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The Letters of Franklin K. Lane, Personal and Political

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Title: The Letters of Franklin K. Lane, Personal and Political

Author: Franklin K. Lane

Editor: Anne Wintermute Lane
        Louise Herrick Wall


        
Release date: July 1, 2003 [eBook #4206]
                Most recently updated: December 27, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4206

Credits: This etext was produced by Robert Rowe, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team


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THE LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE

Personal and Political

EDITED BY ANNE WINTERMUTE LANE AND LOUISE HERRICK WALL

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS





PREFACE

Prom 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 punctuation. 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 patronage, 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 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 instance, 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 particularly because it
necessitated my looking up dead-weight tonnage, and other matters,
with which I was entirely unfamiliar. ...

"I have never known any one who could with equal facility follow
an intricate line of thought through repeated interruptions. I
have seen Mr. Lane, when interrupted in the middle of an involved
sentence of dictation, talk on some other subject 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 stenographer'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 Page he wrote in 1918, "I
have a very old-fashioned love for writing from day to day what
pops into my mind, contradicting 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 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."

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 returned to me
their letters, and with no restrictions as to their use, I wish
particularly to express here my profound gratitude. 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 acknowledgments 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 Wintermute Lane

March, 1922





CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTION

Youth--Education--Characteristics

II. POLITICS AND JOURNALISM.    1884-1894

Politics--Newspaper Work--New York--Buying into Tacoma News
--Marriage--Sale of Newspaper

LETTERS:
To John H. Wigmore
To John H. Wigmore
To John H. Wigmore
To John H. Wigmore

III. LAW PRACTICE AND POLITICAL ACTIVITIES.    1894-1906

Law--Drafting New City Charter--Elected as City and County Attorney--
Gubernatorial Campaign--Mayoralty Campaign--Earthquake
--Appointment as Interstate Commerce Commissioner

LETTERS:
To P. T. Spurgeon
To John H. Wigmore
To John H. Wigmore
To John H. Wigmore
To Lyman Naugle
To John H. Wigmore
To John H. Wigmore
To William R. Wheeler
To Orva G. Williams
To the Iroquois Club, Los Angeles, California
To Isadore B. Dockweiler
To Edward B. Whitney
To Hon. Theodore Roosevelt
To Benjamin Ide Wheeler
To William E. Smythe
To John H. Wigmore
To Benjamin Ide Wheeler
To William R. Wheeler
To John H. Wigmore
To William R. Wheeler

IV. RAILROAD AND NATIONAL POLITICS.    1906-1912

Increased Powers of Interstate Commerce Commission--Harriman
Inquiry--Railroad Regulation--Letters to Roosevelt

LETTERS:
To Edward F. Adams
To Benjamin Ide Wheeler
To Elihu Root
To E. B. Beard
To George W. Lane
To Charles K. McClatchy
To Lawrence F. Abbott
To John H. Wigmore
To Mrs. Franklin K. Lane
To Theodore Roosevelt
To John H. Wigmore
To William R. Wheeler
To Lawrence F. Abbott
To Charles K. McClatchy
To Charles K. McClatchy
To John Crawford Burns
To Theodore Roosevelt
To Samuel G. Blythe
To Sidney E. Mezes
To John H. Wigmore
To George W. Lane
To Carl Snyder
From Oliver Wendell Holmes
To Oliver Wendell Holmes
To John H. Wigmore
To Daniel Willard
To John McNaught

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

LETTERS:
To Albert Shaw
To Curt G. Pfeiffer
To George W. Lane
To Oscar S. Straus
To Benjamin Ide Wheeler,
To George W. Lane.
To John H. Wigmore.
To Timothy Spellacy.
To Adolph C. Miller.
To William F. McComba,
To Hugo K. Asher.
To Francis G. Newlands.
To Woodrow Wilson.
To William J. Bryan.
To James D. Phelan.
To Herbert Harley.
To Charles K. McClatchy.
To Ernest S. Simpson.
To Fairfax Harrison.
To James P. Brown.
To Adolph C. Miller.
To Edward M. House.
To Benjamin Ide Wheeler.
To Sidney E. Mezes.
To John H. Wigmore.
To John H. Wigmore.
To Joseph N. Teal.
To Edward M. House.
To Mitchell Innes.

