Chapter 1

merchants' point of view, who desire to get goods from Germany, a copy of which I inclose. So I put your letter and his together, and told them all who you both are. Thus, old man, you have become a factor in the determination of international policy. Several members of the Cabinet have spoken with the warmest admiration of your letter, one scurrilous individual remarking that he was astonished to learn that I had such a learned literary gent as an intimate friend.

We are just at present amused over the coming into port of the German converted cruiser Eitel, with the captain and the crew of the American bark, William P. Frye, on board. The calm gall of the thing really appeals to the American sense of humor. Here is a German captain, who captured a becalmed sailing ship, loaded with wheat, and blows her up; sails through fifteen thousand miles of sea, in danger every day of being sunk by an English cruiser, and then calmly comes in to an American port for coal and repairs. The cheek of the thing is so monumental as to fairly captivate the American mind. What we shall do with him, of course, is a very considerable question. He can not be treated as a pirate, I suppose, because there can not be such a thing as a pirate ship commanded by an officer of a foreign navy and flying a foreign flag. But he plainly pursued the policy of a pirate, and I am expecting any day to find Germany apologizing and offering amends. But there may be some audacious logic by which Germany can justify such conduct. Talking of Belgium, I was referred the other day to the report of the debates in the House of Commons found in the 10th volume of Cobbett's Parliamentary Reports, touching the attack on Copenhagen by England in 1808, in which the Ministry justified its ruthless attack upon a neutral power in almost precisely the same language that Von Bethmann Hollweg used in justifying the attack on Belgium, and Lord Ponsonby used the sort of reasoning then, in answer to the Government, that England is now using in answer to Germany. I was distrustful of the quotations that were given to me and looked the volume up, and found that England was governed by much the same idea that Germany was--just sheer necessity. Of course, your answer is that we have traveled a long way since 1808.

Doesn't it look to you an impossible task for England and France to get beyond the Rhine, or even get there? England, of course, has hardly tried her hand in the game yet and if the Turk is cleaned up she will have a lot of Australians and others to help out in Belgium. Sir George Paish told me they expect to have a million and a half men in the field by the end of this summer.

Pfeiffer comes here to-day to spend a couple of days trying to do something for the State Department; I don't know just what, but I shall be mighty glad to see the old chap. I haven't seen anything of Lamb since his return.

Do write me again. Affectionately yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

On the sixteenth of March Lane again started for San Francisco, crossing the continent for the third time within a month. Vice- President Marshall, Adolph C. Miller, now of the Federal Reserve Board, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, assistant Secretary of the Navy, who were going out to visit officially the Exposition, were the principal members of the party. In Berkeley, on March twenty- third, 1915, Lane received his degree from the University of California. In conferring this degree President Wheeler said:--

"Franklin K. Lane,--Your Alma Mater gladly writes to-day your name upon her list of honour,--in recognition not so much of your brilliant and unsparing service to state and nation, as of your sympathetic insight into the institutions of popular government as the people intended them. An instinctive faith in the righteous intentions of the average man has endowed you with a singular power to discern the best intent of the public will. Men follow gladly in your lead, and are not deceived.

"By direction of the Regents of the University of California I confer upon you the degree of Doctor of Laws:--

"Creative statesman in a democracy; big-hearted American." On December 7, 1915, upon receiving a copy of the diploma Lane wrote in acknowledgement to Dr. Wheeler,--"I have the diploma which it has taken all the talent of the office to translate. I had one man from Columbia, another from the University of Virginia, one from Nebraska, and one at large at work on it. Thank you. It takes the place of honor over my mantel."

TO WILLIAM P. LAWLOR

JUSTICE, SUPREME COURT OF CALIFORNIA

Washington, April 13, 1915

MY DEAR JUDGE,--I have read Eddy O'Day's poem with great delight. Along toward the end it carries a sentiment that our dear old friend John Boyle O'Reilly expressed in his poem Bohemia, in which he speaks of those,

"Who deal out a charity, scrimped and iced, In the name of a cautious, statistical Christ."

I have never been able to write a line of verse myself, although I have tried once in a while, but long ago my incapacity was proved. Pegasus always bucks me off.

I am sorry you took so seriously what I had to say of the wedding invitation, but you know I am one of those very sentimental chaps, who loves his friends with a great devotion, and when anything good comes to them I want to know of it first, and no better fortune can come to any man than to marry a devoted, high-minded woman.

Your rise has been a joy to me, because neither you nor I came to the bar nor to our positions by conventional methods. The union spirit is very strong among lawyers, and if a man has ideas outside of law, or wishes to humanize the law, he is regarded with suspicion by his fellows at the bar. You have proved yourself and arrived against great odds. No man that I know has ever had such a testimonial of public confidence as you received in the last election. I hope that with the hard work much joy will come to you.

Mrs. Lane has just dropped in and wishes me to send you her warm regards. Always sincerely yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO WILLIAM G. MCADOO

SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY

Washington, April 27, 1915

MY DEAR MAC,--Here is a man for us to get next to. He is a Harriman, a Morgan, a Huntington, a Hill, a Bismarck, a Kuhn Loeb, and a damn Yankee all rolled into one! Can you beat it? His daughter also looks like a peach. I do not know the purpose of this financial congress in which these geniuses from the hot belt are to gather; but unless I am mistaken you are looking around for some convenient retreat to go to when this Riggs litigation is over and you are turned out scalpless upon a cruel world. Here is your chance! Tie up with Pearson. He has banks, railroads, cows, horses, mules, land, girls, alfalfa, clubs, and is connected with every distinguished family in North and South America.

This man, Dr. Hoover, is a genius. When I knew him he was giving lessons in physical training; but, now, like myself, he is an LL.D., and, of course, as a fellow LL.D. I have got to treat his friend properly. So I pass him along to you. Please see that he has the front bench and is called upon to open the congress with prayer, which, being a Yankee and a pirate, he undoubtedly can do in fine fashion.

When he comes, if you will let me know, I shall go out to meet him in my private yacht; take him for a drive in my tally-ho; give him a dinner at Childs', and take him to the movies at the Home Club.

I shall also ask Redfield to invite him to the much-heralded shad luncheon, to which I have received the fourth invitation. Do you think he would like to meet my friend, Jess Willard?

Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

A letter from John Burns, from Rome, spoke sarcastically of the American attitude of neutrality toward the European war, and of what he called the "new American motto--'Trust the President.'"

TO JOHN CRAWFORD BURNS

ROME, ITALY

Washington, May 29, 1915

MY DEAR JOHN,--I saw Pfeiffer, Lamb, and Mezes the other day up in New York. Mezes lives among Hebrews, Lamb is broken-hearted that he can not get into the war, and Pfeiffer is trying to get England to let his German goods through Holland. Lamb and Pfeiffer do not agree as to England's duty to allow non-contraband on neutral ships to pass unmolested.

England is playing a rather high game, violating international law every day. ... England's attempt to starve Germany has been a fizzle. Germany will be better off this summer than she was two years ago, have more food on hand. There are no more men in Germany outside of the Army. Practically every one has been called out who could carry a gun, but the women are running the mills and the prisoners are tilling the farms. Von Hindenburg will come down upon Italy, when he has lured the Italians up into some pass and given them a sample of what the Russians got in East Prussia.

You see I am in quite a prophetic mood this afternoon.

Tell me if you understand Italy's position--just how she justifies herself in entering the war? I have seen no authoritative justification that I thought would hold water.

The Coalition ministry in England is weaker than the Liberal ministry. Lord Northcliffe, who is the Hearst of England, has become its boss. Inasmuch as you object to our new motto, "Trust the President," I offer as a substitute, "Trust Lord Northcliffe, Bonar Law, and the Philosopher of Negation." The dear bishops won't give up their toddy, so England must go without ammunition. Germany is standing off Belgium, England and France, with her right hand; Russia with her left, and is about to step on Italy. Germany has not yet answered our protest in the Lusitania matter. Neither has England answered our protest, sent some three months ago, against the invasion of our rights upon the seas. I was very glad to read the other day that while only eighty per cent of English-made shells explode, over ninety per cent of American-made shells explode.

Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO E. W. SCRIPPS

SCRIPPS MCRAE SYNDICATE

Washington, June 1, 1915

MY DEAR MR. SCRIPPS,--I am extremely glad to get your letter--and such a hearty, noble-spirited letter. It came this morning, and was so extraordinary in its patriotic spirit that I took it to the White House and left it with the President.

I am sure that great good will come of the effort you are making to gather the people in support of the President. The poor man has been so worried by the great responsibilities put upon him that he has not had time to think or deal with matters of internal concern. ... He is extremely appreciative of the spirit you have shown. I have a large number of matters in my own Department-- Alaskan railroad affairs and proposed legislation--that I ought to take up with him; but I can not worry him with them while international concerns are so pressing.

I feel that at last the country has come to a consciousness of the President's magnitude. They see him as we do who are in close touch with him. ... My own ability to help him is very limited, for he is one of those men made by nature to tread the wine-press alone. The opportunity comes now and then to give a suggestion or to utter a word of warning, but on the whole I feel that he probably is less dependent upon others than any President of our time. He is conscious of public sentiment--surprisingly so--for a man who sees comparatively few people, and yet he never takes public sentiment as offering a solution for a difficulty; if he can think the thing through and arrive at the point where public sentiment supports him, so much the better. He will loom very large in the historian's mind two or three decades from now.

In the fall I am going to ask you to lend a hand in support of my conservation bills, which look like piffling affairs now in contrast with the big events of the day.

Once more I thank you heartily for your letter. Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO GEORGE W. WICKERSHAM

Washington, July 18, 1915

MY DEAR AND DISTINGUISHED SIR,--I once knew a vainglorious chap who wrote a poem on the Crucifixion of Christ. The refrain was,--

"Had I been there with three score men, Christ Jesus had not died."

All of us feel "that-a-way" once in a while when we think of Germany, Mexico, and such. I shall have a few words to say upon the German note next Tuesday. [Footnote: Day of Cabinet meeting.] They will be short and somewhat ugly Anglo-Saxon words, utterly undiplomatic, and I hope that some of them will be used.

There is no man who has a greater capacity for indignation than the gentleman who has to write that note, and no man who has a sincerer feeling of dignity, and no man who dislikes more to have a damned army officer, filled with struttitudinousness, spit upon the American Flag--a damned goose-stepping army officer!

This morning comes word that they tried to torpedo the Orduna, but failed by a hair. This does not look like a reversal of policy. Of course those chaps think we are bluffing because we have been too polite. We have talked Princetonian English to a water-front bully. I did not believe for one moment that our friends, the Germans, were so unable to see any other standpoint than their own.

I saw ex-secretary Nagel here the other day. We were at the same table for lunch at the Cosmos Club. One of the men at the table said, "I think Lane ought to have been appointed Secretary of State." Nagel's usual diplomacy deserted him, and with a face evidencing a heated mind replied, "Oh, my God, that would never do, never do; born in Canada." So you see I am cut out from all these great honors. Is this visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children?

I wish you joy in your work and I wish I could lay some of my troubles on your shoulders. Mrs. Lane and I are going up to see you just as soon as we get the chance. I had to decline to address the American Bar Association because I did not want to be away from here for a week. This is Sunday, and I am trying to catch up some of my personal mail which has been neglected for six weeks. Thus you may know that I am in the Government Service.

I send you by this mail a copy of my speech in San Francisco, which has been gotten up to suit the artistic taste of my private secretary. As always,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO FREDERIC J. LANE

Washington, July 21, 1915

MY DEAR FRITZ,--I wish I could think of something I could do for you dear people back there. I haven't heard from George for a long while, but I hope he is getting something in mind that makes him think life worth living. It is strange that every lawyer I know would like to be situated just as George is, with a little farm in a quiet dell. Last night I talked with Senator Sutherland. It is his hope sometime to reach this ideal. And the other night I talked with Justice Lamar, and told him of George's life, and he said that he had dreamt of such an existence for fifty years but has never been able to see his way to its realization.

There is no chance of our getting out to the Coast this year. The President expects us to be within call, and I am very much interested in the Mexican question, as to which I have presented a program to him which so far he has accepted. These are times of terrible strain upon him. I saw him last night for a couple of hours, and the responsibility of the situation weighs terribly upon him. How to keep us out of war and at the same time maintain our dignity--this is a task certainly large enough for the largest of men.

Conditions politically are very unsettled, and much will turn I suppose on what Congress does. More and more I am getting to believe that it would be a good thing to have universal military service. To have a boy of eighteen given a couple of months for two or three years in the open would be a good thing for him and would develop a very strong national sense, which we much lack. The country believes that a man must be paid for doing anything for his country. We even propose to pay men for the time they put in drilling, so as to protect their own liberties and property. This is absurd! We must all learn that sacrifices are necessary if we are to have a country. The theory of the American people, apparently, is that the country is to give, give, give, and buy everything that it gets.

Hope things are going well with you. Drop me a line when you can. Affectionately,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO JOHN CRAWFORD BURNS

ROME, ITALY

Washington, July 30, 1915

MY DEAR JOHN,--Things have come to such a tension here that I doubt the wisdom of my discussing international politics with you; nevertheless, I want you not to be weary in well-doing, but continue to give me the views of the Tory Squire. I hope that your admiration for Balfour will prove justified. Of course, our press, which can not be said to sympathize strongly with the conservative side, makes it appear that Lloyd George is now bearing a great part in the work of securing ammunition. This is the inevitable result of allowing the people to vote. The man who has the people's confidence proves to be the most useful in a time of emergency. However, it may be that Balfour is himself directing all that Lloyd George does.

This morning's papers contain an official statement from Petrograd suggesting that the English get to work upon the west line. This seems to me extremely unkind, inasmuch as the English have already lost over 300,000 and have furnished a large amount of money to Russia, I understand.

Pfeiffer sent me an article the other day from a German professor, in which he said that the three million men that Kitchener talked about was all a bluff. Pfeiffer keeps sending me long protests against England's attitude regarding our trade, which seem to me to be fair statements of international law.

The word that I get rather leads me to believe that the war will last for at least another year and a half, which is quite in line with Kitchener's prophecy, but where will all these countries be from a financial standpoint at the end of that time? I fancy some of them will have to go into bankruptcy and actually repudiate their debt, and what will become by that time of the high-spirited French, who are holding three hundred and fifty miles of line against eleven held by the British and thirty by the Belgians?

Yesterday I received a request from a German Independence League for my resignation, as I was born under the British flag and was supposed to be influential with the President, who has recently sent a very direct and business-like letter to Germany. My answer was that they had mistaken my nationality. My real name was Lange and my father had stricken out the G.! Affectionately yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO EUGENE A. AVERY

Washington, August 2, 1915

MY DEAR AVERY,--I am very glad to hear from you and to get your verse. I had a glorious time at Berkeley. I could have received no honor that would have given me greater satisfaction, but oh! as I look over that old list of professors and associate professors! I don't know a tenth of them, and I never heard of half of them. How far I am removed from the scholastic life, and how far we both are from those old days when you used to sit with your pipe in your mouth, in front of your cabin, and discourse to me upon God and men!

Well, we don't any of us know any more about God, but we know something more about man. But after all is said and done, I guess I like him about as much, as I did in the enthusiastic days when we used to quiz old Moses. The streak of ideality that I had then I still retain. The reason that I have remained a Democrat is because I felt that we gave prime concern to the interests of men, as such, and had more faith that we could help on a revolution.

These are times of trial. The well we look into is very deep. The stars are not very bright. It is hard to find our way, but the pilot has a good nerve. I know the trouble that Ulysses had with Scylla and Charybdis.

Thank you, old man, very heartily for your word of cheer. Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO JOHN F. DAVIS

Washington, August 2, 1915

MY DEAR JOHN,--I am very glad to get your letter of July 28, telling me your views regarding the last note. I believe the paragraph to which you refer was absolutely essential to make Germany understand that we meant business; that she could not have taken our opposition seriously is evidenced by her previous note, and which, I think, was as insulting as any note ever addressed by one power to another. Think of the absurd proposition, that we should be allowed a certain number of ships to be prescribed by Germany upon which our people could sail! Of course, if we accepted her conditions, we would have to accept the conditions that any other belligerent, or neutral, for that matter, might impose. What becomes of a neutral's rights under these conditions?

The Leenalaw case shows that Germany can do exactly what we have been asking her to do; namely, give people a chance to get off the ship before they blow her up. This is good sense and good morals; and the whole neutral world is behind us. If, in response to our note, Germany had said, "We regret the destruction of American lives, and are willing to make reparation, and have directed our submarines that they shall not torpedo any ships until the ship has been given an opportunity to halt," there would have been no trouble; but Germany evidently did not take us seriously. Our English was a bit too diplomatic.

I am writing you thus frankly, and in confidence, of course, because I respect your opinion greatly. Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

In the middle of August, Lane joined his family at Essex-on- Champlain, New York, for a few days. While there he went with Mr. and Mrs. James S. Harlan to Westport, some miles further south on the lake, to see the summer boat races and water sports. Mr. Harlan's motor-boat, the Gladwater, which had been built on his dock by Dick Mead, won the race, and that evening on their return Lane gave the following letter to the successful builder:--

August 21, 1915

To "Dick" Mead on winning the race at Westport in the Gladwater.

We wonder sometimes why man was made, so full is life of things that terrorize, that sadden and embitter. This life is a sea; tranquil sometimes but so often fierce and cruel. And you and I are conscript sailors. Whether we will or no we must sail the sea of life, and in a ship that each must build for himself. To each is given iron and unhewn timber, to some more and to some less, with which to fashion his craft. Then the race really starts.

Some of us build ships that are no more than rafts, formless, lazy things that float. Fair weather things for moonlight nights. But others, high-hearted men of vision, will not be satisfied to drift with the current or accept the easy way. They know that they can do better than drift, and they must! The timber and the iron become plastic under their touch. The dreams of the long night they test in the too-short day. They make and they unmake; they drop their tools perhaps for a time and drift; they despair and curse their impatient and unsatisfied souls. But rising, they set to work again, and one day comes the reward, the planks fit together, and feeling the purpose of the builder, clasp each other in firm and beautiful lines; the unwilling metal at last melts into form and place and becomes the harmonious heart of the whole --and so a ship is born that masters the cruel sea, that cuts the fierce waves with a knife of courage.

To dream and model, to join and file, to melt and carve, to balance and adjust, to test and to toil--these are the making of the ship. And to a few like yourself comes the vision of the true line and the glory of the victory. Sincerely yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO JOHN CRAWFORD BURNS

ROME, ITALY

Washington, August 31, 1915

MY DEAR JOHN,-- ... I met three friends of yours in New York the other day, Lamb, Fletcher, and Pfeiffer, to whom I told in my dismal way, the correspondence that we have been carrying on, and all sympathized with me very sincerely.

Things look brighter now. The President seems to have been able to make Germany hear him at last. I am very much surprised that you think we ought to enter the war. Now that you have secured Italy to intervene, what is the necessity? What have you to offer by way of a bribe? I see that you are distributing territory generously. Or do you think that we should go in because we were threatened as England was--although she says it was Belgium that brought her in? Fletcher is very much for fighting; Lamb says that the Allies will win in the next two weeks. Pfeiffer thinks that nobody will win. I can't tell you what I think. If I were only nearer I would have more fun with you. Affectionately yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO SIDNEY E. MEZES

PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK

Washington, September 7, 1915

MY DEAR SID,--I enclose a more formal letter for presentation to your friend, Baron de--. Why in hell you should plague me with this thing, except that I am the only real good-natured man connected with the Government, I don't understand. Speaking of good nature reminds me that you are a clam; in fact, a clam is vociferous alongside of you.

As you know I have been guiding the affairs of this Government for the past three months, and have received advice from every man, woman, and child in the country, including the German-American Union, the Independent Union, the Friends of Peace, the Sons of Hibernia, and all the other troglodytes that live; and yet, you alone have not thought me of sufficient consequence to advise me as to what to do with the Kaiser or Carranza or Hoke Smith or Roosevelt.

