend- 
 ents ; the promotion of education ; the custody and manage- 
 ment of the national parks; the conservation of the lives 
 of those who work in mines, and the study and guidance of 
 the mining and metallurgical industries." 
 
 To Walter H. Page 
 
 Washington, March 16, 1918 
 
 My dear Mr. Ambassador, — I am the poorest of all 
 living correspondents, in fact, I am a dead correspondent. 
 I do not function. If it had not been so I would long since 
 have answered your notes, which have been in my basket, 
 but I have had no time for any personal correspondence, 
 much as I delight in it, for I have a very old-fashioned love 
 
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274 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 for writing from day to day what pops into my mind, con- 
 tradicting each day what I said the day before, and gather- 
 ing from my friends their impressions and their spirit the 
 same way. For the first time in three months I have leisure 
 enough ... to acknowledge a few of the accumulated per- 
 sonal letters. 
 
 Let me give you a glimpse of my day, just to compare it 
 with your own and by way of contrasting life in two different 
 spheres and on different sides of the ocean. I get to my 
 office at nine in the morning and my day is broken up into 
 fifteen-minute periods, during which I see either my own 
 people or others. I really write none of my own letters, 1 
 simply telling my secretaries whether the answer should be 
 "yes" or "no." I lunch at my own desk and generally 
 with my wife, who has charge of our war work in the De- 
 partment. We have over thirteen hundred men who have 
 gone out of this Department into the Army. . . . My 
 day is broken into by Cabinet meeting twice a week, meet- 
 ing of the Council of National Defense twice a week, and 
 latterly with long sessions every afternoon over the ques- 
 tion of what railroad wages should be. 
 
 My offiee is a sort of place of last resort for those who are 
 discouraged elsewhere, for Washington is no longer a city 
 of set routine and fixed habit. It is at last the center of 
 the nation. New York is no longer even the financial cen- 
 ter. The newspapers are edited from here. Society centers 
 here. All the industrial chiefs of the nation spend most of 
 their time here. It is easier to find a great cattle king or 
 automobile manufacturer or a railroad president or a banker 
 at the Shoreham or the Willard Hotel than it is to find him 
 in his own town. The surprising thing is that these great 
 men who have made our country do not loom so large when 
 
 1 This referred to routine letters. 
 
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CABINET NOTES IN WAR-TIME 275 
 
 brought to Washington and put to work. . . . Every day 
 I find some man of many millions who has been here for 
 months and whose movements used to be a matter of news- 
 paper notoriety, but I did not know, even, that he was here. 
 I leave my office at seven o'clock, not having been out of 
 it during the day except for a Cabinet or Council meeting, 
 take a wink of sleep, change my clothes and go to a dinner, 
 for this, as you will remember, is the one form of entertain- 
 ment that Washington has permitted itself in the war. The 
 dinners are Hooverized, — three courses, little or no wheat, 
 little or no meat, little or no sugar, a few serve wine. And 
 round the table will always be found men in foreign uni- 
 forms, or some missionary from some great power who comes 
 begging for boats or food. These dinners used to be places 
 of great gossip, and chiefly anti-administration gossip, but 
 the spirit of the people is one of unequaled loyalty. The 
 Republicans are as glad to have Wilson as their President 
 as are the Democrats, I think sometimes a little more glad, 
 because many of the Democrats are disgruntled over pat- 
 ronage or something else. The women are ferocious in 
 their hunt for spies, and their criticism is against what they 
 think is indifference to this danger. Boys appear at these 
 dinners in the great houses, because of their uniforms, who 
 would never have been permitted even to come to the 
 front door in other days, for all are potential heroes. Every 
 woman carries her knitting, and it is seldom that you hear 
 a croaker even among the most luxurious class. Well, the 
 dinner is over by half past ten, and I go home to an hour 
 and a half's work, which has been sent from the office, and 
 fall at last into a more or less troubled sleep. This is the 
 daily round. 
 
 I have not been to New York since the war began. I 
 made one trip across the continent speaking for the Liberty 
 
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276 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 Loan, day and night. And this life is pretty much the life 
 of all of us here. The President keeps up his spirits by go- 
 ing to the theatre three or four times a week. There are 
 no official functions at the White House, and everybody's 
 teeth are set. The Allies need not doubt our resolution. 
 England and France will break before we will, and I do not 
 doubt their steadfast purpose. It is, as you said long ago, 
 their fault that this war has come, for they did not realize 
 the kind of an enemy they had, either in spirit, purpose, or 
 strength. But we will increasingly strengthen that western 
 gate so that the Huns will not break through. 
 
 We do things fast here, but I never realized before how 
 slow we are in getting started. It takes a long time for 
 us to get a new stride. I did not think that this was 
 true industrially. I have known that it was true politi- 
 cally for a long time, because this was the most backward 
 and most conservative of all the democracies. We take up 
 new machinery of government so slowly. But industrially 
 it is also true. When told to change step we shift and 
 stumble and halt and hesitate and go through all kinds of 
 awkward misses. This has been true as to ships and aero- 
 planes and guns, big and little, and uniforms. Whatever 
 the government has done itself has been tied by endless red 
 tape. It is hard for an army officer to get out of the desk 
 habit, and caution, conservatism, sureness, seem even in 
 time of crisis to be more important than a bit of daring. In 
 my Department, I figure that it takes about seven years 
 for the nerve of initiative and the nerve of imagination to 
 atrophy, and so, perhaps, it is in other departments. It 
 took five months for one of our war bureaus to get out a 
 contract for a building that we were to build for them. Fif- 
 teen men had to sign the contract. And of course we have 
 been impatient. But things are bettering every day. The 
 
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CABINET NOTES IN WAR-TIME 277 
 
 men in the camps are very impatient to get away. But 
 where are the ships to do all the work? The Republicans 
 cannot chide us with all of the unpreparedness, for they 
 stood in the way of our getting ships three years ago. The 
 gods have been against us in the way of weather so we have 
 not brought down our supplies to the seaboard, but we have 
 not had the ships to take away that which was there; or 
 coal, sometimes, for the ships. 
 
 From now, however, you will see a steadier, surer move- 
 ment of men, munitions, food, and ships. The whole coun- 
 try is solidly, strongly with the President. There are men 
 in Congress bitterly against him but they do not dare to 
 raise their voices, because he has the people so resolutely 
 with him. The Russian overthrow has been a good thing 
 for us in one way. It will cost us perhaps a million lives, 
 but it will prove to us the value of law and order. We are 
 to have our troubles, and must change our system of life 
 in the next few years. 
 
 A great oil man was in the office the other day and told 
 me in a plain, matter-of-fact way, what must be done to 
 win — the sacrifices that must be made — and he ended 
 by saying, "After all, what is property?" This is a very 
 pregnant question. It is not being asked in Russia alone. 
 Who has the right to anything? My answer is, not the 
 man, necessarily, who has it, but the man who can use it 
 to good purpose. The way to find the latter man is the 
 difficulty. 
 
 We will have national woman suffrage, national prohibi- 
 tion, continuing inheritance tax, continuing income tax, 
 national life insurance, an increasing grip upon the rail- 
 roads, their finances and their operation as well as their 
 rates. Each primary resource, such as land and coal and 
 iron and copper and oil, we will more carefully conserve. 
 
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278 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 There will be no longer the opportunity for the individual 
 along these lines that there has been. Industry must find 
 some way of profit-sharing or it will be nationalized. These 
 things, however, must be regarded as incidents now; and 
 the labor people, those with vision and in authority, are very 
 willing to postpone the day of accounting until we know 
 what the new order is to be like. 
 
 Well, I have rambled on, giving you a general look-in on 
 my mind. Don't let any of those people doubt the Presi- 
 dent, or doubt the American people. This is the very dark- 
 est day that we have seen. But we believe in ourselves and 
 we believe in our own kind, and believe in a something, 
 not ourselves, that makes for righteousness, — slowly, stum- 
 blingly, but, as the centuries go, surely. 
 
 I have not yet seen the Archbishop of York. He has not 
 been here. But he has made a most favorable impression 
 where he has been, and so have the English labor people. 
 
 Poor Spring-Rice did good work here. Washington felt 
 very sad over his death, and is expecting that England will 
 evidence her appreciation of the fact that he did nothing 
 to estrange us by the way in which his widow is treated. 
 
 Reading has been received and fits in perfectly. With 
 warm regards, as always, Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To John Lyon 
 Machine Gun Company 
 
 Camp McClennen, Alabama 
 
 Washington, March 15, 1918 
 My dear John, — I know how you must feel. Every 
 particle of my own nature rebels against the horror of this 
 war, or of any war, and against the dragooning by military 
 men. I had rather die now and take my chances of Hell, 
 
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CABINET NOTES IN WAR-TIME 279 
 
 than doom myself and Ned and those who are to come after, 
 to living under a government which is as this government is 
 now and as all governments must be now, — autocratic, 
 governed by orders and commands. But this is the game, 
 and we have got to play it, play it hard and play it through. 
 Manifestly we cannot quit as Russia did without getting 
 Russia's ill-fortune. There was a great empire of a hun- 
 dred and eighty million people. They mobilized twenty -five 
 million men. Six million of them are dead. The Czar was 
 overthrown, a new government was set up, one of conserv- 
 ative socialism, and that was swept aside and a group of 
 impractical socialists put in its stead, and where is Russia 
 now? Broken to bits, its population dying of hunger, its 
 industries unworked, its soil untilled, and Germany coming 
 on with her great feet, stamping down the few who are brave 
 enough to interpose themselves between Germany and her 
 end. If we were to quit, Germany would do to us, or try to 
 do to us, what she has done to Russia. 
 
 If there ever was a real defensive war it is the one that we 
 are engaged in, and we must sacrifice, and sacrifice, and sac- 
 rifice, not merely for the world's sake but for our own sake. 
 Ned is in France. He went through England. He tells me 
 that everybody is serious, solemn, purposeful. They would 
 rather all die than live under Germany's mastery of the 
 world. 
 
 The President is being bitterly criticized because he has 
 taken every opportunity to talk of terms and of ways out, 
 but I think he is right. He must make the people of the 
 world feel that we are not foolishly, and in a headstrong 
 way, fighting to get anything for ourselves or for anybody 
 else, except the chance to live our own lives. And we will 
 show these Germans something. Our capacity to produce 
 aeroplanes is still altogether unrealized, and we will have 
 
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280 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 great guns a few feet apart along the entire front. We can 
 bomb German harbors where submarines are, and are made 
 — that's the work that Ned is going in for, — and we will 
 hold that western line until every resource is exhausted. 
 And we will go through it one of these days, perhaps not 
 this year. But we must go through it or else American 
 ships will live on the sea by consent of Germany, and Canada 
 will become German territory. This is no dream. Give 
 Germany Paris and Calais and she can exact terms from 
 England. Why should she not ask for Canada ? And give 
 Germany Canada and what becomes of the United States ? 
 An army of Germans on our border, 5,000,000 men in arms 
 in the United States always, the army and navy budget 
 taking thirty or forty per cent of every man's income. Who 
 wants to live in such a country ? We are fighting the great- 
 est war that history has ever seen, not merely in numbers 
 but in principle. We are fighting to get rid of the most 
 hateful survivals from the past. The overlord, the brusque 
 and arrogant soldier, is the dominating factor in society 
 and the government, the turning of men's thoughts away 
 from the pursuit of the things of art and beauty and social 
 beneficence into the one channel of making everything serve 
 the military arm of the nation. 
 
 This will be a better world for the poor man when all is 
 over. We must forget our dreams, what our own individual 
 lives would have been, and with dash, and cheer, and cour- 
 age, and willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice, set our 
 jaws and go forward. The devil is in the saddle and we must 
 pull him down, or else he will rule the world, — and you 
 are to have a tug at his coat. And I envy you. I'd take 
 your place in a minute, if I could. Remember that you 
 are an individualist, not a collectivist naturally, but in- 
 dividuals are of no use now. The war can be made only 
 
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CABINET NOTES IN WAR-TIME 281 
 
 by great groups who conform. The free spirit of man will 
 have its way once more when this bloody war is done. 
 
 I am glad you wrote me, and I want you to feel that you 
 always can write me, whatever is in your heart, and I will 
 give you such answer as my busy days will permit. There 
 is only one way to look at life and get any satisfaction out 
 of it, and that is to bow to the inevitable. We all must be 
 fatalists to that extent, and once a course has been deter- 
 mined upon, accept it and make the best of it. The life 
 of the old gambler does not consist in holding a big hand 
 but in playing a poor hand well. You and I are no longer 
 masters of our own fortunes. All that we can do is to abide 
 by the set rules of the game that is being played. I would 
 change many things, but I am powerless, and because I am 
 powerless I must say to myself each day, "All that God 
 demands of me is that I shall do my best," and doing that, 
 the responsibility is cast upon that Spirit which is the Great 
 Commander. I like to feel at these times that there is a 
 personal God and a personal devil, and there has been no 
 better philosophy devised than that. God is not supreme, 
 He is not omnipotent, He has His limitations, His struggles, 
 His defeats, but there is no life unless you believe that He 
 ultimately must win, that this world is going upward, not 
 downward, that the devil is to be beaten, — the devil in- 
 side of ourselves, the devil of wilfulness, of waywardness, of 
 cynicism, and the devil that is represented by the over- 
 bearing, cruel militarism and ruthless inhumanity of Ger- 
 many. You are a soldier of the Lord, just as truly as Christ 
 was. 
 
 I send you my affectionate regards, and with it goes the 
 confidence that you will, with good cheer and resolution, 
 play your part. Sincerely yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
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282 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 This boy died in France. Lane wrote to his father of 
 him : — 
 
 To Frank Lyon 
 
 Washington, [November 16, 1918] 
 
 Dear Frank, — Have just heard. Dear, dear Boy ! I 
 was so fond of him. He had a brave adventurous spirit. 
 Well, he has gone out gloriously. There could be no finer 
 way to go and no better time. 
 
 I know your own strength will be equal to this test — 
 and the wife, poor woman, she too is brave. My heart goes 
 out to you both very really, wholly. With much affection. 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Miss Genevieve King 
 
 Washington, March 16, 1918 
 
 My dear Miss King, — These are times of terrible strain 
 and stress, and we cannot easily fall back upon those sources 
 of power which seem so distant and unavailing. I like to 
 think of you as in our last talk in the Miller's drawing room, 
 where you had a much better opportunity to express your- 
 self than in the one that we later had out on the porch. You 
 then seemed to live your thought and to have the capacity 
 for its expression. I think of you, too, up on that beautiful 
 mountainside, where things like war and guns and bandages 
 and hospitals and men without arms and the lack of ships, 
 the need for saying goodbye, are so remote. 
 
 We still keep up a semblance of social life by going to 
 dinners every night. It is the one relief I have, and yet 
 each time I go I feel ashamed at what appears like a waste 
 of time, and yet I know is not, and the waste of good food 
 which is needed by others so much more than by us. Still 
 the people have come down to a strict and modest diet with 
 
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CABINET NOTES IN WAR-TIME 283 
 
 surprising firmness. There is little evidence of what you 
 would call luxury or extravagance, excepting in the way a 
 few people live. The place is filled with soldiers of many 
 colors, breeds, and uniforms. 
 
 . . . Anne is busy every day at her work, and I see little 
 of anyone who does not come to me on business. The coun- 
 try seems strongly with the President, and while his spirits are 
 not gay, his purpose is high and his determination is strong. 
 We will do better, and increasingly better, as time goes on, 
 I believe. With warm regards, as always sincerely yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 Lane was a member of the Executive Council of the Red 
 Cross, with whom his wife was working during the war. He 
 characterized its symbol as, — "The one flag which binds 
 all nations is that which speaks of suffering and healing, 
 losses and hopes, a past of courage and a future of peace — 
 the flag of the Red Cross." 
 
 To John McNaught 
 
 Washington, March 16, 1918 
 
 My dear John, — It is only now after a month's delay, 
 that I have an opportunity even to acknowledge your letter 
 of the 17th of February. 
 
 . . . The whole war situation seems to be so big that 
 it overwhelms the minds of men. . . . But we are grinding 
 on and going surely in the right way. Not everything has 
 been done that could be done, but we are getting our step. 
 This thing will be longer than we thought. But as the 
 President says, it is our job — our job is cut out for us, and 
 we are going to see it through. Russia has taught us what 
 happens to a nation that is not self-respecting. We are 
 
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284 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 hard at work, every one of us, big and little. The nation 
 never was as united, and while we do not realize just what 
 war is, yet we will realize it more from day to day and harder 
 will our fibre grow. 
 
 My boy is in France. He hopes to fly an aeroplane 
 over a German submarine base, and drop a ton of dynamite 
 on it and put it out of business. 
 
 How the world has changed since we dreamed together 
 in the Cosmos Club! How Paris has changed since we wan- 
 dered through its boulevards together ! The day of the 
 common man is at hand. Our danger will be in going too 
 fast, and by going too fast do injustice to him. But your 
 kind of socialism and mine is to have its fling. 
 
 I was much pleased to meet your wife, very much indeed, 
 and I hope we may see you here one of these days. With 
 my affectionate regards, sincerely yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 On May 31, 1918, Lane sent a long letter to President 
 Wilson in relation to his plan for providing farms, from the 
 public domain, for the returning soldiers. The letter is 
 given at some length, because this plan was so dear to Lane's 
 heart, and was one upon which he had put much earnest 
 study. In addition to the phases of the subject printed 
 here, he gave, in his signed letter to President Wilson, de- 
 tailed consideration to several other aspects of the matter; 
 such as, a comparison of his plan with land-tenure in Den- 
 mark, Ireland, New Zealand, and Australia; the need for 
 an extension of the method whereby land can be "developed 
 in large areas, sub-divided into individual farms, then sold 
 to actual bona fide farmers on long-time payment basis " ; 
 and also the part Alaska should be made to play in affording 
 agricultural opportunity to our returned soldiers. 
 
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CABINET NOTES IN WAR-TIME 285 
 
 To Hon. Woodrow Wilson 
 The White House 
 
 Washington, May 31, 1918 
 
 My dear Mr. President, — I believe the time has come 
 when we should give thought to the preparations of plans 
 for providing opportunity for our soldiers returning from 
 the war. Because this Department has handled similar 
 problems I consider it my duty to bring this matter to the 
 attention of yourself and Congress. . . . 
 
 To the great number of returning soldiers, land will offer 
 the great and fundamental opportunity. The experience 
 of wars points out the lesson that our service men, because 
 of army life with its openness and activity, will largely seek 
 out-of-doors vocations and occupations. This fact is ac- 
 cepted by the allied European nations. That is why their 
 programs and policies of re-locating and readjustment em- 
 phasize the opportunities on the land for the returning 
 soldier. The question then is, "What land can be made 
 available for farm homes for our soldiers ? " 
 
 We do not have the bountiful public domain of the sixties 
 and seventies. In a literal sense, for the use of it on a gen- 
 erous scale for soldier farm homes as in the sixties, "the 
 public domain is gone." The official figures at the end of 
 the fiscal year, June 30, 1917, show this : We have unappro- 
 priated land in the continental United States to the amount 
 of 230,657,755 acres. It is safe to say that not one-half 
 of this land will ever prove to be cultivable in any sense. 
 So we have no lands in any way comparable to that in the 
 public domain when Appomattox came — and men turned 
 westward with army rifle and "roll blanket," to begin life 
 anew. 
 
 While we do not have that matchless public domain of 
 '65, we do have millions of acres of undeveloped lands that 
 
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286 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 can be made available for our home-coming soldiers. We 
 have arid lands in the West, cut-over lands in the Northwest, 
 Lake States, and South, and also swamp lands in the Middle 
 West and South, which can be made available through the 
 proper development. Much of this land can be made suit- 
 able for farm homes if properly handled. But it will require 
 that each type of land be dealt with in its own particular 
 fashion. The arid land will require water; the cut-over 
 land will require clearing; and the swamp land must be 
 drained. Without any of these aids, they remain largely 
 "No Man's Land." The solution of these problems is no 
 new thing. In the admirable achievement of the Reclama- 
 tion Service in reclamation and drainage we have abundant 
 proof of what can be done. 
 
 Looking toward the construction of additional projects, 
 I am glad to say that plans and investigations have been 
 under way for some time. A survey and study has been 
 in the course of consummation by the Reclamation Service 
 on the Great Colorado Basin. That great project, I believe, 
 will appeal to the new spirit of America. It would mean the 
 conquest of an empire in the Southwest. It is believed that 
 more than three millions of acres of arid land could be re- 
 claimed by the completion of the Upper and Lower Colorado 
 Basin projects. . . . 
 
 What amount of land, in its natural state unfit for farm 
 homes, can be made suitable for cultivation by drainage, 
 only thorough surveys and studies can develop. We know 
 that authentic figures show that more than fifteen million 
 acres have been reclaimed for profitable farming, most of 
 which lies in the Mississippi River Valley. 
 
 The amount of cut-over lands in the United States, of 
 course, it is impossible even in approximation to estimate. 
 ... A rough estimate of their number is about two hun- 
 
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CABINET NOTES IN WAR-TIME 287 
 
 dred million acres — that is of land suitable for agricultural 
 development. Substantially all this cut-over or logged-off 
 land is in private ownership. The failure of this land to be 
 developed is largely due to inadequate method of approach. 
 Unless a new policy of development is worked out in co- 
 operation between the Federal Government, the States, 
 and the individual owners, a greater part of it will remain 
 unsettled and uncultivated. . . . 
 
 Any plan for the development of land for the returned 
 soldier, will come face to face with the fact that a new policy 
 will have to meet the new conditions. The era of free or 
 cheap land in the United States has passed. We must meet 
 the new conditions of developing lands in advance — se- 
 curity must to a degree displace speculation. . . . 
 
 This is an immediate duty. It will be too late to plan 
 for these things when the war is over. Our thought now 
 should be given to the problem. And I therefore desire to 
 bring to your mind the wisdom of immediately supplying 
 the Interior Department with a sufficient fund with which 
 to make the necessary surveys and studies. We should 
 know by the time the war ends, not merely how much arid 
 land can be irrigated, nor how much swamp land reclaimed, 
 nor where the grazing land is and how many cattle it will 
 support, nor how much cut-over land can be cleared, but 
 we should know with definiteness where it is practicable 
 to begin new irrigation projects, what the character of the 
 land is, what the nature of the improvements needed will 
 be, and what the cost will be. We should know also, not 
 in a general way, but with particularity, what definite areas 
 of swamp land may be reclaimed, how they can be drained, 
 what the cost of the drainage will be, what crops they will 
 raise. We should have in mind specific areas of grazing 
 lands, with a knowledge of the cattle which are best adapted 
 
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288 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 to them, and the practicability of supporting a family upon 
 them. So, too, with our cut-over lands. We should know 
 what it would cost to pull or "blow-out" stumps and to put 
 the lands into condition for a farm home. 
 
 And all this should be done upon a definite planning 
 basis. We should think as carefully of each one of these 
 projects as George Washington thought of the planning of 
 the City of Washington. We should know what it will cost 
 to buy these lands if they are in private hands. In short, 
 at the conclusion of the war the United States should be 
 able to say to its returned soldiers, "If you wish to go upon 
 a farm, here are a variety of farms of which you may take 
 your pick, which the Government has prepared against the 
 time of your returning." I do not mean by this to carry 
 the implication that we should do any other work now than 
 the work of planning. A very small sum of money put into 
 the hands of men of thought, experience, and vision, will 
 give us a program which will make us feel entirely confi- 
 dent that we are not to be submerged, industrially or other- 
 wise, by labor which we will not be able to absorb, or that 
 we would be in a condition where we would show a lack of 
 respect for those who return as heroes, but who will be 
 without means of immediate self-support. 
 
 A million or two dollars, if appropriated now, will put 
 this work well under way. 
 
 This plan does not contemplate anything like charity 
 to the soldier. He is not to be given a bounty. He is not 
 to be made to feel that he is a dependent. On the con- 
 trary, he is to continue, in a sense, in the service of the Gov- 
 ernment. Instead of destroying our enemies he is to develop 
 our resources. 
 
 The work that is to be done, other than the planning, 
 should be done by the soldier himself. The dam or the 
 
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CABINET NOTES IN WAR-TIME 289 
 
 irrigation project should be built by him, the canals, the 
 ditches, the breaking of the land, and the building of the 
 houses, should, under proper direction, be his occupation. 
 He should be allowed to make his own home, cared for while 
 he is doing it, and given an interest in the land for which he 
 can pay through a long period of years, perhaps thirty or 
 forty years. This same policy can be carried out as to the 
 other classes of lands. So that the soldier on his return 
 would have an opportunity to make a home for himself, to 
 build a home with money which we would advance and 
 which he would repay, and for the repayment we would 
 have an abundant security. The farms should not be 
 turned over as the prairies were — unbroken, unfenced, 
 without accommodations for men and animals. There should 
 be prepared homes, all of which can be constructed by the 
 men themselves, and paid for by them, under a system 
 of simple devising by which modern methods of finance will 
 be applied to their needs. 
 
 As I have indicated, this is not a mere Utopian vision. It 
 is, with slight variations, a policy which other countries 
 are pursuing successfully. The plan is simple. I will under- 
 take to present to the Congress definite projects for the 
 development of this country through the use of the returned 
 soldier, by which the United States, lending its credit, may 
 increase its resources and its population and the happiness 
 of its people, with a cost to itself of no more than the few 
 hundred thousand dollars that it will take to study this 
 problem through competent men. This work should not be 
 postponed. Cordially and faithfully yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 The bill, incorporating this plan, was rejected by a Con- 
 gress unwilling to accept any solution of any part of the 
 
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290 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 after-war problem, if the plan came from the Wilson Ad- 
 ministration. 
 
 In 1918, Colonel Mears, who had been Chief Engineer 
 and later Chairman of the Alaskan Commission, in charge 
 of the construction of the Alaskan railroad, went, with many 
 others, to the front, and Lane was obliged to find new men 
 to carry on the Alaskan work. 
 
 To Allan Pollok 
 
 Washington, July 17, 1918 
 
 . . . You certainly can have more time, because I want 
 you, and it is not on my own account altogether, because I 
 feel sure you will delight in the kind of creative job that it 
 is. I found that Scotchmen had made Hawaii, and I would 
 like to see some of that same stuff go into Alaska. You see 
 we have a fine bunch of men there, practical fellows of ex- 
 perience, but not one of them looms large as a business man 
 or as a creator. I would personally like to spend a few 
 years of my life just dreaming dreams about what could be 
 done in that huge territory, and if I only got by with one 
 out of five hundred, I would leave a real dent in the history 
 of the territory. 
 
 That coal must be brought out of Alaska for the Navy, 
 if the Navy is going to use any coal, and we ought to be able 
 to send a great many thousands of Americans, as stock 
 raisers and farmers, into Alaska after this war. The cli- 
 mate is just as good as that of Montana, and in some places 
 much better. Of course it is not a swivel-chair job. It 
 is a challenge to everything that a fellow has in him of am- 
 bition, courage, imagination, enterprise, and tact, and if we 
 can possibly get that road completed by the end of the war, 
 
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CABINET NOTES IN WAR-TIME 291 
 
 and know that we have another national domain there for 
 settlement, it would help out mightily on the returning sol- 
 dier problem. You and I cannot fight and that is our bad 
 luck. We were born about thirty years too early but I 
 have a notion that we can make Alaska do her bit through 
 that railroad. ... If you want a great mining expert 
 to go in with you I can get one. . . . Come on into the 
 game. 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To E. S. Pillsbury 
 
 Washington, July 30, 1918 
 
 My dear Mr. Pillsbury, — ... In these radical times 
 when things are changing so quickly it does not do to 
 be too conservative or things will go altogether to the 
 bad. . . . 
 
 Pragmatic tests must be applied strictly and the way 
 to beat wild-eyed schemes is to show that they are im- 
 practicable, and to harness our people to the land. Every 
 man in an industry ought to be tied up in some way by profit- 
 sharing or stock-owning arrangements, and we should get 
 as large a proportion of our people on small farms as possi- 
 ble. If this is not done we are going to have a reign of law- 
 lessness. 
 
 When a sense of property goes, it becomes more and more 
 apparent to me, that all other conserving and conservative 
 tendencies go, and the man who has something is the man 
 who will save this country. So it is necessary that just as 
 many have something as possible. . . . The one thing 
 which the Bolsheviki do not understand is that the eco- 
 nomic world is not divided between capital and labor, but 
 that there is a great class unrepresented in these two di- 
 visions — the managing class which furnishes brains and 
 
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292 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 direction, tact and vision, and no socialistic scheme pro- 
 vides for the selection and reward of these men. . . . Cor- 
 dially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To William Marion Reedy 
 Reedy' 's Mirror 
 
 Washington, September 13, 1918 
 
 My dear Mr. Reedy, — In the first place ... as to the 
 coal agreement, when coal was more than six dollars a ton 
 and climbing, and it was nobody's business to reduce the 
 price, I made an appeal to the coal operators to fix volun- 
 tarily a maximum price of one-half of what they were then 
 getting. This they did, with the understanding that it 
 would stand only until the Government fixed the price, if 
 it chose to do so later. The price was three dollars in the 
 East, and two dollars and seventy-five cents in the West, 
 and there is not a coal mine in the country to-day, under 
 Government operation, that is producing coal for as little as 
 that price, which the operators themselves upon my appeal, 
 fixed. . . . 
 
 Some day or another we will meet, . . . and I am in- 
 clined to believe that you will think me less of a reactionary 
 than a radical. I am against a standardized world, an 
 ordered, Prussianized world. I am for a world in which 
 personal initiative is kept alive and at work. There are 
 a lot of people here who believe that you can do things by 
 orders, which I know from my knowledge of the human and 
 the American spirit can much more effectively be done by 
 appeal. 
 
 Everything goes happily here these days, because we are 
 winning the war, and the future of the world will soon be in 
 the hands of a man who not so long ago was a school teacher. 
 
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CABINET NOTES IN WAR-TIME 293 
 
 A great world this, isn't it? And the greatest romance is 
 not even the fact that Woodrow Wilson is its master, but 
 the advance of the Czecho-Slavs across five thousand miles 
 of Russian Asia, — an army on foreign territory, without a 
 government, holding not a foot of land, who are recognized 
 as a nation ! This stirs my imagination as I think nothing 
 in the war has, since Albert of Belgium stood fast at Liege. 
 Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 Notes on Cabinet Meetings 
 Found in Lane's Files 
 
 October 23, 1918 
 
 Yesterday we had a Cabinet Meeting. All were present. 
 The President was manifestly disturbed. For some weeks 
 we have spent our time at Cabinet meetings largely in telling 
 stories. Even at the meeting of a week ago, the day on 
 which the President sent his reply to Germany — his second 
 Note of the Peace Series — we were given no view of the Note 
 which was already in Lansing's hands and was emitted at 
 four o'clock; and had no talk upon it, other than some 
 outline given offhand by the President to one of the Cabinet 
 who referred to it before the meeting ; and for three-quar- 
 ters of an hour told stories on the war, and took up small 
 departmental affairs. 
 
 This was the Note which gave greatest joy to the people 
 of any yet written, because it was virile and vibrant with 
 determination to put militarism out of the world. As he 
 sat down at the table the President said that Senator Ashurst 
 had been to see him to represent the bewildered state of 
 mind existing in the Senate. They were afraid that he 
 would take Germany's words at their face value. 
 
 "I said to the Senator," said the President, "do they 
 
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294 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 think I am a damned fool?". . . Yet Senator Kellogg 
 says that Ashurst told the Senators that the President 
 talked most pacifically, as if inclined to peace, and that 
 Ashurst was "afraid that he would commit the country to 
 peace," so afraid that he wanted all the pressure possible 
 brought to bear on the President by other Senators. At 
 any rate, the Note when it came had no pacificism in it, and 
 the President gained the unanimous approval of the country 
 and the Allies. 
 
 But all this was a week ago. Germany came back with 
 an acceptance of the President's terms — a superficial ac- 
 ceptance at least — hence the appeal to the Cabinet yes- 
 terday. This was his opening, "I do not know what to do. 
 I must ask your advice. I may have made a mistake in 
 not properly safe-guarding what I said before. What do 
 you think should be done?" 
 
 This general query was followed by a long silence, which 
 I broke by saying that Germany would do anything he said. 
 
 "What should I say?" he asked. 
 
 "That we would not treat until Germany was across the 
 Rhine." 
 
 This he thought impossible. 
 
 Then others took a hand. Wilson said the Allies should 
 be consulted. Houston thought there was no real reform 
 inside Germany. McAdoo made a long talk favoring an 
 armistice on terms fixed by the military authorities. 
 Strangely enough, Burleson, who had voted against all our 
 stiff action over the Lusitania and has pleaded for the Ger- 
 mans steadily, was most belligerent in his talk. He was 
 ferocious — so much so that I thought he was trying to 
 make the President react against any stiff Note — for he 
 knows the President well, and knows that any kind of strong 
 blood-thirsty talk drives him into the cellar of pacifism. . . . 
 
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CABINET NOTES IN WAR-TIME 295 
 
 One of the things McAdoo said was that we could not 
 financially sustain the war for two years. He was for an 
 armistice that would compel Germany to keep the peace, 
 military superiority recognized by Germany, with Foch, 
 Haig, and Pershing right on top of them all the time. Sec- 
 retary Wilson came back with his suggestion that the Allies 
 be consulted. Then Baker wrote a couple of pages outlining 
 the form of such a Note suggesting an armistice. I said that 
 this should be sent to our "partners" in the war, without 
 giving it to the world, that we were in a confidential re- 
 lation to France and England, that they were in danger of 
 troubles at home, possible revolution, and if the President, 
 with his prestige, were to ask publicly an armistice which 
 they wOuld not think wise to grant, or which couldn't be 
 granted, the sending of such a message into the world would 
 be coercing them. The President said that they needed to 
 be coerced, that they were getting to a point where they 
 were reaching out for more than they should have in justice. 
 I pointed out the position in which the President would be 
 if he proposed an armistice which they (the Allies) would 
 not grant. He said that this would be left to their military 
 men, and they would practically decide the outcome of the 
 war by the terms of the armistice, which might include leav- 
 ing all heavy guns behind, and putting, Metz, Strasburg, 
 etc., in the hands of the Allies, until peace was declared. 
 
 I suggested that Germany might not know what the 
 President's terms were as to Courland, etc., that this was 
 not "invaded territory." He replied that they evidently 
 did, as they now were considering methods of getting out 
 of the Brest-Litovsk treaty. He said he was afraid of Bol- 
 shevism in Europe, and the Kaiser was needed to keep it 
 down — to keep some order. He really seemed alarmed 
 that the time would come soon when there would be no 
 
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LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 possibility of saving Germany from the Germans. This 
 was a new note to me. 
 
 He asked Secretary Wilson if the press really represented 
 the sentiment of the country as to unconditional surrender. 
 Wilson said it did. He said that the press was brutal in 
 demanding all kinds of punishment for the Germans, in- 
 cluding the hanging of the Kaiser. At the end of the meet- 
 ing, which lasted nearly two hours, he asked to be relieved 
 of Departmental matters as he was unable to think longer. 
 I wrote a summary of the position he took, and read it after 
 Cabinet meeting to Houston and Wilson, who agreed. It 
 follows : — 
 
 If they (the Allies) ask you (the President), "Are you 
 satisfied that we can get terms that will be satisfactory to 
 us without unconditional surrender ? " 
 
 You will answer, "Yes — through the terms of the Armis- 
 tice." 
 
 "By an armistice can you make sure that all the fourteen 
 propositions will be effectively sustained, so that militarism 
 and imperialism will end ? " 
 
 "Yes, because we will be masters of the situation and 
 will remain in a position of supremacy until Germany puts 
 into effect the fourteen propositions." 
 
 "Will that be a lasting peace?" 
 
 "It will do everything that can be done without crushing 
 Germany and wiping her out — everything except to gratify 
 revenge/' 
 
 November 1, 1918 
 At last week's Cabinet we talked of Austria — again we 
 talked like a Cabinet. The President said that he did not 
 know to whom to reply, as things were breaking up so com- 
 pletely. There was no Austria-Hungary. Secretary Wil- 
 
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CABINET NOTES IN WAR-TIME 297 
 
 son suggested that, of course, their army was still under 
 control of the Empire, and that the answer would have to 
 go to it. 
 
 Theoretically, the President said, German-Austria should 
 go to Germany, as all were of one language and one race, 
 but this would mean the establishment of a great central 
 Roman-Catholic nation which would be under control of 
 the Papacy, and would be particularly objectionable to 
 Italy. I said that such an arrangement would mean a Ger- 
 many on two seas, and would leave the Germans victors 
 after all. The President read despatches from Europe on the 
 situation in Germany — the first received in many months. 
 
 Nothing was said of politics — although things are at a 
 white heat over the President's appeal to the country to 
 elect a Democratic Congress. He made a mistake. . . . 
 My notion was, and I told him so at a meeting three or four 
 weeks ago, that the country would give him a vote of con- 
 fidence because it wanted to strengthen his hand. But 
 Burleson said that the party wanted a leader with guts — 
 this was his word and it was a challenge to his (the Presi- 
 dent's) virility, that was at once manifest. 
 
 The country thinks that the President lowered himself 
 by his letter, calling for a partisan victory at this time. . . . 
 But he likes the idea of personal party-leadership — Cabinet 
 responsibility is still in his mind. Colonel House's book, 
 Philip Dru, favors it, and all that book has said should be, 
 comes about slowly, even woman suffrage. The President 
 comes to Philip Dru in the end. And yet they say that 
 House has no power. . . . 
 
 Election Day. November 5, [1918] 
 At Cabinet some one asked if Germany would accept 
 armistice terms. The President said he thought so. . . . 
 
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298 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 The President spoke of the Bolsheviki having decided 
 upon a revolution in Germany, Hungary, and Switzerland, 
 and that they had ten million dollars ready in Switzerland, 
 besides more money in Swedish banks held by the Jews 
 from Russia, ready for the campaign of propaganda. He 
 read a despatch from the French minister in Berne, to Jusse- 
 rand, telling of this conspiracy. Houston suggested the 
 advisability of stopping it by seizing the money and intern- 
 ing the agitators. After some discussion, the President 
 directed Lansing to ask the Governments in Switzerland 
 and Sweden to get the men and money, and hold them, and 
 then to notify the Allies of what we had done and suggest 
 that they do likewise. Lansing suggested a joint Note, 
 but the President vetoed this idea, wanting us to take the 
 initiative. He spoke of always having been sympathetic 
 with Japan in her war with Russia, and thought that the 
 latter would have to work out her own salvation. But he 
 was in favor of sending food to France, Belgium, Italy, 
 Serbia, Roumania, and Bulgaria just as soon as possible; 
 and the need was great, also in Austria. 
 
 He said that the terms had been agreed upon, but he did 
 not say what they were — further than to say that the Coun- 
 cil at Versailles had agreed to his fourteen points, with two 
 reservations : — (1) as to the meaning of the freedom of the 
 seas, (2) as to the meaning of the restoration of Belgium and 
 France. This word he had directed Lansing to give to the 
 Swiss minister for Germany — and to notify Germany also 
 that Foch would talk the terms of armistice. . . . He is 
 certainly in splendid humor and in good trim — not worried 
 a bit. And why should he be, for the world is at his feet, 
 eating out of his hand ! No Caesar ever had such a tri- 
 umph! . . 
 
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CABINET NOTES IN WAR-TIME 299 
 
 November 6, 1918 
 Yesterday we had an election. I had expected we would 
 win because the President had made a personal appeal for 
 a vote of confidence, and all other members of the Cabinet 
 had followed suit, except Baker who said he wanted to keep 
 the Army out of politics. The President thought it was 
 necessary to make such an appeal. He liked the idea of 
 personal leadership, and he has received a slap in the face — 
 for both Houses are in the balance. This is the culmination 
 of the policy Burleson urged when he got the President to 
 sign a telegram which he (Burleson) had written opposing 
 Representative Slayden, his personal enemy, from San An- 
 tonio, and, in effect, nominating Burleson's brother-in-law for 
 Congress. We heard of it by the President bringing it up 
 at Cabinet. Burleson worked it through Tumulty. The 
 President said that he did not know whether to write other 
 letters of a similar nature as to Vardaman, Hardwick, et al. 
 I advised against it, saying that the voters had sense enough 
 to take care of these people. Burleson said, "The people 
 like a leader with guts." The word struck the President's 
 fancy and although Lansing, Houston, and Wilson also pro- 
 tested, in as strong a manner as any one ever does pro- 
 test, the letters were issued. . . . Even before the Slayden 
 letter was one endorsing Davies, in Wisconsin, as against 
 Lenroot. . . . Then came the letter to the people of the 
 whole country, reflecting upon the Republicans, saying that 
 they were in great part pro-war but not pro-administration. 
 
 November 11, 1918 
 On Sunday I heard that Germany was flying the red flag, 
 and postponed my promised visit to the Governors of the 
 South, to be held at Savannah. At eleven yesterday word 
 
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300 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K LANE 
 
 came that the President would speak to Congress at one, 
 and that he would have no objection if the Departments 
 closed to give opportunity for rejoicings. I went to a meet- 
 ing of the Council of National Defence and spoke, welcom- 
 ing the members. It was a meeting called by Baruch to 
 plan reconstruction — but the President had notified him 
 on Saturday that he could not talk or have talking on that 
 subject. So all I could do was to give a word of greeting 
 to men who are bound to be disappointed at being called 
 for nothing. 
 