VI. SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR.    1913-1915

Appointment as Secretary of the Interior--Reorganization of the
Department--Home Club--Bills on Public Lands

LETTERS:

To John H. Wigmore.
To Walter H. Page.
To Edwin A. Alderman.
To Theodore Roosevelt.
To Lawrence F. Abbott.
To William M. Bole.
To Fairfax Harrison.
To Frank Reese.
To Mark Sullivan.
To Edward M. House.
To James H. Barry.
To Edward F. Adams.
To Hon. Woodrow Wilson,
To Benjamin Ide Wheeler.
To Albert Shaw.
To Charles K. Field.
To Frederic J. Lane.
To Edward E. Leake.
To William R. Wheeler.
To--.
To his Brother on his Birthday.
To Cordenio Severance.
To Hon. Woodrow Wilson.
To Theodore Roosevelt.
To Hon. Woodrow Wilson.
To Lawrence F. Abbott.

VII. EUROPEAN WAR AND PERSONAL CONCERNS. 1914-1915

Endorsement of Hoover--German Audacity--LL.D. from Alma Mater
--England's Sea Policy--Christmas letters

LETTERS:
To William J. Bryan.
To John Crawford Burns.
To Alexander Vogelsang.
To John H. Wigmore.
To John Crawford Burns.
To Edward J. Wheeler.
To John Crawford Burns.
To William P. Lawlor.
To William G. McAdoo.
To John Crawford Burns.
To E. W. Scripps.
To George W. Wickersham.
To Frederic J. Lane.
To John Crawford Burns.
To Eugene A. Avery.
To John F. Davis.
To Dick Mead.
To John Crawford Burns.
To Sidney E. Mezes.
To Cordenio Severance.
To Frederick Dixon.
To Robert H. Patchin.
To Francis R. Wall.
To John H. Wigmore.
To Mrs. Adolph C. Miller.
To Mrs. Magnus Andersen.
To Mrs. Adolph C. Miller.

VIII. AMERICAN AND MEXICAN AFFAIRS.

On Writing English--Visit to Monticello--Citizenship for Indians--On
Religion--American-Mexican Joint Commission

LETTERS:
To William M. Bole.
To Mrs. Adolph C. Miller.
To Edward F. Adams.
To Carl Snyder.
To Mrs. Franklin K. Lane.
To Will Irwin.
To--.
To Hon. Woodrow Wilson.
To Frederic J. Lane.
To Frank L Cobb.
To George W. Wickersham.
To H. B. Brougham.
To Frederic J. Lane.
To Hon. Woodrow Wilson.
To Mrs. Franklin K. Lane.
To Mrs. Adolph C. Miller.
To Mrs. Franklin K. Lane.
To William R. Wheeler.
To James S. Harlan.
To Hon. Woodrow Wilson.
To Alexander Vogelsang.
To Frederic J. Lane.
To Frank I. Cobb.
To R. M. Fitzgerald.
To James K. Moffitt.
To Benjamin Ide Wheeler.
To Roland Cotton Smith.
To James H. Barry.

IX. CABINET TALK AND WAR PLANS. 1917

Cabinet Meetings--National Council of Defense--Bernstorff--War--Plan
for Railroad Consolidation--U-Boat Sinkings Revealed--Alaska

LETTERS:
To George W. Lane.
To George W. Lane.
To George W. Lane.
To Frank I. Cobb.
To George W. Lane.
To George W. Lane.
To Edward J. Wheeler.
To George W. Lane.
To Frank I. Cobb.
To George W. Lane.
To George W. Lane.
To Frank I. Cobb.
To Will Irwin.
To Robert Lansing.
To Henry Lane Eno.
To George B. Dorr.
To Hon. Woodrow Wilson.
To Hon. Woodrow Wilson.
To John O'H. Cosgrave.

X. CABINET NOTES IN WAR-TIME. 1918

Notes on Cabinet Meetings--School Gardens--A Democracy Lacks
Foresight--Use of National Resources--Washington in War-time--The
Sacrifice of War--Farms for Soldiers

LETTERS:
To Franklin K. Lane, Jr.
To George W. Lane.
To Albert Shaw.
To Walter H. Page.
To John Lyon.
To Frank Lyon.
To Miss Genevieve King.
To John McNaught.
To Hon. Woodrow Wilson.
To Allan Pollok.
To E. S. Pillsbury.
To William Marion Reedy.
Notes on Cabinet Meetings.
To Daniel Willard.
To James H. Hawley.
To Samuel G. Blythe.
To George W. Lane.
To Edgar C. Bradley.