Before you go back to work why don't you come down here and spend a day or two? We can have a perfectly bully time, and I will tell you how to run your University and you can tell me how to run the Government. ...

I have not seen House nor heard from him, though I have wanted to talk with him more than with any other human being, these three months gone. Yours as always,

F. K. L.

TO CORDENIO SEVERANCE

Washington, September 13, 1915

MY DEAR CORDY,--I envy you very much the opportunity that you have to entertain Miss Nancy Lane. [Footnote: Born January 4, 1903.] When she is herself, she is a most charming young lady. She has powers of fascination excelled by few. If she grows angry, owing to her artistic temperament, and throws plates at you or chases you out of the house with a broom, you must forgive her because you know that great artists like Sarah Bernhardt often have this failing.

Perhaps you do not know it, but she used to be a great violinist in her younger days. I doubt if she knows one string from another now. The only strings that she can play on are your heart strings, or mine, or any other man's that comes into her neighborhood. I shall rely upon your honor not to propose to her, because she is already engaged to me; in fact, we have been engaged nearly twelve years, and if she should become engaged to you, I will sue you for stealing her affections and will engage the firm of Davis Kellogg and Severance to prosecute my suit. If she says anything about a desire to get back to school, you can put it down as a bluff, and I trust that you will not swamp her with attentions and with company lest it should turn her head. She is accustomed to the simple life--a breakfast of oatmeal porridge, a luncheon of boiled macaroni, and a dinner of hash--these are the three things that she is used to. If she shows any disposition to be affectionate toward you or Aunt Maidie, I trust that you will repress her with an iron hand. The young women of this day, as you know, are very forward, and these new dances seem to be especially designed to destroy maiden modesty.

... You may tell her that her brother seems to be very anxious to hear from her, being solicitous two or three times a day as to the mail. I judge from this that he is expecting a letter from her--or someone else.

You are very good to be giving my little one such a fine time. My love to Maidie. Cordially yours,

F. K. L.

TO FREDERICK DIXON

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

Washington, October 7, 1915

DEAR MR. DIXON,--I have your letter of October 1st. You have asked me a very difficult question, which is really this:--How to get into a man's nature an appreciation of our form of government and its benefits?

I cannot answer this question. There are certain natures which do not sympathize with the exercise of or the development of common authority, which is the essence of Democracy. They are instinctively monarchists. They love order more than liberty. They do not see how a balance can be struck between the two. By force of environment and education their sons may see otherwise. I know of no other way of making Americans, than by getting into them by environment and education a love for liberty and a recognition of its advantages. Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO ROBERT H. PATCHIN

Washington, November 27, 1915

MY DEAR PATCHIN,--Mrs. Lane and I would be delighted to join in your fiesta to Mrs. Eleanor Egan, but we just can't. Why? Because we have a dinner on December 2nd, also because we are neutral. ...

We can not countenance any one who has been in jail. To have been in jail proves poverty. Nor do we regard it as fitting that a young woman should have been torpedoed and spent forty-five minutes in the water splashing around like Mrs. Lecks or Mrs. Aleshine. If she was torpedoed why didn't she go down or up like a heroine? Then she would have had an atrocious iron statue erected in her honor among the other horrors in Central Park. After her experience she will doubtless be more sympathetic toward those of us who are torpedoed daily and weekly and monthly and have to splash around for the amusement of a curious public.

I hope your dinner of welcome and rejoicing will be as gay as the cherubic smile of the Right Honorable Egan. Cordially,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO FRANCIS R. WALL

Washington, November 27, 1915

MY DEAR WALL,--I wish that I had time for a long letter to you, such as yours to me. But I am only to-day able to get at my personal correspondence which has accumulated in the last six weeks. These have been times of annual reports and estimates, and we have a large number of internal troubles which need constant attention.

I am afraid that we are going to have a great deal of trouble in getting our preparedness program through, because of dissension in our own ranks and because the Republicans are so anxious to take advantage of this emergency to raise the tariff duties and to gain credit for whatever is done in the way of preparation. We are too much dominated by partisanship to be really patriotic. This is a very broad indictment, but it seems to be justified. Of course, the people like Bryan and Ford, and the women generally, are moved by a philosophy that is too idealistic, and some of them are only moved, I fear, by an intense exaggerated ego. If I would have to name the one curse of the present day, I would say it is the love of notoriety and the assumption by almost everyone that his judgment is as good as that of the ablest. Of course, the trouble with the ablest people is that they are so largely moved by forces that do not appear on the surface, that one does not know that the views they express are really their own judgment. Democracy seems to be government by suspicion, in large part. We have faith in ourselves, but not in each other. A man to be a good partisan seems called upon to believe that every man of different view is a crook or a weakling. This is the Roosevelt idea. And half of it is the Bryan idea.

I wish that I could see you, old man, and have one of our old time talks. ...

I shall bear in mind what you say as to the availability of your service, but I hope it may not be necessary to take you from that land of sunshine and dreams that seems so remote from this center of intrigue and trouble. Affectionately yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO JOHN H. WIGMORE

Washington, December 8, 1915

MY DEAR JOHN,-- ... Things are not looking at all nice as to Germany and Austria. I know that the country is not satisfied, at least part of it, with our patience, but I don't see just what else we can do but be patient. Our ships are not needed anywhere, and our soldiers do not exist. To-day brings word of the blowing up of an American ship. Of course, we do not know the details but the thing looks ugly.

Wasn't the President's message on the hyphenated gentlemen bully? You could not have beaten that yourself. And your dear friend T. Roosevelt, did certainly write himself down as one large and glorious ass in his criticism of the message. He hates Wilson so, that he has just lost his mind. I wish I didn't have to say this about Roosevelt, because I am extremely fond of him (which you are not), but a poorer interview on the message could not have been written. ... As always yours,

F. K. L.

The following letter was written to Mrs. Adolph Miller when she was in a hospital in New York.

TO MRS. ADOLPH C. MILLER

Washington, December 12, [1915]

MY DEAR MARY,--We have just returned from Church and all morning I have been thinking of you and Adolph--praying for you I suppose in my Pagan way.

Poor dear girl, I know you are brave but I'd just like to hold your hand or look steadily into your eyes, to tell you that you have the best thing that this world gives--friends who are one with you. I can see old Adolph with his grimness and his great love, which makes him more grim and far more mandatory, what a sturdy old Dutch Calvinist he is! He really is more Dutch than German--Dutch modified by the California sun--and Calvinist sweetened by you and Boulder Creek, and Berkeley and William James and B. I. Wheeler and his Saint of a Mother. Well, let him pass, why should I talk of him when you really want me to talk of myself!

Last night we had the GRIDIRON dinner, and the President made an exalted speech. He is spiritually great, Mary, and don't you dare smile and think of the widow! We are all dual, old Emerson said it in his ESSAY ON FREE WILL, and Adolph can tell you what old Greek said it. And this duality is where the fight comes in, and the two people walk side by side, to-day is Jekyll's day, and tomorrow is Hyde's, and so they alternate.

Well, the GRIDIRON was a grind on Bryan and Villard and Ford, and a boost for preparedness and Garrison and the Army and Navy. Tell Adolph they had a Democratic mule, two men walking together under a cover, the head end reasonable, the hind end kicking--the front end of course represented the Wilson crowd and the hind end the Bryan-Kitchin,--and the two wouldn't work together. The whole thing was splendidly done and was a lesson to the few Democrats who were there--which they won't learn.

Nancy went to her second party last night--a joyous thing in a new evening cloak of old rose, which made her feel that Cleopatra and the Queen of Sheba and Mrs. Galt and all other exalted ladies had nothing on her. What a glorious thing life would be if we could remain children, with all the simple joys and none of the horrors that age brings on. There is certainly a good fifty per cent chance that this fine spirit will marry some damn brute who will worry and harass the soul out of her. For so the world goes. I hope she'll be as fortunate as you have been.

To-night we go to the Polks to see Mrs. Martin Egan who was on a torpedoed ship in the Mediterranean, and although she couldn't swim floated forty-five minutes till rescued. You must know the Polks well. She has very real charm and your old Mormon of a husband will desert his other fairies for her.

Now I have gossiped and preached and prophesied and mourned and otherwise revealed what passes through a wandering mind in half an hour, so I send you, at the close of this screed, my blessing, which is a poor gift, and I would send you the parcel post limit of my love if it weren't for Anne and Adolph, who are narrow- minded Dutch Calvinists. May good fortune betide you and bring you back very soon to the many whose hearts are sympathetic.

FRANK

TO MRS. MAGNUS ANDERSEN

Washington, D.C., December 24, [1915]

MY DEAR MAUDIE,--It is Christmas eve, and while Nancy and Anne are filling the mysterious stockings, I am writing these letters to the best of brothers and sister. It has been a long, a disgracefully long time since I wrote you, but I have kept in touch pretty well through George and Anne. ... So you have now a philosophy--something to hang to! I am glad of it. The standpoint is the valuable thing. There are profound depths in the idea that lies under Christian Science, but like all other new things it goes to unreasonable lengths. "Be Moderate," were the words written over the Temple on the Acropolis, and this applies to all things. This world is curiously complex, and no one knows how to answer all our puzzles. Sometimes I think that God himself does not. There is a fine poem by Emerson called, THE SPHINX, which is the most hopeful thing that I have found, because it recognizes the dual world in which we live, for everything goes not singly but in pairs--good and evil, matter and mind. Then, too, you may be interested in his essay on FATE.

Dear Fritz--dear, dear boy, how I wish I could be there with him, though I could do no good. ... Each night I pray for him, and I am so much of a Catholic that I pray to the only Saint I know or ever knew and ask her to help. If she lives her mind can reach the minds of the doctors just as surely as there is such a thing as transmission of thought between us, or hypnotism. I don't need her to intercede with God, but I would like her to intercede with man. Why, oh why, do we not know whether she is or not! Then all the universe would be explained to me. The only miracle that I care about is the resurrection. If we live again we certainly have reason for living now. I think that belief is the foundation hope of religion. Anne has it with a certainty that is to me nothing less than amazing. And people of noble minds, of exalted spirits, not necessarily of greatest intellects have it. George has it in his own way, and he is certainly one of the real men of the earth. The President has it strongly. He is, in fact, deeply, truly religious. The slanders on him are infamous.

... We are to have the quietest possible Christmas. No one but ourselves at dinner--I give no presents at all--for financially we are up to our eyebrows. I probably will work all day except for an hour or two which I shall use in playing with Nancy, for her gay spirit will not allow anything but the Christmas spirit to prevail. She is so like our Dear One, so determined, cheerful, hopeful, courageous, yet very shy. Ned will be out all night at dances and tomorrow too, for he is a most popular chap and very well-behaved indeed. His manners are excellent and he has plenty of dash. He is learning these things now which I learned only after many years, the little things which make the conventional man of the world.

I hope that you will find the New Year one of great peace of mind and real serenity of soul. May you commune with the Spirit of the Infinite and find yourself growing more and more in the spiritual image of the Dear One.

My tenderest love to you and to your good high-hearted man, and to the Boy.

FRANK

TO MRS. ADOLPH C. MILLER

Washington [1915]

This is a Christmas letter and is addressed:--"To a Brave Young Woman." I am afraid it is not just as cheery and merry as it should be because, you see, it's like this, I am poor--very, very poor, and I have very good taste--very, very good taste. Now those two things can't get on together at Christmas. Then, too, I am busy--very, very busy, so I don't have time to shop. Now if you were very, very poor and had very, very good taste and were very, very busy and couldn't shop--how in heaven could you buy anything for anyone?

I did take half an hour or so to look at things, and things were so ugly that were cheap that of course I couldn't buy them without confessing poor taste, or they were so very expensive that I couldn't buy them without confessing bankruptcy. Now there you are! So what could a poor boy do but come home empty-handed, nothing for Anne or Nancy or Ned or you--not even something for myself! And I need things, socks and pipe, and better writing paper than this, and music and toothpaste and some new clothes, and a house near your palace, and a more contented spirit and another job and Ahellofalotof things. Don't get nervous about me, because I'm not going to kill myself for lack of all these things, although a true-born Samurai, loyal to Bushido might do so. For it is dishonor not to be rich at Christmas time; not to feel rich, anyway. But then let me see what I've got! There's Anne! I expect if sold on the block, at public auction, say in Alaska, where women are scarce, she would bring some price; but her digestion isn't very good and her heart is quite weak and her hair is falling out. But these things, of course, the auctioneer wouldn't reveal. She would make a fine Duchess, but the market just now is overstocked with Duchesses. And she is a good provider when furnished with the provisions.

Now there is Ned--he could hire out as a male assistant to a female dancer and get fifty a week, perhaps. Nancy couldn't even do that. They are both liabilities. So there you are, with Duchesses on the contraband list, and Nancy not old enough to marry a decayed old Pittsburg millionaire, I will be compelled to keep on working. For my assets aren't what your noble husband would call quick, though they are live. I really don't know what to do. I shall wait till Anne comes home and then, as usual, do what she says.

I really did look for something for you. But the only thing I saw that I thought you would care for was a brooch, opal and diamonds for seven hundred and seventy-five dollars, so I said you wouldn't care for it. But I bought it for you A LA Christian Science. You have it, see? I think you have it, that I gave it to you. And that Adolph doesn't know it, see?

Well you have the opal and I am happy because you are enjoying it. Such fire! What a superb setting! And such refined taste, platinum, do you notice! oh, so modest! No one else has any such jewel. How Henry will admire it--and how mystified Adolph is! Tell him you bought it out of the money you saved on corned beef. How I shall enjoy seeing you wear it, and knowing that it bears in its fiery heart all the ardent poetry that I would fain pour out, but am deterred by my shyness. But you will understand! Each night you must take it out just for a glimpse before saying your prayers. The opal is from Australia, the platinum from Siberia, the diamonds from Africa, the setting was designed in Paris. And here it is, the circle of the world has been made to secure this little thing of beauty for you. What symbolism!

I hope it will make you happy, and cause you to forget all your pain and weakness. It has given me great happiness to give you this little gift. And so we will both have a merry Christmas.

FRANK

VIII

AMERICAN AND MEXICAN AFFAIRS

1916

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

TO WILLIAM M. BOLE

GREAT FALLS TRIBUNE

Washington, December 29, 1915

DEAR BOLE,--I am very much gratified by the manner in which you treated my annual report. Certainly my old newspaper training has stood me in good stead in writing my reports. In fact it always has, for while I was Corporation Counsel in San Francisco, and a member of the Interstate Commerce Commission, I wrote legal opinions that were intelligible to the layman, and I tried to present my facts in such manner as to make their presentation interesting. The result was that the courts read my opinions and sustained them, but whether they were equally impressive upon the strictly legal mind, I have my doubts, because you know inside the "union" there is a strong feeling that the argot of the bar must be spoken and the simplest legal questions dealt with in profound, philosophic, latinized vocabulary.

I remember that after I was elected Corporation Counsel, when I was almost unknown to the bar of San Francisco, I began to hear criticism from my legal friends that my opinions were written in English that was too simple, so I indulged myself by writing a dozen or so in all the heavy style that I could put on, writing in as many Latin phrases and as much old Norman French as was possible. This was by way of showing the crowd that I was still a member of the union.

I find that all our scientific bureaus suffer from the same malady. These scientists write for each other, as the women say they dress for each other. One of the first orders that I issued was that our letters should be written in simple English, in words of one syllable if possible, and on one page if possible.

Soon after I came here I found a letter from one of our lawyers to an Indian, explaining the conditions of his title, that was so involved and elaborately braided and beaded and fringed that I could not understand it myself. I outraged the sensibilities of every lawyer in the Department, and we have five hundred or more of them, by sending this letter back and asking that it be put in straightaway English. ... Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO MRS. ADOLPH C. MILLER

Washington, [January 1, 1916]

Having just sent a wire to you I shall now indulge myself in a few minutes talk with that many-sided, multiple-natured, quite obvious-and-yet-altogether-hidden person who is known to me as Mary Miller.

The flash of brilliant crimson on the eastern side of the opal, do you catch it? Now that is the flash of courage, the brilliant flame that will lead you to hold your head high. ... I like very much what you say as to wearing our jewel "discreetly but constantly." No combination of words could more perfectly express the relationship which this bit of sunrise has established between us--devotion, loyalty, telepathic communication without publicity. I am sure you are belittling yourself. ... you are a game bird,-- good, you understand, but with a tang, a something wild in flavor, a touch of the woods and mountain flowers and hidden dells in bosky places, and wanderings and sweet revolt against captivity. ...

This is my first line of the New Year. Anne is a true daughter of Martha this morning--her heart is troubled with many things, getting ready for the raid of the Huns this afternoon. She says she will write when she repossesses herself of her right arm. Good health!

Some days later

... I have been receiving your wireless messages all week, my dear Mary, and not one was an S. O. S. Good! The fair ship MARY MILLER is safe. Hurrah! She never has been staunch, but she was the gayest thing on the sea, and when her sails were all set from jib to spanker she made a gladsome sight, and some speed.

Of course, being so gay she was venturesome. That's where the Devil comes in. He is always looking about for the gay things. He hates anything that doesn't make medicine for him. If you are gay you are likely to be venturesome, and if venturesome, you can be led astray. So the good ship MARY MILLER instead of hugging the shore took a try at the vasty deep and got all blown to pieces. Then she sent out a cry for help. The wireless worked and now with a little puttering along in the sunshine and a lazy sea, she will be her gay self once more, and like Kipling's Three Decker will "carry tired people to the Islands of the Blest."

That was a most charming letter you sent me, a real bit of intimate talk. Anne read it first. She is very careful as to my reading. And I was glad to know that she could discover nothing in it which might injuriously affect my trustful young mind. Anne is really a good woman. I don't believe in husband's abusing their wives, publicly. Good manners are essential to happiness in married life. We are short on manners in this country, and that explains the prevalence of divorce. How much better, as our friend L. Sterne once said, "These things are ordered in France."

F. K L.

TO EDWARD F. ADAMS

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

Washington, January 11, 1916

MY DEAR ADAMS,--I have yours of the 2nd. Of course, you can not sue the United States to get possession of its property without the consent of the United States; but I will forgive you for all your peculiar and archaic notions regarding government lands and schools and sich, because I love you for what you are and not because of your inheritance of old-fashioned ideas.

As I am dictating this letter I look up at the wall and discover there the head of a bull moose, and that bull moose makes me think of all the things you said four years ago about Roosevelt. And now he is to be again the master of your party--perhaps not a candidate, because he may be guilty of an act of self-abnegation and put away the crown, or take it in his own hands and place it upon some one else's brow.

I remember the manner--the scornful, satirical, sometimes pitiful and sometimes abusive manner--in which you treated the Bull Moose; and so we are going to have a great spectacle, the Bull Moose and the Elephant kissing each other at Chicago; and seated on the Elephant's shoulders will be the crowned mahout with the big barbed stick in his hand, telling you which way to turn and when to kneel!

Of course, you will abuse us all for our land policies, but overlook the fact that the brutalities of these policies were committed in other days--those good, old Republican days. It really is a wonder that you are not cynical and that you still have enthusiasm. I should not be surprised if you said your prayers and had belief in another world, where all the bad Democrats would sizzle to the eternal joy of the good Republicans. In those days I shall look up to you and I know that you will not deny me the drop of cold water.

I shall be very much interested in seeing what kind of a fist our man Claxton makes out of your school system, and I hope you can use him as a means of arousing interest in the schools. That is one trouble with the public school system, because we get our education for nothing we treat it as if it was worth nothing--I mean those of us who are parents. We never know that the school exists except to make some complaint about discipline or taxes.

May you live long and be happy. Always yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

From time to time as vacancies occurred on the Supreme Bench, letters and telegrams came to Lane from friends that begged him to allow them to urge his appointment to this office. In 1912, 1914, and 1916 the newspapers in different parts of the country mentioned him as a probable appointee. While, as a young lawyer, this office had seemed to him to be one greatly to be desired, after he came to Washington and knew more of the nature of the cases that necessarily formed the greater part of the work passed upon by the Supreme Court, his interest waned. As early as 1913 he wrote of the decisions of the Interstate Commerce Commission, "If we are wise, we are not to be terrorized by our own precedents." An office in which there was little opportunity for constructive or executive work grew to have less and less attraction for him.