 The President's speech was, as always, a splendidly done 
 bit of work. He rose to the occasion fully and it was the 
 greatest possible occasion. . . . Lansing says that they 
 (he and the President) had the terms of Armistice before elec- 
 tion — terms quite as drastic as unconditional surrender. 
 
 To Daniel Willard 
 
 President, Baltimore and Ohio Railroad 
 
 Washington, November 7, 1918 
 Dear Mr. Willard, — I am extremely sorry to receive 
 word that you are leaving us, but of course you are going 
 into a sphere of action much larger than the one you are in 
 here, and we must yield you with every grace, no matter 
 how unwillingly. You will be gone from us only a short 
 time, I trust, and then I shall have the opportunity of see- 
 ing more of you and continuing a friendship which has been 
 of very real value to me. 
 
 All that you say about the Advisory Commission is true, 
 and more. If the history of the Council of National De- 
 fence and of the Advisory Commission is ever written it 
 will be seen that you gentlemen, who gave your time and 
 experience freely, gave the first real impulse to war prepa- 
 
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CABINET NOTES IN WAR-TIME 301 
 
 ration, and we missed out only because we did not have 
 more authority to vest in you. I am very proud of the 
 first six months of the Council's work and of the Commis- 
 sion's work. 
 
 I received your letter telling me of the death of your son 
 and daughter-in-law, and I did not have the heart to write 
 you another line. The mystery and the ordering of this 
 world grow altogether inexplicable when the affections are 
 wrenched. It requires far more religion or philosophy than 
 I have, to say a real word that might console one who has 
 lost those who are dear to him. Ten years ago my mother 
 died, and I have never become reconciled to her loss. This 
 is a wrong state of mind, and I hope that you are sustained by 
 that unfaltering trust of whichBryant spoke. Sincerely yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To James H. Hawley 
 
 Washington, November 9, 1918 
 
 My dear Governor, — ... To my great surprise we 
 have lost both Houses. We felt sure that we would carry 
 both, and did not appreciate the extent to which the Re- 
 publicans would be consolidated by the President's letter, 
 which, from what I hear was one of the inducing causes of 
 the result; although not by any means the only one, for 
 the feeling in the North and West was strong that the South 
 in some way was being preferred. I am fresh from a talk 
 with Senator Phelan who, to my surprise, tells me that these 
 were the factors in the New England States from which he 
 has just come. . . . 
 
 The Wilson administration may be judged by the great 
 things that it has done — the unparallelled things — and 
 the election of last Tuesday will get but a line in the history 
 of this period, while the Versailles conference and the Four- 
 
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302 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 teen Points of Wilson's message will have books written 
 about them for a century to come. Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Samuel G. Blythe 
 London, England 
 
 Washington, November 13, 1918 
 
 My dear Sam, — I had not seen the review of my little 
 book of speeches x made by the Daily Mail until you sent it 
 to me. I guess we are a nation of idealists and it won't do 
 any harm to have a little of this leaven thrown into the 
 European lump. I am amused when I read the reviews 
 on this book to see myself regarded as the rather imagina- 
 tive interpreter of the national attitude, after these twenty 
 years of quiet, stiff legal opinions on municipal law and rail- 
 road problems. 
 
 Glad to hear of the boy ! He is a poor correspondent, as 
 most two-fisted young chaps are apt to be. I envy you your 
 opportunity now to see the revolution in Germany, and its 
 possible spreading elsewhere. I think you might write an 
 article on how revolution comes to a country ; a picture of 
 just how the thing happens ; what the first step was ; what 
 kind of organization there was and how they went about 
 their business and got hold of the Government. There is 
 a whole book in this, but immediately there is a chance for 
 a couple of mighty interesting articles. 
 
 Here we have gone wild over the victory and peace, and 
 the fact that the election went against us means nothing, so 
 far as international questions are concerned. We had not 
 fixed the price on cotton while we had fixed the price on 
 wheat, and that made the North feel that this is a South- 
 ern Administration. The Republicans were united for the 
 
 1 The American Spirit, 
 
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CABINET NOTES IN WAR-TIME 303 
 
 first time in ten years. These are the big reasons for the 
 shift. You see we have no idea here of Cabinet responsi- 
 bility or votes of confidence or lack of confidence. I expect 
 there will be some fun in Congress for the next two years. 
 As always, cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To George W. Lane 
 
 Washington, December 16, 1918 
 My dear George, — I have your long letter, telling me 
 of all your sad experiences with red tape and how you have 
 settled down at last to do your bit at home. You have gone 
 through the bitterness that most fellows have experienced 
 in trying to do anything with the Government. I really 
 am very sorry that you had to make such a financial sacri- 
 fice and break up your home and then be fooled, but prob- 
 ably it is all for the best. The war is over, the boys are 
 coming home soon and this brings me to the main point. 
 
 Ned got home this morning. Nancy, Anne, and I went 
 to Norfolk to meet him. He had no expectation of seeing 
 us there and at eight o'clock on a very rainy foggy morning, 
 we came up along side of his transport and he was taken by 
 surprise. He had a fine lot of boys with him, but since 
 May he had been at the Naval Aviation Headquarters as 
 one of the General Staff. 
 
 He had many narrow escapes ; had men killed standing be- 
 side him, torn to pieces by shrapnel ; was knocked over by the 
 concussion of shells ; was over the lines in the battle of Cha- 
 teau-Thierry in an aeroplane, flew across the Austrian-Italian 
 . lines and chased the German on his retreat through Belgium. 
 
 He seems to be in good health, though rather nervous. 
 He very much admires the men who were his comrades and 
 his superiors, but is glad to be out of it all. I think he would 
 
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304 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 like to get on a big farm. My plan for getting farms for 
 the soldier is making slow progress. I have got to put in 
 all my effort now to get some decisive answer out of Con- 
 gress — either yes or no. . . . 
 
 [Ned] has seen France very thoroughly, all the north of 
 Italy from Rome up, England, and Ireland. In the latter 
 spot, he was shot at three times, notwithstanding a general 
 order that no Irishman is allowed to have a gun. He was 
 challenged to a duel by a Frenchman who tried to get away 
 with his seat in a car. He gave the Frenchman a good lick- 
 ing and then discovered that he was liable to court martial, 
 but he got the seat and then told the French lieutenant he 
 would throw him out of the car window if he talked any 
 more about dueling. The following morning he offered the 
 Frenchman a cigarette which was taken, and they shook 
 hands and parted. 
 
 He went up in an aeroplane in Italy at one place and had 
 a hunch, he said, that something was wrong with the ma- 
 chine and so he brought it down and landed. Another 
 fellow took it up, an Italian. He got up about one thousand 
 feet in the air and the gas tank exploded. The poor fellow 
 came down burnt to a cinder, all within five minutes. 
 
 He shot a German from the Belgian trenches and has been 
 recommended four times for promotion, but hasn't got it yet. 
 
 With much love to Frances and yourself, I am, affection- 
 ately yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Edgar C. Bradley 
 Assistant Secretary of the Interior 
 
 Washington, [December 18, 1918] 
 My dear Bradley, — You wouldn't let me close my sen- 
 tence yesterday and I don't propose to close it to-day. 
 
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CABINET NOTES IN WAR-TIME 305 
 
 Yet I am not going to let you drive westward toward the 
 land and people we both love so much, without letting you 
 carry a word of affection and greeting from me, which you 
 can just throw to the winds when you get there, throw it 
 out of the window to Tamalpais, it will sweep over those 
 eucalyptus trees on the right, throw it up to the Berkeley 
 hills, which now are turning green, I suppose, throw it up 
 the long stretch of Market Street till it reaches Twin Peaks, 
 and let it flow down over "south of the slot" that was, and 
 up over Nob Hill, even to the sacred brownstone of the 
 Pacific-Union. 
 
 Go with a heart that is full of rejoicing that peace has 
 come, through our sacrifice as well as that of other of the no- 
 bler peoples of earth, and with a heart that is proud that you 
 were able to help with your strength and sane judgment 
 and great gentleness of speech and manner, in carrying on 
 this nation's affairs in the day of its greatest adventure. 
 
 We shall all miss you greatly, whether you are gone two 
 weeks or two years ! Do just what you think is right, just 
 what she who is so much to you thinks you should do. There 
 is no better test of a man's duty. 
 
 If you can't return we shall stagger on. I shan't stop 
 climbing this ladder because a rung is gone — tho' many a 
 rung is gone — and a damn hard old ladder this is some- 
 times. . . . 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
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XI 
 
 AFTER-WAR PROBLEMS — LEAVING 
 WASHINGTON 
 
 1919 
 
 After-war Problems — Roosevelt Memorials — Americanization — 
 Religion — Responsibility of Press — Resignation 
 
 To E. C. Bradley 
 
 Washington, January, 1919 
 
 My dear Bradley, — ... I am terribly broken up over 
 Roosevelt's death. He was a great and a good man, a man's 
 man, always playing his game in the open. . . . 
 
 I loved old Roosevelt because he was a hearty, two-fisted 
 fellow. . . . The only fault I ever had to find with him was 
 that he took defeat too hard. He had a sort of "divine 
 right" idea, but he was a bully fighter. I went to his 
 funeral and have joined in mass meetings in his memory, 
 which I suppose is all I can do. ... Of course ... he 
 said a lot of things that were unjust and unjustifiable, but 
 if a fellow doesn't make a damned fool of himself once in a 
 while he wouldn't be human. The Republicans would have 
 nominated him next time undoubtedly. They are without 
 a leader now, and we are just as much up in the air as ever. 
 ... I am standing by the President for all I am worth. 
 I talked to the Merchants' Association the other day and 
 gave him a great send-off, but they didn't rise to their feet 
 at all, which is the first time this has happened in two years. 
 . . . Sincerely yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 306 
 
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AFTER-WAR PROBLEMS 307 
 
 To George W. Lane 
 
 Washington, January 30, 1919 
 
 My dear George, — ... The one thing that bothers us 
 here is the problem of unemployment. We have not, of 
 course, had time to turn around and develop any plan for 
 reconstruction. Our whole war machine went to pieces in 
 a night. Everybody who was doing war work dropped his 
 job with the thought of Paris in his mind, with the result 
 that everything has come down with a crash, in the way of 
 production, but nothing in the way of wages or living costs. 
 Wages cannot go down until the cost of living does, and 
 production won't increase while people believe prices will 
 be lower later on. I to-day proposed to Secretary Glass 
 that he enter upon a campaign to promote production, 
 (1) by seeing what the Government could buy, (2) by seeing 
 what the industries would take as a bottom price, (3) by 
 getting the Food Administration at work to reduce prices. 
 Perhaps it may do some good. . . . 
 
 I have always thought the President was right in going 
 across, and I believe that he will pull through a League of 
 Nations. When I get a copy of it I will send you my speech 
 on this subject, which is rather loose but is a plea for dreams. 
 
 Ned is going West to work for Doheny in some oil field, 
 starting at the bottom. I rather think this is right, but of 
 course he won't stay as a laborer very long. The boy is 
 fine and gay, and did splendid work, and is anxious to get 
 into the game and make money. Just where he gets this 
 desire for making money I don't know. Certainly I never 
 had it. But he was telling me the other day of his hope that 
 by forty he would have made enough money to retire. I 
 told him you were the only fellow I ever knew who had 
 actually retired, and you had only done it half way. He will 
 report at Los Angeles, but I expect he will get up to see you 
 
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308 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 as soon as he can. He has a remarkable affection for Cali- 
 fornia, considering he has seen so little of it, and so has 
 Nancy. They both regard it as the golden land where all 
 things smile, and people have hearts. I have not attempted 
 to cure them of their illusion. 
 
 Do write me a good, long letter, for I am always eager to 
 hear from you. 
 
 F. K L. 
 
 To George W. Lane 
 
 Washington, May 1, [1919] 
 
 My dear George, — Well, what do you think of the Italian 
 situation? I think the President right, that Fiume should 
 not go to Italy. Certainly she has no moral claim, for by 
 the Pact of London, Fiume was to go to Croatia. Orlando 
 says that he is answering the call of the Italians in exile. 
 Let them stay in exile, I say. They went into a foreign 
 land to make money and now they wish to annex the land 
 they are visiting, to the home country. How would we 
 like it if the Chinese swamped San Francisco and then asked 
 to be annexed to China ? This is carrying the Fiume idea 
 to its ultimate, a ridiculous ultimate, of course, as most 
 ultimates are. 
 
 Whether he [President Wilson] gave out the statement 
 as to the break too early, and without the consent of England 
 and France, of course I don't know. Quite like him to do 
 it if he thought the thing had hung long enough, and that 
 Italy was too damn predatory. And she does seem to be. 
 The New Idea seems to have less real hold in Italy — at 
 least among the governing class — than in any other Euro- 
 pean country. Her present position will postpone peace. 
 This will cause us trouble over the extra session of Congress 
 for our appropriations will run out. And perhaps in Eng- 
 
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AFTER-WAR PROBLEMS 309 
 
 land it may give a chance for labor troubles to rise. It will 
 postpone the return of good times to this country. But 
 ultimately Italy will have to come through. If economic 
 pressure were put upon her she would be compelled to yield 
 at once, for she depends on England and ourselves for all 
 the coal she uses, and on us chiefly for her wheat. Of course 
 this form of coercion will not be resorted to. She might 
 think more kindly if she were given an extended credit, 
 say of two hundred million dollars. But the people being 
 aroused now over what they think is a matter of principle 
 
 — loyalty to their compatriots in Fiume — they may not 
 be able to compromise. Lord Reading rather fears that this 
 is the situation and that it might have been avoided if the 
 President had not issued his statement when he did. How- 
 ever, I have no doubt that the President will have his way. 
 He nearly always does. Surely the God that once was the 
 Kaiser's is now his. 
 
 To be the First President of the League of Nations is to 
 be the crowning glory of his life. I believe in the League 
 
 — as an effort. It will not cure, but it is a serious effort 
 to get at the disease. It is a hopeful effort, too, for it makes 
 moral standards, standards of conduct between nations which 
 will bring conventional pressure to bear on the side of peace, 
 to offset the old convention of rushing into war to satisfy 
 hurt feelings. Sooner or later there will come disarmament 
 
 — the pistol will be taken away and the streets will be safer. 
 The boy is having a tough time in his oil work. It is so 
 
 dirty ! But I hope he sticks out until he proves himself. I 
 hear that the Dutch Shell people have bought out Cowdray 
 in Mexico, and now are trying to get Doheny's lands. They 
 bestride the earth, and as soon as their activities are known 
 generally, this country will look upon the Standard Oil as 
 the American champion in a big international fight. 
 
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310 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 . . . Well, dear old chap, I know that I could add nothing 
 to your cure if I were there but I am not content to be so 
 far away from you. . . . 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To William Boyce Thompson 
 Roosevelt Permanent Memorial National Committee 
 
 Washington, May 20, 1919 
 
 My dear Mb. Thompson, — I told Mr. Loeb that I would 
 feel greatly honored to be a member of a Memorial Com- 
 mittee, to do honor to Ex-President Roosevelt. To-day, I 
 receive an agreement which I am asked to sign in which the 
 members of the Committee are to pledge themselves to a 
 memorial for the furtherance of Mr. Roosevelt's policies. 
 I do not know what such a phrase means. With some of 
 his policies I know I was in hearty accord but as to others, 
 such as the tariff, I have my doubts. This might be turned 
 or construed into a great machine for propaganda of a par- 
 tisan character, and it seems to me that the Colonel's memory 
 is altogether too precious a national possession to have that 
 construction possibly given to any memorial to him. 
 
 There are hundreds of thousands of Democrats, like myself, 
 who admired him and who would contribute toward a memo- 
 rial, who should not be asked to do this if it was any more 
 than a straight-out memorial to the man, the soldier, the natu- 
 ralist, the historian, the President, the intense, vital American. 
 
 And all of your officers, so far as I am acquainted with 
 them, are Republicans. This does not seem to convey quite 
 the right suggestion. 
 
 I have already planned for a lasting Roosevelt memorial 
 in the creation of a park in California, to bear Colonel Roose- 
 velt's name. I expect this will have Congressional approval 
 at the present session of Congress. 
 
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AFTER-WAR PROBLEMS 311 
 
 Last night I talked with Senator Frank Kellogg about 
 this matter, and he agrees with my view. He says that he 
 understood the memorial was to be something in Washington 
 of a permanent and artistic character, and perhaps the home 
 at Oyster Bay, and that the personnel of all committees was 
 to be popular, including if possible as many Democrats as 
 Republicans. 
 
 Under these circumstances I beg leave to withhold my 
 signature to the agreement sent me. I would have no 
 objection to asking Congress to provide for a memorial, 
 though I think this should be deferred as a matter of pol- 
 icy until the public had subscribed generously. Cordially 
 
 yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Benjamin Ide Wheeler 
 President Emeritus, University of California 
 
 Washington, June 16, 1919 
 
 My dear Wheeler, — I have seen your goodbye address 
 
 at Berkeley, and I am very glad I did not hear it, for it must 
 
 have been a sad day for Berkeley and for you. The address 
 
 itself was a noble word. I hear that you have bought 
 
 Lucy Sprague's home and are to remain in Berkeley. This 
 
 is as it should be. You can ripen into the Sage of Berkeley, 
 
 and be a center of influence, stimulating the best in others. 
 
 A long, long life to you ! Always sincerely and devotedly 
 
 yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To E. S. Martin 
 Life 
 
 Washington, August 23, 1919 
 
 My dear Mr. Martin, — ... It does not seem to me that 
 this country will rise to a class war. We have too many 
 
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312 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 farmers and small householders and women — put the ac- 
 cent on the women. They are the conservatives. Until 
 a woman is starving, she does not grow Red, unless she is 
 without a husband or babies and has a lot of money that she 
 did not earn. . . . Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To George W. Lane 
 
 Washington, September 11, 1919 
 
 Dear George, — You do not know how much of sympathy 
 I send out to you and how many words of prayer I send up 
 for you. You need them all, I expect. . . . What a long 
 siege you have had ! 
 
 I suppose you will not be able to hear the President speak 
 when he is there. You will miss much. He is not impas- 
 sioned nor a great orator, such as Chatham or Fox, or Web- 
 ster or Dolliver, or even Bryan — but he has a keen, quick, 
 cutting mind, the mind of a really great critic, and his manner 
 is that of the gentleman scholar. He is first among all men 
 to-day, which is much for America. 
 
 My Nancy has been having a splendid time, even if she 
 only saw your ranch for a week — but she is the gayest 
 thing alive — God grant she may continue so always. . . . 
 
 For the first time in twenty-five years we are living in 
 an apartment, large and in a nice place, but somehow my 
 sense of the fitness of things will not let me call the place 
 "home" — altho' it is the most comfortable habitation I 
 have ever lived in, elevator, whole floor to ourselves, . . . and 
 they let me keep my dog. I wouldn't have come if they 
 hadn't. We turned down a fine place with a more ex- 
 pansive view because Jack was not wanted. But surely in 
 these days of doubt and disloyalty one must have some rock 
 to cling to, why not a trusting-eyed dog? . . . But all 
 
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AFTER -WAR PROBLEMS 313 
 
 this does not recompense me for the absence of a "home" — 
 which is a house, anywhere. Yet we may have to do our 
 own work. . . . The cooks are all too proud to work — I 
 wish you would tell me just how this economic problem 
 should be settled. How much do you believe in socialism 
 or socialization ? . . . Do you think there can be a partner- 
 ship in business ? I am inclined to think this can be worked 
 out, along lines of cooperative ownership, but not until an 
 enterprise is well standardized. 
 
 I expect bad times soon with labor. We are only post- 
 poning the evil day. The President seems less radical than 
 he was. He is sobered by conditions, I suspect. The negro 
 is a danger that you do not have. Turn him loose and he 
 is a wild man. Every Southerner fears him. 
 
 ... I am trying hard to believe something that might 
 be called the shadow of a religion — a God that has a good 
 purpose, and another life in which there is a chance for 
 further growth, if not for glory. But when I bump up 
 against a series of afflictions such as you have been subjected 
 to, I fall back upon Fred's philosophy of a purposeless or 
 else a cruel God. ... I simply have a sinking of the heart, 
 a goneness, a hopelessness — not even the pleasure of a 
 resignation. Old Sid's cold mind has worked itself through 
 to a decision that there is no purpose and no future, and 
 finds solace in the ultimate; having reached the cellar he 
 finds the satisfaction of rest. I can't get there for my 
 buoyancy, the hold-over of early teachings or perhaps my 
 naturally sanguine nature will not permit me to hit bottom, 
 but forever I must be floating, floating — nowhere. Happy 
 the man who strikes the certainty of a rock-bottom hell, 
 rather than one who is kept floating midway — that is a 
 purgatory worse than hell. I don't seem to have any capac- 
 ity for anger, as against God or man, for anything that be- 
 
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314 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 falls me, but I get morbid over the injustices done to others. 
 Now I shall stop philosophizing on this matter for it is three 
 in the morning, and too hot to sleep, and such a time is 
 made for wickedness and not for righteousness. 
 
 I am sorry you will not see the President. He is worth 
 hearing, better than reading, and he always talks well. He 
 can not pass his treaty without some kind of reservations 
 and he should have seen this a month ago. The Republicans 
 will not struggle to pass it in his absence and think that they 
 have done a smart thing, but in the end Wilson and not 
 Lodge would win by such a trick. The one greatest of 
 vices is smart-aleckism. Sometime I shall write an essay on 
 that subject. The burglar and the confidence operator and 
 the profiteer and the profligate and the defaulting bank 
 cashier are all victims of that disease — smart-aleckism. 
 They will do a trick, to prove how clever they are. I be- 
 lieve that is the way ninety per cent of the boys and girls 
 go wrong, and instead of teaching them the Bible, why not 
 try reducing the size of their conceit and their disposition 
 to boast. I just wonder how far wrong I am on this ? 
 
 . . . Don't let the family worry you. Call for the police 
 if they don't let you have your own way. . . . What a 
 plague of women! But how did monks manage to live 
 anyhow ? Maybe they chose a hard death — perhaps that 
 was the secret of the whole monkery game! Women let 
 us down into the grave with much unction to our ego, I 
 mean sweet oil of adoration . . . poured out upon the way 
 down to Avernus. . . . Don't feel discouraged because 
 you lie there. I feel much more discontented than you do, 
 right here at the heart of the world. . . . Love to Maude 
 and Frances, and mention me With proper respect and 
 dignity to Miss Nancy Lane. 
 
 F. K. 
 
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AFTER-WAR PROBLEMS 315 
 
 To Van H. Manning 
 Director, Bureau of Mines 
 
 Washington, September 24, 1919 
 
 My dear Mr. Manning, — I have been intending for sev- 
 eral days to write you a letter regarding the Petroleum 
 Institute, but the opportunity has been denied me. Perhaps 
 you will be good enough to say to the gentlemen, whom I 
 understand you are to meet tomorrow, that I regard their 
 work, if taken hold of whole-heartedly, as of the greatest 
 national importance. It is quite manifest now that private 
 enterprise must stand in the forefront in the development of 
 this industry, and that what the government can do will be 
 supplemental and suggestive. It is not an exaggeration to 
 say that millions of dollars must be spent in experiment 
 before we know the many services to which a barrel of oil 
 can be put. There is almost an indefinite opportunity for 
 research work along this line. 
 
 Petroleum is a challenge to the chemists of the world. 
 And now the world is dependent upon it, as it is upon nothing 
 else excepting coal and iron, and the foodstuffs and textiles. 
 It has jumped to this place of eminence within twenty years, 
 and the world is concerned in knowing how large a supply 
 there is and how every drop of it can best be used. Prac- 
 tically, I think you should urge that there be cooperative 
 effort to protect against waste. The oil men themselves 
 should see the value of this and spend their money freely 
 to keep their wells from being flooded, to keep their pipe 
 lines from leaking, and to save their gas. 
 
 We are behind the rest of the world in the use of our oil 
 for fuel purposes. We are spendthrifts in this as in other 
 of our national resources. We can get three times as much 
 energy as we do out of our oil through the use of the Diesel 
 engine, yet we are doing little to promote development of 
 
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316 LETTERS OP FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 a satisfactory type of stationary Diesel, or marine design. 
 Instead of seeing how many hundred millions of barrels of oil 
 we can produce and use, our effort should be to see how few 
 millions of barrels will satisfy our needs. I say this although 
 I am not a pessimist as to the available supply, which I believe 
 has been underestimated rather than overestimated. I am 
 satisfied that the man who has a barrel of oil has something 
 which, if he can save, is better than a government bond. 
 Throughout the Nation we must make a drive to increase 
 production — that is the slogan of this time — but that does 
 not mean that we should make a drive to exhaust resources 
 which God alone can duplicate. 
 
 Then too, I think that Congress can be largely helped by 
 the sane presentation of wise policies touching this industry. 
 I have the belief that whatever the body of oil men would 
 agree upon would be something that would make for the 
 best use of petroleum, and for the protection over a long 
 period of this fundamental resource in our industry. Con- 
 gress has difficulty often in getting the large view of prac- 
 tical men who speak without personal interest, and such an 
 Institute could speak not for the individual but for the in- 
 dustry and show how it may best be developed in the 
 interest of the country. 
 
 To do these things, and to do them adequately, will re- 
 quire the men in the industry to take the attitude of states- 
 men and not of selfish exploiters. It means they must tax 
 themselves liberally, generously. It means that they must 
 think of themselves as trustees for a Public as wide as the 
 world. 
 
 Please give my regards to the members of the Institute. 
 Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
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AFTER-WAR PROBLEMS 317 
 
 To E. C. Bradley 
 
 Washington, October 2, 1919 
 My dear Bradley, — ... I have all along said that the 
 treaty could not be ratified without some interpretive reser- 
 vations. I think that the President will see that, although he 
 sees clearly, as I do, that these interpretations are already 
 in the treaty itself, but on a question of construction two 
 men may honestly differ. The whole damn thing has gotten 
 into the maelstrom of politics, of the nastiest partisanship, 
 when it ought to have been lifted up into the clearer air of 
 good sense and national dignity. . . . 
 
 Hoover can be elected. He came home modestly and 
 made a splendid speech. We need a man of great adminis- 
 trative ability and of supreme sanity who can lead us into 
 quiet waters, if there are any. 
 
 . . . We have imported, with our labor, their discontent, 
 and the theories which are founded upon it to obtain the 
 price. But the American workingman is a sensible fellow, 
 when he can have the chance to think without being over- 
 whelmed by fear, and he will realize that his betterment in 
 a material way must come through his own individual 
 growth and the growth of the conscience of the people who 
 believe in a square deal. The serious thing in the whole 
 situation, to my mind, is the fact that so many workingmen 
 seem to accept the idea that they are of a fixed class ; that 
 they can not move out of their present conditions ; that they 
 want always to remain as employees and have no hope of 
 becoming superintendents, employers, managers, or capital- 
 ists ; and therefore think that their only prospect is in better- 
 ing their condition as a part of a class. Great propaganda 
 should be carried on to show how false this is and how much 
 demand there is for men of ability. 
 
 With warm regards, old man, I am cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
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318 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 To Mrs. Louise Herrick Wall 
 
 Washington, Friday, [October 10, 1919] 
 
 My deak Mrs. Wall, — We heard through Ned of the 
 Commodore's death, and you can realize how shocked and 
 terribly grieved we were, and still are. 
 
 Poor dear girl, there is nothing anyone can say that will 
 help even a little bit. Every word of appreciation makes 
 the loss more serious. And you need no one to tell you that 
 he was loved by us, and every single person who really knew 
 him. He was to me Christlike, beautiful, gentle, wise and 
 noble. Since that first day, nearly thirty years ago on 
 Grays Harbor, I have known him as one of the rare spirits 
 of the world, and Anne and I have loved him deeply. Surely 
 he must live on, and we must all see him again ! 
 
 May strength come to you out of the Infinite resources 
 of the Universe to bear this blow. The world was made 
 better by him ! In deep sympathy, 
 
 Frank Lane 
 
 To 
 
 Wednesday, November, [1919] 
 
 My dear old Man, — I am sitting alone in my den having 
 come down stairs to write a line on my report, but instead 
 have been lured into an evening of delight with Robert Louis 
 Stevenson, whose letters, in four volumes, I advise you to read 
 for the spirit of the man. Much like your own, my brave 
 fine fellow ! He went through tortures with a smile and a 
 merry imagination which made him great, and makes all of 
 us, and many more to come, his debtor. I know how little 
 you read. The birds have been yours and the trees and the 
 dogs and fishes, but there are men in the world, or have been, 
 whom one can know through their writings. Did you ever 
 read Trevelyan's three volumes on Garibaldi ? No, — well 
 
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AFTER-WAR PROBLEMS 319 
 
 get it before you are a week older and you will thank me for 
 ever and a day. 
 
 All of this, however, I had not intended to write, rather 
 to tell you . . . how emotional I have been all day with the 
 old soldiers passing by on parade — the last that many of 
 them will ever have. 
 
 Fifty years ago, Andrew Johnson received Grant's re- 
 turned forces on the same spot. There were 180,000, or so, 
 then — and 20,000 now — crippled, lame, one-legged, bent, 
 halting most of them, but determined to make the long 
 journey from the Capitol to the White House, and prove 
 that they had lived this long time and were still good for a 
 longer journey. There was little of gaiety among them, 
 tho' some were swinging flags, torn, tattered, be-shot . . . 
 and raised their hats to the President as they passed, tho' 
 most of them, doubtless, were sorry that he was not a Repub- 
 lican. It was a time to remember. 
 
 . . . Nancy is back after her tour of glory — larger than 
 ever but not less tender or playful. She is the brightest 
 spirit I have ever met — and all her vanities are so dear 
 and human and lie so frankly exposed. I thank you for 
 your kindness to her, she loves you very much ; yes, really 
 recognizes those qualities which some cannot see, poor 
 blind things ! But I can, and she can, and Frances can, and 
 many more when you give them a look in. May your grass 
 grow and soul keep warm and your spirit lift itself in song 
 at morning and at night. Affectionately always, 
 
 F. L. 
 
 To M. A. Mathew 
 
 Washington, November 3, 1919 
 
 My dear Mr. Mathew, — I have your letter of October 
 27th, and I appreciate very much its kind words. The 
 
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320 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 Industrial Conference was not a success because we got into 
 the steel strike at first, and people talked about their rights 
 instead of talking of their duties. We will have another 
 conference, however, which I think will do some real work 
 and lay a foundation for the future. The coal strike is a 
 bad one, but the people are not in sympathy with it, and 
 sooner or later, in my judgment, it will come to an adjust- 
 ment situation in which the President will be perfectly 
 willing to participate. He, by the way, is getting along 
 very well, but I expect it will be many weeks before he is 
 himself again. . . . Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Herbert C. Pell, Jr. 
 House of Representatives 
 
 Washington, November 8, 1919 
 
 My dear Mr. Pell, — I wish you success with your Con- 
 stitutional League. I have no objection whatever to my 
 name being used in connection with it, providing the League 
 is not an institution for denouncing people or denouncing 
 theories of government or economic panaceas; but is a 
 positive, aggressive institution for the presentation to our 
 people of the fact that we have in this Democracy a method 
 of doing whatever we wish done, which avoids the necessity 
 for anything like revolutionary action. The objection to 
 Bolshevism is that it is absolutism — as Lenine has said 
 himself, the absolutism of the proletariat. It is an economic 
 government by force, while our Democracy is a government 
 by persuasion. 
 
 I find that no good comes from calling names. The men 
 who are to be reached are the men who are not committed 
 against us, but are disposed to be with American institutions. 
 We must show them that we have a system that it is worth 
 
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AFTER-WAR PROBLEMS 321 
 
 while betting on, and that if they have another way of doing 
 things economical, machinery by which it can be instituted 
 is in the peoples' hands. Our policy is to look before we 
 leap, and to submit our methods to the judicial judgment of 
 the people. This permits any doctrine to be preached that 
 does not subvert our institutions. Where do our institu- 
 tions come from ? What have they been effective in bring- 
 ing about? What is the condition of the United States 
 as a whole compared with other countries? Can we hope 
 to work out our salvation without civil war? These are 
 legitimate questions, the answer to which is found in this 
 other question — is not political Democracy the one prac- 
 tical way to eventual industrial Democracy? Cordially 
 yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Henry P. Davison 
 
 Washington, November 23, 1919 
 
 My dear Mr. Davison, — I wired you yesterday my con- 
 clusion, as to your very generous and patriotic offer, which 
 was the same that I had come to before seeing you in New 
 York. Your appeal was so strong and went so much to 
 my impulse for public service that you made me feel that, 
 perhaps, I was giving undue weight to the considerations I 
 had presented to you. So I sought the judgment of others 
 — all of them men of large distinction whom you know, or 
 at least have confidence in, and without dissent I found them 
 saying, voluntarily and unbidden, what I had said to you — 
 that for me to undertake this work of arousing the best 
 patriotic feeling of America, on a salary, would make seri- 
 ously against the success of the work and against my own 
 vadue in it, or in anything else I might undertake. If I 
 were rich I would go into it with my whole heart. But a 
 
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322 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 poor man can not be charged with making money out of 
 the exploitation of the good opinion others have of his love 
 of country. This is not squeamishness, it is a rough stand- 
 ard, arrived at by instinct rather than by any refined process 
 of reasoning. 
 
 I say this to you because of my deep confidence in you and 
 my very real confidence that you are my friend, and sought 
 to do me a kindness and give me an opportunity. Now 
 let me see if I can be of any help in this work. . . . 
 
 [Here followed a full detailed plan of an Americanization 
 program, that concluded with the paragraph.] 
 
 These outline some methods of reaching the public with 
 the idea that this is a land that is lovable, prosperous, good- 
 humored, great, and noble-spirited. To carry it out will 
 cost a great deal of money, I should say that not less than 
 five million a year should be available. With warm regard, 
 cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To George W. Lane 
 
 Washington, November 28, [1919] 
 
 My dear George, — Do not be surprised if you hear that 
 I am out of the Cabinet soon, for I have been offered two 
 fifty thousand a year places, and another even more. I 
 don't want to leave if it will embarrass the President, but I 
 do want something with a little money in it for awhile. . . . 
 But I must see the President before I decide . . . and I 
 don't know when that will be, now that he is sick. 
 
 This life has a great fascination for everyone and I dread 
 to leave it ; for anything else will bore me I am sure. I deal 
 here only with big questions and not with details — with pol- 
 icies that affect many, and yet I have but a year and a half 
 more, and then what? Perhaps it is as well to take time 
 
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AFTER-WAR PROBLEMS 323 
 
 by the forelock, tho' I do not want to decide selfishly nor 
 for money only. I must go where I can feel that I am in 
 public work of some kind. . . . 
 
 ... I have served him [the President] long and faithfully 
 under very adverse circumstances. It is hard for him to 
 get on with anyone who has any will or independent judg- 
 ment. Yet I am not given to forsaking those to whom I 
 have any duty. However we shall see. I write you this, 
 that you may not be misled by the thought that there has 
 been or is any friction. Of course you won't speak of it 
 to anyone. 
 
 I am so glad you are able to be out a little bit. "Ain't 
 it a glorious feelin'?" The farm must look mighty good. 
 Well, old man, goodnight, and God give you your eyes 
 back ! With my warmest love, 
 
 Frank 
 
 To C. S. Jackson 
 Oregon Journal 
 
 Washington, December 29, 1919 
 
 My dear Sam, — I hear from Joe Teal that your boy has 
 been lost at sea, and I write this word, not in the hope that 
 I can say anything that will minimize your loss, for all the 
 kindly words of all men in all the world could not do as much 
 as one faint smile from that boy's lips could do to bring a 
 bit of joy into your heart. 
 
 But you are an old, old friend of mine. It is more than 
 thirty years since we dreamed a dream together which you 
 were able to realize. We both have had our fortune in good 
 and bad, and on the whole I think our lives have not added 
 to the misery of men, but have done something toward 
 making life a bit more kind for many people. And why 
 should that boy be taken from you ? There is the mystery 
 
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324 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 — ■ if you can solve it you can solve all the other mysteries. 
 I hope you have some good staunch faith, which I have 
 never been able to get, that would enable me to look upon 
 these things in humility, in the confidence that this thing 
 we call a body is only a temporary envelope for a permanent 
 thing — a lasting, growing thing called a spirit, the only 
 thing that counts. If we can get that sense we can have a 
 new world. I do not believe we will change this world much 
 for the good out of any materialistic philosophy or by any 
 shifting of economic affairs. We need a revival — a belief 
 in something bigger than ourselves, and more lasting than 
 the world. 
 
 With my warmest sympathy, I am, yours as always, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To John Crawford Bums 
 
 Washington, December 29, [1919] 
 
 My dear John, — The manner in which you write assures 
 me that you are very happy, notwithstanding your marriage 
 and your new religion, for which I am glad. An even better 
 assurance is the picture of the bride. By what wizardry 
 have you been able to lure and capture so young, good, and 
 intelligent-looking a girl? I presume she was fascinated 
 by the indirectness of your speech, the touches of humor and 
 your very stern manner. John, you are a humbug, you have 
 made that aloofness and high indifference a winning asset. 
 I shan't give you away. Only you fill me with a mortifying 
 envy. 
 
 As for your religion, various of your friends think it odd. 
 I think that you are a subject for real congratulation. A 
 man who can believe anything is miles ahead of the rest of 
 us. I would gladly take Christian Science, Mohammedan- 
 ism, the Holy Rollers or anything else that promised some 
 
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AFTER-WAR PROBLEMS 325 
 
 answer to the perplexing problems. But you have been 
 able to go into the Holy of Holies and sit down on the same 
 bench of belief with most of the saints — this is miraculous 
 good fortune. I mean it. I am not scoffing or jeering. I 
 never was more serious. 
 
 This whole damned world is damned because it is standing 
 in a bog, there is no sure ground under anyone's feet. We 
 are the grossest materialists because we only know our 
 bellies and our backs. We worship the great god Comfort. 
 We don't think ; we get sensations. The thrill is the thing. 
 All the newspapers, theatres, prove it. We resign ourselves 
 to a life that knows no part of man but his nerves. We study 
 "reactions," in human beings and in chemistry — recog- 
 nizing no difference between the two — and to my great 
 amazement, the war has made the whole thing worse than 
 ever. John, if you have a religion that can get hold of 
 people, grip them and lift them — for God's sake come over 
 and help us. I know you can understand how people be- 
 come Bolsheviks just out of a desire for definiteness and 
 leadership. The world will not move forward by floating 
 on a sea of experimentation. It gets there by believing in 
 precise things, even when they are only one-tenth true. I 
 wish I had your faith — as a living, moving spirit. Some 
 day I pray that I may get with you where you can tell me 
 more of it and how you got ft. 
 
 I am leaving the Cabinet, tho' the precise date no one 
 knows, for the President is not yet well enough to talk about 
 it. He seems to be too done up to stand any strain or worry. 
 But I must have some money, for my years are not many, 
 Anne is far from well, and Nancy is a young lady, and a very 
 beautiful one. She has just come out and is quite the 
 belle of the season, tho' like her father, too anxious for pop- 
 ularity. 
 
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326 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 Great good luck of all kinds to you in 1920, old man — 
 and do give me a line now and then. 
 
 F. K L. 
 
 To Frank I. Cobb 
 New York World 
 
 Washington, [1919] 
 
 My dear Frank, — I have read your speech on Prussian- 
 izing the Americans, and I concur. Of course repression . . . 
 promotes the growth of error. We are not going to destroy 
 socialism, or prevent it from coming strong by refusing to 
 answer it. 
 
 But I have a notion that you have not expressed as directly 
 as I should like : — That the newspaper is not influential 
 enough to stop it and perhaps does not care to, sometimes. 
 Where are the papers that are respected for their character ? 
 They are few. The most of them are believed to be the 
 allies of every kind of Satan. "They are rich; their ads. 
 run them; they pander to circulation, no matter of what 
 kind, to get ads.", that is the answer of the plain people. 
 If the papers were things of thought and not of passion, 
 prejudice and sensation and interest, they could do the work 
 that police and courts are called upon to do. They could 
 effectively answer the agitator. But the people do not 
 believe them when they cry aloud. Maybe I am wrong, but 
 isn't there a grain, or a gram, of truth in this ? 
 
 For a year and a half I have been bombarding Congress 
 with a demand for a bill that would make a campaign, 
 through the schools, against illiteracy. I have made dozens 
 of speeches for it, written a lot, lobbied much, until Congress 
 passed a law stopping my working up sentiment for it, by 
 a joint resolution. How much sentiment has the press 
 created ? You had one or two editorials. The Times one. 
 
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AFTER-WAR PROBLEMS 327 
 
 No one else in New York gave a damn. The Congressmen 
 were not made to feel that those ignorant foreigners who were 
 fifty-five per cent of the steel workers, must learn to read 
 papers that were written in American, not in Russian or 
 Yiddish or Polish or Italian. 
 