XI. AFTER-WAR PROBLEMS--LEAVING WASHINGTON. 1919

After-war Problems--Roosevelt Memorials--Americanization--Religion
--Responsibility of Press--Resignation

LETTERS:
To E. C. Bradley.
To George W. Lane.
To George W. Lane.
To William Boyce Thompson.
To Benjamin Ide Wheeler.
To E. S. Martin.
To George W. Lane.
To Van H. Manning.
To E. C. Bradley.
To Mrs. Louise Herrick Wall.
To--.
To M. A. Mathew.
To Herbert C. Pell, Jr.
To Henry P. Davison.
To George W. Lane.
To C. S. Jackson.
To John Crawford Burns.
To Frank I. Cobb.
To Mrs. Louise Herrick Wall.
To Mrs. M. A. Andersen.
To George W. Lane.
To Daniel J. O'Neill.
To Hamlin Garland.
To Hugo K. Asher.
To Admiral Gary Grayson.
To Herbert C. Pell, Jr.
To Hon. Woodrow Wilson.
To Frank W. Mondell.
To Robert W. De Forest.

XII. POLITICAL COUNSEL--LINCOLN'S EYES. 1920

Suggestions to Democratic Nominee for President--On Election of
Senators--Lost Leaders--Lincoln's Eyes--William James's Letters

LETTERS:
To William Phelps Eno.
To Roland Cotton Smith.
To James M. Cox.
To Timothy Spellacy.
To Edward L. Doheny.
To Franklin D. Roosevelt.
To Mrs. George Ehle.
To Isadore B. Dockweiler.
To Hall McAllister.
To Mrs. George Ehle.
To Benjamin Ide Wheeler.
To John W. Hallowell.
To John W. Hallowell.
To Robert Lansing.
To Carl Snyder.
To William R. Wheeler.
To George Otis Smith.
To George W. Wickersham.
Lincoln's Eyes.
To Benjamin Ide Wheeler.
To Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt.
To Lathrop Brown.
To Timothy Spellacy.
To Frank I. Cobb.
To John G. Gehring.
To John W. Hallowell.
To John G. Gehring.

XIII. LETTERS TO ELIZABETH. 1919-1920

LETTERS:
To Mrs. Ralph Ellis.

XIV. FRIENDS AND THE GREAT HOPE. 1921

Need for Democratic Program--Religious Faith--Men who have Influenced
Thought--A Sounder Industrial Life --A Super-University for Ideas
--"I Accept"--Fragment

LETTERS:
To Mrs. Philip C. Kauffmann.
To Benjamin Ide Wheeler.
To Lathrop Brown.
To Mrs. George Ehle.
To Mrs. William Phillips.
To James H. Barry.
To Michael A. Spellacy.
To William R. Wheeler.
To V. C. Scott O'Connor.
Letter sent to several friends.
To John G. Gehring.
To Lathrop Brown.
To Lathrop Brown.
To Adolph C. Miller.
To John G. Gehring.
To John W. Hallowell.
To Curt G. Pfeiffer.
To John G. Gehring.
To D. M. Reynolds.
To Mrs. Cordenio Severance.
To Alexander Vogelsang.
To James S. Harlan.
To Adolph C. Miller.
To Lathrop Brown.
To John G. Gehring.
To John H. Wigmore.
To Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt.
To John W. Hallowell.
To John G. Gehring.
To Hall McAllister.
To Mrs. Frederic Peterson.
To Roland Cotton Smith.
To John G. Gehring.
To Adolph C. Miller.
To Robert Lansing.
To James D. Phelan.
To Mr. and Mrs. Louis Hertle.
To Alexander Vogelsang.
To John Finley.
To James H. Barry.
To Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt.
To friends who had telegraphed and written for news.--"I accept."
To Alexander Vogelsang.
To John W. Hallowell.
To Robert Lansing.
Fragment.





ILLUSTRATIONS

FRANKLIN K. LANE

FRANKLIN K. LANE With his younger brothers, George and Frederic.

FRANKLIN K. LANE At eighteen.

FRANKLIN K. LANE As City and County Attorney.