To Carl Snyder

Washington, January 22, 1916

MY DEAR CARL,--I am your most dutiful and obedient servant; the aforesaid modest declaration being induced by your letter of January fifth, offering to place me on the Bench. I regret greatly that you are not the President of the United States, but he seems to have a notion that it would be a shame to spoil an excellent Secretary of the Interior.

Talking of robes, there is an idea in Chesterton that is not bad, that all those who exercise power in the world wear skirts--the judge, who can officially kill a man; the woman, who can unofficially do the same thing; and the King, who is the State; likewise the Pope, who can save the souls of all.

Garrett was in to-day, and if you haven't seen him since his return, edge up next to him. He is full of facts, some of which are new to us.

I guess I am to credit you with that little editorial in Collier's, eh? Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

To Mrs. Franklin K. Lane

Atlantic City

Washington, February 5, 1916

MOST RESPECTED LADY,--Having just returned from luncheon and being in the enjoyment of a cigar of fine aroma I sit me down for a quiet talk. I am visualizing you as by my side and addressing you in person.

First, no doubt, you will care to hear of the reception given at the White House last evening. According to your directions, I first dined with the Secretary of Agriculture, his wife, and a lady from Providence. ... Going then to the White House we socialized for a few minutes before proceeding down stairs. The President expressed himself as regretting your absence, and the President's lady, having heard from you, expressed solicitude as to your health. I loitered for a few minutes behind the line and then betook me to the President's library, where I spent most of the evening hearing the Postmaster General tell of the great burden that it was to have a Congress on his hands. Bernard Shaw writes of the Superman, and so does, I believe, the crazy philosopher of Germany. I was convinced last night that I had met one in the flesh. ...

The President is cheerful, regarding his Western tour as one of triumph. His lady still wears the smile which has given her such pre-eminence. Mrs. Marshall was in line, looking like a girl of twenty. Those absent were the Wife of the Secretary of War, the wife of the Secretary of the Interior, and the wife of the Secretary of Labor. ...

You have two most excellent children, dear madam--a youth of some eighteen years who has a frisky wit and a more frisky pair of feet. Your daughter is a most charming witch. I mean by this not to refer to her age ... but to that combination of poise, directness, tenderness, fire, hypocrisy, and other feminine virtues which go to make up the most charming, because the most elusive, of your sex. I am inclined to believe that Mr. Ruggles, of Red Gap, would not regard either your son or your daughter as fitted for those high social circles in which they move by reason of the precision of their vocabulary or their extreme reserve in manner, both being of very distinct personality. One is flint and the other steel, I find, so that fire is struck when they come together. While engaged, however, in the game of draw poker, these antipathetic qualities do not reveal themselves in such a manner as to seriously affect domestic peace. I have spent two entire evenings with your children, much to my entertainment. That I will not be able to enjoy this evening with them is a matter of regret, but I am committed to a dinner with the Honorable Kirke Porter, and tomorrow evening I believe that I am to dine with the lady on R. Street, the name of the aforesaid lady being now out of my mind, but you will recall her as having a brilliant mind and very slight eyebrows.

Neither the President nor myself alluded to the late lamented oversight on his part, and on meeting the members of the Supreme Court I did not find that by the omission to appoint me on said Court the members thereof felt that a great national loss had been suffered. No one, in fact, throughout the evening alluded to this miscarriage of wisdom. ...

... Much solicitude was expressed by many of those present regarding your health. I told them in my off-hand manner that I was enjoying your absence greatly. ...

Having now had this most enjoyable talk with you, I shall delight myself with an hour's discussion of oil leases upon the Osage Reservation with one Cato Sells.

Believe me, my dear madam, your most respectful obedient, humble, meek, modest, mild, loyal, loving, and disconsolate servant,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO WILL IRWIN

Washington, February 11, 1916

DEAR WILL,--So you are off for the happiest voyage you have ever made, with the girl of your heart, to see the whole world being changed and a new world made. What a joy! Don't put off returning too long. Remember that books must be timely now, and after you have a gizzard full of good chapter headings, come back and grind.

Nancy entirely approves of your wife and her books. As always yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO--

Washington, February 29, 1916

... It is none of my business, but I have just seen an article coming out over your name respecting Pinchot, the wisdom of which I doubt. I have never found any good to come by blurring an issue by personal contest or antagonisms. You asked me when you left if you might not come in once in a while and talk with me, and I am taking the liberty in this way of dropping in on you, for I am deeply interested in water power development and want to see something result this Session.

I have no time to waste in fighting people, and I have found that by pursuing this policy I can promote measures that I favor. To fight for a thing, the best way is to show its advantages and the need for it, and ignore those who do not take the same view, because there is an umpire in Congress that must balance the two positions, and therefore I can rely upon the strength of my position as against the weakness of the other man's position. If those who are in favor of water power development get to fighting each other, nothing will result.

I am giving you the benefit of this attitude of mine for your own guidance. It may be entirely contrary to the policy that you, or your people, wish to pursue and my only solicitude is that the things I am for, should not be held back any longer by personal disputes. Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO HON. WOODROW WILSON

THE WHITE HOUSE

Washington, March 13, 1916

MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT,--I shall be pleased to go to the San Diego Exposition, on my way to San Francisco, and say a word as your representative at its opening.

I hope that you may find your way made less difficult than now appears possible, as to entering Mexico, My judgment is that to fail in getting Villa would ruin us in the eyes of all Latin- Americans. I do not say that they respect only force, but like children they pile insult upon insult if they are not stopped when the first insult is given. If I can be of any service to you by observation or by carrying any message for you to anybody, while I am West, I trust that you will command me. I can return by way of Arizona and New Mexico. ... Faithfully yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

Lane re-opened the California International Exposition at San Diego, where, voicing the President's regret that he could not himself be present, Lane said,--"He had intended to make this trip himself; but circumstances, some to the east of him and some to the south of him, made that impossible. ... Pitted against him are the trained and cunning intellects of the whole world, ... and no one can be more conscious than is he that it is difficult to reconcile pride and patience. I give you his greeting therefore, not out of a heart that is joyous and buoyant, but out of a heart that is grave and firm in its resolution that the future of our Republic and all republics shall not be put in peril."

From San Diego he went north to San Francisco, to see his brother Frederic J. Lane, who had been ill for some months. After a few days with him Lane returned to his desk, in Washington.

TO FREDERIC J. LANE

Washington, April 26, 1916

MY DEAR FRITZ,-- ... I certainly will not despair of your being cured until every possible resource has been exhausted. The odds, it seems to me, are in your favor. Whenever Abrams and Vecchi say that they have done all that they can, if you are still in condition to travel, I want you to try the Arkansas Hot Springs and I will go down there to meet you. ...

I wrote you from the train the other day on my way to Harpers Ferry, where I took an auto and went down through the Shenandoah Valley and across the mountains to Charlottesville, where the University of Virginia is. I went with the Harlans. Anne joined us at Charlottesville. ... We visited Monticello, where Jefferson lived, and saw a country quite as beautiful as any valley I know of in California, not even excepting the Santa Clara Valley, in prune blossom time. Those old fellows who built their houses a hundred years ago knew how to build and build beautifully. We have no such places in California as some that were built a hundred and fifty years ago in Virginia, and they did not care how far they got away from town, in those days.

Jefferson's house is up on the top of a hill, as are most of the others,--there are very few on the roads. Most of them are from a mile to five miles back, and although the land is covered with timber they built of brick, and imported Italian laborers to do the wood-carving. When I think of how much less in money and in trouble make a place far more magnificent in California, I wonder our people have not lovelier places. Of course, the difference is that in Virginia there were just three classes of people--the aristocrat, the middle class, and the negroes. The aristocracy had the land, the middle class were the artisans, and the negroes the slaves. The only ones who had fine houses were the aristocracy, whereas with us the great mass of our people are business and professional men of comparatively small means and we have few men who build palaces.

Things have blown up in Ireland, I see, and the Irish are going to suffer for this foolish venture. This man Casement who is posing as the George Washington of the Irish revolution, has held office all his life under the English Government and now draws a pension. His last position was that of Consul General at Rio de Janeiro. I got a pamphlet from him a year or so ago, in which he proposed an alliance between Germany, the Republic of Ireland, and the Republic of the United States, which should control the politics of the world. ...

Doesn't the thought of Henry Ford as Presidential candidate ... surprise you? It looks to me very much as if the Ford vote demonstrates Roosevelt's weakness as a candidate. Last night I went to dinner at old Uncle Joe Cannon's house, and as I came out Senator O'Gorman pointed to Uncle Joe and Justice Hughes talking together and said, "There is the old leader passing over the wand of power to the new leader." ...

Well, old man, I know that I do not need to tell you to keep your spirits up and your faith strong. Give me all the news, good as well as bad. Affectionately yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO FRANK I. COBB

NEW YORK WORLD

Washington, May 8, 1916

MY DEAR COBB,--Here is a memorandum that has been drafted respecting the leasing bill, that we are now pushing to have taken up by the Senate. This bill, as you know, covers oil, phosphate, and potash lands. ... There are three million acres of phosphate lands, two and a half million acres of oil lands, and a small acreage of potash lands, under withdrawal now, that cannot be developed because of lack of legislation. ...

The situation here is tense. Of course, nobody knows what will be done. I favor telling Germany that we will make no trade with her, and if she fails to make good her word we will stop talking to her altogether. I am getting tired of having the Kaiser and Carranza vent their impudence at our expense, because they know we do not want to go to war and because they want to keep their own people in line. ... Cordially yours,

LANE

TO GEORGE W. WICKERSHAM

Washington, May 17, 1916

MY DEAR WICKERSHAM,--I am just back from a trip to South Dakota, where I, by ritual, a copy of which is inclosed for your perusal, made citizens out of a bunch of Indians who never can become hyphenates, and for this reason your letter has remained unanswered.

And just because we love you, and love ourselves even better, we will break all rules, precedents, promises, appointments, agreements, and covenants of all kinds whatsoever, and steal over to see you a week from Saturday. Just what hour I will wire you, and what time we can stay depends upon things various and sundry. But you may depend upon it that it will be as long a time as a very flexible conscience will permit.

Remember me, in terms of endearment, to that noble lady who desolated Washington by her departure. As always,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO H. B. BROUGHAM

Washington, May 20, 1916

DEAR MR. BROUGHAM,-- ... I recently returned from the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota where I admitted some one hundred and fifty competent Indians to full American citizenship in accordance with a ritual. ... The ceremony was really impressive and taken quite seriously by the Indians. Why should not some such ceremony as this be used when we give citizenship to foreigners who come to this country? Surely it tends to instil patriotism and presents the duties of citizenship in a manner that leaves a lasting impression. Here is a story that should be interesting to all, if properly presented. Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

INDIAN RITUAL ADMISSION TO CITIZENSHIP

The Secretary stands before one of the candidates and says:--

"Joseph T. Cook, what was your Indian name?"

"Tunkansapa," answers the Indian.

"Tunkansapa, I hand you a bow and arrow. Take this bow and shoot the arrow."

The Indian does so.

"Tunkansapa, you have shot your last arrow. That means you are no longer to live the life of an Indian. You are from this day forward to live the life of the white man. But you may keep that arrow. It will be to you a symbol of your noble race and of the pride you may feel that you come from the first of all Americans."

Addressing Tunkansapa by his white name.

"Joseph T. Cook, take in your hands this plough." Cook does so. "This act means that you have chosen to live the life of the white man. The white man lives by work. From the earth we must all get our living, and the earth will not yield unless man pours upon it the sweat of his brow.

"Joseph T. Cook, I give you a purse. It will always say to you that the money you gain must be wisely kept. The wise man saves his money, so that when the sun does not smile and the grass does not grow he will not starve."

The Secretary now takes up the American flag. He and the Indian hold it together.

"I give into your hands the flag of your country. This is the only flag you ever will have. It is the flag of free men, the flag of a hundred million free men and women, of whom you are now one. That flag has a request to make of you, Joseph T. Cook, that you repeat these words."

Cook then repeats the following after the Secretary.

"Forasmuch as the President has said that I am worthy to be a citizen of the United States, I now promise this flag that I will give my hands, my head, and my heart to the doing of all that will make me a true American citizen."

The Secretary then takes a badge upon which is the American eagle, with the national colors, and, pinning it upon the Indian's breast, speaks as follows:--

"And now, beneath this flag, I place upon your breast the emblem of citizenship. Wear this badge always, and may the eagle that is on it never see you do aught of which the flag will not be proud."

TO FREDERIC J. LANE

Washington, June 6, 1916

MY DEAR FRITZ,--We have a letter from Mary this morning saying you are holding your own pretty well, which is mighty good news, and that Abrams is still convinced that he is right, which is also good news. By the same mail I learn that Hugo Asher was hit by a train and nearly killed. Whether he will recover or not is a question. Asher is a most lovable fellow and loyal to the core. It would break my heart to have him go. I got into my fight with Hearst over Asher. His people demanded that I should fire Asher, and I refused to do it.

I guess you are beaten on Roosevelt, old man. The word that we get here is that he is done for at Chicago. Of course before this gets to you the nomination will be made. My own thought has been that he laid too much stress on the support of big business. To have Gary, and Armour, and Perkins as your chief boomers doesn't make you very popular in Kansas and Iowa. Hughes may be the easiest man to beat, after all, because he vetoed the Income tax amendment in New York, a two-cent fare bill, and other things which are pretty popular. He is a good man, honest and fine, but not a liberal. The whole Congressional push has been for Hughes for months, but I haven't believed that he would accept the nomination. I made the prophesy to some newspaper men the other day that Roosevelt would get in and endorse Hughes with both fists. They were inclined to doubt this, but I still believe that I am right. ...

To-day, comes word that Kitchener has been drowned and Yuan Shi Kai poisoned. Heaven knows whose turn comes next. Just think of three such events within a week as that sea battle off Denmark, the greatest naval battle of the world; the torpedoing of the Secretary of War and all of his staff; and the poisoning of the Emperor of China. I doubt if there ever was a period in the whole history of the world when things moved as fast and there was as much that was exciting. Of course now we have it all thrown onto a screen in front of our faces, whereas a hundred years ago we would have had to wait for perhaps a year before knowing that the Emperor of China had been killed. Nevertheless I think there is more passion and violence on exhibition to-day than at any time in a great many years.

I had a talk with the President the other day which was very touching. He made reference to the infamous stories that are being circulated regarding him with such indignation and pathos that I felt really very sorry for him. I suppose that these stories will be believed by some and made the basis of a very nasty kind of campaign. But there is no truth in them and yet a man can't deny them. It is a strange thing that when a man is not liable to any other charge they trump up some story about a woman. ...

Now my dear boy, may you have a continuance of courage, for there is no telling what day the tide may turn and things swing your way. We know so damned little about nature yet. Affectionately yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO HON. WOODROW WILSON

THE WHITE HOUSE

Washington, June 8, 1916

MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT,--I see by the papers that it is repeatedly announced that you are writing the platform. Now I want to take the liberty of saying that this is not altogether good news to me. Our platform should contain such an appreciation of you and your administration, that you could not write it, much less have it known that you have written it. It should be one long joyful shout of exultation over the achievements of the Administration, and I can't quite see you leading the shout.

The Republican party was for half a century a constructive party, and the Democratic party was the party of negation and complaint. We have taken the play from them. The Democratic party has become the party of construction. You have outlined new policies and put them into effect through every department, from State to Labor. Therefore, our platform should be generously filled with words of boasting that will hearten and make proud the Democrats of the country; a plain tale of large things simply done.

If there is any truth at all in the newspaper statement and any purpose in making it, perhaps the end that is desired might be reached by a statement that you are not undertaking to write the platform, but that at the request of some of the leaders you are giving them a concrete statement of your foreign policy. Faithfully yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO MRS. FRANKLIN K. LANE

ESSEX ON CHAMPLAIN, N. Y.

Washington, June 22, 1918

MY DEAR ANNE,--I am just back this minute from Brown [University] where I had a right good time. I arrived in the morning early and kept the Dean waiting for me for a half an hour. ...

After breakfast I went over to the University grounds, which are very quaint, on the crest of a hill with fine old buildings, and there found that Hughes was the hero of the day, of course; every step he took he was cheered. He was very genial about it. We marched in our robes, down through the winding streets of this old New England town to a meeting house one hundred and seventy-five years old, and there we sat in pews, while the President of Brown, Mr. Faunce, gave the degrees in Latin. I have not heard so much Latin since I left school. There were a pretty good looking lot of boys, about half of them New Englanders and about half of them Westerners. We heard some orations by the students and then marched up the hill again where we had lunch, and then went over to a great tent on the campus where William Roscoe Thayer--who wrote the life of Hay--President Faunce, Judge Brown, Mr. Hughes, and I spoke.

I spoke for about half an hour. My speech fitted in very well, because Thayer preceded me, and he spoke of the lack of an American spirit; I had already prepared a speech upon the abundance of American spirit, [Footnote: Speech published in book entitled, The American Spirit.] so that I answered Thayer, and answered him with scorn. I told him that if New England was growing weak in her American pride or her vigor that we would take these boys and carry them out West where there was not any lack of virility or hardiness or red blood, and that if they wanted to know whether the American was willing to fight or not, to go to any recruiting office of the United States to-day and see how crowded it was. I told them about our pioneers, who were taking up ten or twelve million acres of land, the men who had gone to Alaska, and then turned upon the real proposition which was that there was a difference between national spirit and martial spirit.

War used to be the only opportunity for glory or romance or achievement, while there are a million other opportunities now open, because man's imagination has grown. In the morning the College had given honorary degrees of LL.D. to Brand Whitlock and Herbert Hoover. So when I came to the close of my talk I told them about Hoover's Belgian work, and that Brand Whitlock had refused to leave Brussels; and while there was no English and no French and no Italian and no Spanish and no other flag in Brussels, the Stars and Stripes in front of the American Legation had never come down, and the Belgian peasant when he went to his work in the morning took his hat off in honor of our flag, and I asked those people to stand with me in front of that peasant to take their hats off and take heart.

Well, I had the crowd with me right along. Then Hughes came and he took American Spirit as his text, and he made it quite evident what his campaign is going to be; that it is going to be a charge, veiled and very poorly supported by facts, that we have not known where we were going, that we were vacillating, that we did not have any enthusiasm, that we did not arouse the people and make them feel proud that they were Americans. How in the mischief he is going to get away with this, I do not understand. Whom were we to be mad at--England, or Germany, or everybody in the world? Were we to war with the entire outfit? He seems to be able to have satisfied the Providence Journal, which is run by an Australian who has been running the spy system for the British Embassy, and has been printing a lot ... about Germany and all the German press. If he can get away with this he is some politician. I see that Teddy has had an understanding with him. Von Meyer was there yesterday to hold a conference with him.

But I do not think that we lost anything in the discussion of yesterday. There were not any Democrats there who were not on their toes at the end of the meeting; but, of course, practically everybody in Rhode Island is a Republican. It is the closest thing to a proprietary estate that I have ever seen.

... I left at 6 o'clock and on my way back met President Vincent, of Minneapolis, and George Foster Peabody. You knew that Frank Kellogg was nominated, [Footnote: For the United States Senate.] didn't you, Clapp running third? ...

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO MRS. ADOLPH MILLER

Washington, July 4, 1916

... I see you with blooming cheeks and star-lit eyes peeping out from under a sun-bonnet, enshrined in all the glories of the mountain redwoods, and I long to be with you if only to get some of the freshness and joy of the California mountains into my rather desolate soul.

How is the old clam? Do his lips come together in that precise Prussian way, and does he order the universe about? Or does a new spirit come over him when he gets with nature? Is she a soothing mistress who smooths his stiff hair with her soft hand, and pats his cheek and nestles him in her arms, and with her cool breath makes him forget a federal, or any other kind, of reserve?