 I tell you seriously we are not a serious people except when 
 we are scared. "Rights of free speech, O yes! they must 
 be preserved. Democracy has its balancing of forces." 
 All this is forgotten when the government is at stake — our 
 institutions. These mottoes and legends and traditions pre- 
 suppose someone who will enlighten the people and a people 
 that can be enlightened. Otherwise you will get the strong 
 arm at work. It is inevitable. Has there been any meeting 
 of editors to map a course that will truthfully reveal what 
 Bolshevism is ? or how absurd the talk of wage-slavery is ? 
 or why the miners strike ? or why this is the best of all lands ? 
 
 Tell me why workmen don't believe what you print, unless 
 it is some slander on a rich man, or some story that falls 
 in with prejudices and hatreds ? 
 
 Answer me that and you will know why the people sit 
 indifferent while papers are suppressed, speakers harried, 
 and espionage is king. 
 
 Mind you, I am not saying that you are alone to blame. 
 Congress is. The States are. The cities are. The people 
 are. They have let everything drift. What is our passion ? 
 What do we love ? Do we think, or do we go to the movies ? 
 The socialist takes his philosophy seriously. The rest of 
 us have no philosophy that is a passion with us. 
 
 But there, I have scolded enough. You are right, but 
 you are not fundamental or basic or something or other, 
 which means that you can't put out a fire unless you have a 
 fire department that is on the job. Tenderly yours, 
 
 F. K L. 
 
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328 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K LANE 
 
 Lane never outgrew his passionate belief in the moral 
 responsibility of the press. To Fremont Older, when he 
 took charge of the San Francisco Call, Lane telegraphed : — 
 
 "There is no other agency that can serve our national 
 purpose that is one-half as powerful as a free press, and no 
 other that has one-half the responsibility. We need a press 
 that will stand for the right, no matter whether its circu- 
 lating or advertising is increased or not by such a position, 
 and that means a press that includes in its understandings 
 and sympathies the whole of society and serves no purpose 
 other than the promotion of a happier and nobler people. 
 Journalism is the greatest of all professions in a free country, 
 if it is bent upon being right rather than being successful. 
 I hope that you may be both." 
 
 To Mrs. Louise Herrick Wall 
 
 Watkins Glen, New York, [December, 1919] 
 My dear Mrs. Wall, — I am reminded by your letter to 
 Anne that I have said no word to you since that first word 
 of attempt at support, which I threw out on the first day. 
 I meant it all and more. Wall was always in my mind, as at 
 heart, the truest Democrat I knew. He really lived up to the 
 standard of the New Testament. He did love his neighbor 
 as himself. He never did good or kindness out of policy, but 
 always from principle, from nature — which can be said of 
 very few in this world. He was without cowardice of any 
 kind, and without hypocrisy. I believe he had no vanity. 
 He had the pride of a noble man and lived as generously 
 toward the world as I have ever known man to live. This 
 might be said of one who was austere, but the dear, old 
 Commodore was to me, and to us all, the very symbol of 
 warmth. The one thing I criticised in him was his unwilling- 
 
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AFTER-WAR PROBLEMS 329 
 
 ness that people should discover him for the fanciful, humor- 
 ous, wise, and exquisitely tender man that he was. He did 
 not leave an enemy, I know, unless that man was a scoundrel. 
 And with all his reticence he impressed himself profoundly 
 on hundreds. I know if there is another world that Wall and 
 I will find each other, and he will be with the gladdest, 
 gayest of the spirits. I hope you can look forward to such 
 a meeting with the confidence that Anne has, which always 
 astonishes me and makes me envious. He has gone to the 
 one place, if any such place there is, where the greatest 
 longing of his soul can be gratified — his love for justice. 
 
 If you have a picture of him, no matter how poor, won't 
 you let me have it, that I may hang it beside my work desk, 
 and looking at it find inspiration and be reminded of the sane, 
 loving, lovable, high-hearted chap whom I held as a brother ? 
 
 Dear lonely woman, I wish I could speak one word that 
 would lighten your sense of loss, in him and in your mother. 
 I know that you are not lacking in courage, but stoutness 
 of heart does not bring comfort, I know. How exceptional 
 your loss because how exceptional your fortune — such a 
 man and such a mother. Very sincerely yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Mrs. M. A. Andersen 
 
 Sunday, [December, 1919] 
 . . . The whole of mankind is searching for affection, 
 tenderness, — not physical love but sweet companionship. 
 We could get along with fewer pianos and victrolas if we had 
 a more harmonious society. We really don't like each other 
 much better than Alaskan dogs. Now what is the reason 
 for that ? Are we afraid of them stealing from us — our 
 houses, sweethearts, or dollars ? Or are we so stupid that 
 we don't know each other, never get under the skin to find 
 
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330 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 out what kind of a fellow this neighbor is? Certainly we 
 are self-centered and we wonder that people don't like 
 us when we don't try to find what is likable about them — 
 and keep stressing their unlikable qualities. 
 
 All of which homily leads up to the Holidays. I hope 
 that you will enjoy them. Nancy is having no end of a 
 gay time, and knows how really good a time she is having, 
 I do believe. She is the rarest combination of old woman 
 and baby I have ever known, cynically wise, almost, and 
 soft innocence. She has a dozen beaux and is extravagant 
 about, and to, each. . . . 
 
 The President is getting better slowly, but we commu- 
 nicate with him almost entirely through his doctor (Grayson) . 
 I shall be mighty sorry to leave here, where we have so 
 many friends, but my hope is to get enough to buy a place 
 in California, one of these days, and settle down to the normal 
 life of digging a bit in the soil and then digging a bit in the 
 brain. 
 
 Give my warmest regards to the Captain. You have 
 ripened into a fine beauty and a great usefulness, and I hope 
 that you will find serenity of mind and soul, which is all that 
 the great have ever searched for. With much love, 
 
 Frank 
 
 To George W. Lane 
 
 [December, 1919] 
 My dear George, — Things are going well notwithstanding 
 the President's illness. No one is satisfied that we know 
 the truth, and every dinner table is filled with speculation. 
 Some say paralysis, and some say insanity. Grayson tells 
 me it is nervous breakdown, whatever that means. He is 
 however getting better, and meantime the Cabinet is running 
 things. . . . 
 
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AFTER-WAR PROBLEMS 331 
 
 Ned is here and having a good time with all his old girls, 
 some of whom have married and are already divorced, so 
 he feels an old man. Nancy is lovely and merry and quite 
 a belle. She took with the Prince of Belgium, and was 
 quite as happy as you would be with having caught a six- 
 pound trout — just the same feeling, I guess. 
 
 Politically things do not look interesting. There are no 
 big men in the line except Hoover. The country wants some 
 manly, two-fisted administrator and it doesn't care where 
 he comes from. 
 
 I hope your eye is better, dear old man. My love to 
 Frances. 
 
 F. K L. 
 
 The Dan O'Neill to whom the next letter was written, was 
 a friend of early days. Lane always liked to recall this 
 episode. O'Neill, a big elderly Irishman, was in the City 
 employ, while Lane was City and County Attorney, and 
 had formed for his "Chief" — as he lustily called him — 
 a most disinterested affection. After Lane's defeat for 
 Mayor of San Francisco, O'Neill came one day and asked 
 for an interview. When greetings were over he stood 
 hesitating and twirling his hat, until Lane said, "Well, Dan, 
 what can I do for you ? " 
 
 "You see, Chief," he answered, "The wife and I were 
 talking it over last night. We know how these damned 
 campaigns of yours have been taking the money. You 
 see, we have two lots of land — out there," with a jerk 
 of the hat toward the great outside, "and a little house 
 — and we're well and strong, and all the children doing fine 
 at school — and we can, easy as not, put a mortgage on the 
 house, for two or three thousand. We'd like it fine if you'd 
 take it, until you get going again." 
 
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332 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K LANE 
 
 Lane did not have to mortgage his friend's house, but it 
 was these "sweet uses of adversity," more than anything 
 else, that tempered, for him, the pain of defeat. 
 
 This friendship lasted to the end of his life. In 1915, 
 when going back from California on a hurried trip, Lane 
 wrote to O'Neill, "I did not see much of you and I am sorry 
 I didn't. It was my fault, I know. Your dear old Irish 
 face is a joy to me every time I see it, and whenever I go 
 out you must not fail to turn up, else I shall be broken- 
 hearted." 
 
 When Lane was very ill in 1921, O'Neill came to pay his 
 respects to the wife of his Chief. As she went out into the 
 hallway of her friend's house, in San Francisco, the whole 
 place seemed filled by O'Neills, for he stood there and all 
 his three great sons — one a fire captain, and stalwart men 
 all. It was a sad meeting and parting. 
 
 To Dan J. O'Neill 
 
 Washington, December 24, 1919 
 
 My dear Dan, — I am delighted to get your nice letter. 
 It is as charming a letter as I ever received, because you tell 
 me of all the family and that they are doing well, and that 
 you are in good health, and that you want me back with you 
 — all of which makes me love you more and more. Give 
 to the whole family my good holiday greetings. Make them 
 earnest and hearty. 
 
 I haven't got money enough, Dan, to pay my fare back 
 after living here so long, and I shall have to make some before 
 coming back there, but I hope to do it some one of these 
 days. . . . 
 
 Dan, I know you have been a bad man, and I know you 
 have been a good man ; and there will be a place in Heaven 
 
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AFTER-WAR PROBLEMS 333 
 
 for you, old fellow. You have been an honest citizen, a 
 credit to your country, and so have your children, and 
 you will never know anyone who is fonder of you than I. 
 Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Hamlin Garland 
 
 December 31, 1919 
 My dear Garland, — I am going up to New York on the 
 eleventh to talk to the moving picture people at the Waldorf- 
 Astoria. I had them down here and had a resolution put 
 through the Committees on Education of both House and 
 Senate, asking the Moving Picture Industry to interest itself 
 in Americanization, and I have been appointed at the head 
 of a committee to take charge of this work. I have some 
 schemes myself that I want very much to talk to you about 
 regarding Americanization. 
 
 I do not know how much time I will be able to give to this 
 work because I have got to make some money, but I am 
 going to use my spare time that way. Suppose when I get 
 to New York I telephone you and see if we can not get 
 together. Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To one of the Moving Picture Weeklies, Lane contributed 
 this paragraph on Americanizing the foreign born: — "The 
 one sure way to bring the foreign born to love this land of 
 ours is to show our pride in its present, faith in its future, 
 and interpret America to all in terms of fair play and 
 square dealing. America gives men nothing — except a 
 chance." 
 
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334 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 To Hugo K. Asher 
 
 Rochester, Minnesota, January 3, 1920 
 
 My dear Hugo, — I have not written you because my own 
 plans must be determined by circumstances. I think, 
 however, that I shall leave very soon. I hate to go because 
 the work is so satisfactory. . . . 
 
 Bryan has come back. What strength he will develop, 
 no one can tell. He evidently has determined that he will 
 not be pushed aside or disregarded. He has been, and will 
 continue to be as long as he lives, a great force in our politics. 
 People believe that he is honest and know he is sympathetic 
 with the moral aspirations of the plain people. They dis- 
 trust his administrative ability, but on the moral question, 
 they recognize no one as having greater authority. 
 
 ... I hear there is talk among the business people 
 of setting up a third party and nominating Hoover. Two 
 things the next President must know — Europe and America, 
 European conditions and American conditions. The Pres- 
 ident of the United States must be his own Secretary of 
 State. We need administration of our internal affairs and 
 wise guidance economically. Hoover can give these. He 
 has the knowledge and he has the faculty. He has the con- 
 fidence of Europe and the confidence of America. He is not 
 a Democrat, nor is he a Republican. He voted for Wilson, 
 for Roosevelt, and McKinley. But he is sane, progressive, 
 competent. The women are strong for him and there are 
 fifteen million of them who will vote this year. It would 
 not surprise me to see him nominated on either ticket, and 
 I believe I will vote for him now as against anybody else. 
 
 But I must quit talking politics because I am going out 
 of it entirely, completely, and I really have been out of pol- 
 itics ever since I left California. I have tried to take a 
 broad non-partisan view of things which is one of the reasons 
 
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AFTER-WAR PROBLEMS 335 
 
 I have had hard sledding. But I am going without a grouch, 
 without a complaint or a criticism — with a great admiration 
 for Wilson and with a thorough knowledge of his defects; 
 and with a more sympathetic attitude toward my colleagues 
 than any can have who do not know the circumstances as 
 well as I do. . . . Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Admiral Cary Grayson 
 
 Washington, January 5, 1920 
 
 My dear Admiral, — As you know, I am contemplating 
 resigning. It has been my purpose to wait until such time 
 as the President was well enough to see me and talk the 
 matter over with him. I understand from Mr. Tumulty 
 that the President is prepared to name my successor, and 
 that it would not in any way add to his embarrassment to 
 fill my place in the immediate future. I would like to know 
 if this is the fact, for my course will be shaped accordingly. 
 Two years ago I had an offer of fifty thousand a year which 
 I put aside because I thought it my duty to stay while the 
 war was on. When Mr. McAdoo resigned, this offer was 
 renewed but I then thought that I should await the conclu- 
 sion of formal peace, which all expected would come soon. 
 While the President was West, I promised that I would 
 take the matter up with him on his return, and since then I 
 have been waiting for his return to strength. I need not 
 tell you that I am delighted to know that he is in such con- 
 dition now as to turn to matters that in the best of health 
 are vexatious, if this is the fact. 
 
 My sole reason for resigning is that I feel that I am en- 
 titled to have assurance as to the future of my family and my- 
 self. I have been in public life twenty-one years and have less 
 than nothing in the way of private means. . . . And having 
 
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336 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 given the better part of my life to the public, I feel that I 
 must now regard the interest of those dependent upon me. 
 
 I wish you would be perfectly frank with me, for I would 
 do nothing that with your knowledge you would think 
 would make against the welfare of our Chief. Cordially, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Herbert C. Pell, Jr. 
 House of Representatives 
 
 Washington, January 31, 1920 
 
 My dear Congressman, — ... It is our boast and our 
 glory that we have a form of government under which men 
 can make their conception of society into law, if they can 
 persuade their neighbors that their dream is one that will 
 benefit all. There is nothing more absurd than to contend 
 that the last word has been spoken as to any of our insti- 
 tutions, that all experimenting has ended and that we have 
 come to a standstill. . . . We are growing. But this does 
 not mean that all change must be growth and that we can 
 not test by history, especially by our own experiences and 
 knowledge, the value of whatever is proposed as a substitute 
 for what is. The dog that dropped the meat to get the 
 shadow of a bigger piece is the classical warning. We are 
 for what is, not because it is the absolute best but because 
 it has worked well. It is sacred only because it has been 
 useful. Until a system of government, or of economics, 
 or of home life, can be demonstrated to be an improvement 
 on what we have, we shall not hysterically and fancifully 
 forsake those which have served us thus far. 
 
 Our Government is not our master but our tool, adaptable 
 to the uses for which it was designed ; our servant, respon- 
 sive to our call. This makes revolution an absurdity. But 
 it also makes a sense of responsibility a necessity. And while 
 
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AFTER-WAR PROBLEMS 337 
 
 we may not have broken down in this regard we certainly 
 have weakened. We have proceeded in the belief that 
 automatically all men would come to see things as we do, 
 have a sense of the value of our traditions and a conscious- 
 ness of the deep meanings of our national experiences. The 
 things we believed in we have not taught. Hence the need 
 for such institutions as the Constitutional League which, 
 however, can not do for each of us the duty that is ours of 
 living the spirit of our Constitution. Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Hon. Woodrow Wilson 
 The White House 
 
 Washington, February 5, 1920 
 
 My dear Mr. President, — It is with deep regret that I 
 feel compelled to resign the commission with which you saw 
 fit to honor me, by appointing me to a place in your Cabinet, 
 now almost seven years ago. If it will meet your conven- 
 ience I would suggest that I be permitted to retire on the 
 first of March. 
 
 With the conditions which make this step necessary you 
 are familiar. I have served the public for twenty-one years, 
 and that service appeals to me as none other can, but I 
 must now think of other duties. 
 
 The program of administration and legislation looking to 
 the development of our resources, which I have suggested 
 from time to time, is now in large part in effect, or soon will 
 come into effect through the action of Congress. 
 
 I return this Department into your hands with very 
 real gratitude that you have given me the opportunity to 
 know well a working force holding so many men and women 
 of singular ability and rare spirit. 
 
 I trust that you may soon be so completely restored to 
 
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338 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 health that the country and the world may have the benefit 
 of the full measure of your strength in the leadership of 
 their affairs. The discouragements of the present are, I 
 believe, only temporary. The country knows that for Amer- 
 ica to stand outside the League of Nations will bring neither 
 pride to us nor confidence to the world. 
 
 Believe me, my dear Mr. President, always, cordially 
 and faithfully yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Frank W. Mondell 
 
 Washington, February 13, 1920 
 
 My dear Mr. Mondell, — I wish to acknowledge, with the 
 warmest appreciation, your letter of yesterday, and to say 
 that I am literally forced out of public life by my lack of 
 resources. The little property that I have been able to save 
 is all gone in an effort to make both ends meet, and I find 
 myself at fifty-five without a dollar, in debt, and with no 
 assurance as to the future. I assure you that it is with 
 the deepest regret that I leave public life for I like it, and 
 the public have treated me handsomely, especially the men 
 in Congress with whom I have had to deal, and not the least 
 of these, yourself. 
 
 I should like to stay, especially so, that we could put into 
 effect some of the legislation for which we have been fighting, 
 such as the oil bill, the power bill, and the farms-for-soldiers 
 bill. I shall leave a set of regulations as to the oil leases 
 ready for operation. The power bill will come into effect 
 soon, I hope. I am responsible for the three-headed com- 
 mission, but it was the only chance I saw of getting, any 
 unity as between the different branches of the government. 
 
 Letters are still coming in from the boys who want to go 
 on farms, and I hope that we will be able to lead Congress 
 to see that this is a farsighted measure. 
 
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AFTER-WAR PROBLEMS 339 
 
 I thank you very much for your many courtesies to me. 
 I trust that your career may be one of still greater usefulness 
 and expanding opportunity. With the warmest regards, 
 cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lank 
 
 Late in the year 1919, Lane wrote to James E. Gregg : — 
 "... The soldier-farms bill has been reported favorably 
 by the Committee on Public Lands to the House, but has 
 not yet been taken up for consideration on the floor. . . . 
 Of course, some of the opposition has been by those who say 
 the plan does not do something for all of the soldiers, but 
 this is hardly a good objection, as no other constructive 
 suggestion seems to have been made by any one that would 
 do anything for any of the soldiers, except the cash bonus, 
 which I believe is altogether impossible, improvident, and 
 not in the interest either of the country or the soldier." 
 
 To Robert W. De Forest 
 
 Washington, February, 1920 
 
 My dear Mr. De Forest, — I do not know that I have re- 
 ceived another letter which has made me feel as conscious 
 of the gravity of the step I have taken as has yours. I have 
 accumulated much in twenty years of public life that ought 
 to be forever at the service of the public, and if I were alone 
 in the world I would not think of going out. But I must 
 think now for a time in a narrower field. Your own career 
 shows that without holding office a man may do a great good 
 and give wide public service. Perhaps this opportunity 
 may be mine. 
 
 I shall be in New York soon and I hope very much to see 
 you and see you often. Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
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XII 
 POLITICAL COUNSEL — LINCOLN'S EYES 
 
 1920 
 
 Suggestions to Democratic Nominee for President — On Election of Senators 
 — Lost Leaders — Lincoln's Eyes — William James' Letters 
 
 To William Phelps Eno 
 
 Saugatuck, July 5, [1920] 
 
 Here I am at your desk looking out of your window into 
 your trees, up the gentle rise of your formal garden into the 
 brilliant crown of rambler roses above the stone gateway. 
 
 This is a very delightful picture. The sun is just begin- 
 ning to pour into the garden. He is looking through the 
 apple trees and having hard work to make even a splash of 
 golden green upon the* lawn, but the silver spruce and the 
 tiara of roses get the full measure of his morning smile and 
 are doing their best to show that they understand, appreci- 
 ate, and are glad. Oh, it is a great morning ! 
 
 And on the water side it has been even more stimulating. 
 I have walked along the stone wall, the water is down, very 
 low, the boat is stranded, like some sleeping animal, with 
 its tether lying loose along the pebbly strand. The gulls 
 are crying to each other that there is promise of a gullet- 
 full. Nearer shore the fish are leaping — only one or two 
 I think but they make just enough noise to make one realize 
 that there is life in the smooth water, that it is more than 
 a splendid silver mirror for the sun which streams across 
 
 340 
 
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POLITICAL COUNSEL — LINCOLN'S EYES 341 
 
 it. I disturbed a solitary king-fisher as I went out to the 
 wharf. He rose from his perch upon the rope, circled about 
 for a minute and then settled back, on his watch for break- 
 fast. 
 
 It is altogether lovely, a quiet, gentle, kindly morning, 
 such as you have often seen, no doubt, when Judah Rock 
 is making its giant fight to rise triumphant from the sea. 
 
 But this is not a bit of geologic prophecy nor a Chapter 
 I. to a love story, that I am writing. This is a bread-and- 
 butter letter. I have been your guest and I am telling you 
 that I have enjoyed myself. But you, of course, wish some- 
 thing more than the bald statement that I like your place 
 and that your bread was good and your butter sweet. Yes, 
 you deserve more, for this place is an expression of yourself. 
 No one can be here and not see you at every turn, even 
 though you may be right now in Paris "making the way 
 straight." You have put your love of beauty, your re- 
 strained love for color, and your exceptional sense of bal- 
 ance into the whole establishment. It is a man's house — 
 things are made for use ; the chairs will stand weight ; the 
 couches are not fluff ; one can lean with safety on the tables. 
 But everywhere the eye is satisfied. My bed is beautiful, 
 French I fancy, yet it is comfort itself. The lamp beside 
 my bed is a dull bit of bronze which does not poke itself 
 into your sleepy eye, yet you know that it fits the need, not 
 only for light but for satisfaction to the eyes after the light 
 comes. And the bath tub — may I speak of a bath tub in 
 a bread-and-butter letter ? — the bath tub is not too long 
 — do you ever suffer from the long, long stretch into the 
 cold water at your back and the imperfect support to the 
 head which imperils your entire submergence? — your 
 bath tub is not too long, and I grab it on both sides to get 
 out. And as I dry myself I look down into that garden of 
 
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342 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 precise, trimmed and varied green upon which the rambler 
 roses smile. 
 
 It is well to have had money. No Bolshevism comes out 
 of such a place as this. It makes no challenge to the envy 
 of the submerged tenth. It has not ostentation. It gives 
 off no glare, and it is all used. For men who can put money 
 to such use, who do not over-indulge their own love for 
 things of beauty, nor build for luxurious living, but mould 
 a bit of seashore, some trees and a rambling house into an 
 expression of their own dignified and balanced natures, for 
 such men I am quite sure there is or will be, no social peril 
 from the Red. 
 
 And may I close with a word, an inadequate and most 
 feeble word, as to the Lady of the House who so perfectly 
 complements the beauty and the refinement of her setting. 
 She would make livable and lovable a shack, and she would 
 draw to it those who think high thoughts. She has an aura 
 of sympathy and companionability which makes her one with 
 the healing earth and the warming, encompassing sunshine. 
 
 May you and she give many more sojourners as much of 
 the right stimulus as you have given yours affectionately, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Roland Cotton Smith 
 
 New York, July 9, [1920] 
 My dear Padre, — Oh, that I could reply to you in kind, 
 but alas and alack ! the gift divine has been denied me. My 
 Nancy comes to me tomorrow — Praise be to Allah! and 
 I shall duly, and in appropriate and prideful language, I 
 trust, present her with your mellifluous lines. 
 
 When the spirits Good and Bad will permit me to visit 
 Ipswich I cannot say. Are Doctors of the carnal or the 
 spiritual ? They hold me. So soon as I was given a few 
 
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POLITICAL COUNSEL — LINCOLN'S EYES 343 
 
 ducats these banditti rose to rob me. Polite, they are, these 
 modern sons of Dick Turpin, and clever indeed, for they con- 
 trive that you shall be helpless, that you may not in good 
 form resist their calculated, schemed, coordinated blood- 
 drawing. And I had as lief have a Sioux Medicine man 
 dance a one-step round my camp fire, and chant his silly 
 incantation for my curing, as any of these blood pressure, 
 electro-chemical, pill, powder specialists. Give me an 
 Ipswich witch instead. Let her lay hands on me. Soft 
 hands that turn away wrath. Have you such or did your 
 ancestors, out of fear of their wives, burn them all ? 
 
 Well, this is no way for a sober, sick, sedate citizen to be 
 talking to a Man of the Cloth, even tho' he be on vacation. 
 
 Have you read any of Leonard Merrick's novels? Con- 
 rad in Quest of his Youth, for instance ? If not, do so now. 
 They are what you literati would designate as G. S. — 
 great stuff. 
 
 Give me another cheering line, do ! For I live in a world 
 that is not altogether lovely. 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To James M. Cox 
 Democratic nominee for President 
 
 New York City, July 25, 1920 
 
 Mi dear Governor, — I shall presume upon your flatter- 
 ing invitation to speak frankly, not in the hope that I may 
 in any way enlighten a man of such experience and success, 
 but that I may possibly accentuate some point that you 
 may recognize as important, which in the rush of things, 
 might be overlooked. If I should appear in the least di- 
 dactic, I beg that you charge it to my desire for definiteness, 
 and my inability to give the atmosphere of a personal con- 
 versation. 
 
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344 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 A Word as to Generosity 
 
 The unforgivable sin in our politics is a lack of generosity. 
 Smallness, meanness, extreme partisanship, littleness of 
 any kind — these are not in accord with the American con- 
 ception of an American leader. A clever thing may gratify 
 a man's own immediate partisan following, but the impres- 
 sion on the country at large is not good. We want a full, 
 adequate appreciation of the fact that there is hardly more 
 than a film that divides Republican from Democrat; in- 
 deed, in that fact lies our hope of success. We must win 
 first voters and Independents. 
 
 Let me be concrete ; — The war was won by Republicans 
 as well as Democrats. . . . Therefore, I would say, give 
 generously of appreciation to the Republicans, who raised 
 Liberty Loans, who administered food affairs, who put their 
 plants at the Nation's service, who directed the various 
 activities, such as aeroplane making, and transporting and 
 financing during the war. . . . 
 
 A day has come when partisanship with its personalities 
 and bitterness does not satisfy the public. We have seen 
 things on too large a scale now to believe in the importance 
 of trifles, or in the adequacy of trifling men. 
 
 We must have men who are large enough to be inter- 
 national and national at the same time, to be politicians and 
 yet American statesmen, to subordinate always the individ- 
 ual ambition and the party advantage to the national good. 
 
 The League of Nations 
 
 I feel that we have not tried to interpret the League of 
 Nations to our people in terms of America's advantage. 
 We Democrats are looked upon as International visionaries 
 because we have not been willing to deal practically with 
 a practical situation. 
 
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POLITICAL COUNSEL — LINCOLN'S EYES 345 
 
 The League is not anti-national, it is anti-war ; its aim is 
 to defer war and reduce the chances of war between nations. 
 This is to be effected, not by creating a super-nation, or by 
 binding us to abide by the decisions of a super-national 
 tribunal, but by establishing the method and machinery by 
 which the opinion of the world may become effective as 
 against those inclined toward war. 
 
 By adopting the League, we do not pledge ourselves to 
 any war under any circumstances, without the consent of 
 Congress. And because we have not been willing to say 
 this, we are now in danger of losing the one chance the world 
 has had to get the nations together. 
 
 Loyalty to the President's principles does not mean loy- 
 alty to his methods. They have been wrong as to the 
 League, in my opinion. You could deal with Congress, 
 even a Republican Congress, on this matter, I believe, and 
 come out with the essentials. . . . 
 
 Don't let Bryan get away from you, if you can help it, 
 because he really represents a great body of moral force 
 and opinion. But don't pay the price to Bryan or Wilson 
 or Hearst or Murphy or any one else, of being untrue to 
 your own belief as to the wise and practicable national pol- 
 icy, that you may gain their support. 
 
 There couldn't be a better year in which to lose, for some- 
 thing real. You can not win as a Wilson man, nor as a 
 Murphy man, nor as a Hearst man. The nation is crying 
 out for leadership, not pussy-footing nor pandering. Be 
 wrong strongly if you must be wrong, rather than be right 
 weakly. You can only win as a Cox man, one who owns 
 himself, has his own policies, is willing to go along, not with 
 a bunch of bosses, but with any reasonable man, asks for 
 counsel from all classes of men and women, does not fear 
 defeat, and expects a victory that will be more a party vic- 
 
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346 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 tory than a personal one, and more a people's victory than 
 a partisan one. 
 
 Your Enemies 
 
 Pick a few enemies and pick them with discretion. 
 Chiefly be for things. But be against things and persons, 
 too, so that the nation can visualize you as leading in a 
 contest between the constructive forces and the destructive 
 critical forces. 
 
 And the thing to be against is the man who is looking 
 backward, who talks of the "good old days," meaning (a) 
 money in politics, buying votes in blocks of five ; (b) hu- 
 man beings as commodities, Homestead strikes, and in- 
 structions how to vote in the pay envelop ; (c) privately 
 controlled national finances as against the Federal Reserve 
 System ; (d) taxation of the poor through indirect taxes on 
 pretext of protecting industry ; (e) seventy -five cent wheat ; 
 (f) dollar a day labor ; (g) the saloon-bossed city ; (h) no 
 American Merchant Marine ; all goods carried abroad under 
 foreign flags — those were the "good old days," for which 
 the Standpat Republican is sighing. 
 
 But the world has moved in the past twenty-five years, 
 and America not only has moved it, but has kept in the 
 lead. . . . 
 
 What We Want 
 
 A greater America — that is our objective. 
 
 We want our unused lands put to use. 
 
 We want the farm made more attractive through better 
 rural schools, better roads everywhere, more frequent con- 
 nection between town and farm, better means of distribution 
 of products. 
 
 We want more men with garden homes instead of tene- 
 ment houses. 
 
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POLITICAL COUNSEL — LINCOLN'S EYES 347 
 
 We want our waters, that flow idly to the sea, put to use ; 
 more stored water for irrigation, more hydro-electric plants 
 to supply industries, railroads and home and farming activi- 
 ties. There should be electric lights upon the farm, and 
 power for the sewing machine and the churn. It can be 
 done because it is being done on the best farms of the far West. 
 
 We want our streams controlled so that they do not 
 wash away our cities, farms, and railroads, and so as to 
 redeem the submerged bottom lands for the next genera- 
 tion. . . . 
 
 We want fewer boys and girls, men and women, who can 
 not read or write the language of our laws, newspapers, and 
 literature, . . . that those who live with us may really be 
 of us. . . . 
 
 We should dignify the profession of teaching as the foun- 
 dation profession of modern democratic life. . . . 
 
 We want definite and continuing studies made of our 
 great industrial fiscal and social problems. The framing of 
 our policies should not be left to emotional caprice, or the 
 opportunism of any group of men, but should be the result 
 of sympathetic and deep study by the wisest men we have, 
 irrespective of their politics. There should be industrial 
 conferences, such as those recently inaugurated, to arrive 
 at the ways by which those who furnish the financial arm 
 of industry and those who furnish the working arm of in- 
 dustry may most profitably and productively be brought 
 into cooperation. . . . Through the study of what has been 
 done we can give direction to our national thought and work 
 with a will toward a condition in which labor will have 
 recognition and be more certainly insured against the perils 
 of non-occupation and old age, and capital become entitled 
 to a sure return, because more constantly and productively 
 used. 
 
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348 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K LANE 
 
 Then, too, we need a study made of the health conditions 
 of our children, — of the reason for the large percentage of 
 undeveloped and subnormal children who are brought to 
 our schools, and the larger number who do not reach ma- 
 turity. . . . Underfed boys and ignorant boys are the ones 
 who turn to Bolshevism. We can not stand pat and let 
 things drift without their drifting not to the "good old 
 days" but to bad new days. 
 
 Why should not our system of taxation be subject for 
 the prof oundest study ? . . . We must find ways by which 
 the individual may have tools for production which his skill 
 and foresight and thrift have created and yet take for so- 
 ciety in taxes what society itself gives. . . . There must 
 come to society an increasingly large portion of the wealth 
 created by each generation through inheritance taxes. 
 Thus all our boys and girls will start the race of life more 
 nearly at the scratch. This will be for the making of the 
 race and for the enriching of the whole of society. Yet 
 there must be saved, surely, the call upon the man of talent 
 for every ounce of energy that he has and every spark of 
 imagination. 
 
 We want our soldiers and sailors to be more certain of our 
 gratitude and to have an opportunity to realize their own 
 ambition for themselves. We must not be driven into any 
 foolish or impossible course by the pressure of a desire to 
 win their votes. On the contrary, the pressure should 
 come from us who had not the opportunity to risk our lives, 
 that those who did take such risk shall be highly honored. 
 For those who will identify themselves with the tilling of 
 the soil, there should be farms, small yet complete, for 
 which they can gradually pay on long time. For others 
 there should be such education for professional or indus- 
 trial life as they desire. For others, a home, not a specu- 
 
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POLITICAL COUNSEL — LINCOLN'S EYES 349 
 
 lation in real estate, but a piece of that American soil for 
 which they fought. For these things we can pay without 
 extra financial strain, if we dedicate to this purpose merely 
 the interest upon the monies which other nations owe us. 
 The extent of our willingness to help these men is not to 
 be measured by. their request but rather by our ability 
 and their lasting welfare. . . . 
 
 We are to extend our activities into all parts of the world. 
 Our trade is to grow as never before. Our people are to re- 
 sume their old place as traders on the seven seas. We are 
 to know other peoples better and make them all more and 
 more our friends, working with them as mutually dependent 
 factors in the growth of the world's life. For this day a 
 definite foreign policy must be made, one that is fair; to 
 which none can take exception. Our people shall go abroad 
 for their good and the good of other lands, with their skilled 
 hands and their resourceful minds, and their energetic cap- 
 ital, and they must be assured of support abroad, as at 
 home, in every honest venture. 
 
 True Americanism 
 
 America's ambition is to lead the world in showing what 
 Democracy can effect. This would be my conception of 
 the large idea of the campaign. It involves much more 
 than the League of Nations. This is our hour of test. We 
 must not be little in our conception of ourselves, nor yet 
 have a conceit that is self-destructive. 
 
 America must prove herself a living thing, with policies 
 that are adequate to new conditions. . . . We wish an 
 international settlement that will enable us to be more 
 supremely great as nationalists. This is the significance of 
 the League of Nations. It is a plan of hope. It is the only 
 plan which the mind of man has evolved which any number 
 
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350 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 of nations has ever been willing to accept as a buffer against 
 devil-made war. ... It is a monumental experiment which 
 this century and other centuries will talk of and think of 
 and write of because it involves the lives of men and women 
 under it, and there is the possibility of giving our full 
 thought and energy and wealth to making life more enjoy- 
 able and finer instead of more horrible and cruel. While 
 other nations are in the mood, we should agree with them, 
 that we may spend our lives and money in a rivalry of prog- 
 ress rather than in a competition in the art of scientific 
 boy-murder. There are times when war is the ultimate 
 and necessary appeal, but those times should be made fewer 
 by American genius and sacrifice. 
 
 And our prestige and power should not be wasted at this 
 critical time, because out of some fecund mind may come 
 an abstract and legalistic plan for some other kind of League.- 
 Let us be practical. Let us go to the fullest limit with other 
 nations who are now willing to join hands with us, yet 
 never yielding the Constitutional Congressional control 
 over our war making. . . . Let us take thought to-day of 
 our opportunities else these may not exist tomorrow. . . . 
 Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Timothy Spellacy 
 
 August 2, 1920 
 
 My dear Tim, — Here you are, when you are sick yourself, 
 worrying about me. Now, don't give any concern to any 
 matter excepting getting thoroughly well, just as soon as 
 possible. You are doing too much. You are not resting 
 enough, and you are worrying. You have got enough to 
 take care of yourself and your family for the rest of your 
 lives, you have the respect of every one who knows you, and 
 
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POLITICAL COUNSEL — LINCOLN'S EYES 351 
 
 the affection of every one who knows you well ; in fact, you 
 have nothing to work for, and every reason to be contented. 
 So I suggest that you learn, in your later years, how to bum. 
 
 I have no doubt that Mike will come across something 
 very good in Colombia, if he doesn't get the fever, or break 
 his blooming neck. I have never seen so aggressive a group 
 of old men as you fellows are. You will not admit that you 
 are more than twenty-one. . . . 
 
 With my warmest regards, as always cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 With the presentation of an Irish flag, August 10, 1920. 
 
 To Edward L. Doheny, with the cordial esteem of Franklin K. 
 
 Lane. 
 
 This flag is a symbol. It stands for the finest thing in a 
 human being — aspiration — the seed of the Divine. It 
 represents the noblest hope of a thwarted and untiring peo- 
 ple. It makes a call to the heart of every generous-minded 
 man, and gives vivifying impulse to the home-loving of all 
 races. It is a symbol of a people to whom most of the arts 
 were known when England and America were forest wastes, 
 whose women have made the world beautiful by their vir- 
 tue, and whose men have made the world free by their 
 courage. 
 
 To Franklin D. Roosevelt 
 
 New York, August, [1920] 
 
 Dear old Man, — This is hard work — to say that I 
 can't be with you on this great day in your life. 1 You know 
 that only the mandate of the medical autocrats would keep 
 
 1 Notification ceremonies following Franklin D. Roosevelt's nomination as Vice- 
 President by the Democratic party. 
 
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352 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 me away, not that I could do you any good by being there, 
 but that you might know that many men like myself take 
 pride in you, rejoice in your opportunity, and keep our faith 
 in Democracy because out of it can come men of ideals like 
 yourself. I know that you will not allow yourself to be- 
 come cheap, undignified, or demagogical. Remember, that 
 East and West alike, we want gentlemen to represent us, 
 and we ask no man to be a panderer or a hypocrite to get 
 our votes. Frankness, and largeness, and simplicity, and a 
 fine fervor for the right, are virtues that some must preserve, 
 and where can we look for them if not from the Roosevelts 
 and the Delanos ? 
 
 It is a great day for you and for all of us. Be wise ! 
 Don't be brilliant. Get plenty of sleep. Do not give 
 yourself to the handshakers. For now your word carries 
 far, and it must be a word worthy of all you stand for. 
 
 I honestly, earnestly ask God's blessing on you. As al- 
 ways, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 Our love to your dear Mother, — ■ proud happy Mother, 
 — and to Eleanor. 
 
 To Mrs. George Ehle 
 
 Katonah, September, 1920 
 To the Ehle, — Now this is a pleasure to have a minute's 
 talk with you in the cool under an apple tree. You are 
 gay, with Grouitches, and other festive creatures, while I 
 am glum, gloomy and lugubrious. You know this is a novel 
 experience for me to be in care of two nurses and a doctor, 
 not to speak of a wife ; but 1 am obedient, docile, humble, 
 tractable, and otherwise dehumanized. The plan here is 
 to follow my boy's statement of the modern prescription 
 
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POLITICAL COUNSEL — LINCOLN'S EYES 353 
 
 for women, "Catch 'em young; treat 'em rough; tell 'em 
 nothing." Well, they don't catch me young, but otherwise 
 the prescription is filled. They reduced me to weakness, 
 dependence, and a sort of sour-mash, and now they say that 
 on this foundation they will build me up. Tho' I am still 
 to lose some weight, being only twenty-four pounds under 
 my average for twenty years. I will emerge from this spot, 
 if I emerge at all, a regular Apollo, and will do Russian 
 dances for you on that lovely lawn under the mulberry tree. 
 And what happy memories of that spot I do have, and they 
 cluster about you, with your soft hand and your understand- 
 ing eye and your sympathetic mouth. You don't mind my 
 making love to you in this distant fashion do you ? Well, 
 this is a charming jail, but jail it is after all, for I can't flee, 
 though all the leisure in the world were mine — and it irks 
 an American eagle or eaglet. 
 
 Dear Anne has been improving here. She now is jolly, 
 tho' it has been hot. Responsibility kills her, and I thrive 
 on it. 
 
 I believe I will take that place we went to see on the She- 
 paug. Ryan, my friend, is to manage it. Well, we have 
 a place of refuge, eh ? where the wicked and the boring and 
 the ununderstanding cannot pursue. 
 
 But oh ! my dreams do not come true these days, the 
 magic touch is lost, the Fairies have been hurt in their 
 feelings, my Daemon has deserted, and instead of beauty 
 and joy and power, sweet content and warm friendship, I 
 am struggling merely to live — and to what end ? 
 
 Please go into my room some morning early and look out 
 to the gate, the cobwebs must be diamond-sprinkled on the 
 circle at the doorway, the catalpa trees must stand like stiff, 
 prim, proper, knickerbockered footmen, on either side of 
 the hedge, the ground must rise in a very gradual swell and 
 
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354 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 culminate in the rose-covered gate. Throw it a kiss for 
 me — (I wonder if there could be any roses left ?) . All of 
 it is a lovely bit of man's handiwork, and Mr. Eno should 
 have been born poor so that his planning mind, conceiving 
 things of beauty in regular and balanced form, could have 
 been used by many. 
 