FRANKLIN K. LANE, MRS. LANE, MRS. MILLER, AND ADOLPH C. MILLER

FRANKLIN K. LANE WITH Ethan Allen, Superintendent of Rainier
National Park, Washington

FRANKLIN K. LANE AND George B. Dorr
In Lafayette National Park, Mount Desert Island, Maine.

FRANKLIN K. LANE IN 1917 Taken in Lafayette National Park.

"LANE PEAK," Tatoosh Range, Rainier National Park





DATES

1864.    July 15. Born near Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.
1871-76. Taken to California. Went to Grammar School at Napa,
         California.
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
         Francisco 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 Commissioner.
1909.    Reappointed by President Taft as Interstate Commerce Commissioner.
1913.    Appointed Secretary of the Interior under President Wilson.
1916.    Chairman American-Mexican Joint Commission.
1918.    Chairman Railroad 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).





THE LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE





I

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 explained to me."

From those who knew him best from childhood, no word of him is
left, and none from the two men whose strength and ideality
colored his morning at the University of California--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.
Howison 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, college, 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
fullness and spontaneity, until the day before he died.

All the later record exists in his letters, most of them written
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 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
Presbyterian, 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 Charlottetown, 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; remarkably sound teeth, large and regular, giving
firm support 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 combination of Napoleon and Ingersoll."

These two resemblances, to Napoleon and to Robert Ingersoll, 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 deepening 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
somewhat 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 challenge, are what men remember
best.

Lane's native bent from the first was toward public life. 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 citizenship," 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 visiting 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 mannerisms of their former
environment to make us youngsters '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 together for a day's hunting and fishing.
But it was the 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 family
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 unison, some song of the hour or some of
their old Scotch melodies 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 persistent,
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 activity,'" comes
from him with the ring of authentic temperament. And of a friend's
biography he wrote, "What a fine life--all fight, interwoven with
fun and friendship."

[Illustration with caption: FRANKLIN K. LANE WITH HIS YOUNGER
BROTHERS, GEORGE AND FREDERIC]

All the anecdotes of his boyhood show him in action, moving among
his fellows, organizing, leading, and administering 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 enterprising." 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 hillsides
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 entered the High
School. Again his schoolmates recall him with gusto. He was
muscular in build, "a good short-distance 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
what he went after. Earnest and straightforward in manner," 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 initiated, 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 especially 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 mountain-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 improvements 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 apolitical
crisis, he rallied the energy of younger men. He wrote of the need
of a Democratic program, suggested a group of compelling names,
"or any other group," he adds, "put up the plan and ask them what
they think of it--tentatively--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 projected
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
excellent 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. 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 seriously 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 orthodox 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 his life with emotion,
but he was not embittered by it. He was young, a great lover,
greatly in love with life.

[Illustration with caption: FRANKLIN K. LANE AT EIGHTEEN]

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 education, "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 expression 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 addressed. 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 Government, and kindred subjects.
He was a leading figure in the Political Science Club, and intent
in his pursuit of philosophy. Often he could be seen walking back
and forth in a room in the old Bacon library, set apart for the
more serious-minded students, with some philosophical book in
hand; 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 McEwen, 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 encroachments,
successfully enforcing the law against infractions; as Interstate
Commerce Commissioner, he disentangled 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 decent 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 characteristics
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-serviceable 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
withdrawal, 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 temperament 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 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 beneficial
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 itself, 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 buoyancy of temper by
black despairs. "Damn that Irish temperament, anyway!" he writes.
"O God, that I had been made a stolid, phlegmatic, non-nervous,
self-satisfied Britisher, 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 disappointment,
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.

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 humanize, 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
demurrage 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 humbug,--
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





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 California,
after reaching manhood, was with John H. Wigmore. 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,
enjoy no spoils, and work for clean city politics. Each member of
the inner circle was to take over and make himself responsible for
a definite city district, making a card index of the name of each
voter, taking a real part in all caucus meetings--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 regime 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 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 Francisco NEWS LETTER and EXAMINER), and at all kinds
of reportorial 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 question, 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 exceptional virtues mixed happily in a candidate
they grow to love and admire him out of the very idealism of their
natures.