Why has nature been so unkind to me as to make me a lover but always from afar, never to come near her, never to compel me to a sweet surrender, never to give me peace and contentment, never to so surround me as to keep out the world of fools and follies and pharisees?

You know, I would like to write some servant girl novels. I believe I could do it. My love-making would either be rather tame and stiff or too intensely early Victorian. But I should like to swing off into an ecstasy of large turgid words and let my mind hear the mushy housemaid cry, "Isn't that just too sweet!" ...

I enclose a copy of my speech made at Brown University. Perhaps it will interest that old farmer potato bug. He does not deserve to have it said, but I miss him very much. Please obey him an you love me. Cut out all social activities, giving yourself up to the acquisition of a few more of the right kind of corpuscles in your too-blue blood. As always, yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

To Mrs. Franklin K. Lane

Essex-on-Champlain

Washington, July 4, 1916

... There is no news that I can give you. The weather is very warm. Politics is growing warmer. I think Heney will run for Senator in California, probably against Hiram Johnson. Will Crocker is also said to be a candidate for the Republican nomination. I could get the nomination by saying that I would accept. Phelan told me yesterday that he would see that all the necessary money was raised,--that I could win in a walk. Dockweiler says the same thing. The latter is here and we have seen much of each other. What do you say if I run for Senator? I really feel very much tempted to do it at times because things have been made so uncomfortable by some of my fool colleagues who have butted in on my affairs; and then I feel I would like the excitement of the stump and to make the personal appeal once more. You could go round with me over the State in an automobile. While I would not insist upon your making speeches for me, I know that your presence would add greatly to my success.

There is no telling what way this campaign may go. It may be a landslide for Wilson, it may be a landslide the other way. We have the hazards because we have the decision of questions. There is bound to be a lot of objection to whatever course we take with regard to Mexico. I fear from what Benjamin Ide Wheeler told me the other day that Germany any day may decide to put her submarines into active service again on the old lines, especially if things on land go as they have been going lately against the Teutons.

... I shall not decide in favor of accepting the nomination until I hear from you. In the meantime don't lose any sleep over it. And so my Nancy has a beau? Well, the little rascal must be given some good advice now. So I shall turn my attention to her ...

F.K.L.

Washington, July 24, 1916

... To-day I have spent most quietly,--had Bill Wheeler up for breakfast and then went to the Cosmos Club for lunch with Dockweiler. He is very anxious to get a Catholic on the Mexican Commission and so am I. I want Chief Justice White, but I fear the President won't ask him ...

Dear old Dockweiler is an awfully good man ... From youth he has gauged every act by his conception of the will of God, and in doubt has asked God's representative, the priest. What a comforting thing to have a church like that; it makes for happiness, if it does not make for progress. Why is it that progress must come from discontent? The latter is the divine spark in man, no doubt,

"O to be satisfied, satisfied, Only to lie at Thy feet."

is a hymn we used to sing in church. We yearn to be satisfied and yet we know because we are not satisfied we grow . ...

"The mystical hanker after something higher," is religion, and yet it should not be all of religion; for man's own sake there should be some cross to which one can cling, some Christ who can hear and give peace to the waves. I wish I could be a Catholic, and yet I can not feel that once you have a free spirit that it is right to go back into the monastery, and shut yourself up away from doubts, making your soul strong only through prayer. There are two principles in the world fighting all the time, and the one makes the other possible. There is no "perfect," there is a "better" only. And in this fight one does not become better by prayer-- prayer is only the ammunition wagon, the supply train, where one can get masks for poison gas and cartridges for the guns.

Pfeiffer said a good thing the other day, quite like him to say it, too. We were talking of churches and he said he never went to one because he did not believe in abasing or prostrating himself before God, he saw no sense in it; God didn't respect one for it, and moreover he was part of God himself and he couldn't prostrate himself before himself. I asked him if he didn't recognize humility as a virtue, and he said, "No, the higher you hold your head the more God-like you are."

Humility, to me, seems to be the basis of sympathy. We stoop to conquer in that we are not self-assertive and self-assured, for if we "know" that we are right we can not know how others think or feel. We can not grow.

You know there are two great classes of people, those who are challenged by what they see, and those who are not. Now the only kind who grow are the former. But what is it to grow? If we "evermore come out by that same door wherein we went" surely there is no object in being curious. Can there be growth when we are in an endless circle? ...

Now after all my struggle, I fall back not on reason but on instinct, on a primal desire, and perhaps this is my rudimentary soul, the mystical hanker after something higher. That is a real thing. The purpose of nature seems to be to put it into me and make it very important to me. That being so I can not overlook it, and must obey it. The thing that pleases me as I look back upon it, is the thing I must do; that sets the standard for me; that is morals and religion. If there is any chap who the day after sings with joy over being a devil--that man I never heard of--but if he takes delight in what he did that was fiendish, then he must follow and should follow that bent until he SEES that it is fiendish. He has to have more light. But I really don't believe there is any such fellow, who clearly sees what he did and rejoices in it. All of us sing, "I want to be an angel." THERE is the whole of revelation, and all things that tend to make us gratify that desire are good. I guess that is pragmatism, in words of one syllable.

You see that all religion comes from a desire to know something definite. We prayed logically, in the old time, to the devil and tried to propitiate him, so that harm would not come to us. That is stage number one in our climb. Then we find the good spirit and pray to him to whip the devil, which is stage number two. Then we ask the good spirit to give us strength to whip the devil ourselves. That is stage number three. Buddha and Christ come in the number three stage, and that is where we are. We may find, as stage number four, that the good spirit is only a muscle in our brain or a fluid in our nerves, which we strengthen, and become masters of ourselves--greater, stronger, more clear-sighted-- without any OUTSIDE Great Spirit. That we are all things in ourselves, and that we are, in making ourselves, making the God. I fancy that is Pfeiffer's idea. It is Mezes', I believe. Then comes in the mystery of transmitting that highly developed spirit. A woman of such a super-soul may marry a man of most carnal nature whose children are held down to earth and gross things, and her fine spirit is lost, unless it lives elsewhere. So we come back to the question, how is the good preserved? "Never any bright thing dies," may be true, but if so it means an immortality of the spirit. This is all confusion and despair. We do not see where we are going. But we must climb, we must grow, we must do better, for the same reason that our bodies must feed. The rest we leave with all the other mysteries ...

July 28, 1916

I am going to dinner ... and before I go alone into a lonesome club, I must send a word to you. Not that I have any particular word to say, for my mind is heavy, nor that you will find in what I may say anything that will illumine the way, but why should we not talk? What! may a friend not call upon a friend in time of vacancy to listen to his idle babble? O these pestiferous dealers in facts and these prosy philosophers, the world must have surcease from them and wander in the great spaces. To idle together in the sweet fields of the mind--this is companionship, when thoughts come not by bidding, and argument is taboo; to have the mind as open as that of a child for all impressions, and speak as the skylark sings, this is the mood that proves companionship.

I shall be lonely to-night, going into a modern monastery and driving home alone. The world is all people to me. I lean upon them. They induce thought and fancy. They give color to my life. They keep me from looking inward, where, alas! I never find that which satisfies me. For of all men I am most critical of myself. Others when they go to bed or sit by themselves may chuckle over things well done; or find satisfaction in the inner life, as George does; but not so with me. Thrown on myself I am a stranded bark upon a foreign shore. And this I know is not as it should be. Each one should learn to stand alone and find in contemplation and in fancy the rich material with which to fashion some new fabric, or build more solidly the substance of his soul.

I like to have you talk, as in your latest letter, of the making of yourself. It seems so much more possible than that I could do the same. But I am a miserable groping creature, cast on a sea of doubt, rejecting one spar to grasp another, and crying all the time against the storm, for help. I do not know another man who has tortured himself so insistently with the problems that are unsolvable. You are firmer in your grasp, and when you get something you cling to it and push your way like a practical person toward the shore, that shore of solid earth which is NOT, but by the pushing you realize the illusion, or the reality, of progress.

Here I am talking loosely of the greatest things, and perhaps pedantically; well, we agreed to talk, didn't we, of anything and everything? You have the birds, the lake, the mountains beyond, the children next door, and the Fairy all our own, and I have my desk to look at and outside brick blocks and the sky. If I ever do hypnotize myself into any kind of faith, or find contentment in any one thing, it will be the sky. The reason I like the water is because it is so much like the sky. There is an amplitude in it that gives me chance for infinite wanderings. The clouds and the stars are somehow the most companionable of all things that do not walk and talk.

Well, we have walked a bit together and have come to the edge of the field where we look off and see the unending stretch of prairie and the great dome. ...

FRANK

To William R. Wheeler

Washington, August 21, 1916

MY DEAR BILL,--Owing to your departure I have been laid up in bed, ill for a week. You left on Thursday and on Friday night I went to bed ... The doctors don't know what I had, excepting that I had things with "itis" at the end of them. I have had allopaths, Christian Scientists, osteopaths, and Dockweilers. The latter has been my nurse at night, his chief service being to keep me interested in the variety of his snoring. I really have had one damn hell of a time. The whole back and top of my head blew out, and I expected an eruption of lava to flow down my back. The only explanation of it is a combination of air-drafts and a little too much work and worry. I am now somewhat weak, but otherwise in pretty good condition ...

I have no intention of saying anything in reply to Pinchot. He wrote me thirty pages to prove that I was a liar, and rather than read that again I will admit the fact.

My regards to the Lady Alice Isabel. As always affectionately yours,

FRANKLIN K. LAKE

To James Harlan

[August, 1916]

MY DEAR JIM,--I am writing you from my bed where I have been laid up for a few days with a hard dose of tonsillitis. Don't know what happened but the wicked bug got me and I have suffered more than was good for my slender soul.

I am so glad to hear of your Mother's improvement. Bless her noble heart! I hope she lives a long time to give you the inspiration of that beautiful smile.

The Mexican business does not hasten as I had hoped. Brandeis' withdrawal was a great surprise to us and I can't quite understand it. Meantime the railroad situation engrosses our attention fully, and Mexico can wait ...

Hughes' speeches have been a surprise and disappointment to me ... One might fancy a candidate for Congress doing no better but not a man of such record and position. I think your dear old party relies upon holding the regular party men out of loyalty and protection, and buying enough Democrats and crooks to get the majority. But I don't believe it can be done. The Republican organization is perfect, but the people are not as gullible as once they were.

Tell me some more about the Latin-American. How much form should I put on? Can you warm up to them? How do you get the truth out of them? And how do you get them to stay by their word? What are they suspicious of, silence or volubility? Do they expect you to ask for more than you expect to get? Do they appreciate candor and fair dealing, or must you be crafty and indirect? If they expect the latter I am not the man for the job, but I can be patient and listen. My love to the Lady Maud.

FRANK

To Hon. Woodrow Wilson

The White House

Washington, August 28, 1916

MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT,--I have had talks this morning with three men, all of them Democrats, all of them strongly for you under any circumstances. None of them are related to railroads or to labor unions. Two of them have recently been out of this city and believe that they have a knowledge of the feeling of the country. All express the same view and I want to tell it to you in case you write a message to Congress.

They say that the people do not grasp the meaning of your statement that society has made its judgment in favor of an eight- hour day. This, the people think, is a matter that can be arbitrated. They ask why can't it be arbitrated? They say that the country feels that you have lined yourself up with the labor unions irrevocably for an eight-hour day, as against the railroads who wish to arbitrate the necessity for putting in an eight-hour day immediately, and irrespective of the additional cost to the railroads. They say that the men are attempting to bludgeon the railroads into granting their demand which has not been shown to the people to be reasonable. This demand is that the men should have ten hours pay for eight hours work or less. They say that if this question cannot be arbitrated, the railroads must yield on every question and that freight rates and passenger rates instead of going down, as they have for the past twenty years, must inevitably increasingly go up. They say that the people do not realize that you have been willing to entertain any proposition made by the railroads, but that you have stood steadfastly for something which the men have demanded.

Now, all of this indicates a lack of knowledge of what your position has been. I am giving you the gist of these conversations because they represent a point of view so that if you desire you may meet such criticism.

You must remember, Mr. President, that the American people have not had for fifty years a President who was not at this period in a campaign bending all of his power to purely personal and political ends. Your ideality and unselfishness are so rare that things need to be made particularly clear to them. Faithfully yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

In the beginning of September Lane was appointed Chairman of the American-Mexican Joint Commission, the other Americans being Judge George Gray, of Delaware, and John R. Mott, secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association. The Mexican members were Luis Cabrera, Minister of Finance, Alberto Pani, and Ignatio Bonillas, afterward Ambassador to Washington.

It was the hope of the Administration that this Commission would lay the foundation for a better understanding between America and Mexico. The Commission started its work in New London, but later as the hearings dragged on, they went to Atlantic City.

Just before this Commission was named, Lane wrote to his brother, "I have been turned all topsy turvy by the Mexican situation. I have suggested to the President the establishment of a commission to deal with this matter upon a fundamental basis, but Carranza is obsessed with the idea that he is a real god and not a tin god, that he holds thunderbolts in his hands instead of confetti, and he won't let us help him."

To Alexander Vogelsang

Acting Secretary of the Interior American-Mexican Joint Commission

September 29, 1916

MY DEAR ALECK,--Don't worry about yourself. Don't worry about the office. You will be all right, and so will the office. I am not worrying about you because I haven't got time to. I'll take your job if you will take mine. The interpreting of a city charter is nothing to the interpreting of the Mexican mind. Dealing with Congress is not so difficult as dealing with Mexican statesmen. I have had some jobs in my life, but none in which I was put to it as I am in this. Now I have not only a question as to what to do in the making of a nation, the development of its opportunity, the education of its people, the establishment of its finances, and the opening of its industries in the establishment of its relations with other countries, but also the problem as to where the men can be found that can carry out the program, once it is made. If I were only Dictator I could handle the thing, I think, all right. The hardest part of all is to convince a proud and obstinate people that they really need any help.

... Remember me to the noble bunch of fellows who add loyalty to pluck, pluck to capacity. Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

To Frederic J. Lane

American-Mexican Joint Commission

September 29, 1916

MY DEAR FRITZ,--I sent you a wire the other night just to let you know that I was thinking of you. I am now steaming down Long Island Sound in the midst of a rainstorm and with fog all around us, in the Government's boat Sylph. We are on our way to Atlantic City where the conference will continue, the hotel at New London having been closed. ...

It looks to me at long range as if Johnson would surely carry California. Whether Wilson will, or not, is a question. I hope to God he may. Whether I shall get an opportunity to get out and stump for him depends entirely upon this Commission, which is holding me down hard. We are working from ten in the morning till twelve at night, and not making as rapid progress as we should because of the Latin-American temperament. They want to start a government afresh down there; that is, go upon the theory that there never was any government and that they now know how a government should be formed and the kind of laws there should be, disregarding all that is past, and basing their plans upon ideals which sometimes are very impracticable. They distrust us. They will not believe that we do not want to take some of their territory.

I despair often, but I take new courage when I think of you, of the struggle you are making and the brave way in which you are making it. What a superbly glorious thing it would be if you could master the hellish fiend that has attacked you! ...

My best love to you, dear Fritz, affectionately yours, F. K. L.

To Frank I. Cobb New York World

American-Mexican Joint Commission Atlantic City, November 11, 1916

MY DEAR COBB,--My very warm, earnest, and enthusiastic congratulations to you. You made the best editorial campaign that I have ever known to be made. I would give more for the editorial support of the New York World than for that of any two papers that I know of. The result in California turned, really as the result in the entire West did, upon the real progressivism of the progressives. It was not pique because Johnson was not recognized. No man, not Johnson nor Roosevelt, carries the progressives in his pocket. The progressives in the East were Perkins progressives who could be delivered. THE WEST THINKS FOR ITSELF. Johnson could not deliver California. Johnson made very strong speeches for Hughes. The West is really progressive. ...

Speaking of the election, there are two things I want you to bear distinctly in mind, my dear Mr. Cobb. One is that the states which the Interior Department deals with are the states which elected Mr. Wilson. ... And the second is that we kept the Mexican situation from blowing up in a most critical part of the campaign, which is also due to the Secretary of the Interior, damn you! In fact, next to you, I think the Secretary of the Interior is the most important part of this whole show! Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

To R. M. Fitzgerald American-Mexican Commission

Atlantic City, November 12, 1916

DEAR BOB,--I am very glad to get your telegram. I know that it took work, judgment, and finesse to bring about the result that was obtained in California. What a splendid thing it is to have our state the pivotal state! The eastern papers are attempting to make it appear that the state turned toward Wilson because of the slight put upon Johnson by Hughes. These people in the East are not large enough to understand that the people think for themselves out West, and are not governed by little personalities, that we don't play "Follow the leader," as they do here. The real fact is that Roosevelt undertook to deliver the progressives and could not do it in the West. Now we must hold all these forward- looking people in line with us and make the Democratic party realize the dream that you and I had of it when we were boys, thirty years ago, and took part in our first campaign. There is room for only two parties in the United States, the liberal and the conservative, and ours must be the liberal party. Cordially yours,

Franklin K. Lane

To James K. Moffitt

Atlantic City, November 12, 1916

My dear Jim,--It was fine of you to send me that telegram, and I am not too modest to "allow" as Artemus Ward used to say, as how the Interior Department is rather stuck up over the result. The Department certainly had not been very popular in the West. ... All of us will be taken a bit more seriously now, I guess. I wired Cushing and the others who led in the fight and I am going to write a note to Benjamin Ide Wheeler, who from the first, be it said to his credit, claimed California for Wilson. Wheeler is certainly a thoroughbred. I wish I could get your way soon and see you all, and rejoice with you.

I have just received a telegram from Bryan, reading:--

"Shake. Many thanks. It was great. The West, a stone which the builders rejected, has become the head of the corner." Cordially yours,

Franklin K. Lane

To Benjamin Ide Wheeler

Atlantic City, November 14,1916

Dear Mr. Wheeler,--I know that you rejoice with all of us. You were the first man to tell me that Wilson would carry California, and I never believed it as truly as you did, but I have taken many occasions lately to say that you were a true prophet. And speaking of prophets, what a lot have been unmade! Did you see that I wanted to bet a hat with George Harvey that he could not name four states west of the Alleghenies that would go for Hughes? The truth about the thing, as I see it, is that you can't deliver the Western man and you can't deliver the true progressive, anyhow. The people of the East are in a far more feudal state than the people of the West. Here they live by sufferance, by favor; they are helpless if they lose their jobs. Out there hope is high in their hearts and they feel that there is a fair world around them, in which they have another chance. The resentment was strong against Roosevelt undertaking to turn over his vote. Of course I am glad of Johnson's election, as he is a strong, stalwart chap, capable of tremendous things for good. He will probably be a presidential candidate four years from now, and I see no man now who can beat him, nor should he be beaten unless we have a good deal better material than our run of ... rank opportunists.

I am working on a treadmill here. Perhaps by the time you come on in December I will be able to report something accomplished. But oh! the misery of dealing with people who are eternally suspicious and have no sense of good faith!

We went with the Millers to the James Roosevelt place up at Hyde Park on the Hudson, just before election, and had an exquisite time. I put in four or five days campaigning, and this was the end of my trip. My speeches were all made in New York where I thought they might count, but the organizations were too perfect for us.

President Wilson will leave a mere shadow of a party, unless he takes an interest in reorganizing it. He has drawn a lot of young men to him who should be tied together, as we were in the early Cleveland days. Of course, we must have a cause, not merely a slogan.

Mrs., Lane is here while I am writing this and she sends her love to both you and your wife, as do I. As always, cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

To Roland Cotton Smith

Sunday, [January 7? 1917]

MY DEAR DR. SMITH,--I know that you are human enough to like appreciation and so I am sending you this word,--no more than I feel!