 Tell him I got his nice letter and will drop him a line one 
 day. With much love, 
 
 Frank Lane 
 
 To Isadore B. Dockweiler 
 
 Washington, September 25, 1920 
 
 My dear Dockweiler, — It is a great disappointment that 
 I am not able to speak in California this year. I wished 
 so much to say a word that might be helpful to Senator 
 Phelan. I helped in his election six years ago, and I wanted 
 to be able to say to those whom I then addressed, that 
 Phelan had thoroughly made good in Washington. He has 
 been strong, honest, courageous, loyal to California and 
 the country, and at every minute he has been at the serv- 
 ice of his constituents. That is much to say, isn't it? 
 Well, every word is true. . . . 
 
 These things I know, for I have watched him through the 
 past six years and for many years before. Indeed, it is more 
 than thirty years now since we first joined with boyish 
 enthusiasm in the activities of the Young Men's Demo- 
 cratic League, and always I have wondered at his willingness 
 to make himself the target of so much criticism because of 
 his loyalty to convictions that have not pleased those in 
 political or social power. He thinks; he does not take 
 orders. And you can rely on his being superior to the par- 
 tisan phase of any real issue. This self-respecting, or self- 
 owned individual is the sort of man we need to promote in 
 
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POLITICAL COUNSEL — LINCOLN'S EYES 355 
 
 our political life, or else we will soon find ourselves back in 
 the pre-Roosevelt days of political invertebrates. 
 
 I found in Washington the secret of the exceeding great 
 authority which the older states carry in Congress, they 
 return their Senators and Congressmen, term after term, 
 and give them opportunity to rise to positions of eminence 
 in the national legislature. The usefulness of a Senator is 
 not to be measured by the roundness of his periods, nor 
 even by the soundness of his ideas. He must pass through 
 a period of impatient waiting before his status is such that 
 he can really have the opportunity to have his ideas con- 
 sidered seriously. By returning men who have been faith- 
 ful, the State strengthens itself in Washington and even- 
 tually gains greatly in prestige, as in the case of Julius 
 Kahn. Senator Phelan has now passed through this initial 
 period of gaining status, and his future will be one of an 
 assured and much strengthened position among his col- 
 leagues. Not to return Phelan will mean a loss at Washing- 
 ton that California can ill afford at this critical time, for 
 in the national mind he is identified with her prime con- 
 cerns. 
 
 . . . These are to be most momentous times. . . . Just 
 where we are going no one knows, but clearly the people 
 here, as elsewhere, are bent upon testing the value of De- 
 mocracy as a cooperative organization of men and women, 
 and are determined to make of it a fuller expression of hu- 
 man capacities and hopes. We must feel our way carefully 
 at such a time, but we must act constructively, else there 
 will surely come a dangerous radical reaction. Sympathy 
 must be checked by wisdom, a wise knowledge of man's 
 limitations and tendencies, that we do not take on burdens 
 we cannot safely carry. Yet we must dare, and dare pur- 
 posefully. What can this Democracy do for men and 
 
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356 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 women — that is the super-question which rises like Shasta 
 and follows one throughout the day, dominating every 
 prospect. And the answer must be wrought out of the 
 sober thought and the proved experience of our statesmen. 
 . . . Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 In September, 1920, he wrote, — "Things look dark to 
 me politically. The little Wilson (as distinguished from 
 the Great Wilson) is now having his day. Cox is making 
 a manly fight on behalf of the President's League, but the 
 administration is sullen, is doing nothing. Cox will be de- 
 feated not by those who dislike him but by those who dis- 
 like Wilson and his group. This seems mighty unjust." 
 
 To Hall McAllister 
 
 Katonah, September 25 [?], 1920 
 
 My dear Hall, — This paper is a concession to my love 
 for color, it is not yellow, but golden, and to make the touch 
 truly Californian I should write with a blue pencil. 
 
 I cannot write as gaily or as bravely as you did, for I 
 have been pretty well beaten down to my knees. My nights 
 are so unforgivably bad — wakened up two or three times, 
 always with this Monster squeezing my heart in his 
 Mammoth hand — By God, it is something Dante over- 
 looked. . . . 
 
 Take my advice, dear Hall, and avoid doing any of the 
 things which the 3793 Doctors I have paid tell me cause 
 this thing — among them are : — smoking, eating, drink- 
 ing, swearing, working. 
 
 You can recover partially — not wholly under any cir- 
 cumstances — if you arrive at a state of Nirvana before 
 
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POLITICAL COUNSEL — LINCOLN'S EYES 357 
 
 death. . . . Gay life this, my boy ! I've been so wicked 
 and fast and devilish and hoggish and gluttonous and al- 
 ways rotten and riotous that I needs must spend a few 
 months in this agony by way of preliminary atonement be- 
 fore I may get even a chance at purgatory. 
 
 You know that sometimes in the most terrific crushing 
 pain, I laugh, at the thought that my steady years of drive 
 and struggle to help a lot of people to get justice, or a chance, 
 should be gloriously crowned by an ironical God with an 
 end that would make a sainted Christian, in Nero's time, 
 regret his premature taking-off. . . . 
 
 Tell that most charming of all women, who is your sister, 
 that her noble man was in great good fortune ; and I envy 
 him because the Gods showed their love for him even up to 
 the last. The wicked, torturing devils respected his gay 
 spirit as he passed along and forgot to fill him full of arrows, 
 poisoned arrows, as he ran the gauntlet down to the River. 
 
 Her letters are beauteous reflections of her thoroughbred 
 soul, and they give delight to Anne and myself. . . . Yours 
 as always, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Mrs. George Ehle 
 
 Bethel, October [3], 1920 
 
 That is so charming and gracious a letter that it must be 
 answered within the day, not that any word in kind can be 
 returned, but the spirit may be echoed. We may be short 
 in words but not in feeling. 
 
 Let me tell you, Lady Ehle, about this place. It is 
 Nirvana-in-the-Wilderness, the Sacred, Serene Spot. Beau- 
 tiful, for it is a ridge surrounded by mountains — or "mount- 
 ings" — of gold and green, russet and silver. Noiseless, 
 no dogs bark or cats mew or autos honk. Peaceful — no 
 
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358 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 business. Nothing offends. Isn't that Nirvana ? No P ov " 
 erty. People independent but polite. Children smile back 
 when you talk to them, and you do. And the sky has 
 clouds that color and that cast shadows on purpling moun- 
 tains and stretches of meadow. Yes, this is one lovely spot 
 over which a man named Gehring presides, unofficially, 
 modestly, gently ; he has given it purpose for being, for 
 here he does good by healing, and some of his wealthy pa- 
 tients have put up a handsome inn in his honor — and they 
 have said so in a bronze tablet over the mantel. 
 
 How much good he can do me I cannot say, but he is 
 trying, Oh, ever so hard to touch my trouble-centre, and I 
 shall give him a full chance yet awhile. 
 
 Wouldn't it be splendid if Shepaug were assured, or any 
 other place of simple beauty to which we could retire to 
 commune with the things that, alas, one only discovers to 
 be the really great things, the worth while things, late in 
 life. Daily would we foregather beside that stream to 
 build some kind of altar to the God of Things as we Hope 
 they may sometime Be. . . . 
 
 Give my regards to the Duke of Saugatuck and tell him 
 that his picture on horseback is good enough to enlarge — 
 and then I want one. 
 
 And to you, The Ehle, may the peace that gay souls need 
 and seldom get, and the joy that good souls long for, be 
 with you always. And do write some more ! 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To Benjamin Ide Wheeler 
 
 Bethel, [October 28, 1920] 
 
 My dear B. I., — It has been a long time since your letter 
 came, but until now I have not felt that I could write. 
 Most of the time I have been in pain and I have also been 
 
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POLITICAL COUNSEL — LINCOLN'S EYES 359 
 
 much discouraged over the condition of my health. No one 
 wants to hear a man talk of his aches and I haven't much else 
 on my mind. I am beginning to crawl a bit health- wards, 
 I think ; at any rate I am moving on that assumption. 
 
 "What a hell of a condition the land is in politically. Cow- 
 ardice and hypocrisy are slated to win, and makeshift and 
 the cheapest politics are to take possession of national af- 
 fairs. Better even obstinacy and ego-mania ! Cox, I think, 
 has made a gallant fight. He is to be beaten because Wilson 
 is as unpopular as he once was popular. Oh ! if he had been 
 frank as to his illness, the people would have forgotten every- 
 thing, his going to Paris, his refusal to deal with the mild 
 Preservationists — everything would have been swept away 
 in a great wave of sympathy. But he could not be frank, 
 he who talked so high of faith in the people distrusted them ; 
 and they will not be mastered by mystery. So he is so much 
 less than a hero that he bears down his party to defeat. 
 
 And after election will come revolt in the Republican 
 party, for it is too many-sided for a long popularity. 
 
 I am sorry to be out of it all, but the Gods so willed. I 
 did want to help Phelan. The country will think that what 
 he has stood for, as to California matters, especially oil and 
 Japan, has been repudiated if he is not returned. He was 
 California incarnate in Washington. 
 
 Remember me to the Lady and the Soldier. Always 
 
 your friend, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To John W. Hallowell 
 
 Bethel, November 3, 1920 
 
 My dear Jack, — You have so much idle time hanging, 
 dragging, festooning on round and about your hands that 
 I want to give you a job, something to do. Eh, what ! 
 
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360 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K LANE 
 
 I have taken it into my head, caput, cranium, that I will 
 read Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and 
 as the only copy here is too poorly printed to read, and 
 furthermore as I wish to own said work myself, I would 
 that you make purchase of same and send it to me. Now, 
 I do not wish an expensive copy, nor a large copy, nor a 
 heavy copy. Therefore I think it would be best to buy a 
 good second-hand set, say in half -leather — perhaps you 
 can get it in six or eight volumes — and it must not be 
 heavy, because I read in bed. About the size of an ordi- 
 nary novel would be very good, and pretty good sized type 
 — leaded not solid. Yes, the more I think of a second- 
 hand set, the better I like the idea — old binding but strong, 
 old paper but light, old type but clear. Twelve dollars I 
 enclose for a second-hand set. By devoting twenty dollars 
 worth of time to the search I know you can get a second 
 hand set for twelve dollars. That is uneconomical, but 
 think of the fun you will have. I suggest to you that this 
 was the very thing you needed to do to bring perfect con- 
 tentment into your life. Search for Gibbon, pretty backs, 
 good type, light in weight for twelve dollars. Oh what joy 
 you will have ! Really I should be selfish enough to do it 
 myself but now that I have said so much about it I can't 
 withdraw this boon. . . . 
 
 Well, get Gibbon and "with all thy getting get under- 
 standing." 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To John W. Hallowell 
 
 Bethel, November 12, [1920] 
 
 My dear Jack, — I said nothing of the kind to myself. 
 This is what I said, "Now I want a Gibbon. Not a show- 
 off set but a useful one — light and small and well bound. 
 
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POLITICAL COUNSEL — LINCOLN'S EYES 361 
 
 How can I get it? Cotter in New York? What does 
 Cotter know of learning and books of learning? What 
 interest does New York take in such things anyway ? There 
 are second-hand stores there but they must be filled with 
 novels and such trumpery. No one in New York ever read 
 Gibbon — ninety-nine percent never heard of him. So 
 why should I send to New York ? No, Boston is the place. 
 There is the city of the Erudite, the Home of Lodge, and 
 incidentally of Parkman, Bancroft, Thayer, Morse, Fiske, 
 and all others who have minds to throw back into the other 
 days, and make pictures of what has been. Every house 
 there has its Gibbon, of course, and some must, in the course 
 of nature, fall into the hands of the dealers. So to Boston, 
 — and who else but Jack Hallowell who knows what a 
 book is, how in respectability it should be bound, and what 
 size book is a pleasure and what a burden. A man of learn- 
 ing, identified with scholarship, through his athletic course 
 in Harvard, and withal a man of business who will not pay 
 more than a thing is worth. Ideal ! Hence the letter and 
 consequent trouble to good Jack Hallowell, who as per usual 
 "done his damnedest for a friend," as Bret Harte says, 
 in writing a perfect epitaph. . . . 
 
 The reason I sent twelve dollars needs explanation. I 
 put that limit because a very handsome edition of eleven 
 volumes sold for that price to a friend of mine. It was red 
 morocco, tooled, etc., and I thought surely twelve dollars 
 would buy something as good as I needed. 
 
 Now you have the whole mysterious story. Make the 
 most of it as Patrick Henry suggested to George III. 
 
 I have your dear Mother's book and will write her when 
 I have read it. I also have a letter saying that Hoover has 
 named me as treasurer of his twenty-three million or bil- 
 lion fund. . . . 
 
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362 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 Thank you for your kindness and write me as often as 
 you can. . . . 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To Robert Lansing 
 
 Bethel, Maine, November 10, [1920] 
 
 My dear Lansing, — It is good to see that letter-head, but 
 aren't you afraid to enter into competition with Mr. Tu- 
 multy, who has now, I see, bought the old Shepard mansion 
 and will settle in Washington. How do they do it with the 
 high cost of living what it is ? . . . The transmutation of 
 brass into gold is becoming a commonplace. 
 
 To-night's paper speaks of Knox as probable Secretary of 
 State. . . . Tell me where the opposition is to come from 
 — • who are to lead us ? . . . All possible leaders have been 
 submerged, squelched, drowned out, in the past eight years. 
 I wish the whole country had gone unanimously for Hard- 
 ing. Then we might have started on a fresh, clean footing 
 to create two parties that represent liberal and conservative 
 thought. As it is, I think you will see Hearst and Johnson 
 and La Follette try to capture the radicals of both parties 
 and make a new party of their own. Then I shall be with 
 all the rascals I have been fighting since boyhood — the 
 Wall Street rascals — as against the other group. But 
 maybe the Lord cares a bit for us after all. 
 
 I mend very slowly, but I delight in your recovery and 
 wonder at it. . . . I do beg you will give me all the gossip 
 of Washington that you can, for I am here in a wilderness, 
 beautiful but not exciting. As always, 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
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POLITICAL COUNSEL — LINCOLN'S EYES 363 
 
 To Carl Snyder 
 
 Bethel, November 12, [1920] 
 Dear Carl, — This is extremely disagreeable business, 
 this of repairs and restoration. I suppose I am doing fairly 
 well considering that I have been more than half a cen- 
 tury getting my gearings askew and awry. But I am taking 
 orders now and say "Thank you," when I get them. Just 
 when I shall be well enough to take hold again is not yet 
 discoverable. 
 
 Strange how little news there is when you are above the 
 clouds. One must be local to be interested in ninety per- 
 cent of what the papers print. Make me a hermit for a 
 year and I could see things in the large I believe, and ignore 
 the trifles which obscure real vision. But a monk must be 
 checked by a butcher. The ideal must be translated into 
 the possible. "Man cannot live on bread alone" — nor 
 on manna. 
 
 Outside it is snowing beautifully, across an insistent sun, 
 the fire is crackling and I do not know that I am ill but for 
 the staring bottles before me. 
 
 Give me a line when you have a free minute — and take 
 to your Beautiful Lady my warm regards. 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To William R. Wheeler 
 
 Bethel, 17 [November], 1920 
 
 My dear Bill, — ... I am mighty sorry to hear about 
 the Lady Alice Isabel. Funny that these women are like 
 some damn fools, like myself, and do things too strenuously, 
 and then go bang. Damn that Irish temperament, anyway ! 
 O God, that I had been made a stolid, phlegmatic, non- 
 nervous, self-satisfied Britisher, instead of a wild cross be- 
 tween a crazy Irishman, with dreams, desires, fancies, and 
 
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364 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 a dour Scot, with his conscience and his logical bitterness 
 against himself, — and his eternal drive ! 
 
 I can't tell you anything new about myself. I hope it is 
 not a delusion that I am growing slowly better. I cultivate 
 that idea anyway. . . . 
 
 It was a slaughter, the election, and properly did it come 
 to us. Now be wise and you can have this land for many 
 years. But foolish conceit will put you out in four. ... I 
 wish you Republicans had carried all the South. I am glad 
 for Lenroot — very ! . . . But Phelan's defeat has about 
 broken my heart and for Henderson and Chamberlain and 
 Thomas I am especially grieved. Well, it will be a changed 
 world in Washington, and I'm sorry I can't be in it and of 
 it. 
 
 Anne has gone to Washington to see Nancy who has not 
 been well, so I am alone but not for long. I get on all right. 
 God bless you, my dear old chap, and do rest awhile be- 
 neath your own fig tree. My love to Alice. Affectionately 
 as always, 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To George Otis Smith 
 
 Bethel, [November] 18, [1920] 
 
 Dear George Otis, — I love this Maine of yours. It is 
 beautiful, and its people are good stuff — strong, whole- 
 some, intelligent young men. I like them greatly. I'd be 
 content to sit right down here and wait for whatever is to 
 come. It is a place of serenity. There is no rush, yet peo- 
 ple live and the necessary things get done. It doesn't 
 have any Ford factories, but I rather fancy it makes the 
 men who go West and make the factories. 
 
 The autumn has been one long procession of gay banners 
 on the hillsides, and now that the snow has come the pines 
 
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POLITICAL COUNSEL — LINCOLN'S EYES 365 
 
 are blue and the mountains purple ; and mountains five 
 thousand feet high are just as good, more companionable, 
 than mountains fifteen thousand feet high. What is more 
 lovely, stately and of finer color than a line of these receding 
 hills which walk away from you, as if they continued clear 
 across the continent ? 
 
 I must get out against my wish, to have a lot more testing 
 done — for this doctor differs with the others — and I 
 rather think he is right. But I hope to get back here and 
 enjoy this air. No wonder this stock was for prohibition, 
 the air itself is an intoxicant, especially when the snow is 
 on the ground and it comes to you gently ; it is as bracing 
 as a cocktail, not a sensuous wine like the Santa Barbara 
 air — tell Vogelsang this — but I presume more like the 
 High Sierras, where the fishing is good. 
 
 I shall read your speeches with the deepest interest. 
 Keep up the publicity. It affects Congress and it justifies 
 the good doctrine we have preached. Cordially, 
 
 F. K. Lane 
 
 Have read the speeches and they are everything they 
 should be. Right theory, clear statement, conclusive facts. 
 A few too many figures perhaps, you should keep your prime 
 figures in the air longer so they can be visualized. This 
 may be called juggling figures in the right sense. 
 
 Lane 
 
 To George W- Wickersham 
 
 Bethel, Maine, 18 [November, 1920] 
 
 My dear G. W., — I have your good letter. By 'good' I 
 mean many things — well done as a bit of sketchy composi- 
 tion, a welcome letter, kindly also in spirit, cheering, timely, 
 telling of things that interest the receiver, one, too, having 
 
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366 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K LANE 
 
 the flavor of the household whence it comes, altogether a 
 good letter. I had one also from Her; which I brutally 
 answered with a preachment — in pencil, too, for I can't 
 write with comfort at a desk and, after all, what have white 
 paper and ink in common with these woods ? I am for 
 harmony — a reconciler, like Harding. . . . 
 
 Root, as you say, would give a good smack to the meal. 
 The country would at once say Harding knows how to set 
 a good table. But tell me — will he be a Taft ? a McKin- 
 ley ? a Hayes ? or a Grant ? Pshaw ! why should I ask such 
 a question ? Who knows what a man will turn out to be ! 
 Events may make him greater than any, or less. A war, a 
 bullet, a timely word of warning to a foreign power, a fierce 
 fight with some unliked home group, the right sort of a deal 
 on postal rates with newspapers and magazines — any one 
 of these might lift him into a national hero ; while a sneaking 
 act revealed, a little too much caution, a period of business 
 depression, would send him tumbling out of the skies. 
 
 These be indeed no days for prophesying — Wilson gone, 
 Clemenceau gone, Venizelos gone, — Lloyd George alone 
 left ! The wise boy had his election at the right moment, 
 didn't he? Surely statesmanship is four-fifths politics. 
 Harding's danger, as I see it, will lie in his timidity. He 
 fears ; and fear is the poison gas which comes from the Dev- 
 il's factory. Courage is oxygen, and Fear is carbon mon 
 oxide. One comes from Heaven — so you find Wells says, 
 = — and the other would turn the universe back into primeval 
 chaos. Wilson, be it said to his eternal glory, did not fear. 
 They send word to me from the inside that he believed in 
 Cox's election up to the last minute, although the whole 
 Cabinet told him defeat was sure. He "was right, and right 
 would prevail" — surely such faith, even in oneself, is al- 
 most genius ! 
 
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POLITICAL COUNSEL — LINCOLN'S EYES 367 
 
 I am glad you put Lincoln first in your list of great Amer- 
 icans. I decided that question for myself when I came to 
 hang some pictures in my library. Washington or Lin- 
 coln on top? And Lincoln got it. I have recently read 
 all his speeches and papers, and the man is true from the 
 first day to the last. The same philosophy and the same 
 reasoning were good in 1861 as in 1841. He was large 
 enough for a great day — could any more be said of any 
 one? 
 
 Lincoln made Seward and Chase and Stanton and Blair 
 his mates. He did not fear them. He wished to walk with 
 the greatest, not with trucklers and fawners, court satellites 
 and panderers. His great soul was not warm enough to 
 fuse them — they were rebellious ore — but his simplicities 
 were not to be mastered by their elaborate cogencies. 
 
 McKinley was simple in his nature, at bottom a dear boy 
 of kind heart, who put his hand into the big fist of Mark 
 Hanna and was led to glory. 
 
 Is Harding great and masterful in his simplicity, or trust- 
 ful and yielding? and if the latter where is the Hanna? 
 Well, I don't want to die in these next few months, anyway, 
 till some questions are answered. This would be a part of 
 my Cabinet if I were Harding : — Root, State ; Hoover, 
 Treasury ; Warren of Michigan, Attorney-General ; Wood, 
 War; Willard (of Baltimore & Ohio), Postmaster-General; 
 Hays, Labor ; Lowden, Interior ; Weeks, Navy. 
 
 I would put you and Taft on the Supreme Bench and 
 scour the country for strong men for the Commissions 
 which have mostly third-rate men on them. 
 
 Well, chat with me some more for I am much in the house 
 now that snow has come, and reading what Colonel Gibbon 
 has to say as to the Fall of Rome is not what you would call 
 current literature, tho' much of it has the charm of gossip. 
 
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368 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 You enviously write of my opportunity to read and contem- 
 plate. I have done some of both. But that's a monk's 
 life, and even a monk has a cell of his own, and a bit of gar- 
 den to play with ; and he can think upon a God that is his 
 very own, an Israelitish Providence; and, in his egotism, 
 be content. Yes, with a cell and a book and a garden and 
 an intimate God, one should be satisfied to forego even 
 health. But I hold with old Cicero that the "whole glory 
 of virtue is in activity," and therefore I call my discontent 
 divine. 
 
 You speak of great Americans, and have named all four 
 from political life. I concur in your selection. Now what 
 writers would you say were most distinctly American in 
 thought and most influential upon our thought, men who a 
 hundred years hence will be regarded not great as literary 
 men but as American social, spiritual, and economic phi- 
 losophers? It occurs to me that this singular trio might 
 be selected — Emerson, Henry George, and William James. 
 What say you ? 
 
 Say "Hello" to the young Colonel for me. 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 Lincoln haunted Lane's imagination, the humor, friend- 
 liness, loneliness, and greatness of the man. This — written 
 for no formal occasion but to express part of his feeling — 
 has found its way to others who, too, reverence the great 
 American. 
 
 Lincoln's Eyes 
 
 I never pass through Chicago without visiting the statue 
 of Lincoln by St. Gaudens and standing before it for a mo- 
 ment uncovered. It is to me all that America is, physically 
 
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POLITICAL COUNSEL — LINCOLN'S EYES 369 
 
 and spiritually. I look at those long arms and long legs, 
 large hands and feet, and I think that they represent the 
 physical strength of this country, its power and its youthful 
 awkwardness. Then I look up at the head and see quali- 
 ties which have made the American — the strong chin, the 
 noble brow, those sober and steadfast eyes. They were the 
 eyes of one who saw with sympathy and interpreted with 
 common sense. They were the eyes of earnest idealism lim- 
 ited and checked by the possible and the practicable. They 
 were the eyes of a truly humble spirit, whose ambition was 
 not a love for power but a desire to be supremely useful. 
 They were eyes of compassion and mercy and a deep un- 
 derstanding. They saw far more than they looked at. 
 They believed in far more than they saw. They loved men 
 not for what they were but for what they might become. 
 They were patient eyes, eyes that could wait and wait and 
 live on in the faith that right would win. They were eyes 
 which challenged the nobler things in men and brought out 
 the hidden largeness. They were humorous eyes that saw 
 things in their true proportions and in their real relation- 
 ships. They looked through cant and pretense and the great 
 and little vanities of great and little men. They were the 
 eyes of an unflinching courage and an unfaltering faith ris- 
 ing out of a sincere dependence upon the Master of the 
 Universe. To believe in Lincoln is to learn to look through 
 Lincoln's eyes. 
 
 To Benjamin lie Wheeler 
 
 Bethel, 18 [November, 1920] 
 
 My dear B. I., — From both ends of this continent we talk 
 to each other. We have both retired from active things 
 and can with some degree of removal, and from some alti- 
 
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370 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 tude, look upon the affairs of men. Frankly, it challenges 
 all my transcendental philosophy to convince me that 
 "deep love lieth under these pictures of time." And yet I 
 must so believe or die. It is a disheartening time — Wil- 
 son, a wreck and beaten. Clemenceau, beaten and out. 
 And now Venizelos gone. Only Lloyd George, the crafty, 
 quick-turning, sometimes-lying, never-wholly-frank poli- 
 tician left, because he called his election when spirits had 
 not fallen. 
 
 And little men take their places, while Bolshevism drives 
 Wrangel into the sea, possesses all Russia and Siberia, and 
 is a success politically and militarily, tho' a failure eco- 
 nomically and socially. We have passed the danger of red 
 anarchy in America, I think, tho' no one should prophesy 
 as to any event of to-morrow. Communism, and socialism 
 with it, have been made to pause. Yet nothing construc- 
 tive is opened by the world for men to think upon, as a 
 means of bettering their lot and answering the questions 
 flung to them by Russia, Germany, England, and our own 
 home conditions. 
 
 I can see no evidence of constructive statesmanship on 
 this side the water, excepting in Hoover. The best man in 
 Congress is Lenroot, and he writes me that unless the Re- 
 publicans do something more than fail to make mistakes 
 that the Democrats will take the power from them in an- 
 other four years. But I am nothing for parties. I cannot 
 wait for an opposition to come in. I would like to see the 
 Republicans now address themselves to the problems of the 
 world at large and of this land. If Knox is to be Secretary 
 of State, as the rumor is, we will have Steel Trust Diplo- 
 macy, — which will give us safety abroad, which is more 
 than we have had for some years — but it will be without 
 vision, without love for mankind. Root would give the 
 
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POLITICAL COUNSEL — LINCOLN'S EYES 371 
 
 Republicans great assurance and confidence. He would 
 make them smack their lips and feel that Harding was not 
 afraid of the best near him. Hoover may or may not have 
 a Cabinet place, but his brain is the best thing working in 
 America to-day, on our questions. If Penrose and Co. beat 
 him they will regret it. 
 
 If I were Harding I'd put Root, Lowden, Wood, Hoover, 
 and Johnson if he wanted it, into my Cabinet and I'd gather 
 all the men of mind in the country and put them at work on 
 specific questions as advisors to me, under Cabinet officers. 
 One group on Taxes and Finance, one on Labor and Capital, 
 one on Internal Improvements, one on Education and 
 Health. And have a program agreeable to Congress, 
 which is sterile because it is a messenger-boy force for 
 constituents. 
 
 The Democrats could do this if they had the men, — 
 but look over the nation and see how short we are of talent 
 of any kind. It may be an opposition party but it has no 
 force, no will, no self-confidence. It hopes for a miracle, 
 vainly hopes. It cannot gather twenty first-rate minds in 
 the nation to make a program for the party. I tried it the 
 other day — men interested in political affairs, outside 
 Congress — try it yourself. Get twenty big enough to 
 draft a national program of legislation for the party. I 
 sent the suggestion to George White, chairman of the Na- 
 tional Committee, and gave him a list, and at the head I 
 put you and President Eliot, classing you both as Demo- 
 crats, which probably neither of you call yourselves now, 
 tho' both voted for Cox. . . . 
 
 If I get to California I must see you. But I shall play 
 my string out here before trying the Western land. My 
 best regards to the Lady. Yours always, 
 
 Lane 
 
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 To Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt 
 
 Bethel, Maine, [November, 1920] 
 
 To the dear Roosevelts, — ... You realized what was 
 coming, but I fear Cox did not ; could not believe that his 
 star would not pull through. I wish Georgia and Alabama 
 had gone, too. The American born did not like Wilson 
 because he was not frank, was too selfish and opinionated. 
 The foreign born did not like his foreign settlements. So 
 they voted "no confidence" in his party. What we will do 
 in this land of mixed peoples is a problem. Our policies 
 now are to be determined by Fiume and Ireland — not by 
 real home concerns. This is dangerous in the extreme. 
 Demagogues can win to power by playing to the prejudices 
 of those not yet fully American. ... As always, 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To Lathrop Brown 
 
 Bethel, [November] 20, [1920] 
 
 My dear Lathrop, — You are wrong, dead wrong, vi- 
 ciously, wilfully wrong. I do like this exact science busi- 
 ness. I worked at it and in it on the railroad problems for 
 seven years. There is only one thing that beats it, puts it 
 on the blink, and that is inexact human nature which does 
 wicked things to figures and facts and theories and plans 
 and hopes. Prove, if you will, that there is no margin at all 
 over wages, and a nominal return on capital, and you do not 
 kill the desire of someone to run the shop. . . . 
 
 Talking of business men, what about the Shipping Board ? 
 O, my boy, they have something to explain — these Hur- 
 leys and Schwabs ! . . . How does this sound to you ? 
 They let their own tanks lie idle, commandeered those of 
 Doheny and rented them to the Standard Oil — so that 
 they could bid when Doheny couldn't — eh, what ? . . . 
 
 F. K L. 
 
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POLITICAL COUNSEL — LINCOLN'S EYES 37S 
 
 To Timothy Spellacy 
 
 Bethel, [November] 22, [1920] 
 My dear Tim, — I hear from Mike that you are not in 
 New York, and so I am writing you out of "love and affec- 
 tion," as I hope to see Mike but won't see you when I go to 
 New York for Thanksgiving. It was my hope that we 
 three could have a good talk over Mike's Colombia plans, 
 but do not trouble yourself with these business concerns. 
 Get well — that's the job for both you and me. We have 
 been too extravagant of ourselves, and especially you, you 
 big-hearted, energetic, unselfish son of Erin ! Eighteen 
 years I have known you and never a word or an act have I 
 heard of or seen that did not make me feel that the cam- 
 paign for Governor was worth while, because it gave me 
 your acquaintance, friendship, affection. And Ned and 
 George love you as I do. When I get mad, as I do some- 
 times, over something that the Irish do, I always am 
 tempted to a hard generalization that I am compelled to 
 modify, because of you and Mike and Dan O'Neill, in San 
 Francisco — and a few more of the Great Irish — .... 
 
 Well, my dear fellow, drop me a line when you feel like it 
 and be sustained in your weakness by the unfaltering affec- 
 tion of thousands who know you, among them — 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Frank I. Cobb 
 
 New York World 
 
 New York, December 6, [1920] 
 
 Dear Frank, — You are right, but too far ahead. We 
 must come to Cabinet responsibility, and I am with you as 
 an agitator. Twenty years may see it. 
 
 This morning you chide the Republicans for not having 
 a program. Good God, man, why so partisan? What 
 
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374 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 program have we? Will we just oppose; vote "Nay," to 
 all they propose ? That way insures twenty years as " outs " 
 — and we won't deserve to be in. What we lack is just 
 plain brains. We have a slushy, sentimental Democracy, 
 but don't have men who can concrete-ize feeling into policy, 
 if you know what that means. A program — a practicable, 
 constructive program — quietly drawn, agreeable to the 
 leaders in both Houses, pushed for, advocated loudly ! 
 That's our one hope — Agree ? Yours cordially, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To John G. Gehring 
 
 New York, December 9, [1920] 
 
 Well, my dear Doctor, here I am at another cross-roads. 
 ... I leave ... in a day or two with a new dietary and 
 some good advice. The latter in tabloid form being : — 
 "Drop business for a time, go into it again slowly, and 
 gradually creep into your job." All of which is wise, and 
 commends itself greatly to my erstwhile mind, but is much 
 like saying, "Jump off the Brooklyn bridge, slowly." 
 
 ... I am not resigned, of course. Because I cannot 
 see the end. Definiteness is so imperative to some natures. 
 However, I think that I have done all that an exacting Deity 
 would demand, and cannot be accused of suicide, if things 
 go badly. 
 
 Our plan is to go to Washington to see some old friends 
 thence south and so to California, for a couple of months. 
 Delightful program if one had health, but in exchange I 
 would gladly take a sentence to three months in a chain- 
 gang on the roads. 
 
 One of my friends has suggestively sent me Burton's 
 Anatomy of Melancholy. To offset it I went out at once 
 and bought a new suit of bright homespun clothes and a red 
 
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POLITICAL COUNSEL — LINCOLN'S EYES 375 
 
 overcoat — pretty red. In addition I have a New Thought 
 doctor giving me absent treatment. I am experimenting 
 with Hindu deep breathing, rhythmical breathing, in which 
 the lady who runs this hospital is an adept. And what 
 with an osteopath and a regular and a nurse and predigested 
 food, I am not shirking. If melancholy gets the better of 
 me now — Kismet ! 
 
 Tell your dear Lady that it was infinitely good of her to 
 write, (and she has, I may say, quite as brilliant a pen-style 
 as speech.) And one day I shall write her when the world 
 looks better. My best reading has been William James' 
 Letters; and that which amused me most a new novel, en- 
 titled Potterism, by Rose Macauley, which cuts into the 
 cant and humbug of the world right cruelly. 
 
 I see your beautiful serene landscape and envy you. 
 And I envy those who hear your hearty chuckle each morn- 
 ing in the Inn. As always, 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To John W. Hallowell 
 
 New York, December 9, [1920] 
 
 Dear Jack, — I have tried out New York again and find 
 it lacking as before. No help ! They do not know. ... So 
 I am going to California. ... I wish I were to be near you 
 — you really have a special old corner in all that is left of 
 my heart. And one of these days we'll indulge ourselves in 
 a good time — a long pull together again. 
 
 I have been reading William James' Letters — and real 
 literature they are — far better than all your novels. What 
 a great Man — a mind, plus a man. Not to have known 
 James in the last generation is to have missed its greatest 
 intellect ; Roosevelt and James and Henry George were the 
 three greatest forces of the last thirty years. Sometime 
 
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376 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 when you come across a good photo or engraving or wood- 
 cut, or something, of James, will you buy it and send it to 
 me ? I want a human one — not a professional one. I 
 guess he couldn't be the pedantic kind anyway. 
 
 Billy Phillips has a new baby-boy born Monday. 
 
 My plan is to leave here in a week, go to Washington and 
 see Nancy, and get a glimpse of some of my old people in 
 the Department, thence to South Carolina and then prob- 
 ably California for two or three months. Ah me — most 
 people would think this luxury — I think it hell ! But it 
 may be for my great spiritual good. Certainly if I could 
 have you to walk with for these months, and more of Wil- 
 liam James to read, I could take a step or two forward. 
 
 Have also been reading a bit of Buddhism lately. It is 
 too negative — that is almost its chief if not its only defect, 
 as an attitude toward life. It won't make things move 
 but it will make souls content. And I can't get away from 
 the thought that we are here as conquerors, not as pacifists. 
 I can't be the latter, save in the desire. 
 
 Peabody dropped in yesterday from Chicago. (I have 
 forgotten whether you knew him well or not.) Able chap, 
 fond of me, as I of him. My boy works for him. He sent 
 me a gorgeous edition of Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy 
 which I have always wanted, largely because it is one of the 
 curiosities of the world. . . . 
 
 Write me as often as your Quaker spirit moves you to 
 utterance. Your dinner got quite a send-off in these pa- 
 pers, which is something, for New York to recognize Bos- 
 ton ! Terribly tough job though. Poor babies ! Hard 
 to believe in a good God and a kind God, isn't it ? 
 
 I hear talk of shoving Hoover outside the breastworks. 
 Fools ! Fools ! Best for him but worse for the country. 
 Whole question of Republican success turns on the largeness 
 
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POLITICAL COUNSEL — LINCOLN'S EYES 377 
 
 of Harding. I don't ask a Lincoln — much less will do. 
 If he is only a smooth-footed politician he will fail. So far 
 he has been the gentleman. . . . 
 
 My love to your whole circle, from Grandmother down. 
 Affectionately, 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To John G. Gehring 
 
 Rochester, Minnesota, December 81, [1920] 
 
 My dear Padre, — It is the last night of an unhappy year. 
 Never do I wish for such another. No joy — defeat, dreary 
 waiting. These words describe not merely my personal 
 history and attitude but fairly picture those of the world. 
 It took guts to live through such an unillumined, non- 
 productive, soul-depressing year. Did any good come out of 
 it ? Yes, to me just one thing good — I came to know you, 
 your Lady and the beauteousness of Bethel. And after all 
 a man does not do any better in any year than make a 
 friend. No man makes seventy friends in a life-time, does 
 he ? So I must not repine nor let the year go out in bitter- 
 ness. On the credit side of my account book I have some- 
 thing that can be carried over into 1921, whereas most 
 people can only carry over Hope. 
 
 I hope there is something significant and more than sug- 
 gestive in my turning up here on the last day of the year for 
 examination — "Getting a ready on" for a New Year — 
 that's what you would optimistically shout if you were here, 
 I know. And that is my Goodbye word to 1920 — "You 
 haven't beaten me, and I have lived to take your brush." 
 
 I am being ground and wound and twisted and fed into 
 and out of the Mayo mill, and a great mill it is. Of course 
 they are giving me a private view, so to speak. Distin- 
 guished consideration is a modest word for the way in which 
 
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378 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 I am treated — not because of my worth but because of 
 my friends — . Those men are greater as organizers, I 
 believe, than as workmen, which is saying much indeed, 
 for they are the surgeons supreme. . . . Two to three 
 hundred people, new people, a day pass through [their 
 shop]. Sixty to seventy thousand a year received, ex- 
 amined, diagnosed, treated perhaps, operated on (fifty per 
 cent), and cared for. The machinery for this is colossal 
 and superbly arranged. 
 
 Dr. Mayo told me to come over at two o'clock and reg- 
 ister. ... I stood in line and was duly registered, telling 
 name, and other such facts, non-medical. Then a special 
 guide took me to Dr. Mayo, who had already heard my 
 story at the hotel but who wished it in writing. Ac- 
 cordingly, I was presented to a group of the staff and 
 one man assigned as my escort. I answered him a 
 thousand questions, touching my physical life for fifty- 
 six years. Then to the tonsil man, who saw a distinct 
 "focus," now there, a focus in the tonsils ! Nose and ears 
 without focus or focii or focuses. Down an elevator, 
 through a labyrinth of halls, down an inclined plane, up a 
 flight of steps, two turns to the left and then a group of the 
 grumpiest girls I ever saw or heard or felt. They were good 
 looking, too, but they didn't care to win favor with mere 
 males. They had a higher purpose, no doubt. They 
 openly sneered at my doctor escort. They lifted their eye- 
 brows at my good-looking young son, and they told me 
 precisely where to sit down. I was not spoken to further. 
 My ear was punched and blood was taken in tubes and on 
 slides by young ladies who did not care how much of my 
 blood they spilled or extracted. They were so business- 
 like, so mechanical, so dehumanized, these young ladies 
 with microscopes! One said cryptically "57," another 
 
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POLITICAL COUNSEL — LINCOLN'S EYES 379 
 
 said "53." I was full of curiosity but I did not ask a ques- 
 tion. They tapped me as if I were a spring — a fountain 
 filled with blood — and gave me neither information, 
 gaiety or entertainment in exchange. Each one I am con- 
 vinced has by this life of near-crime, which she pursues for 
 a living, become capable of actual murder. 
 
 Thus has my first day gone. It is cold here — slushy 
 underfoot, snow dirty, sky dark. How different from a 
 place we know ! 
 
 There are one hundred and fifty physicians and surgeons 
 in the clinic, and Heaven knows how many hundred em- 
 ployees. No hospitals are owned and run by the Mayos; 
 all these are private, outside affairs. The side tracks are 
 filled with private cars of the wealthy. Scores of resi- 
 dences, large, small, fine, and shabby are little hospitals. 
 The town has grown 5,000 in five years, all on account 
 of the Mayos, these two sons of a great country doctor 
 who without a college education have gathered the world's 
 talent to them. 
 