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 B. 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 Service 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 sensational
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 intellectual 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
need which the world manifests for broader ideas in economics,
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 unsettled, 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, [Footnote: Ferdinand Vassault, a
college friend. ] and two others, with myself, are on that
Committee and we are hard at work. I send to-day a copy of the
Examiner 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 substitute 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 procure, its enforcement
would be left to "boss" tools--corruptionists 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 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 usefulness or power in the
Republican than in the Democratic 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 [Footnote: This plan seems to have
been to enlarge the influence of the League mentioned in a former
letter.]--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 Constitution 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 "intention 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." instead of "J, F."--in another instance, his name
was printed a little below the title of the office, because of the
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. Wigmore

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 preparation) 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. "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. ...

Not a single reformer, big or little, have I yet met. Your friend
Bishop [Footnote: Joseph Bucklin Bishop, editor of Theodore
Roosevelt and His Time.] 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 friendships, 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, politics." 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 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 presence 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 observant 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 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 relation 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 influence 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 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 CHRONICLE, I think, as correspondent. He
was not whole-heartedly in sympathy with his proprietor, nor
indeed with the sensational 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
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 become immensely rich
in Alaska while Lane's paper was running into bankruptcy in
Tacoma. But Lane's misadventure 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 developed 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 mountain--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 Orient," but trade was not yet firmly established
with the Orient, and, indeed, what was Washington's wealth of
uncut timber when the capital to develop it was slowly ebbing
Eastward?

No paper without heavy capitalization, could have sustained 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 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 miserably 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
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 anything 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 opportunities 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





III

LAW PRACTICE AND POLITICAL ACTIVITIES 1894-1906

Law--Drafting New City Charter--Elected as City and County
Attorney--Gubernatorial Campaign--Mayoralty Campaign--Earthquake
--Appointment 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 attorneys. 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 convinced 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 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 remembered. 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
appeal, "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 friendship 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. Spurgcon Herald, McClure Newspaper Syndicate

Washington, December 30, 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 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 candidacy for the governorship, I was
appointed a member of the Interstate Commerce Commission by
President Roosevelt.

Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE



To John H. Wigmore

San Francisco, November 14, 1898

MY DEAR WIGMORE,--This is a formal note of acknowledgment of the
service rendered me in the campaign, which has just closed
successfully. There were only three Democrats 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.

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 creditable 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 include 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 years," and
that during one of the years of his incumbency "snot a dollar of
damages was obtained against the city."

[Illustration with caption: FRANKLIN K. LANE AS CITY AND COUNTY
ATTORNEY]



To John H. Wigmore

San Francisco, September 25, [1899]

MY DEAR WIGMORE,-- ... As an evidence of what I am doing 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 corporations, 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 received 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.[Footnote: Lane lived to smile at his too charitable
characterization of this San Francisco Mayor.] 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.

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
Utopians 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 Democratic and
Non-Partisan candidate for Governor of California. 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 confident 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.'"

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 opportunity 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 fellows 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 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 matter what the weight of influence
in the other side of the balance. 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
Democratic 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 honest 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 Democratic 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 business manager
of a temperance paper which advocated prohibition. 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 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 President, 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 between Lane and Dr. George
Pardee, the Republican candidate, 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."

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 compelled 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 remote, mosquito-haunted marsh,
dreaded even by hunters 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 [Roosevelt] 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 influential man socially,
politically, and educationally in the institution. ...

I am having an extremely disagreeable time. The Democrats here
insist upon my running for Mayor, urging it as 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 unequivocal. 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 immediate effect has been
to throw me into the active practice of law, and thus far I have
not starved. It will, of course, not 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
everything 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
looking 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 [Footnote: In campaigning New York for
Cleveland, Lane had met David B. Hill.] 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.

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, 1908]

MY DEAR 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 degree 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.

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 G. 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 repression of the masses of the people.

... We must resist the base opportunism which would abandon our
strong position of devotion to these fundamental 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
temporary stimulation at the expense of permanent weakness. If we
are to heed the voice which bids us cease to be Democrats in order
that we may win, we shall find that we have lost not only the
victory of being true, but also the victory at the polls, which
can be ours only in case we are true.

... Our creed is simple and clear, but it cannot be recited by
those who would make our organization an annex 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 support 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.

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, puppets, 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 Democracy of California can select
candidates who can be depended 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 emphasizing 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 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 calmness 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 transportation
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 interference 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 President Roosevelt's.
While in the East, in the spring of 1904, Wheeler had a talk with
Roosevelt, about Lane's qualifications 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 overwhelming
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 Roosevelt 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 promise 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 vacancy 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 Guatemala, and from the
Gulf to the Pacific, and know nothing whatever concerning the
Interstate Commerce Commissionership, 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 Pennsylvania of a week ago. Of course, ... it is a great
opportunity to prove or disprove the capacity of this government
to control effectively the corporations which seem determined 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 determined to prove to the railroads that
they have not the 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 throughout 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 disorganization 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 Commissionership, 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 Commission. ...