Your address of this morning was a bit of real literature. It produced the effect you desired without making a bid for it. It was as subtle and full of suggestion as Jusserand's book on France and the United States. You gave an atmosphere to the old building as an institution, which made every one of us feel something more of ennobling standards and traditions. You touched emotion. Many an old chap there felt called upon suddenly and apologetically to blow his nose. And the crowning bit of fine sentiment was asking us all to rise, as you read the list of the distinguished ones who had worshipped there. You have the art of making men better by not preaching to them. So here is my hand in admiration and in gratitude. Sincerely,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

To James H. Barry San Francisco Star

Washington, [January 9, 1917]

MY DEAR JIM,--That card of yours spoke to me so directly and warmly from the heart, that it revived in my memory all the long years of our friendship, and made me feel that the world had been good to me beyond most men, in that it had brought a "few friends and their affection tried." These are to be trying years--these next four--and it will take courage and rare good sense to keep this old ship on her true path. You have a part and so have I. We take our turn at the wheel. May God give us strength and steadiness!

Please give my greetings to your fine boys, and to all the old group that are still with you, and know that always I hold you in deep affection. Sincerely,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

IX

CABINET TALK AND WAR PLANS

1917

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

To George W. Lane

Washington, February 9,1917

MY DEAR GEORGE,--I am going to write you in confidence some of the talks we have at the Cabinet and you may keep these letters in case I ever wish to remind myself of what transpired. A week ago yesterday, (February 1st), the word came that Germany was to turn "mad dog" again, and sink all ships going within her war zone. This was the question, of course, taken up at the meeting of the Cabinet on February 2nd. The President opened by saying that this notice was an "astounding surprise." He had received no intimation of such a reversal of policy. Indeed, Zimmermann, the German Minister of Foreign Affairs, had within ten days told Gerard that such a thing was an "impossibility." At this point Lansing said that he had good reason to believe that Bernstorff had the note for fully ten days before delivering it, and had held it off because of the President's Peace Message to Congress, which had made it seem inadvisable to deliver it then. In answer to a question as to which side he wished to see win, the President said that he didn't wish to see either side win,--for both had been equally indifferent to the rights of neutrals--though Germany had been brutal in taking life, and England only in taking property. He would like to see the neutrals unite. I ventured the expression that to ask them to do this would be idle, as they could not afford to join with us if it meant the insistence on their rights to the point of war. He thought we might coordinate the neutral forces, but was persuaded that an effort to do this publicly, as he proposed, would put some of the small powers in a delicate position. We talked the world situation over. I spoke of the likelihood of a German-Russian-Japanese alliance as the natural thing at the end of the war because they all were nearly in the same stage of development. He thought the Russian peasant might save the world this misfortune. The fact that Russia had been, but a short time since, on the verge of an independent peace with Germany was brought out as evidencing the possibility of a break on the Allies' side. His conclusion was that nothing should be done now,--awaiting the "overt act" by Germany, which would take him to Congress to ask for power.

At the next meeting of the Cabinet on February 6th, the main question discussed was whether we should convoy, or arm, our merchant ships. Secretary Baker said that unless we did our ships would stay in American ports, and thus Germany would have us effectively locked up by her threat. The St. Louis, of the American line, wanted to go out with mail but asked the right to arm and the use of guns and gunners. After a long discussion, the decision of the President was that we should not convoy because that made a double hazard,--this being the report of the Navy,-- but that ships should be told that they MIGHT arm, but that without new power from Congress they should not be furnished with guns and gunners.

The President said that he was "passionately" determined not to over-step the slightest punctilio of honor in dealing with Germany, or interned Germans, or the property of Germans. He would not take the interned ships, not even though they were being gutted of their machinery. He wished an announcement made that all property of Germans would be held inviolate, and that interned sailors on merchant ships could enter the United States. If we are to have war we must go in with our hands clean and without any basis for criticism against us. The fact that before Bernstorff gave the note telling of the new warfare, the ships had been dismantled as to their machinery, was not to move us to any act that would look like hostility.

February 10

Yesterday we talked of the holding of Gerard as a hostage. Lansing said there was no doubt of it. He thought it an act of war in itself. But did not know on what theory it was done, except that Germany was doing what she thought we would do. Germany evidently was excited over her sailors here, fearing that they would be interned, and over her ships, fearing that they would be taken. I said that it seemed to be established that Germany meant to do what she said she would do, and that we might as well act on that assumption. The President said that he had always believed this, but thought that there were chances of her modifying her position, and that he could do nothing, in good faith toward Congress, without going before that body. He felt that in a few days something would be done that would make this necessary.

So there you are up to date--in a scrappy way. Now don't tell what you know. Ned is flying at Newport News. He sent me a telegram saying that the President could go as far as he liked, "the bunch" would back him up. Strange how warlike young fellows are, especially if they think that they are preparing for some usefulness in war. That's the militaristic spirit that is bad. Much love to you and Frances. Give me good long letters telling me what is in the back of that wise old head.

F. K.

To George W. Lane

February 16, [1917]

MY DEAR GEORGE,--That letter and proposed wire were received and your spirit is mine--the form of your letter could not be improved upon--and you are absolutely sound as to policy.

At the last meeting of the Cabinet, we again urged that we should convoy our own ships, but the President said that this was not possible without going to Congress, and he was not ready to do that now. The Navy people say that to convoy would be foolish because it would make a double target, but it seems to me the right thing to risk a naval ship in the enforcement of our right.

At our dinner to the President last night he said he was not in sympathy with any great preparedness--that Europe would be man and money poor by the end of the war. I think he is dead wrong in this, and as I am a member of the National Council of Defense, I am pushing for everything possible. This week we have had a meeting of the Council every day--the Secretary of War, Navy, Interior, Commerce, and Labor--with an Advisory Commission consisting of seven business men. We are developing a plan for the mobilization of all our national industries and resources so that we may be ready for getting guns, munitions, trucks, supplies, airplanes, and other material things as soon as war comes--IF NOT TOO SOON. It is a great organization of industry and resources. I think that I shall urge Hoover as the head of the work. His Belgian experience has made him the most competent man in this country for such work. He has promised to come to me as one of my assistants but the other work is the larger, and I can get on with a smaller man. He will correlate the industrial life of the nation against the day of danger and immediate need. France seems to be ahead in this work. The essentials are to commandeer all material resources of certain kinds (steel, copper, rubber, nickel, etc.); then have ready all drawings, machines, etc., necessary in advance for all munitions and supplies; and know the plant that can produce these on a standard basis.

The Army and Navy are so set and stereotyped and stand-pat that I am almost hopeless as to moving them to do the wise, large, wholesale job. They are governed by red-tape,--worse than any Union.

The Chief of Staff fell asleep at our meeting to-day--Mars and Morpheus in one!

To-day's meeting has resulted in nothing, though in Mexico, Cuba, Costa Rica, and Europe we have trouble. The country is growing tired of delay, and without positive leadership is losing its keenness of conscience and becoming inured to insult. Our Ambassador in Berlin is held as a hostage for days--our Consuls' wives are stripped naked at the border, our ships are sunk, our people killed--and yet we wait and wait! What for I do not know. Germany is winning by her bluff, for she has our ships interned in our own harbors.

Well, dear boy, I'm not a pacifist as you see. Much love,

FRANK

To George W. Lane

Washington, February 20, [1917]

DEAR GEORGE,--Another Cabinet meeting and no light yet on what our policy will be as to Germany. We evidently are waiting for the "overt act," which I think Germany will not commit. We are all, with the exception of one or two pro-Germans, feeling humiliated by the situation, but nothing can be done.

McAdoo brought up the matter of shipping being held in our ports. It appears that something more than half of the normal number of ships has gone out since February 1st, and they all seem to be getting over the first scare, because Germany is not doing more than her former amount of damage.

We were told of intercepted cables to the Wolfe News Agency, in Berlin, in which the American people were represented as being against war under any circumstances--sympathizing strongly with a neutrality that would keep all Americans off the seas. Thus does the Kaiser learn of American sentiment! No wonder he sizes us up as cowards! ...

F. K. L.

To Frank I. Cobb

Washington, February 21, 1917

MY DEAR COBB,--I have told Henry Hall that he should come down here and give the story of how Bernstorff handled the newspaper men, and thus worked the American people, ... He ought to get out of the newspaper men themselves, and he can, the whole atmosphere of the Washington situation since Dernberg left,--Bernstorff's little knot of society friends, chiefly women, the dinners that they had, his appeals for sympathy, the manner in which he would offset whatever the State Department was attempting to get before the American people. He would give away to newspaper men news that he got from his own government before it got to the State Department. He would give away also the news that he got from the State Department before the State Department itself gave it out, and he had a regular room in which he received these newspaper men, and handed them cigars and so on, and carried on a propaganda against the policy of the United States while acting as Ambassador for Germany, the like of which nobody has carried on since Genet; and worse than his, because it was carried on secretly and cunningly. ...

Hall will be able to get a ripping good story, I am satisfied,--a good two pages on "Modern Diplomacy," which will reveal how long- suffering the United States has been. Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

To George W. Lane

Washington, February 25, 1917

MY DEAR GEORGE,--On Friday we had one of the most animated sessions of the Cabinet that I suppose has ever been held under this or any other President. It all arose out of a very innocent question of mine as to whether it was true that the wives of American Consuls on leaving Germany had been stripped naked, given an acid bath to detect writing on their flesh, and subjected to other indignities. Lansing answered that it was true. Then I asked Houston about the bread riots in New York, as to whether there was shortage of food because of car shortage due to vessels not going out with exports. This led to a discussion of the great problem which we all had been afraid to raise--Why shouldn't we send our ships out with guns or convoys? Daniels said we must not convoy-- that would be dangerous. (Think of a Secretary of the Navy talking of danger!) The President said that the country was not willing that we should take any risks of war. I said that I got no such sentiment out of the country, but if the country knew that our Consuls' wives had been treated so outrageously that there would be no question as to the sentiment. This, the President took as a suggestion that we should work up a propaganda of hatred against Germany. Of course, I said I had no such idea, but that I felt that in a Democracy the people were entitled to know the facts. McAdoo, Houston, and Redfield joined me. The President turned on them bitterly, especially on McAdoo, and reproached all of us with appealing to the spirit of the Code Duello. We couldn't get the idea out of his head that we were bent on pushing the country into war. Houston talked of resigning after the meeting. McAdoo will-- within a year, I believe. I tried to smooth them down by recalling our past experiences with the President. We have had to push, and push, and push, to get him to take any forward step--the Trade Commission, the Tariff Commission. He comes out right but he is slower than a glacier--and things are mighty disagreeable, whenever anything has to be done.

Now he is being abused by the Republicans for being slow, and this will probably help a bit, though it may make him more obstinate. He wants no extra session, and the Republicans fear that he will submit to anything in the way of indignity or national humiliation without "getting back," so they are standing for an extra session. The President believes, I think, that the munitions makers are back of the Republican plan. But I doubt this. They simply want to have a "say"; and the President wants to be alone and unbothered. He probably would not call Cabinet meetings if Congress adjourned. Then I would go to Honolulu, where the land problem vexes.

I don't know whether the President is an internationalist or a pacifist, he seems to be very mildly national--his patriotism is covered over with a film of philosophic humanitarianism, that certainly doesn't make for "punch" at such a time as this.

My love to you old man,--do write me oftener and tell me if you get all my letters.

F. K L.

To George W. Lane

Washington, March 6, [1917]

Well my dear George, the new administration is launched--smoothly but not on a smooth sea. The old Congress went out in disgrace, talking to death a bill to enable the President to protect Americans on the seas. The reactionaries and the progressives combined--Penrose and La Follette joined hands to stop all legislation, so that the government is without money to carry on its work.

It is unjust to charge the whole thing on the La Follette group; they served to do the trick which the whole Republican machine wished done. For the Penrose, Lodge people would not let any bills through and were glad to get La Follette's help. The Democrats fought and died--because there was no "previous question" in the Senate rules.

The weather changed for inauguration--Wilson luck--and the event went off without accident. To-day, we had expected a meeting of the Cabinet to determine what we should do in the absence of legislation, but that has gone over,--I expect to give the Attorney General a chance to draft an opinion on the armed ship matter. I am for prompt action--putting the guns on the ships and convoying, if necessary. Much love.

K.F.

To Edward J. Wheeler Current Opinion

Washington, March 15, 1917

MY DEAR MY. WHEELER,--I wish that I could be with you to honor Mr. Howells. But who are we, to honor him? Is he not an institution? Is he not the Master? Has he not taught for half a century that this new and peculiar man, the American, is worth drawing? Why, for an American not to take off his hat to Howells would be to fail in appreciation of one's self as an object of art--an unlikely, belittling, and soul-destroying sin.

I do not know whether Howells is a great photographer or a great artist; but this I do know, that I like him because he sees through his own eyes, and I like his eyes. If that be treason, make the most of it. Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

To George W. Lane

Washington, April 1, 1917

MY DEAR GEORGE,--I took your letter and your proposed wire as to our going into war and sent them to the President as suggestions for his proposed message which in a couple of days will come out-- what it is to be I don't know--excepting in spirit. He is to be for recognizing war and taking hold of the situation in such a fashion as will eventually lead to an Allies' victory over Germany. But he goes unwillingly. The Cabinet is at last a unit. We can stand Germany's insolence and murderous policy no longer. Burleson, Gregory, Daniels, and Wilson were the last to come over.

The meetings of the Cabinet lately have been nothing less than councils of war. The die is cast--and yet no one has seen the message. The President hasn't shown us a line. He seems to think that in war the Pacific Coast will not be strongly with him. They don't want war to be sure--no one does. But they will not suffer further humiliation. I sent West for some telegrams telling of the local feeling in different States and all said, "Do as the President says." Yet none came back that spoke as if they felt that we had been outraged or that it was necessary for humanity that Germany be brought to a Democracy. There is little pride or sense of national dignity in most of our politicians.

The Council of National Defense is getting ready. I yesterday proposed a resolution, which was adopted, that our contracts for ships, ammunition, and supplies be made upon the basis of a three years' program. We may win in two years. If we had the nerve to raise five million men at once we could end it in six months,

The first thing is to let Russia and France have money. And the second thing, to see that Russia has munitions, of which they are short--depending largely, too largely, upon Japan. I shouldn't be surprised if we would operate the Russian railroads. And ships, ships! How we do need ships, and there are none in the world. Ships to feed England and to make the Russian machine work. Hindenburg is to turn next toward Petrograd--he is only three hundred miles away now. I fear he will succeed. But that does not mean the conquest of Russia! The lovable, kindly Russians are not to be conquered,--and it makes me rejoice that we are to be with them.

All sides need aeroplanes--for the war that is perhaps the greatest of all needs; and there Germany is strongest. Ned will go among the first. He is flying alone now and is enjoying the risk, --the consciousness of his own skill. Anne is very brave about it.

This is the program as far as we have gone: Navy, to make a line across the sea and hunt submarines; Army, one million at once, and as many more as necessary as soon as they can be got ready. Financed by income taxes largely. Men and capital both drafted.

I'm deep in the work. Have just appointed a War-Secretary of my own--an ex-Congressman named Lathrop Brown from New York, who is to see that we get mines, etc., at work. I wish you were here but the weather would be too much for you, I fear. Very hot right now!

Sometime I'll tell you how we stopped the strike. It was a big piece of work that was blanketed by the Supreme Court's decision next day. But we came near to having something akin to Civil War. Much love, my dear boy.

F. K. L.

Grosvenor Clarkson, Director of the Council of National Defense, in recording the activities of that body says:--

"It is, of course, well known that Secretary Lane, as a member of the Council of National Defense, played a dramatic and successful part in the settlement of the threatened great railroad strike of March, 1917. By resolution of the Council of National Defense of March 16, 1917, Secretary Lane and Secretary of Labor Wilson, as members of the Council, and Daniel Willard, President of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and Samuel Gompers of the Advisory Commission, were designated to represent the government, at the meeting in New York with the representatives of the railroad brotherhoods and railroad executives--the meeting that stopped the strike."

TO FRANK I. COBB NEW YORK WORLD

Washington, April 13, 1917

MY DEAR FRANK,--I have your note and am thoroughly in sympathy with it. The great need of France at this moment is to get ships to carry the supplies across the water. It is a secret, but a fact, that France has 600,000 tons of freight in New York and other harbors waiting to ship. I am in favor of taking all the German ships under requisition, paying for their use eventually, but this is a matter of months. Immediately, I think we should take all the coastwise ships, or the larger portion of them. The Navy colliers and Army transports can be put into the business of carrying supplies to France.

We are to have a meeting of the Council of National Defense to-day, and I am going to take this matter up. I have been pushing on it for several weeks. As to the purchasing of supplies, I think we ought to protect the Allies, especially Russia, but, of course, we cannot touch their present contracts. ...

TO GEORGE W. LANE

Washington, April 15, 1917

MY DEAR GEORGE,--I enclose a couple of confidential papers that will interest you. The situation is not as happy in Russia as it should be. The people are so infatuated with their own internal reforms that there is danger of their making a separate peace, which would throw the entire strength of Germany on the west front, and compel us to go in with millions of men where we had thought that a few would suffice.

My work on the National Council of Defense lately has been dealing with many things, chiefly mobilization of our railroads and the securing of new shipping. At my suggestion to Mr. Willard he called together the leading forty-five railroad presidents of the United States, and I addressed them upon the necessity of tying together all of the railroads within one unit and making a single operating system of the 250,000 miles. They met the proposition splendidly and appointed a committee to effect this. It will require some sacrifice on the part of the railroads, and considerable on the part of the shippers; for free time on cars will have to be cut down, some passenger trains taken off, and equipment allowed to flow freely from one system to the other under a single direction, no matter who owns the locomotives or the cars. I put it up to them as a test of the efficiency of private ownership.

On the shipping side we are not only going about the task of building a thousand wooden ships, under the direction of Denman and Goethals, but we are going to take our coastwise shipping off, making the railroads carry this freight, and put all available ships into the trans-Atlantic business. We want, also, to get some steel ships built. The great trouble with this is the shortage of plates and the shortage of shipyards. In order to effect this, I expect we will have to postpone the building of some of our large dreadnaughts and battle cruisers, which could not be in service for three years anyhow. Whether we will succeed in getting the Secretary of the Navy to agree to this is a question, but I am going to try.

We, of course, are going to press into service at once the German and Austrian ships, such of them as can be repaired and will be of use in the freight business, but we will not confiscate them. We will deal with them exactly as we will deal with American ships, paying at the end of the war whatever their services were worth. This spirit of fairness is to animate us throughout the war. Of course enemy warships were seized as prizes of war, but there are very few of these, and of no considerable value. I do not believe they can be of any use.

England is sending over Mr. Balfour with a very high Commission. These gentlemen will arrive here this week, and I expect with them Viviani and Joffre, from France. We will have intimate talks with them and gain the benefit of their experience. I expect Mr. Balfour to make some speeches that will put England in a more favorable light, and the presence of Joffre will stimulate recruiting in our Army and Navy. He is the one real figure who has come out of the war so far.

We are raising seven billions; three billions to go to the Allies, largely for purchases to be made here. Money contributions pass unanimously, but there is to be trouble over our war measures respecting conscription and the raising of an adequate army. Some pacifists and other pro-Germans are cultivating the idea that none but volunteers should be sent to Europe. Some are also saying Germany can have peace with us if she stops her submarine warfare. I doubt if that line of agitation will be successful before Congress. Certainly it will not be successful with the President or the Cabinet. We are now very happily united upon following every course that will lead to the quickest and most complete victory.

The greatest impending danger is the drive on the east front into Russia, possibly the taking of Petrograd, and the weakness on the part of the Russians because of so large a socialistic element now in control of Russian affairs. We offered Russia a commission of railroad men to look over their railroad systems and advise with them as to the best means of operating them. At first Russia inclined to welcome such a commission, but later the offer was declined because of local feeling. We intend to send a commission ourselves to Russia, possibly headed by McAdoo or Root, and on this commission we will have a railroad man with expert knowledge who can be of some service to them, I hope. The Russian and the French governments have ordered hundreds of locomotives and tens of thousands of cars in this country, a large part of which are ready for shipment, but which cannot be shipped because of lack of shipping facilities. Affectionately yours,

F.K.L.