 I am tomorrow to be medically examined further, to the 
 revealing of my terrible past, my perturbed present, and 
 pacific future. The result of which necromancy I shall 
 duly report. I am afraid that they will not find that an 
 operation will do good, if so I shall truly despair. And if 
 they decide for the knife, I shall go to the guillotine like 
 the gayest Marquis of the ancient regime. Yes, I should 
 do better for I have my chance, and he, poor chap, had 
 none. 
 
 I received your Christmas present in the spirit that sent 
 it. I can't say "No ! No ! " — for I preach mixing pleasure 
 with business. Things are all wrong when we don't. I 
 will never repay you. If I could, or did, you would re- 
 ceive none of the blessings that come from giving gifts. 
 
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380 LETTERS OP FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 The truth is, we knew each other years ago, perhaps cen- 
 turies ago, and you have done a good turn to an old friend 
 for which the old friend is glad, because it makes the tie 
 more binding. 
 
 I told you I would send Wells' history to you, and to it 
 I have added one of the greatest of human documents, 
 William James' Letters. I hope you love the largeness of 
 the man, to be large and playful and useful, I say, man, can 
 you beat that combination? I believe I know another 
 beside James who meets the specifications. And strangely 
 enough he, too, evolved from physician to psychologist, to 
 philosopher. 
 
 Well, here's hoping that he and his High-Souled Partner 
 meet with many joys and few sorrows in 1921. 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
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XIII 
 
 LETTERS TO ELIZABETH 
 
 1919-1920 
 To Mrs. Ralph Ellis 
 
 [Camden, North Carolina, March, 1919] 
 
 My dear Elizabeth, — And so they call you a Bolshevik ! 
 a parlor Bolshevik! Well, I am not surprised for your 
 talk gives justification for calling you almost anything, 
 except a dull person. When one is adventurous in mind and 
 in speech — perfectly willing to pioneer into all sorts of 
 mountains and morasses — the stay-at-homes always furnish 
 them with purposes that they never had and throw them 
 into all kinds of loose company. I have forgotten whether 
 or no there was a Mrs. Columbus, but if the Old Man on 
 his return spoke an admiring word of the Indian girls he saw 
 on Santo Domingo you may be sure that he was at once 
 regarded as having outdone that Biblical hero who ex- 
 claimed, "Vanity of Vanities, all is Vanity!," after having 
 run his personal attachees up into the thousand. 
 
 Yes, the very solemn truth is that adventuring is dangerous 
 business, and mental adventuring most dangerous of all. 
 We forgive those who do things that are strange, really more 
 readily than those who talk of do:ng them. People are really 
 afraid of talk, and rightly so, I believe. The mind that 
 goes reaching out and up and around and through is a dis- 
 turber, it bumps into every kind of fixed notion and takes 
 
 381 
 
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382 LETTERS OP FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 off a chip here and there, it probes into all sorts of mysteries 
 and opens them to find that they are hollow wind-bag affairs, 
 tho' always held as holy of holies heretofore. To think, 
 to speculate, to wonder, to query — these imply imagination, 
 and the Devil has just one function in this Universe — to 
 destroy, to kill, or suppress or to divert or prevent the 
 imagination. Imagination is the Divine Spark, and old 
 Beelzebub has had his hands full ever since that spark was 
 born. "As you were," is his one military command. His 
 diabolical energy is challenged to its utmost when he hears 
 the words "Forward March!" There is not much — 
 anything — of beauty or nobility or achievement in the world 
 that he has not fought, and all of it has been the fruit of 
 imagination, the working of the creative mind. You see 
 I come very near to believing in that old personal Devil 
 which my Presbyterian father saw so vividly, and which our 
 friend Wells has recently discovered. Satan is smart, and 
 that is a very dreadful thing to be. I never like to hear 
 the Yankee called smart, it is a term of reproach. I don't 
 like to think of a Smart Set. And my refuge is in the knowl- 
 edge that there is just one thing that destroys smartness 
 and that is, to put it in a very high-sounding word, Nobility. 
 There is the test we can all put to ourselves — and it really 
 is conscience and ethics and religion all in one — is the idea 
 smart or is it noble ? I'd take my chances of going to Heaven 
 on the conformity of conduct to that criterion. 
 
 But all this seems a far way from Parlor Bolshevism — 
 yet it is not so far. For it all comes down to this. The Lord 
 he prompts us to think and to advance, and the Devil he 
 urges us to be smart, to switch our thinkings, our very right 
 thinkings, our progressive impulses, to side tracks that will 
 serve his ends. 
 
 And that is just what is happening to a lot of the finest 
 
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LETTERS TO ELIZABETH 383 
 
 minds. Men and women who see clearly that things are 
 wrong, who have enough insight and knowledge to get a 
 glimpse into the unnecessary suffering of the world and who 
 mentally come down with a slap-bang declaration that this 
 must stop, are allowing themselves to be called by a name 
 that history will execrate, and to smooth over and palliate 
 and defend things that are bad, out of which good will not 
 come. 
 
 You have no love for Czarism any more than you have 
 for Kaiserism. You do not care to make the world righteous 
 by dictatorship, because you know that it is not growth or 
 the basis of growth, but the foundation of hate. Now the 
 very cornerstone of Bolshevism is smartness — the get-even 
 spirit. Because the Czars and the Dukes have oppressed 
 the poor, because when this land was divided among the 
 serfs the division was not what it pretended to be, and 
 because the German business managers of Russian industry 
 made wages and conditions that were brutal and brutalizing, 
 the peasants and workmen have said, "Let us have done 
 with the whole crew, and take all land and industry into our 
 own hands, killing those who were our masters under the 
 old economic system. Let us turn the whole world topsy- 
 turvy in a night, and bring all down to where we are. In 
 our aspiration for Beauty, let us kill what has been created. 
 In our hunt for Justice, let us disregard fair dealing. In our 
 purpose to level down, let us do it with the knife ruthlessly 
 and logically." Thus disregarding the teachings of time, 
 that men are not the creatures of logic, of passionless or 
 passionate theses, but are the expression of an unfaltering 
 Spirit. Whenever men have been the victims of logicalness 
 they have been wrong. For instance, read the story of the 
 Inquisition. They saw what they wanted clearly, those 
 old Fathers of the Church. They knew their objective, 
 
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384 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 which was to save men's souls. And they thought they 
 knew the way. Logic told them that those who preached 
 heresies were bringing men's eternal souls to everlasting 
 hell fire. And they set about to stop the preaching. Had I 
 believed as they did, I doubtless would have done as they 
 did. But to be infallibly right is to be hopelessly smart. 
 Thus it is with all who take a paper system and apply it to 
 that strange thing called Life. 
 
 This is the defect of the Intellectuals, the "parlor" 
 Bolsheviks. (Better by far be an outdoor Bolshevik, a 
 Red Guard, if you please, one who is in and of the fighting, 
 who acts, who lives the theory !) They do not think in 
 terms of human nature, of natural progress, of real facts. 
 They say, "all men are born free and equal," and at once 
 conclude that the stable boy can step from the stable door 
 to the management of a factory or into the legislature. Now 
 experience teaches that this is a most dangerous experiment, 
 both for stable boy and society. The true philosophy of 
 Democracy teaches that the stable boy shall have, through 
 school and the step-ladder of free institutions, the chance 
 to rise to the management of industry or the leadership of 
 the Senate. That is why the foundation of Democracy is 
 political. For out of political freedom will come social and 
 economic freedom. That is why I favor woman suffrage, 
 it gives women a chance to grow, to think along new lines 
 and grow into new capacities. 
 
 To feel acutely that things are badly ordered, and to feel 
 that you know what opportunities men and women and 
 boys and girls should have, is not a program of salvation, 
 it is only the impulse toward finding one. Why then, be- 
 cause we do feel so, should we harness ourselves to a word 
 that implies methods that we would not countenance, and 
 give character to a movement that is at absolute defiance 
 
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LETTERS TO ELIZABETH 385 
 
 with America's spirit and purpose ? There is danger, grave 
 danger, in doing this. For we can upset our own apple-cart 
 very easily these days. I have no more of this world's 
 goods than the humblest workingman. No man is poorer 
 than I am, measured by bank account standards. The 
 education that I have, I fought for. Therefore I do not 
 speak for a class. To defend the methods by which some 
 men have made their money is not at all to my fancy. I 
 see as clearly, I think, as one can, the necessity for the 
 strong arm of society asserting itself, thrusting itself in where 
 it has not been supposed to have any business. Yet I know 
 that a Bolshevik movement, a capturing of what others 
 have gained under the system which has obtained, and the 
 brutal satisfaction of " getting even with the wage-masters" 
 and making them feel to the depths of their souls and in 
 the pain of their flesh every humiliation and torture, will 
 permanently set nothing right. America is fair play. Is it 
 a failure? Have you tried it long enough to know that it 
 will not serve the world, as you think the world should be 
 served? Is there any experiment that we cannot make? 
 Are our hands tied ? True, our feet may lag, our eyes may 
 not see far ahead, but who should say that for this reason 
 man should throw aside all the firmness and strength and 
 solidity of order, forget all that he has passed through, and 
 start afresh from the bottom rung of the ladder — from 
 the muck of the primitive brute ? 
 
 There are things that we would not hold, that we think 
 unworthy of our philosophy, that must be changed or else 
 our sympathies and abiding hopes will be forever offended. 
 And this would be to live right on under the pointing finger 
 of shame. So we know it cannot last, this thing that offends, 
 the badness and brutality of injustice, of unfairness to the 
 weak, their inability to get a squarer chance. 
 
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386 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 Yet this does not compel us to forsake the hopeful thing 
 we have, for which all men have striven, these centuries 
 through. Must we confess that revolution is still necessary ? 
 Are we no further ahead for all that Pym and Hampden 
 and Sam Adams and Washington and all the rest of the glo- 
 rified ones have done ? This land is truly a land of promise 
 because it may be a land of fulfilment. It shows the way 
 by which without murder and robbery and class hatred and 
 the burning up of what has been, men may go right on 
 making experiments, and failing, making others and failing, 
 and learning something all the time. 
 
 So, I'm for America, because, if nationalization of land 
 and industry are wise experiments to make, no one can stop 
 us from making them, if partial nationalization of either, 
 or both, appeals to us as something that will right manifest 
 wrongs, we can try that solution. And to cry quits on the 
 best that civilization has done, because all that is wished 
 for may not be realized or realizable today, is to lose per- 
 spective and balance, and jump out the window because the 
 stairs go round and round. 
 
 There is really no use, and therefore no sanity, in being 
 too gay or too grave over this old world of ours. That 
 smart Devil, who is for the static life, is just now particularly 
 active in his favorite old line of propaganda. He knows 
 that the fruit of the tree will bring the millennium. Eat it 
 and you will be happy. He knows the short cuts to freedom 
 and justice. He knows that the curses that are promised 
 for the breaking of the laws of the hunt will be turned into 
 songs. So he is urging and urging, telling you, with your 
 imagination and sensitiveness, that all is so bad that it is 
 best to take the great risk, telling the poor sightless ones 
 that their very primitive feelings and powers are the only 
 safe guides, their last ultimate reliance and hope. And out 
 
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LETTERS TO ELIZABETH 387 
 
 of despair comes the bitter fruit we find in Russia, where 
 they have wrought what they call an economic revolution, 
 but have in fact produced nothing, for chaos is nothing. 
 The wise Tinker who wrote of the Pilgrim's Progress was 
 too true a Christian Scientist, a Christian and a Scientist, 
 if you please, to picture his hero reaching the gate of gold 
 by adopting Despair as his guide. 
 
 Progress means the discovery of the capable. They are 
 our natural masters. They lead because they have the right. 
 And everything done to keep them from rising is a blow to 
 what we call civilization. Bolshevism is the supremacy of 
 the least capable who have the most power, most physical 
 power. The thing Democracy will do is to breed capacity, 
 give capacity its "show." The premiums, the distinctions, 
 must go to capacity to promote it, to bring it forth, to make 
 it grow, to be its sunshine. A chance at the sunshine, that's 
 the motto. Sincerely yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 Washington, 20 [March, 1919] 
 
 You said, you will remember, that you did not mind such 
 unconventional things as penciled letters — so here goes, 
 Mrs. Radium. 
 
 This is to be a conventional letter, too, one of the bread 
 and butter variety, the quail and dove, pigeon pie, creamed 
 macaroni variety, for all of which much thanks, likewise 
 for much stimulating talk, your help in planting my garden, 
 many motor flights through brown woods, and some most 
 charming company, including a man named Ellis and his 
 celebrated son, the pigeon shooter. 
 
 We left you in the best possible hands, a lion and lioness i 
 who through long years of civilized captivity came tamely 
 
 1 Mr. and Mrs. John Galsworthy. 
 
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388 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 to your bars to be tickled and patted, and, no doubt, when 
 properly fed, purred back. If I were you, I would loot their 
 typewriter. Therein are the secrets of the British govern- 
 ment, copies of all unknown treaties, plans for the extermi- 
 nation of Bolsheviki generally and the female kind in par- 
 ticular ; likewise, therein you will find, narrated with 
 particularity, the details of all loose conversations had with 
 hotel clerks, commercial travelers, teachers, chauffeurs, and 
 others of the illuminati, in which "impressions" are given to 
 foreign authors hunting for "copy." Mr. George Creel has 
 these aforesaid gents of the illuminati staked out, so to speak, 
 for this very purpose. Your dear friend Vera, the political 
 Vamp, is no doubt conducting these sweet Innocents abroad, 
 tho' not in person of course, being much too crafty and 
 cunning for that. She has directed them by the wireless 
 magic of her mind to Horsebranch on the Hill, there to 
 discover a radiating and luminous Lady, hidden in the pine 
 woods, who will reveal among other things the following : 
 
 (1) The nature of Woodrow Wilson's personal character; 
 
 (2) The full reasons for his conduct ; (3) His occult inter- 
 national designs; (4) How he purposes to free Ireland; 
 (5) The value of being House-broken ; (6) The real name 
 of the Man in the Iron Mask. 
 
 And much, much more — for she is a well, a fountain, a 
 geyser, a Niagara, reversed, of information, misinformation, 
 knowledge, ignorance, modesty, audacity, in captivating 
 breeches or in modest demure caps or in flowing evening 
 robe. Wise Vera, wise Creel — they know their business ! 
 The English snooper, with typewriter in hand, will have a 
 generous swig of the Scotch whiskey of the vintage of '56, 
 and his tied tongue will loosen, a confiding and tender and 
 sympathetic hand will softly clasp his, and the Dark Flower 
 will open to the world — rather mixed that figure ! eh, what ? 
 
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LETTERS TO ELIZABETH 389 
 
 Now, of course, this is not what I took my pen in hand 
 to write, not at all. I had intended after the formalities 
 had been duly observed to tell you a few words about my 
 wife. Excellent woman, that ! But very jealous ! very ! 
 No sense of her own place ! Unwilling to subordinate 
 herself. Since she "came into my life" she has walked 
 around in it and otherwise behaved familiarly and at home. 
 Never, never I beg of you, permit anyone to come into your 
 life. It decidedly makes for clutter and disturbance. How- 
 ever, as I was saying, she is an excellent woman and has been 
 to the Doctor who says that she has suffered much. (Charge 
 for same $10.) As he wishes to make the same charge for 
 many days the excellent wife will not go to Charleston but 
 remain here, that the charge may lawfully be imposed. 
 (This is where the Christian Scientists are more Scientific 
 for they could make the charge in absentia.) 
 
 However and notwithstanding, the Peace Conference 
 still lives. By wireless I have the news that Lloyd George 
 is still doing politics, that Orlando is Fiuming (give that one 
 to the Englisher), that Colonel House has not told all he 
 knows to Lansing, and that Henry White dined last night 
 with a Duchess who held his hand four minutes while telling 
 him terrible things. 
 
 But this is too frivolous altogether for a statesman to be 
 writing to one whose mind is interested only in serious things ! 
 I can see her steady, cold, stern eye of reproach. "And this 
 to me," she says, "And 'twere not for thy hoary beard, etc., 
 etc." 
 
 I tell you frankly, tho' you may not believe it, that I am 
 not entirely in a sober mood. Yesterday I planted bulbs 
 with a lady who was not bulbous. The day before I shot 
 pigeons for a lark. And I am boastful ! fair boastful, my 
 Lady! My secretary and my confidential clerk and my 
 
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390 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 many dark-hued messengers are solemnly impressed with 
 my prowess with gun and spade. The truth shall not be 
 heard in the land. I am my own talebearer and my own 
 censor. I know more about agriculture than the Secretary 
 of Agriculture, and I know more of Labor than the Sec- 
 retary of the same. And for this, this glorious bursting 
 into fruitfulness at so advanced an age — you and your 
 good man are responsible and to be credited in the Golden 
 Book in which is written, What the Plain People Do for 
 Each Other. 
 
 Thanking you for the Bread and Butter, believe me yours 
 for Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 Washington, Saturday, [January 19, 1920] 
 I am clothed in sackcloth and sitting in ashes. My head 
 is bowed in humility and I am beating my breast in contri- 
 tion. There is no joy in my face and my eyes look down- 
 ward. Truly I am full of regret. Did she not write long, 
 joyous, inquiring, curious, inviting pages to me ? and I have 
 not answered ! And now will she ever make her face to 
 shine upon me and give me peace ? 
 
 I would fly to her — yes, fly to her in monoplane, biplane, or 
 triplane — but many things deter me. A wife, who is busy 
 with the Gods of the Elder Days ; a daughter, who is busy 
 with the God of the present day — to wit, a young man 
 named Philip, surnamed Kauffmann, son of " The Star," six 
 feet two in stockings or otherwise, late of His Majesty's 
 Navy, Princeton, Football, etc., etc. The marriage is to 
 be tied in April, God willing, Nancy ordering, Philip con- 
 senting, Father paying. 
 
 As if this were not enough to hinder, the desk must be 
 cleared for exit — the office desk ; for the place that knew 
 
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LETTERS TO ELIZABETH 391 
 
 me through seven long years of trouble, anxiety, insult, 
 joy, humiliation, satisfaction, achievement, companionship, 
 hope, shall soon know me no more, forever. 
 
 Verily, I say unto you, that if ever mortal man or mortal 
 mind needed rest, recreation, recuperation, and other al- 
 literative things, that same man is now writing to the Lady 
 Elizabeth Ellis, of Terraced Garden, in Camden, by the 
 Wateree. And he is writing without hope that he will see 
 the Lady and her Lord and the Princeling, for moons and 
 moons. This is a sad, sad word for him to write. But 
 the whole world is skew-jee, awry, distorted and alto- 
 gether perverse. The President is broken in body, and ob- 
 stinate in spirit. Clemenceau is beaten for an office he did 
 not want. Einstein has declared the law of gravitation out- 
 grown and decadent. Drink, consoling friend of a Per- 
 turbed World, is shut off ; and all goes merry as a dance in 
 hell! 
 
 Oh God, I pray, give me peace and a quiet chop. I do not 
 ask for power, nor for fame, nor yet for wealth. Lift me 
 on the magic carpet of the Infinite Wish and lay me down 
 on a grassy slope, looking out on a quiet sunny sea, and 
 make me to dream that men are gentle and women reason- 
 able. And forgive us our trespasses, Amen ! 
 
 And again I pray — Give me patience. Let me not ask 
 for today what may not come until tomorrow. Let mine 
 eyes not be filled with visions of things as they would be in 
 a world wherein men were Gods. Let mine ears be closed to 
 Siren calls which lure to the rocks. Stiffen my soul to make 
 the climb. Keep from my heart cynical despair. Make 
 my mouth to speak slow words, and curb my tongue that 
 it may not outrun the Wisdom taught by the years. Give 
 surety to my steps, Lord, and lead me by the hand for 
 I know not the way. 
 
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392 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 Your telegram lures as your letter did. But such pleasures 
 are not for us, because of our sins. "And those that are 
 good shall be happy !" 
 
 Work. Work. Work. It is the order of the One Su- 
 preme. It keeps us from being foolish, and doing as fools 
 do. It is needed for the mastery of a world that has its 
 Destiny written, as surely as we have ours. It is a chain 
 and a pair of wings ; it binds and it releases. It is the master 
 of the creature and the tool of the Creator. It is hell, and 
 it lifts us out of hell into heaven. It was not known in 
 Paradise, but there could be no Paradise without it. A curse 
 and a Savior ! Our life-term sentence and the one plan of 
 salvation ! Work — for the weary, the wasted, and the worn. 
 Work — for the joyous, the hopeful, the serene. Work — 
 for the benevolent and the malevolent, the just and the 
 cruel, the thoughtful and the unheeding. Work — for 
 things that life needs, for things that are illusions, for dead- 
 sea fruit, for ashes ; and work for a look at the stars, for the 
 sense of things made happier for many men, for the lifting 
 of loads from tired backs, for the smile of a tender girl, for 
 the soft touch of a grateful mother, for the promise it brings 
 to the boy of one's hopes. 
 
 Work ! Why work ? It is the order of the One Supreme. 
 
 So saying, at one o'clock of Sunday morning, he lifted 
 up his hand and waved three times to the Southward — ■ 
 once for the Lady of the Troubled Heart, who flirts with the 
 Angel of Destruction, thinking he may turn out to be a God, 
 and once for the Lord of the Lady, serenely fatalistic, and 
 the third, and this a very big one, for the Princeling who is 
 making a manly battle, cheerfully, confidently. The Friend 
 of the Three. 
 
 F. K L. 
 
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LETTERS TO ELIZABETH 393 
 
 Washington, [February 5, 1920] 
 
 And so, again the Boy has been attacked by a strange 
 enemy, and you are fighting. That is what you have been 
 doing for years, fighting for that bit of life you love more 
 than your own self. You did not think you could do it 
 when you were a girl, did you? You have wondered at 
 yourself many, many times. And wondered at the Fate 
 which brought this long challenge to you. But it has been 
 a splendid fight, hasn't it? A glorious fight against odds. 
 There has been no justice in it. No justice, and our souls 
 do so want justice, an even chance, something in front of 
 us that we can see and know and fight. God knows why 
 such tortures come to some, while others sail on such smooth 
 seas. Can it be that there is no soul excepting the one we 
 make for ourselves by fighting ? Are those really blest who 
 have such challenges given to their spirits? Or is this 
 all by way of excusing God, or Nature, for the unexplain- 
 able? 
 
 There is no way to make the fight excepting to believe 
 that the fight is the thing — the one, only, greatest thing. 
 (To deny this is to leave all in a welter, and drift into purpose- 
 less cynicism, — blackness.) To determine that this is the 
 way, the truth, and the life, is to get serenity. Then the 
 winds may howl and the seas roll, but there can be no 
 wreck. 
 
 I know you don't like to be coddled. You are not of the 
 cotton-batting school. You can take and give. But "may 
 I not" say a word of appreciation and perhaps of stimulation 
 — give you a good masculine thump on the shoulder by 
 way of saying that for one who lives in a mist you have lots 
 of gimp. To love something better than oneself is the first 
 step, I guess, toward making that soul. 
 
 Please read the note, in special envelop, to Ralphie, when 
 
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394 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 he will be interested. By Jove, how fortunate that we 
 could not leave. All my force is sick. Three of my assist- 
 ants are laid up. Six hundred and eighty people in my 
 Department are in bed. And I am struggling to get out and 
 leave my job up to date. Good fortune ! 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 [Katonah, August, 1920] 
 
 . . . You know that I love you — yes, just as much as 
 Ralph Ellis, who is a tough sailor man, and Anne Lane, who 
 is a citizen of two worlds, will let me. But I would love you 
 more, much more, if you did not have to be induced by my 
 wife to write to me. Your love letter was all right, but it 
 was procured. Do you get that word — procured — and 
 my wife was the procuress. This may be de rigueur and 
 comme il faut and umslopogass on Long Island, but it does 
 not go in Katonah — peaceful, pure Katonah ! 
 
 Here, in this sweet centre, if a lady wishes "for to make 
 eyes" at a man, by way of a letter, she does it without being 
 told to do it by the said man's wife. And then to open, 
 "Dear Mr. Lane," — Gosh Lizzie ! isn't that pretty warm ! 
 
 My anger is so great that I am now sitting up in bed at 
 the weary hour of two to relieve myself — for otherwise I 
 cannot sleep. 
 
 Your remarks upon the distraught condition of the public 
 mind, the unfortunate fix into which the Polacks have fixed 
 themselves, the heart-breaking cry that you send out for 
 men to get together and be sensible, before they are sadder, 
 — these things have no lodgement in my soul-center. For 
 I am loved by a lady who speaks much of free speech and 
 courage and candor and other virtues of prehistoric existence, 
 but who talks of herself all through her letter and never 
 of me at all. How can the fire be kept burning with a cold 
 
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LETTERS TO ELIZABETH 395 
 
 back-log like that? Talk about me! That's the first 
 principle of all conversation — even not amorous. 
 
 Well, you are a good woman, Mrs. Ellis, and I hope Mr. 
 Ellis is well, and that you are not having trouble with the 
 help. Goodbye, Mrs. Ellis ! 
 
 Come, sweet Elizabeth, let us join hands and go for a 
 gay climb over the piney hills — you can sing your minor 
 note of sad distress — your miserere, if you can, in the face 
 of the puffy clouds, and I will laugh at you for having too 
 much of world concern in your heart. The blessings do 
 not come to those who are "troubled about many things." 
 
 The soul is an individual, you know. We are saved by 
 units not en masse. Every individual is a species — isn't 
 that what splendid Bergson says? So come away from 
 responsibilities and let your poor heart, which is so un- 
 selfish that it cannot rest, indulge itself in the luxury of a 
 peaceful forgetting, for a few days. 
 
 Practically, this seems like a good place — the process is 
 to reduce you to a pulp and then gradually restore you to 
 form. I am just emerging from the mash. 
 
 Do give my greetings — graduated calorically as your 
 judgment suggests — to the many friends in your neighbor- 
 hood who have forgotten me. 
 
 Devotedly, yet very sore, 
 
 F. K L. 
 
 [September] 
 This is a sentimental letter from a sentimentalist to a sent 
 , for a sent . It is by way of atonement, chiefly. 
 
 I want to be forgiven for all the hard things I have said to 
 you. I feel that I owe you much, at least a good word, for 
 all the bad ones I have given you. 
 
 You are a health-giver. That's not such a bad name, is 
 
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396 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K LANE 
 
 it? In fact I don't know a better. It doesn't sound sen- 
 timental, no husband would be alarmed by it, and yet it 
 carries in it implications of gaiety and tenderness and romp- 
 ishness with a touch of mysterious adoration. Altogether 
 it is a very real large word that does not signify virtues but 
 rather attractivenesses. Mind, I don't say that you have 
 not the virtues — all of them, offensive and defensive, but 
 the attractivenesses make life, don't they? And to be a 
 health-giver is not merely to have charm. That is the 
 spell-casting power, to be filled with witchery, to be a witch. 
 Yes, I believe it is something like that — very much in fact, 
 but the witchery must be balsamic, it must be radiant, it 
 must go out in rays or circles or waves, because it can't 
 help going out, not purposefully and selfishly, like the cast- 
 ing of a net — it must be balsamic and radiant, the out- 
 breathing of pines. 
 
 Now this is a very nice name I have called you — you 
 can put it into Latin or Greek or French and make it sound 
 much better to the unimaginative. But you deserve it, and 
 I hope my little girl will become one. 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 Katonah, Sunday, [September 25, 1920] 
 . . . We leave here on Wednesday (D. V.) for Bethel 
 
 because you said to. Now how soon will you follow — a day 
 
 — a week ? Not more ! 
 
 You made up your mind that you would go there, and there 
 
 is now to be proof given whether your mind is weak or riding 
 
 strong. 
 Anne is to have H. Beale there, and they move in circles 
 
 barred to me. So I shall sorely need someone who knows 
 
 my language. And I am not frivolous when I say that you 
 
 and I need nothing more than a religious faith of some kind. 
 
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LETTERS TO ELIZABETH 397 
 
 Mohammedan, Christian Science, or what you will. We 
 are both religious — deeply. We pray — we do things for 
 the good of men and women, — but we do not relate our- 
 selves properly to the Great Enveloping, Permeating Spirit. 
 I have sought to, vainly, for many years, and yet I have 
 not been persistent. " Seek and ye shall find ! " I want to 
 believe that the God of Things as They Are is not wilfully 
 cruel. Is He indifferent ? 
 
 Are we mastering something ? Tell me ! Do you know ? 
 What philosophy have you come to ? 
 
 Well, all this we can talk over when we reach Bethel. 
 Say, do you ever answer letters or is it your Queenly 
 prerogative to drop your sweethearts down the public 
 oubliette ? 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 Washington, 27 [December, 1920] 
 
 My wife won't let me call on you, "not now, anyhow," 
 she says. Oh, ybu have so many enemies ! Adolph and 
 Mary, Senator and Mrs. Kellogg, Chief Justice and Mrs. 
 White, Dr. and Mrs. Gehring. All are against you, and 
 against me — all plotting, planning, and conspiring with 
 my wife to keep us apart. They know the hold you have 
 on me, that I had rather have you as my doctor than any 
 one else in the whole vasty Universe — but why sigh ? 
 I am to be torn away on Wednesday and rushed to 
 Rochester, where the Mayos will take me in hand, and do 
 their worst. I have great hope that they may cut me 
 into happiness, and carve me into health, and slice me into 
 strength. 
 
 So, as Anne wired, we shall not see you in Camden, nor 
 Ralph nor the Junior nor anything that is Ellis — not for 
 some moons anyway. 
 
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398 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 . . . The reason for going to Mayos? To see if it is 
 true that my stomach and my gall bladder have become too 
 intimate. Rochester is the Reno where such divorces are 
 granted. 
 
 I'd like to say I love you and the whole kit and caboodle, 
 but my wife won't let me. 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
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XIV 
 FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 
 
 1921 
 
 Need for Democratic Program — Religious Faith — Men who Have In- 
 fluenced Thought — A Sounder Industrial Life — A Super-University for 
 Ideas — " I Accept" — Fragment 
 
 To Mrs. Philip C. Kauffmann 
 
 Rochester, Minnesota, January 1, 1921 
 
 To that little Fairy with whom a young fellow named 
 Frank Lane used to wander in the woods, hunting the homes 
 of the Fairies, — Greetings on her birthday ! Has she 
 found where they live? I believe she has. They live 
 where eyes are bright with love, and hands are gentle and 
 kind, where feelings are not hurt and there is song hummed, 
 and Play, a very real God, still lives. 
 
 ... I think that we have got to see each other some- 
 how, somewhere, because life is passing awfully fast and 
 there is one best thing in it — supremely, overwhelmingly 
 best — and that is affection. I've chased around after 
 fame and work for others, but I just wish I had spent 
 pretty much all my time loving you and Mother and Ned, 
 and let everything else come way down on the list. The 
 people who really love us are so few, aren't they? Lots 
 of them like us, lots of them are glad to be with us, but 
 few can be counted on "world without end, Amen." 
 
 . . . This is surely a very uncertain and unsatisfactory 
 
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400 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 world for me right now. How much we all do like definite- 
 ness and how few are willing to trust the future to the Great 
 Spirit. We fuss and fume as if it would do good rather than 
 ill. Happiness is the thing we all desire and it is to be had 
 easily through a most simple philosophy ; do your best and 
 then have faith that things will come right. Happy people 
 are those who live with happy thoughts; those who see 
 good in people and by brave and cheerful thinking are su- 
 perior to depression and bitterness. 
 
 The longer I live the more I am convinced that it is our 
 duty to be gay; not reckless, never that; not boisterous, 
 but light-hearted. It saves doctor's bills, brings success, 
 and is the one method, the natural method, by which we 
 become really big, and by that I mean superior to the evil 
 forces that try to break us down. ... To be gay one must 
 see how very little some things are, and how very big other 
 things are. And the big things are things like love and 
 goodness and unselfishness; and the little things are the 
 selfish mean things, self-indulgent things, things generally 
 that come out of one's vanity, one's love of one's self. Get 
 rid of that and life becomes a pretty good place. Envy, 
 vanity, self-indulgence — these are devils. 
 
 ... I wish you would really sink yourself into some 
 religion. To start right is so important. You will miss 
 much joy in life, I am convinced, by not having a faith; 
 something to live by, something that explains the questions 
 that rise each hour. Buddhism does not claim to be super- 
 natural, is not founded on miracles, and yet Buddha taught 
 the philosophy of Christ five hundred years before He came. 
 The central note is getting above self — real self-mastery. 
 Possessing, mastering your body and mind so that you do 
 not allow envy or hatred to possess you, and do not hanker 
 after "things," possessions, or fame or popularity, and keep 
 
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FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 401 
 
 strong hold on wilfulness and anger and your passions. 
 Its fundamental maxim is that unhappiness and sorrow 
 come from ignorance of Truth — and Truth is found by 
 submerging self. The body is not bad, the lusts of the 
 body and the mind are not bad, but the body is no more 
 than an envelop for the soul, its master. 
 
 Good-night to you both, you are fast asleep by now. . . . 
 In my long days and nights I think so much about you, 
 wondering what the Gods have in store for her who has been 
 so much to me. Much, much love little one. 
 
 Dad 
 
 To Benjamin Ide Wheeler 
 
 Rochester, Minnesota, January 1, 1921 
 
 To the Wheelers with the warmest greetings of the Lanes ! 
 A bonny year be this to you — a year of sunny faces — may 
 you live surrounded by those whom you love and damned 
 indifferent to all the rest ! 
 
 I, Franklin K. Lane, am trying to find out if the last doc- 
 tor in New York was right. He said my trouble came from 
 an improper alliance between my gall-bladder and my py- 
 loric orifice, and that here in Rochester they could be sum- 
 marily divorced. (If you don't know where the pylorus is 
 you may locate it as the N. W. | of the N. W. \ of the stom- 
 ach. Until you reach fame you never have a pylorus — and 
 then it is most costly.) So here I am in a real Reno, hoping 
 that a knife will be able to "put me to work anew," . . . and 
 writing this as a proof of "love and affection," whatever 
 the legally great may mean by the distinction. . . . 
 
 And talking of language, have you read what Wells has 
 to say in his Outline of History on this subject ? I found it 
 very interesting; probably all old stuff to you, however. 
 Can there be a science of language, or of anything that a 
 
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402 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 human creates ? I am rather Bergsonian in my idea of the 
 individual man — each is a species. 
 
 Miller is very unhappy because [Governor] Harding may 
 leave the Board. He [Miller] will go if the new man is not 
 satisfactory. But I think he will be. For Harding will be 
 conservative and a great respecter of wealth. And Miller 
 while a radical in many things is a classicist as to Finance. 
 
 If Harding leaves out Hoover he will do himself and the 
 country harm, and Hoover good. At last the sun shines ! 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To Lathrop Brown 
 
 Rochester, Minnesota, January 3, [1921] 
 
 Well, my dear young Spirit of the Renaissance, I am not 
 yet dead, not even dying. Slowly I am doing the stations of 
 the Cross in this most thorough institution. I am delighted 
 with my experience. Here is concentrated every form of 
 torture and annoyance to which one can be legally subjected. 
 Cruel and unusual punishments are forbidden by the Con- 
 stitution, but I take it that one may yet take torture and 
 punishment, if he pays for it. All that I have ever done, 
 been or thought has been revealed — probed for, and found 
 out. . . . 
 
 Truly, this is the most scientifically organized organiza- 
 tion of scientists that ever was. Henry Ford could not 
 improve upon it. Combine him with M. Pasteur, add a 
 touch of one Edison, and a dose of your friend, Charlie 
 Schwab, and you have the Mayo Clinic, big, systematized, 
 modernized, machinized, doctorial plant, run by a couple 
 of master workmen. I am seeing it all, and am prepared 
 for any fate. Thus far I am no more than twenty-one years 
 of age. My organs seem to be working union hours and to 
 react with proper promptitude, self-respect and authority. 
 
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FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 403 
 
 Tomorrow I am to be photographed and fluoroscoped — 
 and then will come the verdict. If it is the guillotine I shall 
 go gaily, like one of your ancestors in those tumbril days of 
 France. What I fear is an order to "rest," on a new diet. 
 But I guess whatever is said will be the last word — the 
 Supreme Court decision. Fine reputation, that, for two 
 young chaps who never went to Harvard, eh, what ? 
 
 Well, tell me the news. You have been silent too long. 
 I long to know of your further adventures in politics with 
 one G. White. . . . 
 
 And now, my dear Lathrop, may I extend to you the 
 greetings of the New Year. May you have a continuous 
 and abiding and keen sense that you are doing good, like- 
 wise doing well. 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To Mrs. George Ehle 
 
 Rochester, Minnesota, January, [1921] 
 
 It is only a little below freezing. The sky is grey. Snow, 
 hard and frozen over, covers the ground, sleighs go through 
 the streets, jingling their merry way. Boys throw each 
 other down upon the encrusted snow. Girls in red woolen 
 caps pick their way cautiously. Farm horses drawing sleds 
 make their heavy way. And in these sleds, families sitting 
 on the heaped straw in the bed of the wooden box, smiling 
 mothers and happy babies, lined up together, warm, pro 
 tected from the wind. Trees outlined against the sky, look- 
 ing like dark coral rising out of a sea of snow into the dull 
 light. An old man, gaunt, bewhiskered, trudges along con- 
 fidently although he looks over eighty. A younger man, 
 evidently a stranger, feels his cautious way over the slippery 
 walk, covered with furs, hands, head, and body. After 
 him a still younger man, without an overcoat — a postman. 
 
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404 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 Can you see it all ? Do you recognize the picture ? Was 
 it once part of your life? This world is not so very bad 
 when nature challenges every one to fight for life. 
 
 Nothing doing for me now! That's the word. Too 
 much risk. . . . 
 
 Bless you, Lady Dear of the Understanding Eye. May 
 we yet meet upon the gentle banks of the Shepaug and there 
 make medicine for our poetic souls. 
 
 Anne has been a trump through these ten days of anxiety. 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To Mrs. William Phillips 
 
 Rochester, Minnesota, January 11, [1921] 
 
 The black cat, yellow-eyes, came, dear Lady Caroline — 
 came to me here in a hospital and I put him on my table 
 alongside my tiny bust of Lincoln, which is the sacred place. 
 I wish indeed those eyes could see within this shell of mine 
 and tell what it is that twists my heart, physically turns it 
 on its axis, so that its polarity is changed. From mystery 
 to mystery we have traveled the past year, Anne, with her 
 unfaltering trust, and I, a doubting Thomas. We came 
 here for an operation, but the doctors somewhat doubt its 
 wisdom at all, certainly not now, when pneumonia might 
 befall. So after ten hard days of closest examination I go 
 forth from this, the Supreme Court of Surgery in the Land, 
 with no decision. "Wait and see what good it has done to 
 live without tonsils, and in the California sunshine until 
 spring. "... But they live in the Land of Guess ! 
 
 And so another baby has come to bless you and William ! 
 Truly you are a confident couple ! Age would hesitate to 
 bring into a world, so filled with shadow, an increasing num- 
 ber of our species. What a supreme act of faith the con- 
 tinuance of the race is. . . . Oh, the cunning of Nature — 
 
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FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 405 
 
 how empty the heart of man or woman who has not felt 
 the clutch of a baby's hand, or drunk deep of the heaven- 
 made perfume of a baby's breath. And the impulse that 
 babies give to life, the challenge that they make to the 
 father is always a noble one. It is not so as to women ; less, 
 as to ourselves. We are urged to courses that are petty, 
 unworthy, selfish, debasing, supine, and brutal by our own 
 natures or those of our mates. But for the child we act 
 nobly, its call to us is always to our finer side, and so gradu- 
 ally we are lifted higher. Did any man in history ever do a 
 cruel or wicked thing because of the appeal made to him by 
 the smile of his child ? He may have accredited his action to 
 the prompting of love for his baby, but I believe it would be 
 found that there was another motive, generally an over- 
 whelming personal vanity ; so great a lust for power, per- 
 haps, that it would carry across the gulf of death. 
 
 I hardly believe that you need fear immediate expulsion 
 from your new-found Eden. My expectation is that you 
 will be treated with kindness by the new Administration, 
 which will act most cautiously on all things. I shall know 
 how to get a word, any word you wish, to the new Presi- 
 dent, I think, and my services as you know are at your 
 order at any time. But if you are sent into the Limbo 
 of private life you will be welcomed by a host who have 
 preceded you and who will selfishly rejoice. 
 
 My gayest greetings to Sir William and, in cloudy Hol- 
 land, may the sun shine in your hearts always. 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To James H. Barry 
 San Francisco Star 
 
 Rochester, Minnesota, January 12, [1921] 
 
 Dear Jim, — The Star has set — it goes the way of Nature 
 — the circle must be completed. The only question one 
 
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406 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 may ask is, "Was it useful?" I think it was, Jim, it held 
 many to the true course, it was an honest guide in a bewil- 
 dering world. 
 
 Do let us meet when I am West, and talk of Henry George 
 and John Marble and Arthur McEwen, who have gone on, 
 and left not their like. . . . 
 
 F. K L. 
 
 To Michael A. Spellacy 
 
 Rochester, Minnesota, January 12, [1921] 
 
 My dear Mike, — ... I shall await your re-coming with 
 great interest. Truly you should write up what you see. 
 Get good pictures and I will get it all in the National Geo- 
 graphic Magazine, and then we'll see what the Cosmos Club 
 will say ! I am in earnest about this — keep a diary in 
 which you write, in your own gay style, what you see, and 
 you will soon have fame as well as fortune. 
 