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 influence with me than they ought to have, or that
anybody else had, and in my fight for the Governorship they did
not contribute so much as a single postcard, nor did an individual
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 sometime. The charge
never was made in any of my five campaigns, and certainly is made
only for foreign consumption, end 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 confirmation 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
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 Washington 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 before 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 temporarily 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 circumstances. 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 could not be
disproved by my presence in Washington, and I am not likely to
apologize for what one of my kindly Republican critics calls "this
error of his boyhood." I am concerned 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 unappreciative. 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 appointment, and I certainly regard myself as very
fortunate in having one who knows me upon that Committee.
[Footnote: The Interstate Commerce Committee.]

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 confirmation, but not at the price of
having it thought that I in any way compromised myself to obtain
the Senate's favorable action. I know that you are not alone in
this view as to the wisdom of my going on, for I have received
other messages to the same effect. But, as you know, the President
made this appointment upon grounds quite superior to those of
political expediency and upon recommendations 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. However, 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 Senators, but I have refused. ... Am I 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 [Roosevelt] 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 himself 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, smoldering
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
Anderson. '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
battery, 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 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 Francisco 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
Addition. He went out and found them. They had been working 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 managed to get him enthusiastic. He found a
wrench, and together 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. 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
hydrant! 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 attempt 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 recognition on
Olympus, or wherever the Gods live. I can quite appreciate the
strain you are under and the monumental difficulties of your
situation, dealing as you are with dispirited 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 Interstate 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 reassuring, and I wish that I had met him
when in Washington. ...

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 cherished 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 believe me
always most faithfully yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE



At the same time an affectionate letter of appreciation went to
Benjamin Ide Wheeler.





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 hearings of the
Interstate Commerce Commission. The Hepburn 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,
associated 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, 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, Bonaparte, Kellogg, and Lane favored an immediate inquiry.
Lane declared that, in a few weeks, when the report of the
Interstate Commerce 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 extract, 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 railroad
friends in 1882 is that which possesses their 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 railroads are having a very hard time
these days with the law departments. They can not understand why
the law department 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 certainly took
advanced ground in 1882, ... --there can be no such thing as a
business secret in a quasi-public corporation. ... Very truly
yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE



TO BENJAMIN IDE WHEELER PRESIDENT, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

Washington, March 31,1907

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 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 intolerable.

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 extensive 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
out of national or international policy which render it unworthy
of further consideration. It has appealed to me, however, as
possibly containing the germ of what Mr. Webster 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 appreciate 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 myself, because of the long neglect of
that part of the country. ...

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 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 Commission. The
San Francisco Chamber of Commerce has endorsed it. The whole
Pacific Coast should follow suit enthusiastically.

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
question 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 request of the President
[Roosevelt], because he said that the 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 ineligible 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 upheld 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.

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 Dear 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 Democrat 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 Republican 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 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 depress 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 depression. ...

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 question 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 questions. ...

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 accomplishment of the Commission, I
think, in the last three years, has been the enforcement of the
law as against rebating. 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 the 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 territory west
of the Mississippi River and practically all of the larger cities
in the inter-mountain country have complaints 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 3, 1909

MY DEAR DOCTOR,--... I think there is but little doubt that De
Vries will receive the appointment, though of course everything
here is in absolute chaos. ... The best symptom 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, (assuming for the nonce that I am
the head of the household).

The President is going to appoint Lurton. [Footnote: To the
Supreme Bench.] 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 Commission, 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 sympathy 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 proposition, and as he has charge of all the
penitentiaries, and his 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
holiday vacation, I would bring you two together for a talk on
this matter, and you, also, might take up the very live question
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 Franklin K. Lane as
a member of the Interstate Commerce Commission.



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, covering 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 standards 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 windward, 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 public 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 Democracy, largely resulting
from your administration, and it is such that the character of
government which satisfied the people of twenty years ago is found
lacking to-day. Practically 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 Democratic, 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.