Grosvenor Clarkson, who was first Secretary and then Director of the Council of National Defense, writes in February, 1922, this account of the work of the Council:--

"As early as February 12, 1917, or nearly two months before we went into the war, Secretary Lane presented resolutions at a joint meeting of the Council of National Defense and its Advisory Commission, to the effect that the Council 'Call a series of conferences with the leading men in each industry, fundamentally necessary to the defense of the country in the event of war.' The resolutions also proposed that the Council at once proceed to confer with those familiar with the manner by which foreign governments in the war enlisted their industries and, further, that the Council should establish a committee to investigate and report upon such regulations as to hours and safety of labor as should apply to all war labor.

"Secretary Lane's resolution was referred to the Advisory Commission, and on February 13, at a joint meeting of the Council and Commission, the matter was thoroughly discussed. Out of this resolution grew the famous cooperative committees of the Advisory Commission. Here was the inception of the dollar-a-year man.

"This organization, set up by the Advisory Commission, furnished for the first eight or ten months of our participation in the war, almost the only thing in the way of a war machine under the government on the civilian or industrial side.

"In the first week of May, 1917, the Council of National Defense called to Washington representatives of each state in the Union, to confer with the federal government as to the common prosecution of the war. The state delegates, consisting of many Governors and in each case of leading citizens of the respective commonwealths, were received by the six Cabinet officers, forming the Council, in the office of Secretary Baker in April.

"Secretary Lane thought that the most effective way to wake the country up out of its dream of security was to tell the truth about the submarine losses, the country up to that time not having really appreciated what the losses amounted to. He said, 'The President is going to address the State representatives at the White House, and I am going to urge him to cut loose on the submarine losses,' and he asked me to prepare a memorandum for him to give to the President. This I did. The President, however, apparently decided not to go into the subject, and Secretary Lane, with a courage that can only be appreciated by those who knew the atmosphere of official Washington at that time, decided to take the bull by the horns himself, and at the next meeting with the representatives with the Council in Secretary Baker's office, Secretary Lane ... cut loose and told the actual truth about submarine losses at that time. ... The next morning it was the story of the day in the newspapers and it did as much to arouse the country as a whole as to what we were up against as any one thing that occurred during this period, save only the President's war message itself.

"Secretary Lane became chairman of the field division of the Council of National Defense toward the end of the war. This was the body that guided and coordinated the work of the 184,000 units of the state, county, community, and municipal Councils of Defense, and of those of the Woman's Committee of the Council--no doubt the greatest organization of the kind that the world has ever known."

To George W. Lane

Washington, May 3, 1917

These are great days. Their significance will not be realized for many years. We are forming a close union with France and England. The most impressive sight I have ever seen was that at Washington's tomb last Sunday. We went down on the Mayflower--the French and the English commissions and the members of the Cabinet. Viviani and Balfour spoke. Joffre laid a bronze palm upon Washington's tomb, then stood up in his soldierly way and stood at salute for a minute, Balfour laid a wreath of lilies upon the tomb, and leaned over as if in prayer. Above the tomb, for the first time, flew the flag of another country than our own, the Stars and Stripes, and on either side, the British Jack and the French Tricolor. This is a combination of the Democracies of the world against feudalism and autocracy.

I heard a story from one of Joffre's aides. Joffre, by the way, is the quietest, sweetest, most naive, and babylike individual I ever met. All of the women, as well as the men, are in love with him. When he met Nancy, at a garden party, he kissed her on both cheeks. Nancy, as you may imagine, was ecstatically delighted. This simple, grave, kindly soldier sat in his room while the Germans came marching upon Paris, saying nothing. Every few minutes an aide would come in and move the French markers back upon the map, and the German markers forward, toward Paris. Day after day he saw this advance, but said nothing. At last when they came to the valley of the Marne, an aide came in and marked the map, showing that the Germans were within thirty miles of Paris. Then Joffre quietly said, "This thing has gone far enough," and taking up a pad of paper he called to his troops to stand fast and die upon the Marne, if necessary, to save France. There is nothing finer than this in history.

Joffre has a skin like a baby. He has the utmost frankness and simplicity of speech. When McAdoo asked him at the White House if the present drive was satisfactory, he said in the most innocent way, "I am not there." Viviani, who is the head of the French Commission, is as jealous as a prima donna, terribly jealous of Joffre, (which makes Joffre feel most uncomfortable) because, of course, Joffre is the hero of the Marne.

I spoke at the Belasco Theatre the other day for the benefit of the French war relief fund, introducing Ambassador Herrick and the lecturer, a young Frenchman. Joffre and Viviani were in a box. Every mention of the name of Joffre brought the people to their feet. Yesterday I spoke again at a meeting of the State Councils of Defense and I enclose you what the New York Post had to say.

Last night I dined with Balfour. I have seen quite a little of him. He is sixty-nine years old and stands about six feet two. He is a perfect type of the aristocratic Englishman, with a charming smile. His real heart is in the study of philosophy. Anne sat next to him at dinner and he told her that he believed in a personal God, personal identity after death, and answer to prayer, which is a remarkable statement of faith for one who has lived through our scientific age. I think at bottom he is a mystic.

On all sides they are frank in telling of their distress. We did not come in a minute too soon. England and France, I believe, were gone if we had not come in. It delights me to see how much sympathy there is with England as well as with France. The Irish alone seem to be unreconciled with England as our ally.

Ned got your letter, and I suppose in time will answer it, I had the question put to me by Baker yesterday as to whether I wished him to go to the other side, and I had to say frankly that I did. It was to me the most momentous decision that I have made in the war. He has passed his final test, and I hope that he will get his commission in a few days.

To-night we give a dinner to the Canadians, Sir George Foster, the acting Premier, and Sir Joseph Polk, the Under Secretary of External Affairs, who, by the way, was born in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, and says he heard our father preach.

The country's crops are going to be short, I fear, and we have had little rain. Ships and grain--these are the two things that we must get. Ships, to carry our grain and our locomotives and rails, and grain to keep the fighters alive. The U-boats are destroying twice as much as the producing tonnage of the world. We need every bushel that California can produce. With much love, affectionately yours,

F.K.L.

To Frank I. Cobb New York World

Washington, May 5, 1917

MY DEAR COBB,--I had a long talk with Hoover yesterday. He tells me that the U-boat situation is really worse than I stated it. There is no question but that the actual sinkings amounted to more than 300,000 tons in a week, and if we add those put out of business by mines, they will exceed 400,000 tons. The French are absolutely desperate. One of the French ministers told Hoover that they had fixed on the first of November as their last day, if the United States had not come in. Admiral Chocheprat told me, with tears in his eyes, three nights ago, that they felt themselves helpless. They were absolutely at the mercy of the submarines because of their lack of destroyers, and they had feared we were preparing to defend our own shores rather than fight across the water. I know that the latter has been the policy of the heads of the Navy Department.

Do not, I beg of you, minimize the immediate danger. This is the time to defend the United States; and the United States is woefully indifferent to its dangers and to the needs of the situation. We have been carrying on a ship-building program with reference to conditions after the war. It is only within ten days that we have realized that the end of the war will be one of defeat unless we build twice as fast as we proposed to build. You know that I am not pessimistic. It is not my habit to look upon the gloomy side of things. It is no kindness to the American people or to France or England to give them words of good cheer now. This war is right at this minute a challenge to every particle of brains and inventive skill that we have got.

Please treat this as entirely confidential. Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

May 8

The only dissension in the Council is over the use that will be made of Hoover. Houston, I think, is rather making a mistake, though it may work out all right. I hope it will.

Don't "bat" us; we are a nervous lot right now. ...

"Lane was among the first to grasp the bigness of the danger to the allied cause," James S. Harlan says, "in Germany's underwater attack on the merchant marine of the world. He also realized the magnitude of the task of frustrating the new peril and the need of prompt measures to save the situation. Lane had no anxieties or hesitations in his personal contact with big men; but he had a genuine fear of small men when big things were doing. And so in this great emergency he naturally thought of Schwab. How well I recall the fine force and vigor in his expression when, rising from his chair and standing with clenched fist pointed at me, he said in substance:--'The President ought to send for Schwab and hand him a treasury warrant for a billion dollars and set him to work building ships, with no government inspectors or supervisors or accountants or auditors or other red tape to bother him. Let the President just put it up to Schwab's patriotism and put Schwab on his honor. Nothing more is needed. Schwab will do the job.'

"This was a full year before Schwab was called down to Washington to talk over the question of building ships."

To Will Irwin Paris, France

Washington, July 21, 1917

MY DEAR WILL,--I have just received your letter. Thank you very much for what you say of my speech. I am doing my damndest to keep things going here but it is awfully hard work, because the minute my head raises above the water some neighboring ship plugs it.

I think you are dead right in staying with the Post. The feeling here is that we are not getting real facts regarding the desperateness of the U-boat situation. We need to be told facts in order to have our minds challenged. We are not cowards, and I hope you will give us realistic pictures of just what is happening if you can. ...

My boy is the youngest lieutenant in the Army--nine-teen. He goes next week to Illinois as an instructor in aviation, and I suppose in a little while when he gets the machines, he will be crossing over.

With warm affection, my dear Will. Always yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

To Robert Lansing Secretary of State

Beverly, Massachusetts. [August, 1917]

MY DEAR LANSING,--I had lunch yesterday with Colonel House who asked me what I thought should be done as to the Pope's appeal for peace. I told him I thought it should be taken seriously. He agreed and asked what the President should say. I answered that, inasmuch as all the evidence pointed to the conclusion that the German Centerists and Austria were responsible for this appeal, that we could not afford to have them feel that we were for a policy of annihilation,--for this would be playing the War Party's game and would place the burden on us of continuing the war. And this we could neither afford [to do] at home or abroad. This opportunity should be seized, I said, to make plain not so much our terms of peace as the things in Germany that seemed to make peace difficult,--Germany's attitude toward the world, the spirit against which we are fighting. That we wished peace; that we had been patient to the limit; that we had come in in the hope that we could destroy the idea in the German mind that it could impose its authority and system, by force, upon an unwilling world; that we were not opposed to talking peace, provided, at the outset, and as a SINE QUA NON, the Central Powers would assume that Government by the Soldier was not a possibility in the 20th century.

The Colonel said that he had written the President to this same effect. That he had written you, or not, he did not say. So I am telling you the Colonel's view for your own benefit. He thought that the Allies would strongly insist upon concerted action, putting aside the Pope's appeal, and that this had to be resisted, for we should play our own game. I find all I meet here strong for the war, but of course I only meet the high-spirited. There is much feeling that we are going about it too mechanically, with too little emotion and passion. ... As always,

LANE

Toward the middle of August, Lane started for Mount Desert to inspect the proposed National Park created there through the public-spirited devotion of George B. Dorr. This northern trip was taken to decide whether he would accept, as Secretary of the Interior, this addition to the National Parks. Two years later in writing to Senator Myers, Chairman of the Committee on Public Lands, of this National Park, the only one east of the Mississippi, Lane said, "The name Lafayette is substituted for that of Mount Desert, the name proposed by the former bill, and I consider it singularly appropriate that the name of Lafayette should be commemorated by these splendid mountains facing on the sea, on what was once a corner of Old France, and with it the early friendship of the two nations which are so closely allied in the present war."

To Henry Lane Eno Bar Harbori, Maine

Washington, Saturday, [September 2, 1917]

There are not many weeks in a man's life of which he can say that one was without a flaw, that it could not have been improved upon in company, comfort, or surroundings. And all these things, my dear Mr. Eno, I can affirm of the days spent with you. I have a better opinion of my fellows and of my country because of them. Perhaps, after all, that is as complete a test as any other. As I look back I think of but one thing that gives occasion for regret --we had too few good, mind-stretching talks, you, Dorr, and myself. But those we had were certainly not about affairs of small concern. We indulged ourselves as social philosophers, psychologists, war-makers, and international statesmen. The world was ours, and more--the worlds beyond. To do things worth while by day, and to dream things worth while by night, and to believe that both are worth while, that is the perfect life. If one can't get to Heaven by following that course, then are we lost.

I am sending a line to Dorr, noble, unselfish, high-spirited, broad-minded gentleman that he is. ... Sincerely and heartily yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

To George Dorr, Bar Harbor, Maine

Washington, [September 2,1917]

MY DEAR MR. DORR,--You do not know what good you did my tired politics-soaked soul by showing me, under such happy conditions, the beauties and the possibilities of your island. And I came to know two men at least, whose heads and hearts were working for a less pudgy and flat-footed world. ... To have enthusiasm is to beat the Devil. So I have you down in my Saints' book.

You know a man in politics is always looking about for some place to which he can retire when the whirligig brings in another group of more popular patriots. Now I can frankly say that if I could have an extended term of exile on your island with you and your friends, I would feel reconciled to banishment from politics for life, provided however (I must say this for conscience' sake) that we had time and money to make the Park what it should be--a demonstration school for the American to show how much he can add to the beauty of Nature.

A wilderness, no matter how impressive and beautiful, does not satisfy this soul of mine, (if I have that kind of thing). It is a challenge to man. It says, "Master me! Put me to use! Make me something more than I am." So what you have done in the Park--the Spring House and the Arts Building, the cliff trails and the opened woods, show how much may be added by the love and thought of man. May the Gods be good to you, the God of Mammon immediately, that your dreams may come true, and that you may give to others the pleasure you gave to yours sincerely,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO HON. WOODROW WILSON THE WHITE HOUSE

Washington, September 21, 1917

MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT,--It will interest you to know that the Commission which I sent up this year to Alaska to look into the Alaskan Railroad matters has just returned. The engineer on this Commission was Mr. Wendt, who was formerly Chief Engineer of the Pittsburg and Lake Erie Railroad, and who is now in charge of the appraisal of eastern roads under the Interstate Commerce Commission. He tells me that our Alaskan road could not have been built for less money if handled by a private concern; that he has never seen any railroad camps where the men were provided with as good food and where there was such care taken of their health. They have had no smallpox and but one case of typhoid fever. No liquor is allowed on the line of the road. The road in his judgment has followed the best possible location. Our hospitals are well run. The compensation plan adopted for injuries is satisfactory to the men.

I have directed that all possible speed be made in connecting the Matanuska coal fields with Seward. This involves the heaviest construction that we will have to undertake, which is along Turnagain Ann, but by the middle of next year, no strikes intervening, and transportation for supplies being available, this part of the work should be done. Faithfully and cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

In Lane's Annual REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR, dated November 20, 1919, he writes of the Alaskan railroad enterprise:-- "One of the first recommendations made by me in my report of seven years ago was that the Government build a railroad from Seward to Fairbanks in Alaska. Five years ago you intrusted to me the direction of this work. The road is now more than two-thirds built and Congress at this session after exhaustively examining into the work has authorized an additional appropriation sufficient for its completion. The showing made before Congress was that the road had been built without graft; every dollar has gone into actual work or material. It has been built without giving profits to any large contractors, for it has been constructed entirely by small contractors or by day's labor. It has been built without touch of politics; every man on the road has been chosen exclusively for ability and experience."

This memorandum touching the early history of Alaska was found in Lane's files.

MANUSCRIPT NOTE

Washington, December 29, 1911

Last night I dined with Charles Henry Butler, reporter for the Supreme Court and a son of William Alien Butler, for so long a leader of the New York bar.

In the course of the evening Mr. Charles Glover, President of the Riggs National Bank, told me this bit of history. That when he was a boy, in the bank one day Mr. Cochran came to him and handed him two warrants upon the United States Treasury, one for $1,400,000. and the other for $5,800,000. He said, "Put those in the safe." Mr. Glover did so, and they remained there for a week, when they were sent to New York. Mr., Glover said "These warrants were the payment of Russia for the Territory of Alaska. Why were there two warrants? I never knew until some years later, when I learned the story from Senator Dawes, who said that prior to the war, there had been some negotiations between the United States and Russia for the purchase of Alaska, and the price of $1,400,000. was agreed upon. In fact this was the amount that Russia asked for this great territory, which was regarded as nothing more than a barren field of ice.

"During the war the matter lay dormant. We had more territory than we could take care of. When England, however, began to manifest her friendly disposition toward the Confederacy, and we learned from Europe that England and France were carrying on negotiations for the recognition of the Southern States, and possibly of some manifestation by their fleets against the blockade which we had instituted, (and which they claimed was not effective and merely a paper blockade), we looked about for a friend, and Russia was the only European country upon whose friendship we could rely. Thereupon Secretary Seward secured from Russia a demonstration, in American ports, of Russian friendship. Her ships of war sailed to both of our coasts, the Atlantic and Pacific, with the understanding that the expense of this demonstration should be met by the United States, out of the contingent fund. It was to be a secret matter. "The war came to a close, and immediately thereafter Lincoln was assassinated and the administration changed. It was no longer possible to pay for this demonstration, secretly, under the excuse of war, but a way was found for paying Russia through the purchase of Alaska. The warrant for $1,400,000. was the warrant for the purchase of Alaska, the warrant for $5,800,000. was for Russia's expenses in her naval demonstration in our behalf, but history only knows the fact that the United States paid $7,200,000. for this territory, which is now demonstrated to be one of the richest portions of the earth in mineral deposits."

TO HON. WOODROW WILSON

THE WHITE HOUSE

Washington, November 3, 1917

MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT,--On April 7, 1917, the Council of National Defense adopted a report, submitted by the Chairman of the Executive Committee on Labor of the Advisory Commission of the Council, urging that no change in existing standards be made during the war, by either employers or employees, except with the approval of the Council of National Defense. ...

The next step for producing efficiency must be no strikes.

The annual convention of the American Federation of Labor, consisting of international unions, will be held at Buffalo on November 12th. I would urge that about thirty executives of the unions, which more directly control essential war production, be invited to confer with you prior to that date, to determine on a policy which will prevent the constant interruption of production for war purposes. The Commissioners of Conciliation of the Department of Labor and the President's Commission have a wonderful record of accomplishments for settling strikes after they have occurred. Organized labor should give the Government the opportunity to adjust controversies before strikes occur.

At this conference it could safely be made plain that for the war, employers would agree not to object to the peaceable extension of trade unionism; that they would make no efforts to "open" a "closed shop"; that they would submit all controversies concerning standards, including wages and lockouts, to any official body on which they have equal representation with labor, and would abide by its decisions; that they would adhere strictly to health and safety laws, and laws concerning woman and child labor; that they would not lower prices now in force for piece work, except by Government direction; that if a union in a "closed" shop after due notice was unable to furnish sufficient workers, any non-union employees taken on would be the first to be dismissed on the contraction of business, and the shop restored to its previous "closed" status; that the only barrier in the way of steady production is the unwillingness of the unions to uphold the proposition of settlement before a strike, instead of after a strike.

The imminence of this convention seems to me to make some step necessary at this time. I would take the matter up with Secretary Wilson were he here, and have sent a copy of this letter to him. You undoubtedly can put an end to this most serious situation by calling on the international labor leaders to take a stand that will not be so radical as that taken in England, and yet will insure to the men good wages and good conditions, and make sure that our industry will not be paralyzed. Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO J. O'H. COSGRAVE NEW YORK WORLD

Washington, December 21, 1917

MY DEAR JACK,--My spirit does not permit me to give you an interview on the moral benefits of the war. This would be sheer camouflage. Of course, we will get some good out of it, and we will learn some efficiency--if that is a moral benefit--and a purer sense of nationalism. But the war will degrade us. That is the plain fact, make sheer brutes out of us, because we will have to descend to the methods that the Germans employ.

So you must go somewhere else for your uplift stuff. Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN E. LANE

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

NOTES ON CABINET MEETINGS

FOUND IN LANE'S FILES

February 25, 1918

As I entered the building this morning Dr. Parsons [Footnote: Of the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines.] met me. I asked how the cyanide plant was getting on. His reply was to ask if he might request the War Department to allow us to make the contract --that he could have the whole thing done in two days. This is where we are at the end of more than six months of effort. It is hopeless! We find the process, everything!--but cannot get the contract, through the intricate, infinite fault-findings and negligence of the War Department.