 The news from Mexico is not very encouraging. Obre- 
 gon is sick so much, and without policy, without de- 
 pendable friends. Cardinal Gibbons came near dying, but, 
 thank God, pulled through ! A very wonderful man. I 
 am very fond of him and he likes me I know, for I handled 
 the Indians for seven years and had no trouble, because he 
 and I had a flat understanding that I should take my church 
 troubles, if any arose, to him. 
 
 The old Chief Justice called on us in Washington. He is 
 seventy-five and almost totally blind. And the greatest 
 Chief since John Marshall. 
 
 De Valera has landed and I expect things to be doing 
 pretty soon. The British are greatly mystified as to how 
 he got over and back. You see you are not the only adven- 
 turer on the face of the globe. We used to think that these 
 were prosey, stoggy, flat-footed days, but there is any 
 
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FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 407 
 
 amount of adventure — from the fields of Flanders to the 
 mountains of Colombia — even the Spanish main has had 
 its rebirth. 
 
 Mrs. Lane wants me to thank you for your thought of her. 
 As you know no one holds a deeper, surer place in her heart 
 than you and Tim. 
 
 Well, old chap, I am sitting in bed — four in the morning 
 — with a devilish sore throat and without anything to eat 
 or much sleep for thirty-six hours, so if this screed is not one 
 of great illumination or information you will know that 
 it was only a message of cheer and good-will from one who is 
 fond of you, but who warns you to be careful for all of our 
 sakes. As always, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To William R. Wheeler 
 
 Rochester, Minnesota, January 13, [1921] 
 
 Dear Bill, — Off to see you eventually, I trust, tomorrow. 
 Had my tonsils out, won't do anything else till Spring. 
 Meantime I want to see no doctors. Having tried twenty, 
 and come "out by that same door wherein I went." An 
 osteopath, yes. Faith cure — Indian Medicine men — 
 anything else, but no doctors ! I turn from Esculapius to 
 Zoroaster, from medicine to the sun. I want to "lie down 
 for an aeon or two." (Alice knows where that comes from.) 
 With much love to you both. 
 
 Frank 
 
 To V. C. Scott O'Connor 
 
 [Rochester, Minnesota], January 13, [1921] 
 
 My dear Scott O'Connor, — It is a joy to get your letter 
 and to know of your new book which I have not seen, for 
 the very good reason that for five months I have been in 
 
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408 LETTERS OF FRANEXIN K. LANE 
 
 hospitals. Angina pectoris they call it, but where it comes 
 from they don't say, they don't know. Am off to Califor- 
 nia for a couple of months, then probably back to New York. 
 
 I have read Wells' History, which seems to me the most 
 remarkable thing of the historical essay kind ever hit off; 
 and therein I discovered your friend Asoka, but I have 
 been able to learn little else about him. 
 
 Buddhism attracts me greatly, as perhaps the most per- 
 fect attitude on the negative side that has ever been devel- 
 oped and largely lived. It is not complete for a temperate 
 zone people, who are and must be aggressive. Nor does it 
 reveal, so far as I know, the spiritual possibilities that 
 Christianity does. The constructive seems to be lacking. 
 But it is so far ahead of the purely opportunist attitude that 
 Christianity takes that I should like to be a Buddhist, I 
 verily believe. 
 
 I see that Lord Reading goes to India. He is the greatest 
 of diplomats, an oriental by nature, and will do good, if 
 good can be done in that unhappy situation. I admire the 
 cheerful way Lloyd George keeps. He is a great man. 
 Each six months I have looked to see him fall, but he keeps 
 up, even with Ireland, India, Egypt, South Africa on his back. 
 
 Tell me what you are doing now, anything beside writ- 
 ing, and writing what next ? I wish that I had the literary 
 endowment — ideas, plus style, plus energy. Good for- 
 tune to you always. Cordially yours, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 Letter sent to several friends 
 
 Rochester, Minnesota, January 10, 1921 
 
 "And when they came upon the Snark, they found it was 
 a Boojum — or words to that effect — and so, my dear 
 Jack, they couldn't operate now. 
 
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FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 409 
 
 There is the whole story. Details there are, of course. 
 But Meissonier's style never did appeal to me. After peer- 
 ing into, and probing, all known and unknown parts of the 
 Mprtal Man, they found that the heart in one part changed 
 its polarity, — turned over, by George, or tried to, — 
 hence the Devil's clutch. But why did it do this vaude- 
 villian act? Bugs, bugs, of course. But where? So they 
 chased them to their lair in that wicked, nasty-named and 
 most vulgar organ known as the gall-bladder. Damn the 
 gall-bladder ! Out it must come ! On with the knifing ! 
 But soft, not so swift. Suppose the heart should try to 
 play its funny stunt in the midst of the operation? Or 
 suppose again in this icy weather, pneumonia should ensue 
 and the naughty heart should take to turning? Eh, what 
 then, my brave Bucko? "No," they said, "We are experts 
 in eliminating this same appropriately named organ from 
 the system — eight thousand times have we done it. It is 
 a twenty-five minute job. A mere turn of the wrist and 
 out the viper comes. And it never comes back ! This is 
 positively its last appearance, save as a memento for the 
 morbid-minded in a bottle of alcohol. But hearts that do 
 somersaults and lungs that choke up, fill us with fear. So 
 out with the tonsils where bugs accumulate and men decay, 
 and then off with you to California where bugs degenerate 
 and men rejuvenate. Then come back when the sun shines 
 and the trees begin to burgeon and the trick will be done. 
 Hold yourself where you are, grow better if you can, and 
 we'll have to take the risk of the tumbling heart, but the 
 pneumonia risk will be gone." 
 
 Thus saith the Prophets ! And this day, therefore, will 
 be spent with the Master of the mysterious fluoroscope, 
 who reverses Edward Everett Hale and looks "in and not 
 out," and with the dentist who must fill a pesky tooth, and 
 
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410 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 then with the surgeon who tears out tonsils. Rather a full 
 day, eh ? And after two days in hospital, or three, over the 
 hills to 8 Chester Place, Los Angeles, — by no means a 
 poor-house, — but alas ! carrying the malevolent bugs and 
 their nesting place with me. Then I shall rest, "and faith 
 I shall need it, lie down for an aeon or two, till the Master 
 of all good workmen shall put me to work anew." 
 
 I am disappointed. I would take the risk if it were left 
 to me. But I shall go Wesi — why did those soldier boys 
 ever use that phrase with such sinister meaning, or did it 
 signify a better land to them ? I shall go West in good hope 
 that I shall return, and meantime will try to develop a 
 strong propaganda in favor of race suicide in the land of 
 the bothering bacteria. Adios. 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To John G. Gehring 
 
 Rochester, Minnesota, January 13, [1921] 
 
 My dear Padre, — I wrote you an impressionistic sketch 
 of what the politicians call the "local situation," a couple 
 of days since. ... It is subject to attack on every possible 
 ground as to details, for no man can know from it what these 
 doctors found. But it is a perfect picture from the artist's 
 standpoint, because it produces the result on the viewer or 
 reader that is truth, and that result is a large, purple be- 
 fuddlement. I am whole, but I have a pain. . . . 
 
 After I had practically been declared one hundred per 
 cent pluperfect I gave the electric cardiograph man a picture 
 or exhibition performance under an attack. This revealed 
 to him a change in polarity in the current passing through, 
 which signified something, but what that something was, 
 other than that I was having a spasm, I don't know. . . . 
 
 The smug, mysterious gentleman who made this picture 
 
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FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 411 
 
 was much pleased, apparently at nothing more than that 
 he had proved that I had a clutch of the heart, which I had 
 announced, by wire, before arriving here. 
 
 Am I impatient or am I a damn fool ? 
 
 Well, with my tonsils out I am in Royal Baking Powder 
 condition and tomorrow we start for California. I cannot 
 hope to be out there till May or June, when you would 
 come. But Heaven knows I'd like to introduce you to the 
 Yosemite! . . . 
 
 Do you know I am beginning to admire myself. Now 
 many have thought that that was my favorite sport. But 
 I can assure you that no one ever felt more humble than I 
 have, any appearance to the contrary being a bluff for 
 success — effect. But now that I have been wisely and 
 scrupulously and unscrupulously examined by the most 
 exalted rulers of the Inner Temple, and they pronounce me 
 all that man should be, why shouldn't I strut some ? But, 
 damn it, strutting brings that Devil's clutch — and a man 
 cannot be anything more strutty than a dish-rag then. 
 
 In William James you will find a questionnaire, "Why do 
 I believe in immortality? 'Because I think I'm just about 
 ready to begin to live.'" There speaks self -justifying age 
 — I'm there, too. 
 
 I'd love to look on Bethel this morning, and see what 
 your poet-partner calls the hills in their wine bath. Good 
 luck. 
 
 Lane 
 
 To Lathrop Brown 
 
 Los Angeles, [January] 15, [1921] 
 
 My dear Lathrop, — I have yours of the eleventh. First 
 question, as to men and women for the Executive Com- 
 mittee. 
 
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412 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 Answer : Get men who can make a program, something 
 that the party can push, outside Congress, if too cowardly 
 in. People who don't want anything, if possible. 
 
 Think of these! (I don't say they will do, but they 
 stand for something.) 
 
 Charles W. Eliot. 
 
 Benjamin Ide Wheeler. (Ex-President of the Univer- 
 sity of California. Ex- 
 Chairman, Democratic Com- 
 mittee, Elmira, New York.) 
 
 E. M. House. 
 
 Frank I. Cobb. 
 
 John W. Davis. 
 
 Robert Lansing. 
 
 R. Walton Moore. (Congressman from Virginia, big 
 
 fellow.) 
 
 Gavin McNab. 
 
 Governor Parker, of Louisiana. 
 
 James D. Phelan. 
 
 Van-Lear Black. 
 
 For solid thought I'd choose out of that bunch — Eliot 
 and Moore. 
 
 For cleverness — Black and McNab. 
 
 For diplomacy — House and Davis. 
 
 For progressiveness — House and Parker. 
 
 For Conservative Democracy — Wheeler and Lansing. 
 
 For writing ability — Cobb and Eliot. 
 
 I know no women who think, particularly. . . . 
 
 The kind of publicity we need is the advocacy by the 
 National Committee, and by Democrats in Congress of 
 
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FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 413 
 
 first class measures, known to be Democratic measures, 
 part of a program. 
 
 I'll tell you how to get all the publicity you want when I 
 see you — or White — a new kind, cheap, but requiring 
 brains. . . . 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To Lathrop Brown 
 
 Los Angeles, January, [1921] 
 Dear Lathrop, — (1) You are right as to standardiza- 
 tion. The Devil devised it as a highway to socialism. It 
 is the Bible of the great Tribe of Flatfoot, not for artists 
 like you and myself. And speaking of programs, please 
 read what Wells says in his first volume of Outline of His- 
 tory, on David, Solomon, Moses. It will delight your anti- 
 semitic soul. . . . 
 
 Yes, standardization is like all else, good — for a distance. 
 The whole bally outfit of life is a matter of balance, main- 
 tained by war among the unintelligent bacilli and other 
 primitives, and by will among men (goat feed for men, eh ?) 
 But do you get my point ? Something to it ! 
 
 (2) George White will be eaten up first thing he knows, 
 unless he moves. Your friend McAdoo is here declining 
 the next nomination daily, speaking much, and, I under- 
 stand, well. . . . Why doesn't G. W. get Frank Cobb and 
 Hooker, of the Springfield Republican, and Van-Lear Black, 
 and Senator Walsh, and Phelan, and Congressman Walton 
 Moore together, or any other group, and put up his plan 
 and ask them what they think of it tentatively, — just a 
 quiet chat, but start. 
 
 He doesn't need to resign, if he can get someone as a quiet 
 organizer "who will give all his time" to take up that job 
 under him, with sub-organizers. Who is this genius who 
 
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414 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 can organize inorganic matter, and give it life? Thought 
 He was dead sometime ! 
 
 "Wanted — A Miracle Man who can overcome a ma- 
 jority of seven million votes with a hearty handshake and a 
 warm brown eye. Need have no program, no money. 
 Must be a hypnotist who can make the people forget a few 
 things and believe a few things that are not true. Must be 
 able by reciting poetry to make the cunning capitalist see 
 that he is safer in the hands of the Democrats than else- 
 where, and at the same time educate the worker by a pass 
 of the hand to know that it is decent to stay bought. Must 
 have received the Gift of Tongues on the Day of Pentecost, 
 so as to talk Yiddish, in New York; Portuguese and 
 Gaelic, in Massachusetts ; Russian and German, in Chicago ; 
 Scandinavian, in the Northwest; Cotton and Calhoun, in 
 the South; John Brown and wheat, in Kansas; gold and 
 Murphy, on 14th Street; and translate Jesus Christ into 
 Bolshevism, Individualism, Capitalism, Lodgeism, Wil- 
 sonism ! Must be as honest as old Cleveland and as clear 
 of purpose as Abraham Lincoln." 
 
 Put this want ad. in the papers and send me, by freight 
 car, the replies. With my warmest, 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To Adolph C. Miller 
 
 Los Angeles, January 26, [1921] 
 
 Dear Adolph, — I see that Harding 1 is to leave you, and 
 this is a note of sympathy. What will you do? Poor 
 chap ! I know the satisfaction you have had out of working 
 with him and now he follows Warburg, Delano, and Strauss. 
 By Jove, that's why we can't make things go as other coun- 
 tries do — because we can't give our people enough to live 
 
 1 Governor Harding of the Federal Reserve Board — a rumor of resignation. 
 
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FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 415 
 
 on. This is at once the meanest and most generous of 
 Republics. Mean collectively, generous individually. 
 
 He will wait until after March 4th. "Right oh!" I 
 expect you to have some say as to his successor, espe- 
 cially as to the new Governor. And if you can't work 
 with the new man you can lift your skirts and skip ! 
 Freedom of movement, assured as to all by Adam Smith, 
 is exclusively the prerogative of the fortunate few. Don't 
 be downhearted ! You can't be as badly off as you 
 were for several years. Just think how unlucky I am as 
 compared with you, and pat yourself on the back and take 
 one of the old time struts. Good belly ! Good brains ! 
 Good pocket-book ! Good friends near you ! Good dog 
 to walk with in the woods — and woods in which you can 
 walk ! Good house, with your own books to look at you 
 friendly-like. Oh boy, rejoice and be glad ! 
 
 February 17, [1921] 
 "We are most terribly disappointed. Your promised visit 
 was a bright spot, — a sunshiny place — to which we have 
 looked forward as to nothing else since we came here. Well, 
 life is a series of such jars, and child-like I submit, but am 
 not reconciled. 
 
 . . . Are you coming later? How is Mary? We 
 really seem far away from our friends. The land is beau- 
 tiful, but friends convert a shack into a palace, a desert into 
 
 a heaven. 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To John G. Gehring 
 
 Pasadena, near Paradise, February 18 
 
 Before breakfast this morning, indeed before dressing, I 
 sent you a message which was a combined confession, 
 
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416 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K LANE 
 
 apologia, report, and appeal. I said, "I have done wrong, 
 I apologize, I am slightly better, and I hope and pray you 
 will not become downhearted." I also promised to write 
 and here I am at it. But you would have had this letter 
 just as early anyway, for this morning was to be yours and 
 mine. All other mornings for two weeks and more have 
 belonged to someone else. I have been pretending to work, 
 by going to the office each day. And last night I said 
 good-bye to the Napoleon of our institution, who took his 
 private car and rolled away to Mexico, to Galveston first, 
 thence by private yacht to Tampico, there to see his prop- 
 erties and spend two or three weeks. 
 
 . . . They desired us to go greatly, and ours would have 
 been every possible comfort that one can have while travel- 
 ing, . . . but the tyrant Anne thought that as I was pick- 
 ing up a bit it was wrong to change conditions, and I 
 yielded, hardly against my judgment, but strongly against 
 my desire. 
 
 So here I am, the first hour after release, sitting on the 
 porch of a villa, looking across a valley at amethyst moun- 
 tains, crowned with a sprinkling of blue and white snow. 
 The noises that come to me are not raucous ; — the twitter 
 of birds, a rooster crowing, a well-pump throbbing its heart 
 out, the shouts of some children at play, a distant school 
 bell, with no silver in its alloy, however, the swish of a wood- 
 sawing machine in some back-yard. So my ears are not 
 lonesome. Immediately before me is the gray-lavender 
 bole of a tall eucalyptus, not a leaf or branch for fifty feet, 
 and then a drooping cascade of blue-green feathers. Be- 
 yond it a few feet a red-blue eucalyptus, sturdy, branching 
 almost at the ground and in blossom. These stand near 
 the border of a drive which is marked by a cypress hedge, 
 trimmed and proper, and beyond the drive, on the front of 
 
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FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 417 
 
 the terrace are magnolia and iron-wood and avocado and 
 palm and spruce, rising up out of beds of carnations and 
 geraniums, jasmine and pansies (all violet), and cherokee 
 roses, five-petaled, white with golden centers, and rose 
 colored — (the wild rose with a university education, a year 
 or two in Italy, and the care of a good maid). While be- 
 yond this terrace are orange, and tangerine, and lemon, and 
 grapefruit with their green, yellow, and deep red-golden 
 fruit pendant; and still further on, a fringe of blossoming 
 pear trees tell you that this is not the tropics after all. The 
 breeze is a gentle woman's hand, a soft touch, kindly, ten- 
 der, emotional, but not disturbing. It is not lotus-eating 
 time. I don't know that that time ever comes here. Autos 
 whisk through the woods, buildings are going up, the air is 
 dry and has tang ; it has challenge in it, but it does not give 
 off the heady champagne of the air that the snow breathes 
 out on your Millbrook hillside. 
 
 I remember as I looked from my window at the sunset at 
 Bethel saying to myself, " Can there be any fairer spot than 
 this ? " And this morning as I saw the sun rise into the pink 
 and blue of the sky, empurpling the shadowed hills and 
 splashing rose leaves on the snowy mountains, I again said 
 "Is there anything lovelier, anywhere?" Great blessing, 
 these catholic eyes ! Should the heart be equally catholic ? 
 There is a real problem in philosophy and sociology for you ! 
 
 And now that you know how happily circumstanced I 
 am as to environment your doctorial demand is for some- 
 thing as to the behavior of the organs and nerves which we 
 call the physical man. Well, I can't tell you much. I do 
 not rise and walk half a block without that trigger being 
 pulled, but the explosion is not dynamite, rather poor black 
 powder, I should say. If I walk half a dozen blocks I stop 
 a half a dozen times, and once or twice nibble at a precious 
 
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418 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 pellet of nitro. At night I am wakened as of yore, but the 
 agonizing, crushing pains do not come every night. . . . 
 I eat prunes and bran biscuit and coffee for breakfast; a 
 bit of cooked fruit (and that in this land of oranges and alli- 
 gator pears and ripe raspberries !), chicken and green peas, 
 and bran biscuit and tea for lunch ; a couple of green vege- 
 tables and bran biscuit and a small black, for dinner. And 
 all this I write with a supreme sense of virtue, which Simon 
 Stylites or St. Benedict could not more than parallel. As 
 to smoking — a pipe, generous in size but of the mildest 
 possible tobacco, after breakfast. A mild, large cigar after 
 lunch, and pause here and worship — no cigar after dinner. 
 (But this latter is a Lenten innovation. I would not have 
 you think I am preparing for immediate ascension.) 
 
 As to treatment, an osteopath and a Christian Scientist 
 are my present complement. Each morning the former, 
 and each evening the latter. The former to gratify myself, 
 the latter to gratify a dear friend who "believed and was 
 saved." The osteo is rational, the C. S., with limitations 
 and reservations. . . . 
 
 The C. S. is a woman, the sister of an artist I used to 
 know. If she did not ask or expect that I believe certain 
 things, we would get on better. I can believe in God as the 
 Principle of Life, that seems scientific. I am willing to call 
 Him Spirit, that is Christian. That He is Supreme in the 
 Universe, I admit. That sin and sickness may with further 
 light be overmastered I do not deny; physical death, of 
 course, seems to me a thing not worth bothering about. 
 But that God is all good, I cannot asseverate in the living 
 presence of a few Devils whom I know, unless I deny that 
 He is omnipresent and omnipotent, or unless I say that Bad 
 is Good. God cannot be good and all powerful without 
 being also responsible for Bad, and therefore be both Good 
 
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FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 419 
 
 and Bad. This I can believe, and it brings me to Emerson's 
 transcendentalism, which is set forth in the Sphinx — 
 "Deep Love lieth under these pictures of Time, which fade 
 in the light of their meaning sublime." In a word we are 
 growing into the Good. The Bad is not the ultimate, but 
 is none the less real. This is better than Manicheism, the 
 Miltonian contest between the Good Spirit and the Bad, 
 which Wells also in his Invisible King presents; a simple 
 theory, understandable but not to my mind subject to care- 
 ful scrutiny. There is but one God, one Force, one Prin- 
 ciple, one Spirit, and it is working its way through, express- 
 ing itself as best it can. And Evil is a partial view, one 
 phase of undevelopment, the muck through which, by God's 
 own law, we must come; and indeed He could not have 
 sent us any other way. This means that He is bound, too. 
 Is this supposable ? Omnipresent ? Yes ! All pervading ! 
 In all ! But Omnipotent ? No, not in the sense that He 
 could change the Order of Things, for He is the Order of 
 Things Himself. Is there even in Him complete Freedom 
 of Will, freedom to make a world other than this? One 
 wishes, in a sense, to say so, but the horror of it ! for then 
 He is responsible for the cruelty of the ant-heap, the feeding 
 of the carnivorous upon the vegetable eaters, the preying 
 and persecution of the malevolent upon the kindly — and 
 He could have made it all otherwise ! With a Free Will 
 He could have brought growth without pain, being om- 
 nipotent. Here we see God as a monster, — responsible for 
 sweat shops and the Marne, in the sense that His will could 
 have averted these things. So I say God is not Good, save 
 in the sense that He is that sunrise this morning. But 
 night cometh, when thieves break through and steal. More 
 sunlight — that is the meaning of the phrase "God is Good" 
 — a belief in a tendency, in the temporality of darkness, of 
 
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420 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 night, a sureness that the day will come and "There will be 
 no night there." 
 
 This is a long disquisition, but I just had to get it out of 
 my system ; yet I can't, it bothers, and confuses, and per- 
 plexes, and hinders, I believe. Better brush it away for 
 practical purposes and have the Will to Believe, for thence 
 cometh strength. Pragmatically C. S. works out with 
 certain people ; and to them it is Truth. I wish it were so 
 with my doubting mind, that I could believe. I am willing 
 to be cured tho' I do not understand and cannot believe, 
 and this they say they can do. But it has not been done 
 with me. 
 
 Lunch broke into this discourse, and then a walk. This 
 time on the other side of the house, the other side of the hill. 
 There I found a new world. Palms, huge ones, thirty feet 
 across, with their dead branches strewing the ground, mak- 
 ing a coarse woven carpet ; and pines, large ones, yet not so 
 gigantic as yours on the road beyond the creek ; and acacia 
 in full golden bloom, glorious, yet modest tree, a very rare, 
 non-self-assertive tree, a truly Christian tree, beautiful but 
 not prideful. Bamboo in great clumps, erect, yielding but 
 not to be broken — wise, tenacious orientals ! And I 
 walked on the off-cast seed of the pepper, and beside cacti 
 higher than my head with spears of crimson, and across a 
 sweep of lawn over which oranges had been dropped, by the 
 generosity of an up-hill row of trees that were saying, "We 
 must make room for the next generation." The flowers 
 (oxalis) and leaves I enclose made a mat, close clinging to 
 the earth, a mat of white, red, and lavender resting on these 
 clover-like leaves that rested in turn directly on the ground. 
 And all about, a hundred plants I did not know, into which 
 my footsteps sent quail and rabbit, that did not fear me 
 really but could not quite say that Man is Love. 
 
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FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 421 
 
 I have written you a long line, may it serve for a time as 
 a word also to your dear Lady, whose letter and rare bit of 
 verse I have also received. I do hope that you soon master 
 whatever ails you. Don't lose faith in yourself, above all 
 things. Believe that you are all that your friends believe 
 you to be — a Civilized Medicine Man. Be as deluded as 
 we are. Affectionately, 
 
 Lane 
 
 To John W. Hallowell 
 
 Los Angeles, February 21, 1921 
 My dear Jack, — It is Sunday morning, very early ; the 
 sun is trying to get out of bed, a mocking bird is hailing its 
 effort with great gurgling. I am sitting near an open win- 
 dow looking down into orange trees, which are a very dark 
 shadow, and I am just as happy in my heart as I can be with 
 a bum heart, and no home, and a scattered family. But 
 — ! Bad word that "but." 
 
 Roots we all have and we must not be torn up from them 
 and flung about as if we were young things that could take 
 hold in any soil. I have been, all America has been, too 
 indifferent to roots — home roots, school roots, work roots. 
 . . . We should love stability and tradition as well as 
 love adventure and advancement. 
 
 Your new job interests me, but I wonder if you will go 
 with the Secretary of Commerce [Hoover]. ... I guess 
 he did right. But unless he gets to be the leading adviser 
 he'll have to get out. For I'm afraid we are to see too much 
 politics — Republican Burlesonism in the saddle. Gov- 
 ernment by unanimous consent is not practicable, and it 
 looked as if this were Harding's motto until Hoover's ap- 
 pointment. Hoover will be the man to whom the country 
 will look for some guidance along progressive lines, and the 
 
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422 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 country will expect too much, more than any man can de- 
 liver. 
 
 Please tell your dear Mother that I have her book, and 
 last night read two chapters. I know Bok and did not 
 think him capable of such a literary work, or that he had 
 such character as his book reveals. . . . My love to the 
 Troop, and write just as often as you can. 
 
 F. K L. 
 
 To Curt G. Pfeiffer 
 
 Pasadena, 22 [February, 1921] 
 
 My dear old Pfeiffer, — I have treated you shamefully. 
 Yes, I have, don't protest ! But I have been pretending to 
 be busy. Mr. Doheny wanted me to go to Mexico, and 
 Anne did not want me to go, and I have had a hard time. 
 They have gone and we have come out here with Mrs. 
 Severance, in the loveliest hillside spot you ever saw. Flow- 
 ers and trees all about and mountains in the distance. 
 Wonderful land ! 
 
 To-day I celebrated G. W.'s birthday by taking on a new 
 doctor. . . . Thought I had escaped from doctors but it 
 is not so to be. . . . 
 
 This is all my news. I do wish I were there to talk poli- 
 tics with you. Poor Harding! He will suffer the politi- 
 cians, I fear, till they undo him. . . . 
 
 The Germans seem to have recovered their audacity. 
 They should have been driven into their own land and then 
 some. I am not for revenge nor for their paralyzing, but 
 just reparation they should pay. Perhaps things have been 
 botched, I do not trust Briand. I'd trust Hoover to get 
 all they could pay, and he's the only one I know who could 
 be just and at the same time sensible in method, but he 
 can't be used where he should be used. . . . 
 
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FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 423 
 
 March 31 
 . . . You are a delight and joy to a thirsty man, a true 
 water carrier, you give of the water of life. For you know 
 that men shall not live by bread alone. Not only words of 
 wisdom, sage counsel, come from you, but there is a heart 
 behind which does not wane with the years, but on the con- 
 trary grows stronger and more generous. I look forward 
 to returning to New York to be able once again to feel with 
 you the pleasure of an intellectual companionship, wherein 
 the mind is so refined as to be emotionally sympathetic. 
 You would take the greatest joy out of the beauty in which 
 I am living. . . . The night is fragrant (Do you remember 
 telling me of that Japanese criterion ?) with orange, wisteria, 
 and jasmine. Oh, this is exquisite country, if I only had 
 health ! But there is little beauty where pain is, and my 
 pain holds on even when I was with my brother on his farm, 
 eighty acres, south of San Jose, tucked in the foothills — 
 raises nothing but kindliness and a few vegetables and some 
 hay. It is the sweetest place in its spirit I have ever felt, 
 and lovely physically, too. I wish I could get you to go out 
 there with me. Put up a comfortable adobe on the knob of 
 a hill with a wide prospect and then make things grow, in- 
 cluding our own souls. ... 
 
 I'm going back there in a week or two, then East, I hope, 
 to Ned's wedding. . . . The girl is all a girl should be, I 
 believe. Smaller than he is, a tiny thing in fact, very gentle 
 in voice and manner, sweet natured, musical, wholesome. 
 
 ... I still dream of that place on the Shepaug river, in 
 Connecticut, where you think I would be lonesome. A 
 winter here with George and a summer there with you, 
 would quite suit me. . . . Well, write me, for books are 
 not old friends after all, are they ? Forever and ever yours, 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
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424 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 Writing of the days of their youth Pfeiffer said later, 
 "Friendships are inexplicable, they defy analysis, but what- 
 ever it was that we might be doing, we were usually in har- 
 mony about it. I can only explain it by saying that we 
 liked each other. We liked each other just as we were, 
 and we knew each other with intimacy that deepened with 
 the years, and never disappointed us. The magic circle 
 came later to include others, and they were accepted and 
 appreciated with the same affection and trust. ... It is 
 a singular and beautiful thing that such a multiple and 
 intimate relationship should have survived throughout all 
 of our lives. Perhaps it was because we were friends 
 without capitulation. . . . 
 
 "Some of us did not meet again, after that first period, 
 for years, but whenever we did meet, it was always in the 
 spirit of the early days. A few words would tell us what 
 we knew of the latest doings of the rest, and we would then 
 'carry on' just as if there had never been a break in our 
 intercourse. The strength of our joint memories, based on 
 our youthful experiences in common and added to from time 
 to time, grew with the years." 
 
 To John G. Gehring 
 
 Pasadena, February 24, [1921] 
 
 My dear Doctor-and-More, — This is a note of cheer 
 written by a somewhat dolorous duffer who spent last night 
 in pain, but this morning is rather comfortable. . . . 
 
 Am reading William James' Varieties of Religious Ex- 
 perience, and it is really the most helpful religious or phil- 
 osophical work I have ever read. Nothing else anywhere 
 near as good for the groping mind that wants to be led 
 cautiously, reasonably, suggestively to the "Water of Life," 
 but shown that there is water there. (Pretty poor figure, 
 
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FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 425 
 
 but perhaps understandable.) I must re-read his answer to 
 the questionnaire in his Letters, and compare it with his con- 
 clusions in this book. You remember my thought that 
 probably Emerson, William James, and Henry George had 
 been the greatest writing minds we had produced. Prob- 
 ably you can improve on this. 
 
 Have been interested myself in thinking of a list of books 
 that have made great movements in the world, Darwin's 
 Descent of Man, for illustration. Books that have provoked 
 the minds of men into action of one kind or another : — The 
 Bible, Koran, in religions, of course ! What started modern 
 medicine ? I mean in the way of a book ? 
 
 What are, or have been, the great movements in history, 
 anyway ? Wars, of course, don't count, when merely preda- 
 tory. 
 
 Man's relation to God. 
 
 Man's relation to the World. 
 
 Man's relation to Man. 
 
 Man's relation to the Good. 
 
 Man's relation to the True. 
 
 Man's relation to the Beautiful. 
 
 These ought to cover Art, Science, Philosophy, Religion, 
 Progress. Civilization of every kind. And this progress 
 has come in waves, hasn't it ? Did any book start, or give 
 evidence of the starting of these waves? That's the ques- 
 tion. Outside religion and philosophy books were the re- 
 sults not the causes of movements. How true is that? 
 
 As always and always, 
 
 r . K.. Jj. 
 
 To D. M. Reynolds 
 
 Pasadena, [February, 1921] 
 I'm writing this late at night and will mail it in the morning, 
 for I'm going to Santa Barbara for a couple of days. Do 
 
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426 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 with it what you will. Judge for me what it is wise to say. 
 And be as condensed as possible. 
 
 What I've written is to be dropped in at the right places, 
 it is not conservative. Will see you next week, I hope, 
 perhaps Saturday. 
 
 F. K. Lane 
 
 Cooperation is the word of this century and we don't 
 know what it means yet. We work together most imper- 
 fectly in things political, and we are just beginning to feel 
 our way into the worlds of social and industrial life. I'm 
 not afraid of socialism. I really don't know anyone who 
 is. We're all afraid of blundering attempts at getting a 
 thing called by that name, which is a mechanical method of 
 bringing the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, without chang- 
 ing the human spirit. 
 
 The call for socialism or communism is generally a call 
 for more of justice and of honesty and of fair dealing be- 
 tween men, rather than a demand for any particular and 
 organized method of carrying on industrial life. If business 
 is squarely conducted we won't try experiments in mechan- 
 icalizing and sterilizing business. But a few more years 
 of profiteering, and Conservatives would have become 
 Reds. 
 
 Now we should be studying and planning for a safer in- 
 dustrial life, one in which there will be fewer waves, a safer 
 and more even sea. That we can have, if we are willing to 
 be less greedy now, less venturesome and predatory. 
 
 The only people who have done much in the way of sub- 
 stantial thinking as to cooperative action, collective ac- 
 tion, are those who think in terms of immediate and large 
 fortunes for themselves, through plans of capitalizing com- 
 bined brains and money. Their example is a good one to 
 
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FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 427 
 
 follow in lesser things, where the object is not great wealth 
 but a more even measure of good living. Insurance is the 
 right word for it, business life insurance through honest 
 cooperation. You mark my word, that is the next big move 
 in business affairs. Nationalization of things is not their so- 
 cialization. Not at all. It may mean their desocialization, 
 their withdrawal from the use of society altogether, or their 
 more imperfect use. Calling things by nice names, popular 
 alluring names, does not solve problems. Nevertheless 
 such names evidence our social dreams. We all feel that 
 there must be more of justice in the economic world. But 
 we don't want it at the expense of society, that is at our 
 own expense, for that means Bolshevism and Bolshevism is 
 paralysis. . . . 
 
 Oil is one of the fine forms of Power that we know, for 
 many purposes the handiest. Industrially it is as indis- 
 pensable and staple as the soil itself. To lose faith in the 
 future of oil — why, that's as unthinkable as to lose faith 
 in your hands. Oil, coal, electricity, what are these but 
 multiplied and more adaptable, super-serviceable hands? 
 They may temporarily be unemployed but the world can't 
 go round without them. 
 
 A slack time is always one of fear, never of confidence. 
 And no policies should be adopted in such an atmosphere. 
 For the man who can afford to take the long view these are 
 great days. He can take up what others cannot carry. 
 Better still he can prepare for the demand of to-morrow, or 
 the day after to-morrow — find more oil, if you please, plan 
 for its fuller use, as we are talking of oil, but the principle 
 applies to everything. Take the railroads. Their car 
 shortage is mounting and their out-of-order equipment is 
 way up. This has always been so in hard times. But this 
 is the very time when they should have plenty of money, to 
 
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428 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 get road bed and equipment in perfect shape for to-morrow's 
 rush. No, the nation would do no better if it had the 
 roads. Congress doesn't think ahead two years. It is a 
 reflector, not a generator. The fault is ours. 
 
 Right now the call in national affairs of every kind is for 
 the long view; we have use for the men who can see this 
 nation in its relation to other nations, next year and next 
 generation, and for men in business who can think in terms 
 of 1922, and 1925, and 1945. That's what really big busi- 
 ness can do — hold its breath under water and watch the 
 waves. 
 
 To Mrs. Cordenio Severance 
 
 [Pasadena, March, 1921] 
 
 Dear Maidie, — It is six in the morning. The sun is a 
 long streak of salmon pink in a gray skirt of fog. Chanti- 
 cleer is very loud and conquering. The little birds are 
 twittering all about, in wisteria, in oranges; and over on 
 the hillside, by the cherokee roses, there was a mocking 
 bird that hailed the dawn, or its promise, an hour ago. 
 
 And for all this beauty, this gay cheer, this soul-lifting 
 day-breaking I have you to thank. It is the one most ex- 
 quisite spot in which I have ever laid my head. And pity 
 is that I have been so down-cast that I could not feel fully 
 what was here, nor show what I did feel. 
 
 Forgive me for my many ungraciousnesses and credit 
 yourself, I beg, with having done all and everything that 
 human hands and heart could do to make me "come back." 
 
 You have spent a lifetime doing good, giving out of your 
 heart, and the only reward you can get is the evidence of 
 understanding in paltry words like these. 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
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FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 429 
 
 To Alexander Vogelsang 
 Assistant Secretary of the Interior 
 
 Los Angeles, March 4, [1921] 
 
 Dear Aleck, — The end has come. We were identified 
 with an historic period, one of the great days of the world. 
 And none can say that our part, of relatively slight impor- 
 tance maybe, was not well played. We did not strut and 
 call the world to witness how well we did. We did not voice 
 indignation at injustice, and make heroes of ourselves at 
 the price of unity. And some things we did, and more we 
 tried to do, and all were good. So I look back over the 
 eight years with some personal satisfaction, for not a thing 
 was done or attempted . . . that was unworthy, ignoble, 
 unpatriotic or little. 
 
 I am glad to get news of the force, and sorry that I can- 
 not have them all round about me for the rest of my days. 
 Had I been well I would have been with you this morning, 
 to bid you all good cheer. It was my hope when I saw you 
 in December that this might be. 
 
 I like your plans for the future and, by the starry belt of 
 Orion, I'd like to join you. ... I am stronger and look 
 very well, but my damn pains are about as frequent and 
 crunching as ever. . . . No one can say that I have not 
 fought a good fight and stood a lot of punishment. Good 
 luck, dear Aleck. 
 
 F. K L. 
 
 To James S. Harlan 
 
 Pasadena, March 5, [1921] 
 My dear Jim, — That was a fine long letter in your old- 
 time style, and I am doing the unprecedented thing of 
 answering it promptly. To this I am prompted by the 
 near-by presence of a very handsome young woman for- 
 
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430 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 merly named Wyncoop, now Mays, who knows Mrs. Har- 
 lan well, having been much at the Crater Club. . . . Who 
 would have thought such a thing possible — that here as I lie 
 on a couch in a doctor's office with a rubber tube in my mouth, 
 I should attract the curiosity of a baby who came to see the 
 "funny tube," and that she should be followed by a nice- 
 looking, blue-eyed, bright-cheeked girl who says, "I believe I 
 saw you once at Lake Champlain. You know Mrs. Harlan." 
 
 Well now, as George Harvey might say — "One day 
 After !" I want to help in any way I can to make this ad- 
 ministration a success. ... If Hoover can work with 
 Harding, or the latter with him, all will be well. But I 
 fear the politicians — especially . . . [those] ambitious 
 for a great political machine. The country will be generous 
 for a time to Harding. ... But it will turn against him 
 with anger unbounded if he turns the country over to the 
 men who want office and the men who want privilege and 
 favor. The politicians and the profiteers may be his un- 
 doing. I hope not ! 
 
 ... I cannot close without a special word to that most 
 gracious, tender, and charming Lady who is your "sweet- 
 heart." As I wander and see many, I find no limitation, 
 no reservation, or modification to put to that declaration of 
 admiration and devotion, which I made to Her now some 
 fifteen years ago, nearly. Tell her that this old, sick, 
 troubled man thinks nice things about her often. My 
 affectionate regards to you, dear Jim. 
 
 Lane 
 
 To Adolph C. Miller 
 
 Morgan Hill, March 9, [1921] 
 
 When my eyes opened this morning they looked out upon 
 a hillside of vivid green, like the tops of Monterey cypress, 
 
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FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 431 
 
 flecked with bits of darker green embroiderings, and be- 
 hind this was green, too, but very dark, and it had great 
 splashes of a green so dark that they looked black — and 
 my heart was glad. It was a common scene, nothing rarely 
 beautiful about it. Fog enclosed the earth. There was 
 no sky. But I had known it as a boy, this same kind of a 
 picture, and it went to this poor tired heart of mine and was 
 like balsam to a wound. By Jove, it is balsam ! These 
 hills are for the healing of men. I have been here three 
 days and have taken more exercise than in three months — 
 walking and climbing; beside the creek lined with great 
 sycamores — alluvial soil, crumbles in your hand, and with 
 our friend the gopher in it ; and climbed up through a bit of 
 manzanita — big fellows, twenty feet high some of them — 
 and such a rich brown, near-burgundy red ! I barked a bit 
 of the bole to get that green beneath, spring green, great 
 contrast ! 
 
 And above the grove of manzanita was a flat top to the 
 hill, from which I could see three ways, and all ending in 
 cloud-wrapped mountains, that had shape and were blue of 
 some kind, as far as you could see. Ah man, this is a glo- 
 rious land — even the people! Along the road I talked to 
 Lundgren, who used to be a ship-carpenter, but he had a 
 prune orchard here "since the fire." I must "see his 
 horses," great snuzzling monsters that he had raised him- 
 self (sold one of them once, and sneaked off and bought it 
 back) and his calves, twins out of a three-year-old — and she 
 had had one before. Oh shades of Teddy Roosevelt, 
 there's your ideal ! (Do you remember Kipling's line in the 
 Mary Gloster, "And she carried her freight each trip"?) 
 