FRANKLIN K. LANE

From Berlin, Lane received from Theodore Roosevelt, dated May 13,
1910, these lines,--

" ... 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 criticisms 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
appeared 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."

"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, Commissioner Lane discussed the Commission's new
powers of suspending the operation of increased rates pending
investigation and the burden of proof in such cases. He marshalled
a vast array of facts and figures and announced conclusions 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 previous 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, respecting 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 overnight.

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 determined, 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 express 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 refrained
from advising Congress that I thought express companies should be
abolished and designating the place to which they should be
relegated.

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 something 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 privileges 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 committees, in Congress
and out, that are drafting bills regulating 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 Democratic 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 Francisco, 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 movement 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
proposition, but I think I am sensible. We are dealing with men
convicted of crime more harshly and more unreasonably than we deal
with dogs. Our fundamental mistake is that we utterly 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 you, 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.

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 advocating 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 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 destroy
Wilson, who is the strongest man in the West. The bosses are all
against him. They recently produced an application which he had
made for a pension, under the Carnegie Endowment Fund for
Teachers, which had been allowed to lie idle, unnoticed for a year
or so after its rejection, 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 Victorian.
... 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,

FRANKLIN K. LANES



TO THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Washington, December 10, 1911

MY DEAR 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 acceding to the
call, which I believe will certainly come, that it is more than
party-wide, and that it is sufficiently strong 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,

FRANKLIN 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
what the effect would be, except that according to my own view it
could not but be bad and unpleasant for me personally. From the
personal standpoint I should view the nomination to the Presidency
as a real and serious misfortune. 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 ... having 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 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 Democrat, 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 materialize.

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 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 somehow I cannot feel that
Roosevelt will ever be in it, although you know how I like him.
The situation seems a bit artificial.

Give my love to Mrs. John. As always yours,

FRANKLIN 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 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 reactionaries 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; 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 Tradition, saying
that as Americans are physically, industrially, and socially the
"heirs of all the ages" our supreme tradition is a "hatred of
injustice." That one of the great experiments that a Democracy
should make is to find a more equitable distribution of wealth
"without destroying individual 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 Virginia 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 products. Ownership is a
gate, not a stopping place. You tell 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 competent 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
producers 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 consuming--
Labor is society producing. The laborers unfortunately 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
commonplaces 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 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 return 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 MR. 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
increased 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 because 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 production. 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
forethought 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 probability 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 temptation 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 WITTARD 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 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 MCNAUGHT 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 representative 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 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 become 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
believe 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





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 Republican 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 conclusion, and get rid of all our absurd rules of
evidence and our unending appeals.

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 believe 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 Republicans 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 Underwood, 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

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 September 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. [Footnote: Taft carried Vermont and Utah.] 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
Taggart. ... Bryan has fought a most splendid fight. I had a talk
with him. He was in splendid spirits and most cordial. The
California delegation 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 completed for we have to pass upon the
rates in October; but I am in surprisingly good condition--
largely, perhaps, 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, readjusted 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 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 ingenious 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
himself 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 8, 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 injustice. 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

TO BENJAMIN IDE WHEELER PRESIDENT, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

Baddeck, Nova Scotia, July 81, [1912]

MY DEAR MR. WHEELER,--Your letter followed me here, where at least
one can breathe. This really is a most beautiful 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 service both to the
country and to the express companies. The latter will probably
live if their service and their rates improve. 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 are all obsessed with the
desire to be of some use and unwilling 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 conclusion 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 craving 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 precision of thought.

Now we shall have a chance to see what a college president 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 politics 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 professor 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 September 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 looking for any
further honors, but I want to help Wilson make 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
Democrat it is illegal to have a strong central government--one
that is effective--and we have got to have such a government 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 minute 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
cannot 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 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 purpose 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. McCombs 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 stopped 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; 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
Commission could properly be construed as a threat or a suggestion
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 DEAR HUGO,--I have your long letter which you promised 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 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 powerful 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 Cabinet 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 satisfactory 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 constructive work done in any
Cabinet office. While the glamour 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 appreciation; 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 ago. If I wanted a
Cabinet position now I would resign from the Commission and go out
to help him. I think probably 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 foregone 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 authority 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 Commission 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 he does will very
largely depend, I think, upon those who surround him. He must have
access to sources of information 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 personal and
direct an interest in the campaign. Faithfully yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE



Following the news of the Democratic victory, in the election 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 with the Nat

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