Manning [Footnote: Of the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines.] came to see me to say that he expected, after the Overman bill was passed, that the President would take over the gas work-- order it into the War Department. He had been asked twice if he could be tempted by a uniform into that Department, and had said that he was freer as a civilian,--had planned the work and gathered the force as a civilian, and would not leave the Department. He felt damned sore and indignant, that a work so well done should be the subject of envy, and possibly be made less effective and useful. ...

Everit Macy lunched with me and told me the sad story of the mishandling of labor affairs by the Shipping Board. He had gone to the Pacific Coast and with his colleagues, Coolidge and others, made an agreement with the shipbuilding trades. Five dollars and twenty-five cents for machinists, etc. In Seattle, however, because of one firm's bidding for labor, he felt that there would have to come a strike before this schedule would be accepted. Before he got back the threatened strike came, and then the demand of the men for a ten per cent bonus was acceded to, upsetting all other settlements in San Francisco, Portland, Los Angeles, etc. Result, ten per cent gain everywhere. And now the Eastern and Southern men ask the Pacific scale, and he can't see how it can be avoided, nor can I. They will have to standardize all wages.

Poor chap, his advice was scorned, for he protested against the bonus being given to Seattle, and as he said, "If it had not been war-time I would have resigned." To increase the men in the South, to this unprecedented scale, will not get more ships, he fears, but less, for they will not work if they have wages in four days, equal to seven days' needs. I advised for standardization. He said the Navy wouldn't hear of it, as it would demoralize their yards. ...

Politics, politics, curse of the country! It has gotten into the whole war program. Hoover and McAdoo are at swords drawn. Hoover had a cable signed by the three Premiers, George, Clemenceau, and Orlando, crying for wheat and charging us with not keeping our word--and starvation threatening all three countries--in fact, almost sure, because we have not been able to get the wheat to the ships; and with starvation will come revolution, if it gets bad enough. ... I asked Hoover about this on Sunday night, ... and he said that a list of eight hundred cars had been on McAdoo's desk FOR A WEEK. ...

(McChord said on the bench [Footnote: The Interstate Commerce Commission.] to-day that he thought Hoover seventy-five per cent right.)

March 1, [1918]

Yesterday, at Cabinet meeting, we had the first real talk on the war in weeks, yes, in months! Burleson brought up the matter of Russia, ... would we support Japan in taking Siberia, or even Vladivostock? Should we join Japan actively--in force?

The President said "No," for the very practical reason that we had no ships. We had difficulty in providing for our men in France and for our Allies, (the President never uses this word, saying that we are not "allies"). How hopeless it would be to carry everything seven or eight thousand miles--not only men and munitions, but food!--for Japan has none to spare, and none we could eat. Her men feed on rice and smoked fish, and she raises nothing we would want. Nor could the country support us. So there was an end of talking of an American force in Siberia! Yes, we were needed-- perhaps as a guarantee of good faith on Japan's part that she would not go too far, nor stay too long. But we would not do it. And besides, Russia would not like it, therefore we must keep hands off and let Japan take the blame and the responsibility.

The question is not simple, for Russia will say that we threw her to Japan, and possibly she would rush into Germany's arms as the lesser of evils. My single word of caution was to so act that Russia, when she "came back," should not hate us, for there was our new land for development--Siberia--and we should have front place at that table, if we did not let our fears and our hatred and our contempt get away with us now.

Daniels whispered to-day that Russia had five fast cruisers in the Baltic, which could raid the Atlantic and put our ships off the sea. He had wired Sims to see if they couldn't be sunk. I hope it is not too late; surely England must have done something on so important a matter, though she is slow in thinking. And how is anyone to get there with the Baltic full of submarines and mines! The thought is horrible, the possibilities! We certainly have made a bad fist of things Russian from the start. They have deserted us because they were trying to drive the cart ahead of the horse, economical revolution before political revolution, socialism ahead of liberty with law. And they know we are capitalistic, because we do not approve of socialism by force.

March 12, (1918)

Nothing talked of at Cabinet that would interest a nation, a family, or a child. No talk of the war. No talk of Russia or Japan. Talk by McAdoo about some bills in Congress, by the President about giving the veterans of the Spanish war leave, with pay, to attend their annual encampment. And he treated this seriously as if it were a matter of first importance! No word from Baker nor mention of his mission or his doings. ...

TO FRANKLIN K. LANE, JR.

SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE

Washington, February 15, 1918

MY DEAR BOY,--... We are anxiously awaiting some word telling where you are, what you are doing, and how you got on in your trip. I thought your cablegram was a model of condensation, quite like that of Caesar, "Veni, vidi, vici." ...

Sergeant Empey has just left the office with a letter to the Secretary of War, asking that he be given a commission. He has been lecturing among the cantonments and wants to get back to France. ... He says that the boys in the cantonments are anxious to go across, and that they are beginning to criticise us because they do not have their chance. But they will all get there soon enough for them. Our national problem is to get ships to carry them, and to carry the food for the Allies. ... We have undertaken to supply a certain amount of food to the other side, and our contract, so far, has not been fulfilled. During December and January, however, this was, of course, due to railroad conditions.

You are a long way off, but you must not visualize the distance. Nothing so breaks the spirit as to dwell upon unfortunate facts. Some one day or another you had to leave the nest, and this is your day for flying. Wherever you are, with people whose language you understand only imperfectly, with a civilization that is somewhat strange, and under conditions that often-times will be trying, don't adopt the usual attitude of the American in a foreign country and wonder "why the damn fools don't speak English." No doubt some of the French will pity you because of your delinquency in their language.

Another thing that differentiates us from other people is our lavishness in expenditure, and in what appears to us to be their "nearness." ... From these same thrifty French have come great things. They have always been great soldiers; they have led the world in the arts, especially in poetry, painting and fiction-- perhaps, too, I should add architecture. So that men who are careful of their pennies are not necessarily small in their minds. ...

I have less doubt, however, of your ability to get on with the Frenchman than I have with the Englishman. ... You will have difficulty--at least I should--in understanding the rather heavy, sober, non-humorous Englishman. ... He is always a self-important gentleman who regards England as having spoken pretty much the last word in all things, and who will abuse his own country, his countrymen, and institutions, frankly and with abandon, but will allow no one else this liberty. He is not a "quitter" though, and he has done his bit through the centuries for the making of the world.

... See as many people as you can, present all your letters, accept invitations. Remember that while you are there and we miss you, we are not spending our time in moping. Every night we go to dinner and we chatter with the rest of the magpies, as if the world were free from suffering. Last night I talked with Paderewski for an hour on the sorrows of Poland, and it was one long tale of horror. ...

To-day the Russians are calling their people back to arms to stop the oncoming Germans. Foolish, foolish idealists who believed that they could establish what they call an economic democracy, without being willing to support their ideal in modern fashion by force. The best of things can not live unless they are fought for, and while I do not think that their socialism was the best of anything, it was their dream. ... With much love, my dear boy, your DAD

To George W. Lane February 16, 1918

MY DEAR GEORGE,--... Things are going much better with the War Department. My expectation is that this war will resolve itself into three things, in this order:--ships for food, aeroplanes, big guns. We must, as you know, do all that we can to keep up the morale of our own people. There is a considerable percentage of pacifists, and of the weak-hearted ones, who would like to have a peace now upon any terms, but the treatment that Russia is receiving, after she had thrown down her arms, indicates what may be expected by any nation that quits now.

... The prospects for democratization of Germany is not as good as it was a year ago, when we came in, because of their success in arms due to Russia's debacle. The people will not overthrow a government which is successful, nor will they be inclined to desert a system which adds to Germany's glory. It is a fight, a long fight, a fight of tremendous sacrifice, that we are in for. I said a year ago that it would be two years. Then I thought that Russia would put up some kind of front. Now I say two years from this time and possibly a great deal longer. Lord Northcliffe thinks four or six or eight years.

Ned writes me that things are very gloomy and glum in England and in Ireland, where he has been. He was out in an air raid, in several of them, in London, not up in the air, but from the ground could see no trace of the airships that were dropping bombs on the town. The Germans seem to have discovered some way by which they can tell where they are without being able to see the lights of the city, for now they have bombarded Paris when it was protected, on a dark night, by a blanket of fog, and London also under the same conditions. The compass is not much good, the deviations are so great. It may be that the clever Huns have found some way of piloting themselves surely. We are starting two campaigns through the Bureau of Education which may interest you. One is for school gardens. To have the children organized, each one to plant a garden. The plan is to raise vegetables which will save things that can be sent over to the armies, and also give the children a sense of being in the war. Another thing we are trying to do is educate the foreign born and the native born who cannot read or write English. If you are interested in either of these two things we will send you literature, and you can name your own district, and we will put you at work. ...

Well, my dear fellow, I long very much for the sun and the sweetness of California these days, but I could not enjoy myself if I were there, because I am at such tension that I must be doing every day. Do write me often, even though I do not answer. Affectionately yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO ALBERT SHAW

REVIEW OF REVIEWS

Washington, March 7, 1918

MY DEAR DR. SHAW,--I have your letter of March 4th. The thing that a democracy is short on is foresight. We do not have enough men like the General Staff in Germany who can think ten and twenty years ahead. We are too much embedded and incrusted in the things that flow around us during the day, and think too little of the future.

For five, long, weary years, I have been agitating for the use of the water powers of the United States. We estimate the unused power in tens and tens of millions of horse-power. Right in New York you have in the Erie Canal 150,000 horse-power, and on the Niagara river you have probably a million unused. If you had a great dam across the river below the rapids we should have water power in chains, like fire horses in their stalls, that could be brought out at the time of need. But we are thinking in large figures these days, and while we used to be afraid to ask for a few hundred thousand dollars we now talk in millions, and some day we may realize that to put the cost of a week's war into power plants in the United States would be money well invested. ...

We have no law under which private capital feels justified in investing a dollar in a water power plant where public lands are involved, because the permit granted is revokable at the pleasure of the Secretary of the Interior, and capital does not enjoy the prospect of making its future returns dependent upon the good digestion of the Secretary. But if we get this bill, which I enclose, through, we will be able to handle the powers on all streams on the public lands and forests and on all navigable waters, and give assurance to capital that it will be well taken care of if it makes the investment. ...

I am greatly pleased at the kind things you say about me. The longer I am in office the more of an appetite I have for such food. Hoover [Footnote: Hoover at this time was Food Administrator.] can only commit one fatal mistake--to declare a taflfyless day. Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

To Edward J. Wheeler on February 1, 1917, he had written:--

"It is an outrage that we should have a total of nearly six million acres of land withdrawn for oil, three million for phosphates, and one million for water power sites, potash, etc., and allow session after session of Congress to pass without producing any legislation that will sensibly open these reserves to development. The extreme conservationists, who are really for holding the lands indefinitely in the Federal Government and unopened, and the extreme anti-conservationists, who are for turning all the public lands over to the States, have stood for years against a rational system of national development."

Although a great part of the energy of the Department of the Interior was, of necessity, diverted to forward war enterprises and to supply war necessities--chemical, metallurgical, statistical--Lane steadily pressed forward the conduct of the normal activities of the department. In his report for the year 1918, he briefly summarizes this work,--"The distribution, survey, and classification of our national lands; the care of the Indian wards of the Nation, their education, and the development of their vast estate; the carrying forward of our reclamation projects; the awarding and issuance of patents to inventors; the construction of the Alaskan railroad and the supervision of the Territorial affairs of Alaska and Hawaii; the payment of pensions to Army and Navy veterans and their dependents; the promotion of education; the custody and management of the national parks; the conservation of the lives of those who work in mines, and the study and guidance of the mining and metallurgical industries."

To Walter H. Page

Washington, March 16, 1918

My dear Mr. Ambassador,--I am the poorest of all living correspondents, in fact, I am a dead correspondent. I do not function. If it had not been so I would long since have answered your notes, which have been in my basket, but I have had no time for any personal correspondence, much as I delight in it, for I have a very old-fashioned love 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 the same way. For the first time in three months I have leisure enough ... to acknowledge a few of the accumulated personal letters.

Let me give you a glimpse of my day, just to compare it with your own and by way of contrasting life in two different spheres and on different sides of the ocean. I get to my office at nine in the morning and my day is broken up into fifteen-minute periods, during which I see either my own people or others. I really write none of my own letters, [Footnote: This referred to routine letters.] simply telling my secretaries whether the answer should be "yes" or "no." I lunch at my own desk and generally with my wife, who has charge of our war work in the Department. We have over thirteen hundred men who have gone out of this Department into the Army. ... My day is broken into by Cabinet meeting twice a week, meeting of the Council of National Defense twice a week, and latterly with long sessions every afternoon over the question of what railroad wages should be.

My office is a sort of place of last resort for those who are discouraged elsewhere, for Washington is no longer a city of set routine and fixed habit. It is at last the center of the nation. New York is no longer even the financial center. The newspapers are edited from here. Society centers here. All the industrial chiefs of the nation spend most of their time here. It is easier to find a great cattle king or automobile manufacturer or a railroad president or a banker at the Shoreham or the Willard Hotel than it is to find him in his own town. The surprising thing is that these great men who have made our country do not loom so large when brought to Washington and put to work. ... Every day I find some man of many millions who has been here for months and whose movements used to be a matter of newspaper notoriety, but I did not know, even, that he was here. I leave my office at seven o'clock, not having been out of it during the day except for a Cabinet or Council meeting, take a wink of sleep, change my clothes and go to a dinner, for this, as you will remember, is the one form of entertainment that Washington has permitted itself in the war. The dinners are Hooverized,--three courses, little or no wheat, little or no meat, little or no sugar, a few serve wine. And round the table will always be found men in foreign uniforms, or some missionary from some great power who comes begging for boats or food. These dinners used to be places of great gossip, and chiefly anti-administration gossip, but the spirit of the people is one of unequaled loyalty. The Republicans are as glad to have Wilson as their President as are the Democrats, I think sometimes a little more glad, because many of the Democrats are disgruntled over patronage or something else. The women are ferocious in their hunt for spies, and their criticism is against what they think is indifference to this danger. Boys appear at these dinners in the great houses, because of their uniforms, who would never have been permitted even to come to the front door in other days, for all are potential heroes. Every woman carries her knitting, and it is seldom that you hear a croaker even among the most luxurious class. Well, the dinner is over by half past ten, and I go home to an hour and a half's work, which has been sent from the office, and fall at last into a more or less troubled sleep. This is the daily round.

I have not been to New York since the war began. I made one trip across the continent speaking for the Liberty Loan, day and night. And this life is pretty much the life of all of us here. The President keeps up his spirits by going to the theatre three or four times a week. There are no official functions at the White House, and everybody's teeth are set. The Allies need not doubt our resolution. England and France will break before we will, and I do not doubt their steadfast purpose. It is, as you said long ago, their fault that this war has come, for they did not realize the kind of an enemy they had, either in spirit, purpose, or strength. But we will increasingly strengthen that western gate so that the Huns will not break through.

We do things fast here, but I never realized before how slow we are in getting started. It takes a long time for us to get a new stride. I did not think that this was true industrially. I have known that it was true politically for a long time, because this was the most backward and most conservative of all the democracies. We take up new machinery of government so slowly. But industrially it is also true. When told to change step we shift and stumble and halt and hesitate and go through all kinds of awkward misses. This has been true as to ships and aeroplanes and guns, big and little, and uniforms. Whatever the government has done itself has been tied by endless red tape. It is hard for an army officer to get out of the desk habit, and caution, conservatism, sureness, seem even in time of crisis to be more important than a bit of daring. In my Department, I figure that it takes about seven years for the nerve of initiative and the nerve of imagination to atrophy, and so, perhaps, it is in other departments. It took five months for one of our war bureaus to get out a contract for a building that we were to build for them. Fifteen men had to sign the contract. And of course we have been impatient. But things are bettering every day. The men in the camps are very impatient to get away. But where are the ships to do all the work? The Republicans cannot chide us with all of the unpreparedness, for they stood in the way of our getting ships three years ago. The gods have been against us in the way of weather so we have not brought down our supplies to the seaboard, but we have not had the ships to take away that which was there; or coal, sometimes, for the ships.

From now, however, you will see a steadier, surer movement of men, munitions, food, and ships. The whole country is solidly, strongly with the President. There are men in Congress bitterly against him but they do not dare to raise their voices, because he has the people so resolutely with him. The Russian overthrow has been a good thing for us in one way. It will cost us perhaps a million lives, but it will prove to us the value of law and order. We are to have our troubles, and must change our system of life in the next few years.

A great oil man was in the office the other day and told me in a plain, matter-of-fact way, what must be done to win--the sacrifices that must be made--and he ended by saying, "After all, what is property?" This is a very pregnant question. It is not being asked in Russia alone. Who has the right to anything? My answer is, not the man, necessarily, who has it, but the man who can use it to good purpose. The way to find the latter man is the difficulty.

We will have national woman suffrage, national prohibition, continuing inheritance tax, continuing income tax, national life insurance, an increasing grip upon the railroads, their finances and their operation as well as their rates. Each primary resource, such as land and coal and iron and copper and oil, we will more carefully conserve. There will be no longer the opportunity for the individual along these lines that there has been. Industry must find some way of profit-sharing or it will be nationalized. These things, however, must be regarded as incidents now; and the labor people, those with vision and in authority, are very willing to postpone the day of accounting until we know what the new order is to be like.

Well, I have rambled on, giving you a general look--in on my mind. Don't let any of those people doubt the President, or doubt the American people. This is the very darkest day that we have seen. But we believe in ourselves and we believe in our own kind, and believe in a something, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness,--slowly, stumblingly, but, as the centuries go, surely.

I have not yet seen the Archbishop of York. He has not been here. But he has made a most favorable impression where he has been, and so have the English labor people.

Poor Spring-Rice did good work here. Washington felt very sad over his death, and is expecting that England will evidence her appreciation of the fact that he did nothing to estrange us by the way in which his widow is treated.

Reading has been received and fits in perfectly. With warm regards, as always, Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

To John Lyon Machine Gun Company Camp McClennen, Alabama

Washington, March 15,1918

MY DEAR JOHN,--I know how you must feel. Every particle of my own nature rebels against the horror of this war, or of any war, and against the dragooning by military men. I had rather die now and take my chances of Hell, than doom myself and Ned and those who are to come after, to living under a government which is as this government is now and as all governments must be now,--autocratic, governed by orders and commands. But this is the game, and we have got to play it, play it hard and play it through. Manifestly we cannot quit as Russia did without getting Russia's ill-fortune. There was a great empire of a hundred and eighty million people. They mobilized twenty-five million men. Six million of them are dead. The Czar was overthrown, a new government was set up, one of conservative socialism, and that was swept aside and a group of impractical socialists put in its stead, and where is Russia now? Broken to bits, its population dying of hunger, its industries unworked, its soil untilled, and Germany coming on with her great feet, stamping down the few who are brave enough to interpose themselves between Germany and her end. If we were to quit, Germany would do to us, or try to do to us, what she has done to Russia.

If there ever was a real defensive war it is the one that we are engaged in, and we must sacrifice, and sacrifice, and sacrifice, not merely for the world's sake but for our own sake. Ned is in France. He went through England. He tells me that everybody is serious, solemn, purposeful. They would rather all die than live under Germany's mastery of the world.

The President is being bitterly criticized because he has taken every opportunity to talk of terms and of ways out, but I think he is right. He must make the people of the world feel that we are not foolishly, and in a headstrong way, fighting to get anything for ourselves or for anybody else, except the chance to live our own lives. And we will show these Germans something. Our capacity to produce aeroplanes is still altogether unrealized, and we will have great guns a few feet apart along the entire front. We can bomb German harbors where submarines are, and are made--that's the work that Ned is going in for,--and we will hold that western line until every resource is exhausted. And we will go through it one of these days, perhaps not this year. But we must go through it or else American ships will live on the sea by consent of Germany, and Canada will become German territory. This is no dream. Give Germany Paris and Calais and she can exact terms from England. Why should she not ask for Canada? And give Germany Canada and what becomes of the United States? An army of Germans on our border, 5,000,000 men in arms in the United States always, the army and navy budget taking thirty or forty per cent of every man's income. Who wants to live in such a country? We are fighting the greatest war that history has ever seen, not merely in numbers but in principle. We are fighting to get rid of the most hateful survivals from the past. The overlord, the brusque and arrogant soldier, is the dominating factor in society and the government, the turning of men's thoughts away from the pursuit of the things of art and beauty and social beneficence into the one channel of making everything serve the military arm of the nation.