 And next to Lungren was the Frenchman — far up on 
 the hill cultivating his grapes, for which he got $110 per ton 
 last year — and this year he puts out five acres more. The 
 
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432 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 Frenchman has indigestion and lives alone . . . that hill- 
 side of vines gives him something to love. 
 
 When we come to the turn in the road, where you cross 
 the creek to climb the hill, there the "Portugee" lives. He 
 always has lived there. He was found just there when the 
 Padres came. And his name was Silva. John Silva, of 
 Stevenson's Treasure Island — born in the Azores, of course 
 
 — there are no other Portuguese in America. 
 
 And John has — how many children ? Give you three 
 guesses. All by one wife, too, and she is in evidence, and a 
 native daughter. I saw her with my own eyes, black hair, 
 dark skin, slight figure, voluble, smiling, large-knuckled 
 hands and a flashy eye, oh ! a long way from being unin- 
 teresting to John yet, or a merely "good woman." Well, 
 how many children did they have, right there by the road ? 
 
 — eleven. Eight boys and three girls — and four dead, 
 too. Fine boys and girls, one I saw plowing or cultivating 
 straight up and down the vineyard, a sixty degree hill, I 
 should say. I was struggling with a cane to get one foot 
 before another on the sloping road and he was outdoing a 
 horse, that he drove with his neck and shoulders, while with 
 his hands he guided the little plow straight up toward the 
 sky. I am not envious of such youth. I never had it. I 
 was always lazy. But it is a real joy for me to be near such 
 youth — just to know that such things can be done — by 
 angels from the Azores. You remember Anne's story, "In 
 future it is prohibited to refer to our beloved Allies as 'the 
 God-damned Portuguese'" ? Well, I feel the same way. 
 
 Yes, this land of yours is good. (All land is good, I be- 
 lieve.) And the stillness, and the birds, and the flowers ! 
 The simplicity of these two dear hearts — George and his 
 wife — the little they need ! A paper once a day for five 
 minutes, a song to break day with, and a round of songs and 
 
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FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 433 
 
 piano pieces to end the day, every act one of consideration, 
 and each word spoken with a tender look, a gay lilt to the 
 voice, even in asking to pass the salt. "Better a dinner of 
 herbs where love is," etc. Well, they have it, herbs and 
 all, — beet tops and mustard leaves. . . . Good luck to 
 you. 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 P. S. You don't deserve this — you stingy, skimpy mol- 
 lusk! 
 
 To Lathrop Brown 
 
 Morgan Hill, [March] 16, [1921] 
 My dear Lathrop, — I wish I could be with you just to 
 laugh away that cynical mood. I know that I do not see 
 the world undressed, naked, in the raw, as you youngsters 
 do. Illusions and delusions, let them be ! I shall cherish 
 them. For whatever it is inside of me that I call soul seems 
 to grow on these things that seem so contrary to the re- 
 sults of experience. "If a lie works, it's the truth," says 
 Dooley. So say I, in my pragmatism. I have "become" 
 in the eyes of men and I want to "become" in the eyes of 
 my better self, that ego must be gratified at least by an 
 effort. And to "become" requires that there shall be some 
 faith. We don't accomplish by disbelieving. That is 
 your Mother's religion. It is my philosophy. She has 
 capacity for faith which I have not, because she climbs, 
 while I stand still. 
 
 Of course the inauguration business was commonplace. 
 That is Ohio statesmanship, somehow. But good may come 
 of it, and you and I want to help it, so far as it wants na- 
 tional food, to bear fruit. Damn all your politics and par- 
 tisanship ! Humbug — twaddle — fiddle-dee-dee, made for 
 
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434 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 lazy louts who want jobs and bosses who want power. 
 Well, we are out now for a long time, and we might as well 
 forget bitterness, or rather submerge it in the bigger call 
 of the nation. All of which you characterize as senti- 
 mentalism — so says Burleson, too. 
 
 I am beginning to despair of doctors and to say to my- 
 self, "Better get back to work, and go it as long as you can, 
 then quit and live on rolled oats and buttermilk until the 
 light goes out." . . . Well, goodnight, dear chap. 
 
 F.KL. 
 
 To John G. Gehring 
 
 [March] 21, [1921] 
 
 And how are you, Padre? Do you find that there are 
 those who can probe into the secrets within you and tell 
 more than you as patient can tell yourself? Has a physi- 
 cian who follows the biblical advice, "Heal thyself," a 
 Fool for a Doctor? What has been taught you in the ill- 
 smelling center of darkness, dreariness and torture, where 
 there is more need for beauty than in any other place, and 
 less of it, more need for gaiety, and less of it, more need for 
 wholesome suggestion and less of it? . . . All hospitals 
 should have bright paper on the walls, or bright pictures. 
 To hell with the microbe theory ! There are worse things 
 than microbes. All nurses should be good-looking. They 
 should paint and pad, if necessary, to give an imitation of 
 good looks. Now, honestly, do you not agree? And they 
 should not have doors open, nor ask perfunctory silly ques- 
 tions, such as "Well, how are we today?" 
 
 On examination nurses should be rated largely for things 
 that don't count — looks, cheerfulness, silliness, sympathy, 
 softness of hand, willingness to listen to the victim- 
 patient! . . . 
 
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FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 435 
 
 I am going to Rochester, . . . my brother is going with 
 me. Bless him ! He'd be glad to take you back, and he 
 can give you wood to chop, and a black-headed grosbeak 
 to sing for you. Ever hear one ? Better than Caruso. 
 
 May the Lord make his light to shine upon you and give 
 you peace. 
 
 F. K L. 
 
 To John H. Wigmore 
 
 Los Angeles, March 25, 1921 
 
 My dear John, — Hail to you brave leader of the Moral 
 Forces ! Isn't that an offensive title ? You see I have 
 been asked to join you in "Potentia." Isn't that word out 
 of the Middle Ages ? ( 
 
 I would like to join against crooks, thieves, and liars. 
 But the American people don't like anyone to assume that 
 he represents the Moral Forces. And "Potentia" sounds too 
 mystic for any land this side of Egypt. Am I not right? 
 Answer in one of your sane moments. You cannot go against 
 ridicule in America. Bishops here are not the same as 
 Lords in England. They cannot save from ridicule pre- 
 tentious good things. Now Ross and you are wise things. 
 How do you stand for "Moral Forces" and "Potentia"? 
 No, no, dear John ! — less hifalutism ! 
 
 I write for information. Tell me — do you think good 
 will come of it? My immediate judgment is against it, 
 strongly. In purpose — good, in method, name, — im- 
 possible. It is as if one were to say, "Come let us gather 
 together the Good and the Wise, and say who shall be called 
 honest men." Cicero, I believe, formed government by 
 the "boni." No one likes the good who advertise. I 
 don't. Am I all wrong ? . . . 
 
 Lane 
 
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436 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 To Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt 
 
 [Pasadena], March 25, [1921] 
 
 Your letters, my dear Mrs. Franklin, are refreshing 
 breezes. They are quite what breezes should be — warm, 
 kindly, stimulating; not hard, stiff, compelling things, off 
 a granite Northern shore. Anne rejoices in them, without 
 words. 
 
 I have been lately with my one brother on his ranch — a 
 large name implying vast herds quietly grazing over infinite 
 valleys and mountains. But all farms here are ranches, as 
 you doubtless know, as all weather is fine. My brother's 
 ranchita is eighty acres of beauty ; a stream below, running 
 up to manzanita crowns on good-sized hills, and oaks and 
 sycamores and bays, and many other trees between. He 
 has a house, all of which he planned in fullest detail himself, 
 with as lovely a site as anywhere, and a pretty and artistic 
 wife; a good saddle horse, a noble dog, a loyal and most 
 excellent cook, many books — and what more could he 
 have in heaven? Outside his dining-room window he has 
 built a dining-table for the birds, and so as we dined within, 
 they dined without. Each morning I saw the sun rise, and 
 I whistled as I dressed. One morning I climbed the hills 
 and found the cow and drove it in for the man to milk. 
 But my only morning duty was to pick a golden poppy or a 
 cherokee rose or a handful of wild forget-me-nots for my 
 button-hole. All day I sat in the sun, or drove a bit or 
 walked a little — talking, talking, talking ; of law, and Plato, 
 and Epictetus, and Harry Lauder, (whom we imitated, at a 
 distance ; for my brother sings Scotch songs) ; and we 
 talked too of our old girls and the early days of good hunt- 
 ing in this semi-civilized land, and of Woodrow Wilson and 
 H. G. Wells and Emerson and Henry George, and of Billy 
 Emerson, the negro minstrel, and William Keith our great 
 
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FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 437 
 
 artist. And we planned houses, adobe houses, that should 
 be built up above, over the manzanita bushes, and the 
 swimming-pool that should just naturally lie between the 
 two live-oaks hidden behind the natural screen of moun- 
 tain laurel, but open clear up to the sun. Each night we 
 closed with a round of songs, and maybe a hymn. And 
 bed was early. Now wasn't that a good place to be ? 
 
 Not so very different in atmosphere from Hyde Park ! 
 But what would Broadway say of such a life! Oh, the 
 serenity of it all, the dignity, the independence, the supe- 
 riority over so much that we think important. There one 
 could get a sense of proportion, and see things more nearly 
 in their natural color and size. Truly, I could have been 
 religious if I lived in the country — and not been too hard 
 driven for a living ! (For one can't be anything good or 
 great when pressed and bullied by necessity of any kind.) 
 
 So I grew in strength on the little ranch and unwillingly 
 came back for treatment here, which was not half so good 
 for soul or body as to sit in the sun and see the birds 
 daintily pick their crumbs and know that the dbg at my 
 knee understood what I did not tell him. 
 
 Give to the Ducal lady at Hyde Park my spring greet- 
 ings, and to the "young lord lover" who bears your name 
 my respectful regards. I expect to go to Rochester, or 
 elsewhere, in May, and in the meantime think me not silly 
 because I like you and have written of what I like. 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To John W. Hallowell 
 
 Los Angeles, March 31, 1921 
 
 Dear Jack, — I went to your Church on Sunday. Now 
 there ! Real Friends. I wondered, "Why the two doors ? " 
 as I went up the steps, but I said, "I'll take the nearest." 
 
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438 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 Someone was talking, so I plumped down in the backmost 
 seat. Then I looked about and found that I was faced by 
 three rows of sisters, in poke bonnets on a raised platform, 
 at the end of the room. Around me were women, women, 
 women, and children. Not a man ! 
 
 My wits at last came to me. I discovered there were two 
 rooms really, divided by pillars. And there were the men, 
 the blessed, homely men. So up I lifted hat and coat and 
 piled over on the man's side and breathed again. 
 
 The speaker looked like the late Senator Hoar and was 
 intoning or chanting his speech or address or sermon. I 
 had never heard it done and the cadence was charming. It 
 adds to the emotionalism of what is said. When he sat 
 down, there was a long pause, and then a sister, on the 
 opposite side now, quoted, modestly, a psalm. Two more, 
 a man and woman, spoke. Then a prayer and at twelve, 
 with one accord, we all rose and went out. 
 
 It is the essence of Democracy and I fear the forward there, 
 and not the most worthy of being heard, come to the front. 
 
 Please tell your mother how good I was ! And write me, 
 you scoundrel ! 
 
 F. K L. 
 
 Postcard to John G. Gehring 
 
 April 20, [1921] 
 
 On the eastbound train, traveling toward a little man who 
 carries a little knife in his hand and beckons me toward the 
 north. I do not go gladly, because I am feeling so much 
 better. Have had whole days and nights without pain, by 
 the exercise of all kinds of care. Still that is living "on 
 condition." Is there never again to be freedom? You 
 see I am a natural Protestant. Good luck to you, dear man. 
 
 Lane 
 
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FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 439 
 
 To Hall McAllister 
 
 R.R. Train, Minnesota, April 22 
 
 Dear Hall, — I am now on the St. Paul road going to 
 Lake City, where, it is said my son is to be married to a 
 charming, little Irish girl, one generation away from Ire- 
 land. 
 
 Right now, I am sitting opposite Mrs. Franklin K. Lane 
 who is, in turn, sitting beside my brother who has come 
 East with me as secretary, nurse, doctor, mentor, spiritual 
 advisor, valet, and companion. On my right is the Missis- 
 sippi river, of which you may have heard. On Sunday I 
 hope to go to Rochester again and then be cut in two, tho' 
 I am not sure they will do it. 
 
 I left California last Tuesday. It was quite pleased with 
 itself and full of pity for all the rest of the world. It surely 
 has much to say for itself, and says it with frequency and 
 normalcy. The only disappointment in dying will be the 
 unfortunate contrast — eh, you Californian ? But then 
 you and I are not like those transplanted Iowans who fill 
 Southern California, most of whom have never seen Mt. 
 Tamalpais nor the Golden Gate and yet think they know 
 California ! 
 
 I look at the paper and see "Harding" at the top of every 
 column. Then I think of W. W. looking at the paper and 
 seeing the same headlines. Oh, what unhappiness ! Not 
 all the devices of Tumulty for keeping alive illusions of gran- 
 deur could offset those headlines. Ungrateful world ! Un- 
 understanding world ! 
 
 I hope you like your new boss. He will be a good west- 
 ern Secretary, and is quite likely to get into a row with our 
 eastern conservation friends. I am glad he is from the 
 Senate, they care for their own. 
 
 I don't like Harrison jumping on Harvey after confirma- 
 
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440 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 tion. Looks little, weakens his influence as "our" man, 
 and is not sportsmanlike. We must take our medicine and 
 let Harding have his own way, and it won't be such a bad 
 way, but surely very different. 
 
 ... I should like to get back to Washington and loaf 
 for a time around Sheridan Circle. I know a woman there 
 who intrigued me (as you writers say) long, long ago with 
 various fascinations of spirit and mind and eye and voice. 
 But I fear she would not know me any more. 
 
 Now do not be discouraged because you have a bit of 
 sickness. You are youth, you can beat old whiskered 
 Time. Life has many a laugh in it yet for you. Why you 
 look forty years younger than Joe Redding — but don't 
 tell him I told you. 
 
 Lane 
 
 To Mrs. Frederic Peterson 
 
 Rochester, Minnesota, April 26, [1921] 
 
 My deae Mrs. Peterson, — ... Once more I am going 
 through the grinding of the Mayo mill, and this time I 
 hope to some concrete purpose, and have an end to this 
 coming out "by that same door wherein I went." The 
 dear old meditative, contemplative Orientals threw up their 
 hands in despair long years ago and found the figure of the 
 unending wheel to symbolize all processes and procedures; 
 a world, a universe, without termini. Sometimes I think 
 them right, but then again my western mind will not have 
 it that the riddle of the Sphinx may not be solved. Our 
 assurance meets every challenge; mystery may make us 
 humble ; we may be baffled ; but we do not despair because 
 we know we are Gods to whom all doors must open even- 
 tually. That seems to be the real underlying strength of 
 our position. Why men go on with research excepting out 
 
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FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 441 
 
 of some such philosophy I cannot see — nor why they go 
 on with life. 
 
 Tell your good man that I long to look once more into 
 the sweet face of the Shepaug, and that while I have been 
 wandering in the delicious and rare places, I have not for- 
 gotten the fresh wholesomeness of the Hoosatonic. My 
 first visit shall be to the meeting place of the Three Rivers. 
 Why might not fortune lead us to have a summer in Connec- 
 ticut and a winter in California? "I know a place where 
 the wild thyme grows," many such places indeed, and high 
 hillsides of wild lilac and a wee mountain crowned with the 
 flowering manzanita. Oh, this world is a place to make 
 souls grow if one can get an apple tree, a pine and an oak, 
 a few lilies, a circle of crimson phlox, a stretch of moving 
 water and a sweep of sky, that can be called one's own. 
 
 We saw Cordy Severance's place on Sunday — went there 
 from the wedding of my boy to Catherine McCahill — and 
 found a volume of the Chinese Lyrics x in the big room. 
 Great chap Cordy, and a great room he has to play the organ 
 in, and more people love him than anyone else I know, for 
 he loves them with an aggressiveness that few men dare 
 to show, that gives him distinction and is a glory. 
 
 How far away the war seems — way back yonder with the 
 fight for Independence and the French Revolution, almost 
 back to Caesar. Well, I must quit mental meanderings. 
 
 With all good will, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Roland Cotton Smith 
 
 Rochester, Minnesota, [April] 30 
 
 And you know that I cannot even write Spoon River! 
 Vain man! Strutting cock o' the walk! Knight of the 
 
 1 By Dr. Frederic Peterson. 
 
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442 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 Knickerbocker Club ! Gazer upon Fifth Avenue and the 
 Foibles and Frivolities ! Reveller in things of life and 
 Enjoyer of Gaiety ! 
 
 Look thou upon me. To Minnesota driven. In a hos- 
 pital-hotel. Punched and tapped by every stray Knight of 
 the Golden Fleecers. Awaiting a verdict from puzzled 
 doctors. . . . Bless you, I have been through years of 
 watchful waiting but not of this kind, and a few weeks of 
 this is enough. But I am a patient, long-suffering, Christian 
 martyr upon whom the Pagans work their will. 
 
 And you, poor man. Tied to a woman's foot ! Now that 
 is what I call humiliating. Worse than being tied to her 
 apron strings or to her chariot, (in the latter, they say, there 
 is often much joy.) Why should people have feet anyway 
 in these days of autos ? A mere transportation convenience ! 
 Well, all our transportation facilities seem to be out of order 
 these days. Fallen arches, in sooth ! Reminds one of 
 Rome. Very much more aristocratic than infected gall- 
 bladder after all. And I do hope they can be restored, those 
 arches, and the world once more put on its peripatetic way. 
 
 But you do not tell me of yourself. Can you chop wood 
 or saw wood or play golf or do aught else that doth become 
 a man of muscle, energy, life, vim, go, pep? Take a trip 
 to the South Seas, a knock-about trip, casting off clerical 
 garb and living in the open, mixing with the primitive 
 peoples, seeing beauteous nature, climbing mountains, 
 swimming in soft waters, not seeing newspaper or book. 
 They tell me that in Burmah live a happy people who love 
 beauty, are always smiling and follow the Golden Rule 
 far nearer than those who live by trade and are blest by 
 civilization. Ah, that I might see such a people ! The near- 
 est I ever came was at Honolulu, and there was the taint of 
 the Christian, alack-a-day! The White Man's Burden is 
 
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FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 443 
 
 the weight of the load of sin, disease, death, and misfortune 
 he has dropped on the happy ones who never knew a Chris- 
 tian creed. We have given them bath tubs in exchange for 
 cheerful living ! 
 
 I am as much in the air as to the future as I was in the 
 russet days of Bethel. But one of these days, let us hope 
 we may gather over a bottle of something sound and mellow, 
 and laugh together over our adventure into the land of the 
 woebegone. I do not take to it, tho' they say some people 
 live in it by choice, for they find something to talk of there, 
 and feel saintly because they suffer. Well, we will have 
 more knowledge in that happy future and more of sym- 
 pathy. What a lot one must endure to gain a wee bit of 
 wisdom. And then to have it die with us. Maybe it does 
 not, eh? Maybe it somehow, somewhere finds a corner 
 into which it drops and carries someone over a hard place. 
 I don't know what kind of theology this is that I am drip- 
 ping from my pen, but I cannot yet be beaten to the point 
 where I say it is all purposeless. And that is the faith 
 that may not save a soul but does save souls, I guess. 
 
 I wish you the joy and elevation of spirit that you have 
 many times given to my sick soul and to others. Did I 
 tell you my boy is married — to a Catholic girl too, of much 
 charm? They were married on the ancestral farm with 
 the ancestor of ninety years present and in high spirits. 
 
 A Dios, Padre mio, 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To John G. Gehring 
 
 Rochester, Minnesota, [April] 30, [1921] 
 
 Tomorrow will be May day — once, before the world 
 became industrial, a day of gladness, now a day of dread, 
 another result of mal-adjustment. 
 
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444 LETTERS OP FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 What ever would these doctors do if they had no cheeks 
 in which to hold their tongues while telling sick folk what 
 ails them, and the cure? You are learning, Sir, how much 
 of wisdom some men lack who have certain knowledge. 
 And wisdom is what we are after, we Knights of the Mystic 
 Sign. Wisdom — the essence of lives lived ; knocks, blows, 
 pains, tortures reduced to fears, and these incorporated into 
 a string or queue of people who have eyes, nerves, and powers 
 of inference, and the initiative to experiment and the im- 
 pulse to try, and try again. Result — a nugget no larger 
 than a mustard seed of intellectual or spiritual radium, 
 y-clept wisdom. It does not grow on ancestral trees or on 
 college campuses, nor does it come out of laboratories or 
 hospitals, tho' it is sometimes found in all these places. 
 A Carpenter is known to have possessed more of it than any 
 other man; tho' most of us don't possess enough wisdom 
 to know that He did possess so much of it. An Indian 
 Prince is also celebrated for the richness of his supply. 
 These men have been followed by others who sometimes 
 carried mirrors, but some had tiny grains of the real thing 
 also. And those are called Optimists and Transcen- 
 dentalists and Idealists and Fools who think that more and 
 more of these grains will come into the hearts and minds 
 of men; while those are called sensible, and shrewd, and 
 sane, who assert that the supply is uniform, stationary in 
 quantity but moved about from time to time, producing 
 nothing but the illusion that something is worth while. 
 
 But you and I say, "Suffer the Illusion to come into me, 
 for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven." Emerson says 
 each man is an "inlet" of the Divine Spirit — just a bit on 
 the side, out of the infinite ocean. Thus all of us are con- 
 nected up, and thus there is hope that some day doctors 
 will be wiser than today. . . . 
 
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FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 445 
 
 I should like to hold your hand for a time. It's the best 
 service one man can give another. We are great hand- 
 holders, we men, natural dependents, transfusers of sym- 
 pathy and understanding and heartening stuff. They tell 
 me here that your blood for purposes of transfusion is 1-2-3- 
 or 4. The last is common denominator blood and will go 
 into anyone safely, but is uncommon. All the other three 
 will kill if not put into those of corresponding quality of 
 blood. Well, you and I like each other because we have the 
 same wave-length to our nerve current, perhaps, and we 
 could hold hands without danger to the other fellow, and 
 possibly with some benefit to the world, — for human sym- 
 pathy makes good medicine. 
 
 Good fortune betide you ! My brother, who is sitting by, 
 wishes his affectionate regards to go with mine, and he hopes 
 you will some day see him in that vale of Paradise where he 
 lives. 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To Adolph C. Miller 
 Federal Reserve Board 
 
 Rochester, Minnesota, May 1, [1921] 
 
 May Day, Glad Day, Day of Festival and Frolic, — once. 
 Now Day of Portent, of Threats and the Evil Eye. Such 
 is the miracle worked by Steam Engine, Mechanics, Quick 
 Exchanges, Industry ! 
 
 With this happy opening let me to your letter in which 
 you love me a little, which I very much like, calling me baby, 
 — child, anyway. And so I am. I laugh at myself. I 
 cannot think of myself as Grandad or possible Grandad. 
 In fact, I should not be Grandad or Dad, notwithstanding 
 the beauty and noblemindedness and capacity of my dear 
 kids. But I have always been a priest, married to things 
 
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446 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 undomestic, and without the time which every father should 
 have to train and educe the mind of his offspring ; especially 
 to give sound and substantial bread and meat to their sub- 
 conscious mind when they are young. Then, too, a father 
 should have a religion, a sense of relation between him- 
 self and the Master, and be able to instill this by gentle 
 and non-didactive method into his bairns, so that they 
 may steer by the North Star and not by shiftier, flashier 
 stars. 
 
 Yes, altho' I am now tottering, bruised, battered, down 
 on the floor like a prostrate prize-fighter "taking the count" 
 and hoping for strength enough to rise, altho' an "aged man," 
 as I was once described in my hearing, I am the youngest 
 thing inside that I know ; in my curiosity and my trustful- 
 ness and my imagination, and my desire to help and my 
 belief in goodness and justice. I want to strike right out 
 now and see the world, and having found the good bring it 
 back and distribute it. And I see every day things that 
 should be done which make me long to live, even tho' I only 
 tell others that they should be done. And one thing that 
 bothers me right now is our money scheme. I know I am far 
 off from your standpoint, but there is something wrong when 
 there is so great a variation in the purchasing power of 
 things produced. Why is not Irving Fisher on the right road ? 
 I should like to lay a quieting hand upon the feverish desire 
 for things which so possesses our people. So few things will do, 
 rich, beautiful, solid things, but not many ; and then to live 
 with them, proud of them, revelling in them, and making 
 them to shine like well-handled bronze — not glossily but 
 deeply. The great luxury we will not allow ourselves is re- 
 pose; that is because we are not essentially dignified. 
 The soul is not respected sufficiently ; it is not given that 
 food on which it grows. 
 
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FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 447 
 
 Curious, the turn of my mind now, too. Having been 
 thinking, and while I still am thinking, in large terms, — 
 the city, the state, the nation, all peoples (I have grown 
 through them all, never really thinking of the family unit) 
 — I am now thinking of a nest, a roof of my own, a bit of 
 garden, a tree of my planting — little things, indeed, on 
 which the mind can rest, after casting an eye over the world 
 and talking in terms of continents. (And I wonder if the 
 gardens of the British — their week-ends at home with 
 flowers and birds, may not bring them down to those little 
 things which make for good sense, sanity, wisdom !) But 
 I fear me I may never so indulge myself, and that is wrong — 
 that a man should live for fifty-seven years and never thrust 
 his hand into his own bit of his country's soil — such con- 
 dition makes against loyalties that are essential. 
 
 Now I have talked with you for a long time, but not long 
 enough. How I should like to sit in the big re-upholstered 
 chair beside the lamp, beyond the fire, and throw a match 
 into your brain stuff that would start it blazing. Yes, and 
 I would like to gather around that fire a few whom I love. 
 You and Aleck and Sid. and Pfeiffer and Jack Hallo well 
 and John Burns and Brydon Lamb and Lathrop Brown and 
 Cotton Smith and John Finley and Dr. Gehring and John 
 Wigmore — the real world is very small, isn't it ? 
 
 It just may be that the verdict here will be one of exile to 
 California, to my brother George's farm ; ah, yes he should 
 be with the few great, and I say 'exile' for I wonder if I 
 should ever see any of you then ? My doctor in Pasadena 
 said that I should live as a country gentleman, and I an- 
 swered, "But that takes money." Yet I would not know 
 where the farm should be, for climate is not all. v So long, 
 
 old man. 
 
 F.K. 
 
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448 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 Many months later, writing to Mrs. Lane this friend of 
 many years says, "I want also to recall the remark Frank 
 made when you and Mary, and he and I, were rain-bound in 
 the little chalet at St. Mary's in Glacier Park, nine years ago. 
 That was an outstanding experience in my long friendship 
 with Frank. We had many hours to discuss things, and no 
 matter on what road we started, we always came back to a 
 discussion of life ; what it was all for, and what it was about, 
 and what principle a chivalrous man should take in adjusting 
 himself usefully to the going world. I remember late one 
 night we sat in the dimly lighted room after a long dis- 
 cussion, he arose, and turning to me said : 'Doesn't it, after 
 all, just come to this, — To spend and to be spent — isn't that 
 what life is?' Every subsequent experience with Frank 
 confirmed me in the belief that that was his personal philos- 
 ophy. That is why he lived greatly while he lived, and died 
 nobly when his life was spent." 
 
 To Robert Lansing 
 
 Rochester, Minnesota, May 2, [1921] 
 
 My dear Lansing, — I am to be operated on on Friday 
 and so send you this line that you may know that I have 
 yours of April sixteenth, and have rejoiced very much at 
 its good news, that you were better, and that you were not 
 bitter because of the come-back campaign. 
 
 Really, I think Harding is doing well, or rather that the 
 whole administration is being supported well by the country. 
 Oh, these Republicans have the art of governing, and we do 
 so much better at talking ! No one knows just what his 
 foreign policy is, but something will work through that will 
 satisfy a very tired people. There seem to be comparatively 
 few out of work now. We are not out of the woods yet. 
 
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FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 449 
 
 But the Lord will take care of them. He may even keep 
 Johnson from bolting Harding. They will temporize 
 through ; that's my guess. 
 
 Good English the people don't know. Ideality they have 
 had enough of for a time. They just want to get down 
 to brass tacks and make some money, so that the Mrs. can 
 have more new dresses. I do earnestly wish them luck. 
 God gave us the great day, and you and I, anyway, are not 
 ashamed of the parts we played. In fact, the party loomed 
 pretty large those days — the whole country breathed 
 lung-fuls and felt heroic. We shall not look upon such 
 another time nor act for a people so nobly inspired. 
 
 Please give to Mrs. Lansing my very best regards — fine 
 spirit, that she is — and to you, as always, dear Lansing, 
 my affection and esteem. 
 
 Lane 
 
 To James D. Phelan 
 
 Rochester, Minnesota, May 2, 1921 
 My dear Jim, — Glad to hear from you and to get so cheer- 
 ful a word, for surely you are justified in looking upon the 
 world as very much of a friend of yours. You have a rare 
 home, in which to gather your many friends, and you have 
 had honors in abundance, and now may rest and write and 
 speak and adjust yourself to things — terrestrial and celes- 
 tial — and other service will call you. There must be some 
 Democrats appointed to adjust European or other diffi- 
 culties, even by a Republican, and you will be the prominent 
 one. So I can look across the mountains to Montalvo and 
 find you ripening into a fine old mellow age, conscious of 
 usefulness, in health and in happiness. May it be so ! 
 
 Just as soon as my boy gets here, I shall be operated on. 
 . . . Ned is now on his honeymoon with his darling little 
 
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450 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 bride, a Catholic Irish girl named Catherine McCahill, whose 
 grey-whiskered grandfather of ninety quite took the shine 
 off the bride at the wedding. He is a Democrat (State 
 Senator for thirty years) a Sinn Feiner of the most robust 
 sort, and a farmer of many acres. 
 
 Poor Anne, she is in for a bad time, with Nancy sick, but 
 she has a good stout heart and a most adequate and com- 
 fortable religious faith, which throws things that are per- 
 sonal into a very minor place. The theory of relativity 
 has more than one expression indeed, and things are small 
 when looked at from a height. And it is good to find one 
 who can be both religious and large. 
 
 The country seems to be liking Harding and his cabinet 
 more and more. They do have a faculty for getting 
 things done, those Republicans, and they are subjected to 
 so little criticism. It is really good to see them do their 
 work and get away with things so neatly. ... As always, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Mr. and Mrs. Louis Hertle 
 
 Gunston Hall on the Potomac 
 
 Rochester, Minnesota, May 2 
 Dear People, — What good angel ever put it into your 
 heart to wire us — and such a warm electric message ! 
 
 I tell you this is not Gunston Hall — so few birds, flowers, 
 trees — but I like the great sweep of the sky out here. There 
 is nothing mean about this land of ours. It gives you some- 
 thing, and gives it to you generously, something lovable 
 wherever you are. 
 
 The Doctors have not decided what to do with me. . . . 
 But we'll be out of suspence this week, I expect. 
 
 I can see your garden now — fountain, hedge, roses, 
 bird-boxes, pergola, box and all — with the dignified, stately 
 
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FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 451 
 
 Potomac way out yonder, beyond the cleared fields and the 
 timber. Lucky people, and you deserve it all. No one, 
 not even the Bolsheviks, would take it from you. Cordially 
 yours always, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 To Alexander Vogelsang 
 
 Rochester, Minnesota, May 4, 1921 
 
 Dear Aleck, — I must pass under the knife, that is the 
 verdict. On Friday morning the act takes place. And out 
 will come gall-bladder, adhesions, appendix and all things 
 appertaining thereto, including hereditaments, reversions, 
 lives in posse, and sinecures. So that's that ! 
 
 They say that my heart has grown much worse in the last 
 three months, but that I probably have four chances out 
 of five of pulling through, which is more chance than I ever 
 had in politics in California. I believe I am to be operated 
 on while conscious, as they fear to give ether. I trust my 
 curiosity will not interfere with the surgeon's facility. 
 
 Ah well, this old shell is not myself, and I have never felt 
 that the world's axis was located with reference to my hab- 
 itat. But this is so interesting an old world that I don't 
 want to leave it prematurely, because one does run the risk 
 of not coming upon one equally interesting. So I shall 
 think of you and try to see you later, in the new offices in the 
 Mills Building. May clients come thick as dogwood in Rock 
 Creek Park ; and trout streams in hidden places be revealed 
 unto you, within an hour's flight by aero. Affectionately, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
 P. S. Give my regards to the boys with you and in the 
 office, when you see them — and to Wade Ellis and Ira 
 Bennett and others who may be interested. Love to your 
 dear Lady ! 
 
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452 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K LANE 
 
 To John Finley 
 
 New York Times 
 
 Rochester, Minnesota, May 4, [1921] 
 
 My dear Finley, — I have your postal from London and 
 it cheereth me — Yea, thou hast done a kindly act to one 
 who is sore beset. . . . 
 
 When you and I can talk together I want to urge a new 
 field upon your great paper. Perhaps you can take it up 
 with Mr. Ochs and perhaps he can see how he can add to 
 his usefulness and to the glory of his paper's name. 
 
 My thought is that there should be somewhere — and why 
 not in New York ? — a Place of Exchange for the New Ideas 
 that the world evolves each year, a central spot where all 
 that is new in science, philosophy, practical political machin- 
 ery, and all else of the world's mind-products shall be placed 
 on exhibition where those interested may see. Why should 
 not the Times do this ? 
 
 It would cost very little. All the plant needs would be 
 a building which would contain one or two fine halls for 
 public speaking, and a few properly appointed apartments. 
 No faculty — but a super-university with all the searchers 
 and researchers, inventors, experimenters, thinkers of the 
 world for faculty. No students — but every man the 
 world round interested in the theme under consideration, 
 welcome, as student without pay. The only executive officer 
 a Director, whose business would be to see that the great 
 minds were tapped, — a high class impresario, who would 
 know who had thought thoughts, developed a theory, found 
 a new problem, or a new method of solving an old one, and 
 [would] bring the thinker on the stage and present him to 
 those who knew of what he talked ; and could intelligently, 
 quickly, distribute it to the ends of the earth. 
 
 Money? The lecturer would get his expenses from his 
 
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FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 453 
 
 home and back again, and be cared for appropriately in one 
 of the apartments. Otherwise the incidental expenses of 
 administration. Aside from the single and simple building 
 the whole thing should not cost more than $100,000 a year. 
 
 To illustrate — it took years for the world to know what 
 Rutherford was doing with radium. Why should he not 
 have been brought to some central place and there, before 
 all the students who might choose to come, tell his story ? 
 
 Pasteur, Einstein, Bergson, Wright Brothers, Wells 
 (theory of Education). These names are suggestive. The 
 great of the world could walk, as it were, in the groves with 
 their pupils and critics, and we could have a new Athens. 
 Whatever progress the world had made, in whatever line, 
 would be reported at that time. And the world would know 
 in advance that this was to be so. Germany has been the 
 world thought center for forty years. England is now 
 planning to take Germany's place. Why not America? 
 But the government has not the imagination, and this must 
 be done quickly. 
 
 Why not the Times? And why shouldn't you start it 
 for the Times — be the first Director ? 
 
 Then I want someone to take over another of my ideas — a 
 sort of Federal Reserve Board on the good of the nation, an 
 unofficial group of men with foresight, who would be a spur to 
 government and suggest direction. Somebody whose busi- 
 ness it would be to attend to that which is nobody's business 
 and so waits, and waits, until sometimes too late. Why 
 should we have had no plans for caring for our soldiers as to 
 employment and giving them the right bent on their return ? 
 
 There was no one to concentrate attention — the atten- 
 tion of Congress and the public — on any definite plan. 
 I tried it with my scheme for making farms for soldiers, 
 but Congress, as soon as it found that I was really agitating, 
 
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454 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K LANE 
 
 passed laws making it impossible for me to use a sheet of 
 paper or the frank for the purpose. I do not say my pl & n 
 was the best possible. Then someone should have come 
 forward with another, and pushed it against a Congress 
 made up of Republicans who feared that Democrats would 
 get the credit, and Democrats who feared Republicans 
 would. Hence, deadlock, and a great opportunity lost ! . . . 
 
 Seers, or see-ers, that's what these men should be. Elder 
 Statesmen, if you please, independent, away above politics. 
 
 Doesn't it seem to you that we are coming to be altogether 
 too dependent on the President ? That office will be ruined. 
 Every one with a sore thumb has come into the habit of 
 running to the President. This is all wrong, all wrong. He 
 cannot do his job well now. And he is only nominally doing 
 it, and only nominally has been doing it for years. But 
 each month seems to add to his duties as arbiter of every- 
 thing from clothes to strikes, from baseball to disarmament. 
 
 I see a tremendous field for a body of a few ripe minds 
 who would talk so little, and so wisely, and so collectively, 
 that they could get and hold the ear of the country, govern- 
 mental and otherwise. 
 
 I outlined for Mezes, in your old job, a series of lectures 
 by Americans who have done things on Why America is 
 Worth While — and he has expanded it into a whole course 
 on America, so that I believe he will have something new and 
 great — teaching history, geology, art, everything, by the 
 history of that thing in America, and how it came to come 
 here, or be here, or what it means here. 
 
 Well, I have written you a book and must stop — I don't 
 know where to address you but will send this to the Times. 
 Please remember me to Mr. Ochs — who can see things, 
 and here's hoping it won't be long before we meet. Yours 
 always, 
 
 Franklin K. Lane 
 
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FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 455 
 
 To James H. Barry 
 
 San Francisco Star 
 
 Rochester, Minnesota, May 5, [1921] 
 My dear Jim, — I have nothing of importance to say, 
 except that I am to be operated on tomorrow and hope 
 for the best, for Dr. Will Mayo is to do the operating, and 
 I am not in a very run-down condition. 
 
 I find myself quite serene, for I can look forward even 
 to the very worst result with the feeling that there is no one 
 to meet me over there to whom I've done any wrong. And 
 while I haven't done my best, my score hasn't been blank. 
 I honestly believe I've added a farthing or two to the talent 
 that was given me. 
 
 My brother George is here, with his splendid philosophy 
 and his Scotch songs ; and Ned, my boy, and his bride have 
 just come back, so that Anne and I are very well content 
 that things are just as they should be. I go to St. Mary's 
 Hospital where they have nuns for nurses, and when time 
 comes for recuperation I shall go to the near-by estate of 
 my old friend, Severance, the big St. Paul lawyer, whom I 
 have known these thirty years. 
 
 I hope, my dear old man, that you will find new occupa- 
 tion soon that will give you use for your pen, and sterling 
 love of justice. My regards, sincere and hearty to your 
 family, and my other friends. 
 
 F. K. Lane 
 
 To Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt 
 
 Rochester, Minnesota, May 5, [1921] 
 
 Just because I like you very much, and being a very old 
 man dare to say so, I am sending this line, which has no 
 excuse in its news, philosophy or advice; has no excuse, 
 in fact, except what might be called affection, but of course 
 
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456 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 this being way past the Victorian era, no one admits to af- 
 fections ! I will not belittle my own feeling by saying that I 
 have a wife who thinks you the best Eastern product — 
 and probably she'd move to strike out the word "Eastern." 
 At any rate, I think I should tell you myself that I am to 
 be operated on tomorrow, by Dr. Will Mayo, and am glad 
 of it. We shall see what we shall see. 
 
 I find myself quite serene about the matter, altho' I be- 
 lieve my heart is so bad that they fear giving ether and will 
 keep me conscious if they can, applying only a local anes- 
 thetic. 
 
 I'd like to have Anne's perfect sureness as to the future, 
 but lacking it, I do not look forward with fear, even if the 
 worst should happen. I've never done a wrong to any man 
 or woman or child that I can now recall — but maybe my 
 memory is failing. 
 
 My boy and his bride came back this morning — happy ! 
 Oh, so happy ! And my "best beloved" brother who sings 
 Scotch songs is here — a great philosopher whom you would 
 deeply admire — and our friends the Severances of St. Paul, 
 thirty year-old friends, they come over tonight. So we will 
 be a merry, merry company. I'd love to see you and the gay 
 Cavalier, but let us hope it won't be long till we meet ! 
 Au revoir ! 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To friends who had telegraphed and written urgently for news 
 
 May 11, 1921 
 It is Wednesday afternoon and I am now sitting up in bed 
 talking to my good friend, Cotter. Until yesterday I did 
 not clearly visualize any one thing in this room and did not 
 know that it had a window, except that there was a place 
 that noise came through, but I did know that it had a yellow 
 
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FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 457 
 
 oak door that stared at me with its great, big, square eye, 
 all day and all night. 
 
 Last Friday, you see, about ten in the morning, I took the 
 step that I should have taken months, yes, years ago. I 
 was stretched on a stiff, hard table, my arms were clamped 
 down and in three-quarters of an hour I had my appendix 
 and my gall bladder removed, which latter was a stone 
 quarry and the former a cesspool. Today, most tentatively, 
 I crawled on to a chair and ate my first mouthful of solid 
 food. But four days ago I managed to shave myself, and 
 I am regarded as pretty spry. 
 
 I have seen death come to men in various ways, some 
 rather novel and western. I once saw a man hanged. And 
 I have seen several men shot, and came very near going out 
 that way myself two or three times, but always the other 
 fellow aimed poorly. I was being shot at because I was a 
 newspaper man, and I should have been shot at. There 
 must be public concern in what is printed, as well as its truth, 
 to justify it. That is something that newspapers should 
 get to know in this country. After the earthquake in San 
 Francisco, I saw walls topple out upon a man. And I have 
 had more intimate glimpses still of the picturesque and of 
 the prosaic ways by which men come to their taking off. 
 
 But never before have I been called upon deliberately 
 to walk into the Valley of the Shadow and, say what you 
 will, it is a great act. I have said, during the past months 
 of endless examination, that a man with little curiosity and 
 little humor and a little money who was not in too great 
 pain could enjoy himself studying the ways of doctors and 
 nurses, as he journeyed the invalid's path. It was indeed 
 made a flowery path for me, as much as any path could be 
 
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458 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 in which a man suffered more humiliation and distress and 
 thwarting and frustration, on the whole, than he did pain. 
 
 But here was a path, the end of which I could not see. 
 I was not compelled to take it. My very latest doctor ad- 
 vised me against taking it. I could live some time without 
 taking it. It was a bet on the high card with a chance to 
 win, and I took it. 
 
 I undressed myself with my boy's help, in one of the 
 hospital rooms, and then arraying myself in my best suit 
 of pajamas and an antique samaurai robe which I use as a 
 dressing gown, submitted myself to being given a dose of 
 dazing opiate, which was to do its work in about fifteen 
 minutes. I then mounted a chair and was wheeled along 
 the corridor to the elevator, stopping meantime to say 
 "adieu" to my dear ones, who would somehow or other 
 insist upon saying "good-bye," which is a different word. 
 I was not to be given the usual anesthetic, because my heart 
 had been cutting up some didos, so I must take a local 
 anesthetic which w'as to be administered by a very celebrated 
 Frenchman. I need not tell you that this whole performance 
 was managed with considerable Sclat, and Doctor Will Mayo, 
 probably the first surgeon of the world, was to use the knife ; 
 and in the gallery looking on were Doctor Finney, of Johns 
 Hopkins, Doctor Billings, of Chicago, Doctor Vaughan of 
 the Michigan University, and others. On the whole, it was 
 what the society reporter would call a recherchS affair. The 
 local anesthetic consists of morphine and scopolamin. It 
 is administered directly by needle to the nerves that lead 
 to those particular parts which are to be affected by the 
 operation. This I watched myself with the profoundest 
 interest. It was painful, somewhat, but it was done with 
 the niceness and precision that make this new method of 
 anesthesia a real work of art. I should think that the 
 
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FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 459 
 
 Japanese, with their very rare power at embroidery, might 
 come to be past masters in this work. There were some 
 insertions very superficial and some extremely deep. Over 
 the operator's head, there were a half dozen heads peering 
 intently at each move he made, while the patient himself 
 was free to lift his head and look down and see just what 
 was being done. I did not test myself, as I should have, 
 to see whether I was paralyzed in any part. 
 
 Just when this performance came to a head, Doctor Mayo 
 came in and said, "Well, I am going in for something." 
 I said, "That's right, and I hope you will get it." 
 
 His statement did not conclusively prove confidence that 
 he would find the cause of my trouble by going in. . . . I 
 knew there could be no such definiteness, but I said to 
 myself, "He will get it, if it's there." 
 
 For two days I had had knowledge that this operation was 
 to take place at this time, and my nerves had not been just 
 as good as they should have been. Those men who sleep 
 twelve hours perfectly before being electrocuted have evi- 
 dently led more tranquil lives than I have, or have less con- 
 cern as to the future. Ah, now I was to know the great 
 secret ! For forty years I had been wondering, wondering. 
 Often I had said to myself that I should summon to my mind 
 when this moment came, some words that would be some- 
 what a synthesis of my philosophy. Socrates said to those 
 who stood by, after he had drunk the hemlock, "No evil 
 can befall a good man, whether he be alive or dead." I don't 
 know how far from that we have gone in these twenty-four 
 hundred years. The apothegm, however, was not apposite to 
 me, because it involved a declaration that I was a good man, 
 and I don't know anyone who has the right so to appreciate 
 himself. And I had come to the conclusion that perhaps 
 the best statement of my creed could be fitted into the words, 
 
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460 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE . 
 
 "I accept," which to me meant that if in the law of nature 
 my individual spirit was to go back into the great Ocean of 
 Spirits, my one duty was to conform. ' ' Lead Kindly Light," 
 was all the gospel I had. I accepted. I made pretense to 
 put out my hand in submission and lay there. 
 
 "All through, doctor?" 
 
 "Yes, doctor." 
 
 "Very well, we will proceed." 
 
 And I was gradually pushed through the hall into the 
 operating room. The process there was lightning-like. I 
 was in torture. 
 
 "Lift me up, lift me up." 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 "I have one of those angina pains and I must ease it by 
 getting up and taking some nitro." 
 
 That had been my practice, but I did not reason that 
 never before had the pain come on my right side. 
 
 "Give him a whiff of ether." The tenderest arms stole 
 around my head and the softest possible voice — Ulysses 
 must have heard it long ago — "Now do take a deep breath." 
 I resisted. I had been told that I would see the perform- 
 ance. 
 
 "Please do, breathe very deeply — just one good deep 
 breath." 
 
 That pain was burning the side out of me. I tried to get 
 my hand up to my side. Of course it was tied down. I 
 swore. 
 
 "Oh Christ ! This is terrible." 
 
 "It will stop if you will reach for a big breath," — and I 
 resigned myself. Men who are given the third degree have 
 no stronger will than mine. I knew I was helpless. I must 
 go through. I must surrender to that Circean voice. 
 
 I heard the doctor in a commonplace monotone say, "This 
 
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FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 461 
 
 is an unusual case " — the rest of this sentence I never 
 
 heard. 
 
 There was a long ray of gray light leading from my bed 
 to my door. I had opened my eyes. "I had not died." 
 I had come through the Valley. 
 
 "I wonder what he got." 
 
 In the broad part of the ray was my wife smiling, and 
 stretching out to that unreachable door were others whom 
 I recognized, all smiling. Things were dim, but my mind 
 seemed definite. 
 
 "What did he get?" I had expected eternal mysteries 
 to be unraveled. Either I would know, or not know, and 
 I would not know that I would not know. 
 
 "He got a gall-bladder filled with stones and a bad ap- 
 pendix, and now you are to lie still." 
 
 Then to this the drama had come, the drama beyond all 
 dramas — a handful of brownish secretions and a couple of 
 pieces of morbid flesh ! ! Ah me ! 
 
 I am doing well, cared for well, as happy as can be ; have 
 had none of my angina pains since the operation. And as I 
 lie here, I contemplate [making] a frieze — a procession of 
 doctors and nurses and internes, of diagnosticians and tech- 
 nicians and experts and mechanics and servitors and cooks — 
 all, the great and the small, in profile. They are to look 
 like those who have made their pretenses before me during 
 the past year; — the solemn and the stupid; the kindly, 
 the reckless; the offhand; the erudite, the practical; the 
 many men with tubes and the many men with electrical 
 machines. Old Esculapius must begin the procession but the 
 Man with the Knife, regnant, heroic size, must end it. 
 
 What a great thing, what a pride, to have the two men 
 
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462 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 of greatest constructive imagination and courage in sur- 
 gery in the world as Americans, Dr. Charles and Dr. Will 
 Mayo. 
 
 To Alexander Vogelsang 
 
 Rochester, Minnesota, May 14, [1921] 
 
 This is a line by my own hand, dear Aleck, just to show 
 you that I am still this much master of myself. . . . 
 
 I am going through much pain. Inside I am a great boil. 
 But Nature is doing all she can, and I am helping. They 
 think me a right model sort of patient, for I made a showing 
 of exceptional recovery. When T. R. shaved the day after, 
 I said, "Hip Hip !" Well, I done it too ! I guess as how I 
 haven't been so very bad a boy all these fifty-seven years or 
 I couldn't play as good as "par" at this game, and they say 
 they have no better record than mine on the books. 
 
 The National Geographic Society did a nice thing. Today 
 I got a resolution of the most sympathetic kind from them. 
 Some gentlemen still alive, eh ? 
 
 I dictated a bit of a thing about my experience the other 
 day to Cotter — something to send off to the chaps who 
 wrote or wired — and sent you one. I hope it wasn't soft 
 or slobby. Did you think it was all right to come from a 
 sick bed ? 
 
 It will be three weeks or more yet of hospital, and then 
 much of recuperation. But I have no complaint. I feel 
 a faith growing in me, and I may yet draw my sword in some 
 good fight. Affectionately, 
 
 Feank 
 
 To John W. Hallowell 
 
 Rochester, Minnesota, May 14, 1921 
 
 Dear Jack, — I've been down into the Valley since I heard 
 from you, but I'm up once more and with new light in my 
 
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FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 463 
 
 eye, new faith in my heart, more sense of the things that 
 count and those that don't. And affection, love for the 
 good thing of any kind; loyalty, even mistaken loyalty, 
 these are the things that the Gods treasure. They live 
 longest. So I turn to give you my hand, dear boy. 
 
 I was most badly infected, but I really never felt better 
 than when I stepped out of the auto on to the hospital steps. 
 And it took some nerve for me to say, "Go to it," under 
 such circumstances. (I am patting myself on the back a 
 bit now.) 
 
 Well, Glory be ! — that step is taken and now I must 
 fight to get fit. They say I am making as good a record as 
 a boy, as to recovery, so all my Scotch whiskies, and big 
 cigars and late nights with you politicians have not ruined me. 
 
 Say dear things to your Mother for me, Jack, and give 
 greetings to all your family. 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
 To Robert Lansing 
 
 Rochester, 14 [May, 1921] 
 
 My dear Lansing, — I am disturbed because you may be 
 disturbed. As I lie in bed I read and am read to, and some 
 of the papers do not treat you decently. The very ones 
 that were loudest in their declarations against W. W. at 
 every stage, now suggest that you might have quit his service 
 if you didn't like it. I hope it will not get under your 
 
 skin ... 
 
 What comfort you would have given the enemy if you 
 had resigned ! Have they thought of that ? I came to the 
 brink when the President blew up my coal agreement to 
 save three or four hundred million dollars for the people. 
 But I was stopped by the thought, "Give no comfort to 
 Berlin "... Good night and good luck. 
 
 F. K. L. 
 
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464 LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE 
 
 Manuscript fragment written May 17, 1921, and found 
 in his room. Franklin K. Lane died May 18, 1921. 
 
 And if I had passed into that other land, whom would I 
 have sought — and what should I have done ? 
 
 No doubt, first of all I would have sought the few loved 
 ones whose common life with me had given us matter for 
 talk, and whom I had known so well that I had loved dearly. 
 Then perhaps there might have [been] some gratifying of a 
 cheap curiosity, some searching and craning after the names 
 that had been sierras along my skyline. But I know now 
 there would have been little of that. It would not have 
 been in me to have gone about asking Alexander and Crom- 
 well little questions. For what would signify the trifle 
 which made a personal fortune, that put a new name up 
 upon some pilaster men bowed to as they passed ? Were 
 Aristotle there, holding in his hand the strings and cables 
 that tied together all the swinging and surging and lagging 
 movements of the whole earth's life — an informed, preg- 
 nant Aristotle, — Ah ! there would be the man to talk with ! 
 What satisfaction to see him take, like reins from between 
 his fingers the long ribbons of man's life and trace it through 
 the mystifying maze of all the wonderful adventure of his 
 coming up. The crooked made straight. The 'Daedalian 
 plan ' simplified by a look from above — smeared out as it 
 were by the splotch of some master thumb that made the 
 whole involuted, boggling thing one beautiful, straight line. 
 And one could see, as on a map of ocean currents, the swing 
 and movements of a thousand million years. I think that 
 I would not expect that he could tell the reason why the 
 way began, nor where it would end. That's divine business, 
 yet for the free-going of the mind it would lend such impulse, 
 to see clearly. Thus much for curiosity ! The way up 
 which we've stumbled. 
 
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FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE 465 
 
 But for my heart's content in that new land, I think I'd 
 rather loaf with Lincoln along a river bank. I know I could 
 understand him. I would not have to learn who were his 
 friends and who his enemies, what theories he was com- 
 mitted to, and what against. We could just talk and open 
 out our minds, and tell our doubts and swap the longings 
 of our hearts that others never heard of. He wouldn't 
 try to master me nor to make me feel how small I was. 
 I'd dare to ask him things and know that he felt awkward 
 about them, too. And I would find, I know I would, that 
 he had hit his shin just on those very stumps that had hit me. 
 We'd talk of men a lot, the kind they call the great. I would 
 not find him scornful. Yet boys that he knew in New 
 Salem would somehow appear larger in their souls, than 
 some of these that I had called the great. His wise eyes 
 saw qualities that weighed more than smartness. Yes, we 
 would sit down where the bank sloped gently to the quiet 
 stream and glance at the picture of our people, the negroes 
 being lynched, the miners' civil war, labor's hold ups, em- 
 ployers' ruthlessness, the subordination of humanity to 
 industry, 
 
 THE END 
 
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INDEX 
 
 Abbott, Lawrence F., letters to, on 
 fixing of a rate, 71 ; on use of Govern- 
 ment by the people, 80; on Japanese 
 in California, 135; water-power and 
 leasing bills, 161. 
 
 Adams, Edward F., letters to, on rail- 
 roads, 64; on water problem, 144; on 
 politics, 198. 
 
 Alaska, purchase of, 260-61. 
 
 Alaskan railroad, 13, 258-60, 290. 
 
 Alderman, Edwin, letter to, 134. 
 
 Amaurot Club, 37, 165. 
 
 Americanization, ritual for citizenship, 
 208; Mr. Lane declines offer as head 
 of movement, 321; through Moving 
 Picture Industry, 333. 
 
 American Merchant Marine, 66, 346. 
 
 American-Mexican Joint Commission, 
 225, 226, 227. 
 
 American Pioneer, 165. 
 
 American Spirit, 213. 
 
 Andersen, Mrs. Magnus, letters to, 
 190, 329. 
 
 Asher, Hugo K., 210; letters to, 107, 
 334. 
 
 Avery, Eugene A., 179. 
 
 Baker, Newton, 234, 295. 
 
 Balfour, Arthur, 174, 178, 247, 250, 
 251. 
 
 Ballot Reform, 12, 20, 21, 22. 
 
 Barry, James H., letters to, 143, 231, 
 405, 455. 
 
 Beard, E. B., letter to, on rate reduc- 
 tions, 67. 
 
 Benjamin, Judah P., 118. 
 
 Bennett, Ira, 114, 451. 
 
 Bernstorff, Johann Von, Ambassador 
 from Germany, 233, 238. 
 
 Bishop, Joseph Bucklin, 24. 
 
 Black, Van-Lear, 412, 413. 
 
 BIythe, Samuel G„ letters to, 87, 302. 
 
 Bole, William M., letters, on Reclama- 
 tion Service, 136; on writing simple 
 English, 195. 
 
 Bolshevism, 291, 296, 298, 320,370, 383. 
 
 Bonaparte, Charles, 63. 
 
 Bonus — to soldiers, 339. 
 
 Bowers, Lloyd, 73. 
 
 Bradley, E. C, letters to, 304, 306, 
 
 317. 
 Brougham, H. B., letter, on ceremony 
 
 on Admission to Citizenship, 208. 
 Brown, James P., letter to, 116. 
 Brown, Lathrop, reference to, 244; 
 
 letters to, 372, 402; men to make a 
 
 program, 411, 412; "Wanted — A 
 
 Miracle Man," 413, 433. 
 Browning, Robert, 26. 
 Bryan, William Jennings, 98, 99, 104, 
 
 167; as a moral force in politics, 334; 
 
 letters to, 111; on Hoover, 163. 
 Buckle, Henry Thomas, 26 
 Budd, James, 37. 
 Buddhism, 376, 400, 408. 
 Burleson, Albert S., 243, 266, 294, 297, 
 
 299. 
 Burns, John Crawford, 24, 25, 27; letters 
 
 to, 83; on the War, 164; on position of 
 
 a Neutral, 166; on German audacity, 
 
 168; on the War, 173, 178, 183; on 
 
 materialism, 324. 
 Butler, Charles Henry, 260. 
 
 Cabinet Meetings, 147, 233, 234, 235, 
 236, 238, 239, 242, 264, 266, 267, 274, 
 293, 296, 297, 299. 
 
 Cannon, Joseph, 206. 
 
 Casement, Sir Roger, 206. 
 
 Chocheprat, Admiral, 253. 
 
 Civil Service, 18, 19, 145-46. 
 
 Clark, Champ, 88, 89. 
 
 Clarkson, Grosvenor, quoted, 244, 248- 
 50. 
 
 Class distrust, 46. 
 
 Cleveland, Grover, 18, 20, 27, 414. 
 
 Coal agreement, 292, 463. 
 
 Cobb, Frank I., reference to, 96; letters 
 to, on leasing bill, 207; on the elec- 
 tion, 227; on Bernstorff's activities, 
 238; on need for ships, 245; on U-boat 
 situation, 253; on newspapers, 326; 
 
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468 
 
 INDEX 
 
 on condition of Democratic party, 
 
 373; to make Democratic program, 
 
 412. 
 Cobbett's Parliamentary Reports, 169. 
 Cockrill, Senator Francis M., 50. 
 Commerce Court, 71, 90. 
 Congress, 69, 71, 75, 76, 79, 80, 100, 
 
 110-11, 316; bill against illiteracy, 
 
 326. 
 Conservation by use, 13, 42, 272. 
 Convoying or arming ships, 234, 236, 
 
 239-40. 
 Corporation regulation, 117. 
 Cotter, Joseph J., 456, 462. 
 Council of National Defense, 13, 236, 
 
 243, 248-50, 300. 
 Cox, James M., reference to, 356, 359; 
 
 letter on campaign issues, 343-350. 
 Cullom, Leslie (Senator), 61. 
 Currency question, 117, 120, 124, 126. 
 
 Daniels, Josephus, 239, 243, 267. 
 
 Darwin, Charles, 26. 
 
 Davis, John P., letter on German Note, 
 180. 
 
 Davis, John W., to help make Demo- 
 cratic program, 412. 
 
 Davison, H. P., letter declining to un- 
 dertake Americanization work, 321. 
 
 Debs, Eugene, 55. 
 
 De Forest, Robert W., 339. 
 
 Democracy, 186, 320-21, 355, 384. 
 
 Democratic party, 21, 39, 46, 47, 76, 97, 
 98, 110, 115-16, 142, 212, 228, 371. 
 
 Department of the Interior, 3, 9, 42, 
 141, 228. 
 
 De Vries, Marion, 72. 
 
 Dixon, Frederick, letter on making 
 Americans, 185. 
 
 Dockweiler, Isadore, 47, 217, 222; 
 letter on California senatorial cam- 
 paign, 354. 
 
 Doheny, Edward L., on the Irish flag, 
 351. 
 
 Dorr, George B., 8, 256, 257; letter to, 
 257. 
 
 Economics, 91-93, 97, 127-28. 
 
 Egan, Mrs. Eleanor, 186. 
 
 Ehle, Mrs. George, letters to, 352, 
 
 357, 403. 
 Eliot, Charles W., 412. 
 
 Ellis, Wade, 451. 
 
 Ellis, Mrs. Ralph, letters to, on Bolshe- 
 vism, 381; "bread-and-butter," 387; 
 on work, 390; on her son's illness, 
 393, 394; on being a health-giver, 
 395, 396, 397. 
 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 26, 95, 368, 
 425. 
 
 England's claims, 164. 
 
 Eno, Henry Lane, letter to, 257. 
 
 Eno, William Phelps, a bread-and- 
 butter letter, 340-42. 
 
 Express case, 13, 63, 78-79, 99, 100, 
 102. 
 
 Farms for soldiers, 13, 284-89, 338, 
 339. 
 
 Federal lands, 13. 
 
 Field, Charles K., letter on development 
 of West, 150. 
 
 Finley, John, 447; letter on super- 
 university, 452. 
 
 Fitzgerald, R. M., letter on Progressive 
 vote, 228. 
 
 Fitzgerald, W. F., 34. 
 
 Fletcher, Peter, 183. 
 
 Foster, Sir George, 3, 252. 
 
 Fourteen points, Wilson's, 298, 301-02. 
 
 Garland, Hamlin, letter on American- 
 ization, 333. 
 
 Gehring, John G., 358; letters to, 374, 
 377, 410; on books, 424; on hospitals, 
 434, 438; on wisdom, 443. 
 
 George, Henry, 26, 27, 368, 375, 425. 
 
 Gerard, James, U.S. Ambassador to 
 Germany, 233, 235. 
 
 German audacity, 168-69, 422. 
 
 Glover, Charles C, 260. 
 
 Godkin, E. L., 27. 
 
 Gompers, Samuel, 244. 
 
 Government control, 51, 65, 75-76, 80. 
 
 Government ownership, 52, 167. 
 
 Government Reports, 16, 77-78. 
 
 Gray, Judge George, 225. 
 
 Grayson, Admiral Cary, 330; letter 
 about resignation, 335. 
 
 Gregory, Thomas, 243. 
 
 Gridiron dinner, 189. 
 
 Grosvenor, Gilbert, 99. 
 
 Hallowell, John W., letters to, on buy- 
 
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INDEX 
 
 469 
 
 ing a set of Gibbon, 859, 360; on 
 books, 375; on "roots," 421; on a 
 Quaker church, 437. 
 
 Harding, Warren G., 366, 367, 371, 377, 
 422, 430, 440, 448, 450. 
 
 Harlan, James S., reference to, 62, 78, 
 181; letters to, 222, 429; quoted, 100, 
 254. 
 
 Harley, Herbert, letter on judicial re- 
 call, 112. 
 
 Harriman, E. H., 63, 64. 
 
 Harriman Inquiry, 64. 
 
 Harrison, Fairfax, letters to, 115, 137. 
 
 Harvey, George, 439. 
 
 Hawley, James H., letter on the elec- 
 tion, 301. 
 
 Hearst, William R., 39, 40, 45, 47, 49, 
 52, 88, 99, 104, 142, 210. 
 
 Hertle, Mr. and Mrs. Louis, 450. 
 
 Hetch-Hetchy Valley water supply, 41. 
 
 Hill, David B., 44. 
 
 Holmes, Justice Oliver Wendell, letter 
 from, 91 ; letter to, 93. 
 
 Home Club, 149-50. 
 
 Hoover, Herbert, 163, 214, 236, 253, 
 254, 265-66, 272, 317, 331, 334, 370- 
 71, 421, 422. 
 
 House, Edward M., references to, 88, 
 118, 120, 121, 124, 130, 184, 255, 
 412; letter to, 142. 
 
 Houston, David Franklin, 132, 294, 
 296. 
 
 Howison, Dr. George H., 2. 
 
 Hughes, Charles, 206, 210, 213-14, 228. 
 
 Idealism, 103. 
 
 Indian Problem, 130-32, 135, 141. 
 
 Indian ritual for citizenship, 208-09. 
 
 Industrial Conference, 320. 
 
 Ingersoll, Robert, 4. 
 
 Innes, Mitchell, letter to, 126. 
 
 "Intention of the Voter," 21, 22. 
 
 Interstate Commerce Commission, 13, 
 
 33, 49, 50, 52, 61, 63, 66, 78, 79; in 
 
 politics, 106-07, 108. 
 Irish, John P., 9. 
 Irrigation, 38, 144-45. 
 Irwin, Will, quoted, 57; letters to, 
 
 203, 254. 
 
 Jackson, C. S., letter of condolence, 
 323. 
 
 James, William, 2, 87, 368, 375, 380, 
 
 411, 424-25. 
 Japanese in California, 68, 135-36. 
 Jefferson, Thomas, 89. 
 Joffre, Marechal, 247, 250-51. 
 Johnson, Hiram, 226, 227, 228, 230. 
 Judicial recall, 112. 
 Jusserand, Jules, 231. 
 
 Kauffmann, Nancy Lane, 41, 69, 157- 
 
 58, 164; letter to, 399. 
 Kearney, Dennis, 55. 
 Kellogg, Frank B., 64, 75, 311. 
 King, Miss Genevieve, letter to, 282. 
 Kipling, Rudyard, 26, 29. 
 Knapp, Martin A., 64. 
 Knox, Philander, 69. 
 
 Labor Unions, 12, 28, 29, 32, 36, 221 
 262. 
 
 Lafayette National Park, 256, 253. 
 
 La Follette, Robert, 241. 
 
 Lamb, Brydon, 24, 25, 173, 183. 
 
 Lane, Franklin K., his regard for his 
 mother, 1; his birth, 3; physical and 
 mental traits, 3, 4; boyhood, 5-8; 
 on writing English, 9, 195, 196; in- 
 clines to become a minister, 10; a 
 student at the University of Califor- 
 nia, 11; relations with labor unions, 
 12, 28, 29, 32, 36, 224, 262; the cen- 
 tral purpose of his life, 12, 13; on 
 personal antagonisms, 14, 203; his 
 temperament, 15; City and County 
 Attorney of San Francisco, 16, 32- 
 34, 36, 37; helps create the Municipal 
 Reform League, 17, 83; candidate 
 for Governor of California, 22, 33, 
 37-41, 53, 70, 152; candidate for 
 Senator, 41, 216; mayoralty cam- 
 paign, San Francisco, 42-45; views 
 on unpledged delegations, 47, 48; 
 appointed to Interstate Commerce 
 Commission, 50-55; the express 
 case, 63, 78, 79, 99, 100, 102, 105; 
 on the Japanese in California, 68, 
 135, 136; on partisan questions, 69, 
 187, 433; on political parties, 70; 
 Cabinet position, 104, 108, 109, 113- 
 15, 117, 129; on generalizations, 
 121, 125, 126; on spiritual forces, 
 127; on the Indian problem, 130-32, 
 
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470 
 
 INDEX 
 
 135, 141; on woman suffrage, 145; 
 receives degree from the University 
 of California, 146, 147, 170; the Mex- 
 ican situation, 147, 177, 204, 225, 
 228; organizes the Home Club, 149, 
 150; defense of a subordinate, 154, 
 155; his religious faith, 157, 191 
 217-21, 313, 324, 418, 419, 433; on 
 writing poetry, 167, 168, 171, 342, 
 441; on universal military service, 
 178; on the making of a ship, 181, 
 182; at a Gridiron dinner, 189; on 
 Christmas presents, 192, 193; plans 
 to provide farms for soldiers, 284- 
 89, 338, 339; the coal agreement, 292, 
 463; on the League of Nations, 307, 
 309, 338, 344, 345, 349, 350; on 
 government, 320, 321, 336, 337; 
 declines offer as head of American- 
 ization movement, 321 ; at the Mayo 
 clinic, 377-79, 402, 440-63; on work, 
 392; on wisdom, 444; his death, 
 464. 
 
 Lane, Mrs. Franklin K., letters to, 74, 
 200, 212, 216. 
 
 Lane, Franklin K., Jr., "Ned," 35, 40, 
 69, 151-52, 158; letter to, 267. 
 
 Lane, Frederic J., letters to, 151, 177, 
 205, 210. 
 
 Lane, George W., 31, 34; letters to, on 
 Japanese question, 68 ; on Monticello, 
 89; on politics, 99; temperament and 
 food, 102; on Cabinet meetings, 
 233, 236, 238, 239; no "previous 
 question" in Senate, 241; on prepa- 
 ration for war, 242, 245; on visit- 
 ing Commissions, 250, 269, 303; 
 on reconstruction, 307; on Italian 
 question, 308; on Woodrow Wilson 
 as a speaker, and religion, 312; on 
 resigning, 322; on President Wilson's 
 illness, 330. 
 
 Lansing, Robert, 233, 239, 298, 300, 
 412; letters to, 255, 362; on new ad- 
 ministration, 448, 463. 
 
 Lawlor, William P., letter to, 171. 
 
 League of Nations, 307, 309, 338, 344- 
 45, 349-50. 
 
 Leake, Edward E., letter to, 152. 
 
 Leasing Bill, 150, 161-62. 
 
 Le Conte, Dr. Joseph H., 2. 
 
 Lenroot, Irvine, 370. 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, 114, 367, 368, 404, 
 
 465. 
 "Lincoln's Eyes," 368-69. 
 Lloyd George, David, 178. 
 Loudon, Jonkheer John, 117, 122. 
 Lyon, Frank, 79; letter to, 282. 
 Lyon, John, letter on reason for war, 278. 
 
 McAdoo, William G., 119, 238, 248, 
 265, 294, 295; letter to, 172. 
 
 McAllister, Hall, letters to, 356, 439. 
 
 McClatchy, Charles K., letters to, 70; 
 on prison reform, 81, 83; on Cabinet 
 position, 113. 
 
 McCombs, William F., letters to, 106, 
 108. 
 
 McEwen, Arthur, 12, 31, 406. 
 
 McNab, Gavin, 412. 
 
 McNaught, John, letter to, 283. 
 
 Macy, Everit V., 265. 
 
 Magee, Mr. and Mrs. Tom, 58. 
 
 Maine, Sir Henry, 26. 
 
 Manning, Van H., letter on Petroleum. 
 
 Marble, John, 143, 406. 
 
 Marshall, Thomas, 170. 
 
 Martin, E. S., letter to, 311. 
 
 Mathew, M. A., letter to, 319. 
 
 Mayo Clinic, 377-79, 402. 
 
 Mayo, Dr. Charles, 462. 
 
 Mayo, Dr. William, 378, 458, 462. 
 
 Mead, Dick, 181-82. 
 
 Merrick, Leonard, 343. 
 
 Mexican Situation, 147, 177, 204, 225, 
 228. 
 
 Mezes, Dr. Sidney E., 11, 27, 42, 118, 
 173; letters to, 87, 120, 183. 
 
 Miller, Adolph C, quoted, 11, 448, 
 reference to, 120, 139, 170, 189, 215, 
 402; letters to, 105; on Cabinet posi- 
 tion, 117; on beauty of California; 
 430; on desire for "things," 445. 
 
 Miller, Mrs. Adolph C, letters to, 188, 
 192, 196. 
 
 Moffitt, James K., letter to, 229. 
 
 Mondell, Frank W., letter to, 338. 
 
 Money-power, 71. 
 
 Monticello, 89, 205, 206. 
 
 Moore, R. Walton, 412, 413. 
 
 Mott, John R., 225. 
 
 Municipal Reform League, 17, 83. 
 
 Nagle, Charles, 176. 
 
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INDEX 
 
 471 
 
 National Geographic Society, 462. 
 National Park Reserves, 13, 189, 256. 
 Naugle, Lyman, letter on Democracy, 
 
 38. 
 "Need of a world of men," 8, 25. 
 Neutral position of a, 166, 181, 234. 
 Newlands, Francis G., 54, 55, 60; letter 
 
 to, on Interstate Trades Commission, 
 
 109. 
 Noe Case, 12, 31. 
 Northcliffe, Lord, 174, 270. 
 
 O'Connor, V. C. Scott, letter to, 407. 
 O'Gorman, Senator, quoted, 206. 
 Oil leases, 13, 150, 162. 
 O'Neill, Daniel, 41, 331; letter to, 332. 
 
 Paderewski, Ignace, 269. 
 
 Page, Arthur W., quoted, 130. 
 
 Page, Walter H., letters to, on Wilson's 
 charm, 133; on Washington in War- 
 time, 273. 
 
 Paish, Sir George, 169. 
 
 Panama Pacific Exposition, 165, 167, 
 170. 
 
 Parcel Post, 100, 101. 
 
 Pardee, Dr. George, 40. 
 
 Parker, John M., Governor of Louisi- 
 ana, 412. 
 
 Parsons, Dr. Charles L., 264. 
 
 Partisan questions, 69, 187, 433. 
 
 Party leaders, 81, 101, 110, 115, 161, 
 362. 
 
 Patchin, Robert H., letter to, 186. 
 
 Peabody, Francis S., 376. 
 
 Pell, Herbert C, Jr.. letters to, on Con- 
 stitutional League, 320; on Democ- 
 racy, 336. 
 
 Personal antagonisms, 14, 203. 
 
 Peterson, Mrs. Frederic, letter to, 440. 
 
 Petroleum, 315-16, 427. 
 
 Pfeiffer, Curt G., 24, 25, 26, 168, 173. 
 422; quoted, 424; letters to, on divi- 
 sion of parties, 98, 422. 
 
 Phelan, James D., Ill, 120, 125, 354- 
 55, 412; letter to, 449. 
 
 Phillips, William, 376. 
 
 Phillips, Mrs. William, letter to, 404. 
 
 Pillsbury, E. S., letter to, on con- 
 servatism, 291. 
 
 Political parties, 70; re-alignment of, 
 90, 98, 115, 116. 
 
 Polk, Sir Joseph, 3, 252. 
 
 Pollok, Allan, letter to, 290. 
 
 Pope's appeal for peace, 255. 
 
 Press, moral responsibility of the, 326- 
 
 28. 
 Prison Reform, 38, 73, 81-83. 
 Progressive Democracy, 97, 105, 110. 
 Prohibition, 10, 39. 
 Public Service, 19, 38, 33S. 
 
 Railroad rates, 16, 71, 72, 77-78. 
 
 Railroads and shippers, 12, 13, 65, 68. 
 
 Rebating, 13, 63, 68, 72. 
 
 Reclamation Service, 137, 139-40. 
 
 Reconstruction, 307. 
 
 Red Cross Flag, 283. 
 
 Red Tape, 74, 276. 
 
 Reedy, William Marion, letter to, 292. 
 
 Reese, Frank, letter to, 138. 
 
 Reform Club, 26. 
 
 Republican Party, 18, 21, 76, 97, 212. 
 
 Reservations to the Treaty, 314, 317. 
 
 Reynolds, D. M. letter on Coopera- 
 tion and Oil, 425. 
 
 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 170; letter to, 
 351. 
 
 Roosevelt, Mrs. Franklin D., letters to, 
 372, 436. 
 
 Roosevelt, Theodore, references to, 33, 
 42, 54, 55, 60, 61, 63, 65, 68, 69, 71, 
 72, 84, 88, 89, 90, 96, 100, 102, 106, 
 109, 188, 210, 227, 228; on his death, 
 306; as a great force, 375. 
 
 Letters to, on I.C.C. appointment, 
 53; on giving a new consciousness of 
 Democracy, 75; on accepting party 
 call, 85, 134, 160. 
 Telegram from, 50. 
 Letters from, 57, 77, 86, 159. 
 
 Root, Elihu, letter on development of 
 an American Merchant Marine, 248. 
 
 Ruef, Abraham, 81-83. 
 
 Ryan, William A., 139. 
 
 San Francisco earthquake and fire, 57- 
 60. 
 
 Sari Miguel Defense Association, 31, 32. 
 
 Schmitz, Eugene, 36, 45. 
 
 School gardens, 27] . 
 
 Schwab, Charles, 254. 
 
 Scripps, E. W., letter on Wilson's great- 
 ness, 174. 
 
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472 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Severance, Cordenio, 98, 441; letters to, 
 on travelling with a dog, 157, 184. 
 
 Severance, Mrs. Cordenio, letter to, 428. 
 
 Shaw, Albert, letters to, 97; on team- 
 work in the Department, 148; on 
 lack of foresight in a Democracy, 
 271. 
 
 Shippers and Railroads, 12, 13, 67, 68. 
 
 Ships, need for, 245, 246, 252, 266. 
 
 Silver question, 18. 
 
 Simpson, Ernest, 113; letter on not 
 desiring Cabinet position, 114. 
 
 Smart-aleckism, 314. 
 
 Smith, George Otis, letter to, 364. 
 
 Smith, Dr. Roland Cotton, letters to, 
 231, 342, 441. 
 
 Smythe, William E., 54; letter to, 55. 
 
 Snyder, Carl, letters to on abolition of 
 Commerce Court, 90; on robes, 200, 
 363. 
 
 Spellacy, M. A., 41; letter to, 406. 
 
 Spellacy, Timothy, 41; letters to, on 
 politics, 104, 350; on the Irish, 373. 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, 26. 
 
 Spiritual forces, 127. 
 
 Spurgeon, P. T., letter on getting into 
 politics, 32. 
 
 Stevenson, Robert Louis, 26, 29, 318. 
 
 Straus, Oscar S., letter on need for 
 leaders, 101. 
 
 Sullivan, Mark, letter on improving 
 the Department, 140. 
 
 Tacoma Evening News, 27, 28, 29, 30. 
 
 Taine, Hippolyte Adolphe, 26. 
 
 Tariff, 126. 
 
 Tariff Reform, 18. 
 
 Teal, Joseph N„ 125; letter to, on 
 
 political conditions, 124. 
 Thompson, William Boyce, letter on 
 
 Roosevelt Memorial, 310. 
 "To spend and to be spent," 448. 
 Tradition, 6, 89, 91, 101, 421. 
 Trusts, 126. 
 Tumulty, Joseph, 299, 335. 
 
 Universal Military Service, 178. 
 Unpledged delegations, 47-48. 
 
 Vassault, Ferdinand, 20, 21. 
 
 Vedic Hymns, 26. 
 
 Vogelsang, Alexander, letters to, 165; 
 
 on Mexican statesmen, 226; on the 
 end of the Administration, 429, 462. 
 
 Wall, Francis R., letter on partisan- 
 ship, 187. 
 Wall, Mrs. Louise Herrick, letters to, 
 
 318, 328. 
 Wallace, Grant, quoted, 4. 
 Washington in Wartime, 274-75. 
 Water-powers, 13, 161-62, 271. 
 Western progressives, 227, 228, 230. 
 What I Am Trying To Do, 123. 
 Wheeler, Benjamin Ide, 49; Roosevelt's 
 telegram to, 50, 62; speech on con- 
 ferring degree, 170, 229; to make pro- 
 gram, 412. 
 
 Letters to, on opposition to I.C.C. 
 appointment, 54, 56; on largeness of 
 Roosevelt, 65; on Express Case, 102; 
 on Woodrow Wilson, 119; on being 
 obliged to postpone receiving degree, 
 147; on Wilson carrying California, 
 229; on becoming President-Emeri- 
 tus, 311; on looking on the affairs of 
 men, 369, 401. 
 Wheeler, Edward J., letters to, on 
 writing poetry, 167; on Howells, 242; 
 on conservation-by-use, 272. 
 Wheeler, William R., letters to, 45, 60, 
 62; on Express rates, 78, 153, 222, 
 407. 
 White, George, 403, 413. 
 Whitlock, Brand, 214. 
 Whitney, Edward B., letter on govern- 
 ment control, 51. 
 Wickersham, George W., 73; letters to, 
 on German policy, 175, 207; on States- 
 men, 365. 
 Wigmore, John H, 2, 11, 17, 83, 118, 
 119; letters to, 18, 19, 22, 30, 33, 35; 
 on running for Mayor, 42; on defeat, 
 43, 56, 61 ; telegram on confirmation, 
 62; on treatment of criminals, 72; on 
 Western Advance Rate Case. 77; on 
 receiving Cases on Torts, 88, 94; on 
 politics, 103; on Southern inefficiency, 
 121; on Woodrow Wilson, 122, 123; 
 as First Assistant, 131; on judges, 
 166, 188; on "Moral Forces," 435. 
 Willard, Daniel, 244, 246; letters to, 
 94 ; on leaving Advisory Commission, 
 300. 
 
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INDEX 
 
 473 
 
 Williams, Orva G., letter on Democ- 
 racy, 46. 
 
 Wilson, Woodrow, references to, pen- 
 sion application, 85, 88; on nomina- 
 tion, 99; a real leader, 101, 102, 104, 
 105, 106, 107, 109-10, 114; leader of 
 party, 115; speech at Southern So- 
 ciety dinner, 119-20, 121, 122, 123, 
 124, 174-75; on capacity for indig- 
 nation, 176; on circulation of infamous 
 stories, 211; need for party reorgan- 
 ization, 230 ; in Cabinet meetings, 233, 
 234, 235; not for preparedness, 236; 
 too slow, 240, 241 ; speech to Congress, 
 300; Italian situation, 308; as a 
 speaker, 312, 323; had no fear, 366. 
 Letters to, on Hearst's methods of 
 attack, 39; congratulation on elec- 
 
 tion, 110; on Women Civil Service 
 employees' right to participate in 
 Woman Suffrage parades, 145; on 
 Secretary Wilson, 158; on Mexicans, 
 204; on not writing platform, 211; on 
 eight hour day, 223; on Alaskan 
 railroad, 258; on stopping strikes, 261; 
 Farms for soldiers, 285; letter of res- 
 ignation, 337. 
 
 Wilson, William, Secretary of Labor, 
 158-59, 243, 244, 294-95, 296. 
 
 Woman Suffrage, 145. 
 
 Workingman, The American, 317. 
 
 Work, 392. 
 
 World Bank, need for a, 74. 
 
 Young Men's Democratic League, 
 20. 21. 
 
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