This will be a better world for the poor man when all is over. We must forget our dreams, what our own individual lives would have been, and with dash, and cheer, and courage, and willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice, set our jaws and go forward. The devil is in the saddle and we must pull him down, or else he will rule the world,--and you are to have a tug at his coat. And I envy you. I'd take your place in a minute, if I could. Remember that you are an individualist, not a collectivist naturally, but individuals are of no use now. The war can be made only by great groups who conform. The free spirit of man will have its way once more when this bloody war is done.

I am glad you wrote me, and I want you to feel that you always can write me, whatever is in your heart, and I will give you such answer as my busy days will permit. There is only one way to look at life and get any satisfaction out of it, and that is to bow to the inevitable. We all must be fatalists to that extent, and once a course has been determined upon, accept it and make the best of it. The life of the old gambler does not consist in holding a big hand but in playing a poor hand well. You and I are no longer masters of our own fortunes. All that we can do is to abide by the set rules of the game that is being played. I would change many things, but I am powerless, and because I am powerless I must say to myself each day, "All that God demands of me is that I shall do my best," and doing that, the responsibility is cast upon that Spirit which is the Great Commander. I like to feel at these times that there is a personal God and a personal devil, and there has been no better philosophy devised than that. God is not supreme, He is not omnipotent, He has His limitations, His struggles, His defeats, but there is no life unless you believe that He ultimately must win, that this world is going upward, not downward, that the devil is to be beaten,--the devil inside of ourselves, the devil of wilfulness, of waywardness, of cynicism, and the devil that is represented by the overbearing, cruel militarism and ruthless inhumanity of Germany. You are a soldier of the Lord, just as truly as Christ was.

I send you my affectionate regards, and with it goes the confidence that you will, with good cheer and resolution, play your part. Sincerely yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

This boy died in France. Lane wrote to his father of him:--

To Frank Lyon

Washington, [November 16, 1918]

DEAR FRANK,--Have just heard. Dear, dear Boy! I was so fond of him. He had a brave adventurous spirit. Well, he has gone out gloriously. There could be no finer way to go and no better time.

I know your own strength will be equal to this test--and the wife, poor woman, she too is brave. My heart goes out to you both very really, wholly. With much affection.

FRANKLIN K. LANE

To Miss Genevieve King

Washington, March 16, 1918

MY DEAR MISS KING,--These are times of terrible strain and stress, and we cannot easily fall back upon those sources of power which seem so distant and unavailing. I like to think of you as in our last talk in the Millers' drawing room, where you had a much better opportunity to express yourself than in the one that we later had out on the porch. You then seemed to live your thought and to have the capacity for its expression. I think of you, too, up on that beautiful mountainside, where things like war and guns and bandages and hospitals and men without arms and the lack of ships, the need for saying goodbye, are so remote.

We still keep up a semblance of social life by going to dinners every night. It is the one relief I have, and yet each time I go I feel ashamed at what appears like a waste of time, and yet I know is not, and the waste of good food which is needed by others so much more than by us. Still the people have come down to a strict and modest diet with surprising firmness. There is little evidence of what you would call luxury or extravagance, excepting in the way a few people live. The place is filled with soldiers of many colors, breeds, and uniforms.

... Anne is busy every day at her work, and I see little of anyone who does not come to me on business. The country seems strongly with the President, and while his spirits are not gay, his purpose is high and his determination is strong. We will do better, and increasingly better, as time goes on, I believe. With warm regards, as always sincerely yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

Lane was a member of the Executive Council of the Red Cross, with whom his wife was working during the war. He characterized its symbol as,--"The one flag which binds all nations is that which speaks of suffering and healing, losses and hopes, a past of courage and a future of peace--the flag of the Red Cross."

To John McNaught

Washington, March 16, 1918

MY DEAR JOHN,--It is only now after a month's delay, that I have an opportunity even to acknowledge your letter of the 17th of February.

... The whole war situation seems to be so big that it overwhelms the minds of men. ... But we are grinding on and going surely in the right way. Not everything has been done that could be done, but we are getting our step. This thing will be longer than we thought. But as the President says, it is our job--our job is cut out for us, and we are going to see it through. Russia has taught us what happens to a nation that is not self-respecting. We are hard at work, every one of us, big and little. The nation never was as united, and while we do not realize just what war is, yet we will realize it more from day to day and harder will our fibre grow.

My boy is in France. He hopes to fly an aeroplane over a German submarine base, and drop a ton of dynamite on it and put it out of business.

How the world has changed since we dreamed together in the Cosmos Club! How Paris has changed since we wandered through its boulevards together! The day of the common man is at hand. Our danger will be in going too fast, and by going too fast do injustice to him. But your kind of socialism and mine is to have its fling.

I was much pleased to meet your wife, very much indeed, and I hope we may see you here one of these days. With my affectionate regards, sincerely yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

On May 31, 1918, Lane sent a long letter to President Wilson in relation to his plan for providing farms, from the public domain, for the returning soldiers. The letter is given at some length, because this plan was so dear to Lane's heart, and was one upon which he had put much earnest study. In addition to the phases of the subject printed here, he gave, in his signed letter to President Wilson, detailed consideration to several other aspects of the matter; such as, a comparison of his plan with land-tenure in Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, and Australia; the need for an extension of the method whereby land can be "developed in large areas, sub-divided into individual farms, then sold to actual bona fide farmers on long-time payment basis"; and also the part Alaska should be made to play in affording agricultural opportunity to our returned soldiers.

To Hon. Woodrow Wilson The White House

Washington, May 31, 1918

MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT,--I believe the time has come when we should give thought to the preparations of plans for providing opportunity for our soldiers returning from the war. Because this Department has handled similar problems I consider it my duty to bring this matter to the attention of yourself and Congress. ...

To the great number of returning soldiers, land will offer the great and fundamental opportunity. The experience of wars points out the lesson that our service men, because of army life with its openness and activity, will largely seek out-of-doors vocations and occupations. This fact is accepted by the allied European nations. That is why their programs and policies of re-locating and readjustment emphasize the opportunities on the land for the returning soldier. The question then is, "What land can be made available for farm homes for our soldiers?"

We do not have the bountiful public domain of the sixties and seventies. In a literal sense, for the use of it on a generous scale for soldier farm homes as in the sixties, "the public domain is gone." The official figures at the end of the fiscal year, June 30, 1917, show this: We have unappropriated land in the continental United States to the amount of 230,657,755 acres. It is safe to say that not one-half of this land will ever prove to be cultivable in any sense. So we have no lands in any way comparable to that in the public domain when Appomattox came--and men turned westward with army rifle and "roll blanket," to begin life anew.

While we do not have that matchless public domain of '65, we do have millions of acres of undeveloped lands that can be made available for our home-coming soldiers. We have arid lands in the West, cut-over lands in the Northwest, Lake States, and South, and also swamp lands in the Middle West and South, which can be made available through the proper development. Much of this land can be made suitable for farm homes if properly handled. But it will require that each type of land be dealt with in its own particular fashion. The arid land will require water; the cut-over land will require clearing; and the swamp land must be drained. Without any of these aids, they remain largely "No Man's Land." The solution of these problems is no new thing. In the admirable achievement of the Reclamation Service in reclamation and drainage we have abundant proof of what can be done.

Looking toward the construction of additional projects, I am glad to say that plans and investigations have been under way for some time. A survey and study has been in the course of consummation by the Reclamation Service on the Great Colorado Basin. That great project, I believe, will appeal to the new spirit of America. It would mean the conquest of an empire in the Southwest. It is believed that more than three millions of acres of arid land could be reclaimed by the completion of the Upper and Lower Colorado Basin projects. ...

What amount of land, in its natural state unfit for farm homes, can be made suitable for cultivation by drainage, only thorough surveys and studies can develop. We know that authentic figures show that more than fifteen million acres have been reclaimed for profitable farming, most of which lies in the Mississippi River Valley.

The amount of cut-over lands in the United States, of course, it is impossible even in approximation to estimate. ... A rough estimate of their number is about two hundred million acres--that is of land suitable for agricultural development. Substantially all this cut-over or logged-off land is in private ownership. The failure of this land to be developed is largely due to inadequate method of approach. Unless a new policy of development is worked out in cooperation between the Federal Government, the States, and the individual owners, a greater part of it will remain unsettled and uncultivated. ...

Any plan for the development of land for the returned soldier, will come face to face with the fact that a new policy will have to meet the new conditions. The era of free or cheap land in the United States has passed. We must meet the new conditions of developing lands in advance--security must to a degree displace speculation. ...

This is an immediate duty. It will be too late to plan for these things when the war is over. Our thought now should be given to the problem. And I therefore desire to bring to your mind the wisdom of immediately supplying the Interior Department with a sufficient fund with which to make the necessary surveys and studies. We should know by the time the war ends, not merely how much arid land can be irrigated, nor how much swamp land reclaimed, nor where the grazing land is and how many cattle it will support, nor how much cut-over land can be cleared, but we should know with definiteness where it is practicable to begin new irrigation projects, what the character of the land is, what the nature of the improvements needed will be, and what the cost will be. We should know also, not in a general way, but with particularity, what definite areas of swamp land may be reclaimed, how they can be drained, what the cost of the drainage will be, what crops they will raise. We should have in mind specific areas of grazing lands, with a knowledge of the cattle which are best adapted to them, and the practicability of supporting a family upon them. So, too, with our cut-over lands. We should know what it would cost to pull or "blow-out" stumps and to put the lands into condition for a farm home.

And all this should be done upon a definite planning basis. We should think as carefully of each one of these projects as George Washington thought of the planning of the City of Washington, We should know what it will cost to buy these lands if they are in private hands. In short, at the conclusion of the war the United States should be able to say to its returned soldiers, "If you wish to go upon a farm, here are a variety of farms of which you may take your pick, which the Government has prepared against the time of your returning." I do not mean by this to carry the implication that we should do any other work now than the work of planning. A very small sum of money put into the hands of men of thought, experience, and vision, will give us a program which will make us feel entirely confident that we are not to be submerged, industrially or otherwise, by labor which we will not be able to absorb, or that we would be in a condition where we would show a lack of respect for those who return as heroes, but who will be without means of immediate self-support.

A million or two dollars, if appropriated now, will put this work well under way.

This plan does not contemplate anything like charity to the soldier. He is not to be given a bounty. He is not to be made to feel that he is a dependent. On the contrary, he is to continue, in a sense, in the service of the Government. Instead of destroying our enemies he is to develop our resources.

The work that is to be done, other than the planning, should be done by the soldier himself. The dam or the irrigation project should be built by him, the canals, the ditches, the breaking of the land, and the building of the houses, should, under proper direction, be his occupation. He should be allowed to make his own home, cared for while he is doing it, and given an interest in the land for which he can pay through a long period of years, perhaps thirty or forty years. This same policy can be carried out as to the other classes of lands. So that the soldier on his return would have an opportunity to make a home for himself, to build a home with money which we would advance and which he would repay, and for the repayment we would have an abundant security. The farms should not be turned over as the prairies were--unbroken, unfenced, without accommodations for men and animals. There should be prepared homes, all of which can be constructed by the men themselves, and paid for by them, under a system of simple devising by which modern methods of finance will be applied to their needs.

As I have indicated, this is not a mere Utopian vision. It is, with slight variations, a policy which other countries are pursuing successfully. The plan is simple. I will undertake to present to the Congress definite projects for the development of this country through the use of the returned soldier, by which the United States, lending its credit, may increase its resources and its population and the happiness of its people, with a cost to itself of no more than the few hundred thousand dollars that it will take to study this problem through competent men. This work should not be postponed. Cordially and faithfully yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

The bill, incorporating this plan, was rejected by a Congress unwilling to accept any solution of any part of the after-war problem, if the plan came from the Wilson Administration.

In 1918, Colonel Mears, who had been Chief Engineer and later Chairman of the Alaskan Commission, in charge of the construction of the Alaskan railroad, went, with many others, to the front, and Lane was obliged to find new men to carry on the Alaskan work.

To Allan Pollok

Washington, July 17, 1918

You certainly can have more time, because I want you, and it is not on my own account altogether, because I feel sure you will delight in the kind of creative job that it is. I found that Scotchmen had made Hawaii, and I would like to see some of that same stuff go into Alaska. You see we have a fine bunch of men there, practical fellows of experience, but not one of them looms large as a business man or as a creator. I would personally like to spend a few years of my life just dreaming dreams about what could be done in that huge territory, and if I only got by with one out of five hundred, I would leave a real dent in the history of the territory.

That coal must be brought out of Alaska for the Navy, if the Navy is going to use any coal, and we ought to be able to send a great many thousands of Americans, as stock raisers and farmers, into Alaska after this war. The climate is just as good as that of Montana, and in some places much better. Of course it is not a swivel-chair job. It is a challenge to everything that a fellow has in him of ambition, courage, imagination, enterprise, and tact, and if we can possibly get that road completed by the end of the war, and know that we have another national domain there for settlement, it would help out mightily on the returning soldier problem. You and I cannot fight and that is our bad luck. We were born about thirty years too early but I have a notion that we can make Alaska do her bit through that railroad. ... If you want a great mining expert to go in with you I can get one. ... Come on into the game.

FRANKLIN K. LANE

To E. S. Pillsbury

Washington, July 30, 1918

MY DEAR MR. PILLSBURY,-- ... In these radical times when things are changing so quickly it does not do to be too conservative or things will go altogether to the bad. ...

Pragmatic tests must be applied strictly and the way to beat wild- eyed schemes is to show that they are impracticable, and to harness our people to the land. Every man in an industry ought to be tied up in some way by profit-sharing or stock-owning arrangements, and we should get as large a proportion of our people on small farms as possible. If this is not done we are going to have a reign of lawlessness.

When a sense of property goes, it becomes more and more apparent to me, that all other conserving and conservative tendencies go, and the man who has something is the man who will save this country. So it is necessary that just as many have something as possible. ... The one thing which the Bolsheviki do not understand is that the economic world is not divided between capital and labor, but that there is a great class unrepresented in these two divisions--the managing class which furnishes brains and direction, tact and vision, and no socialistic scheme provides for the selection and reward of these men ... Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

To William Marion Reedy Reedy's Mirror

Washington, September 13, 1918

MY DEAR MR. REEDY,--In the first place ... as to the coal agreement, when coal was more than six dollars a ton and climbing, and it was nobody's business to reduce the price, I made an appeal to the coal operators to fix voluntarily a maximum price of one- half of what they were then getting. This they did, with the understanding that it would stand only until the Government fixed the price, if it chose to do so later. The price was three dollars in the East, and two dollars and seventy-five cents in the West, and there is not a coal mine in the country to-day, under Government operation, that is producing coal for as little as that price, which the operators themselves upon my appeal, fixed ...

Some day or another we will meet, ... and I am inclined to believe that you will think me less of a reactionary than a radical. I am against a standardized world, an ordered, Prussianized world. I am for a world in which personal initiative is kept alive and at work. There are a lot of people here who believe that you can do things by orders, which I know from my knowledge of the human and the American spirit can much more effectively be done by appeal.

Everything goes happily here these days, because we are winning the war, and the future of the world will soon be in the hands of a man who not so long ago was a school teacher. A great world this, isn't it? And the greatest romance is not even the fact that Woodrow Wilson is its master, but the advance of the Czecho-Slavs across five thousand miles of Russian Asia,--an army on foreign territory, without a government, holding not a foot of land, who are recognized as a nation! This stirs my imagination as I think nothing in the war has, since Albert of Belgium stood fast at Liege. Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

Notes on Cabinet Meetings Found in Lane's Files

October 23, 1918

Yesterday we had a Cabinet Meeting. All were present. The President was manifestly disturbed. For some weeks we have spent our time at Cabinet meetings largely in telling stories. Even at the meeting of a week ago, the day on which the President sent his reply to Germany--his second Note of the Peace Series--we were given no view of the Note which was already in Lansing's hands and was emitted at four o'clock; and had no talk upon it, other than some outline given offhand by the President to one of the Cabinet who referred to it before the meeting; and for three-quarters of an hour told stories on the war, and took up small departmental affairs.

This was the Note which gave greatest joy to the people of any yet written, because it was virile and vibrant with determination to put militarism out of the world. As he sat down at the table the President said that Senator Ashurst had been to see him to represent the bewildered state of mind existing in the Senate. They were afraid that he would take Germany's words at their face value.

"I said to the Senator," said the President, "do they think I am a damned fool?" ... Yet Senator Kellogg says that Ashurst told the Senators that the President talked most pacifically, as if inclined to peace, and that Ashurst was "afraid that he would commit the country to peace," so afraid that he wanted all the pressure possible brought to bear on the President by other Senators. At any rate, the Note when it came had no pacificism in it, and the President gained the unanimous approval of the country and the Allies.

But all this was a week ago. Germany came back with an acceptance of the President's terms--a superficial acceptance at least--hence the appeal to the Cabinet yesterday. This was his opening, "I do not know what to do. I must ask your advice. I may have made a mistake in not properly safe-guarding what I said before. What do you think should be done?"

This general query was followed by a long silence, which I broke by saying that Germany would do anything he said.

"What should I say?" he asked.

"That we would not treat until Germany was across the Rhine."

This he thought impossible.

Then others took a hand. Wilson said the Allies should be consulted. Houston thought there was no real reform inside Germany. McAdoo made a long talk favoring an armistice on terms fixed by the military authorities. Strangely enough, Burleson, who had voted against all our stiff action over the Lusitania and has pleaded for the Germans steadily, was most belligerent in his talk. He was ferocious--so much so that I thought he was trying to make the President react against any stiff Note--for he knows the President well, and knows that any kind of strong blood-thirsty talk drives him into the cellar of pacifism. ...

One of the things McAdoo said was that we could not financially sustain the war for two years. He was for an armistice that would compel Germany to keep the peace, military superiority recognized by Germany, with Foch, Haig, and Pershing right on top of them all the time. Secretary Wilson came back with his suggestion that the Allies be consulted. Then Baker wrote a couple of pages outlining the form of such a Note suggesting an armistice. I said that this should be sent to our "partners" in the war, without giving it to the world, that we were in a confidential relation to France and England, that they were in danger of troubles at home, possible revolution, and if the President, with his prestige, were to ask publicly an armistice which they would not think wise to grant, or which couldn't be granted, the sending of such a message into the world would be coercing them. The President said that they needed to be coerced, that they were getting to a point where they were reaching out for more than they should have in justice. I pointed out the position in which the President would be if he proposed an armistice which they (the Allies) would not grant. He said that this would be left to their military men, and they would practically decide the outcome of the war by the terms of the armistice, which might include leaving all heavy guns behind, and putting, Metz, Strasburg, etc., in the hands of the Allies, until peace was declared.

I suggested that Germany might not know what the President's terms were as to Courland, etc., that this was not "invaded territory." He replied that they evidently did, as they now were considering methods of getting out of the Brest-Litovsk treaty. He said he was afraid of Bolshevism in Europe, and the Kaiser was needed to keep it down--to keep some order. He really seemed alarmed that the time would come soon when there would be no possibility of saving Germany from the Germans. This was a new note to me.

He asked Secretary Wilson if the press really represented the sentiment of the country as to unconditional surrender. Wilson said it did. He said that the press was brutal in demanding all kinds of punishment for the Germans, including the hanging of the Kaiser. At the end of the meeting, which lasted nearly two hours, he asked to be relieved of Departmental matters as he was unable to think longer. I wrote a summary of the position he took, and read it after Cabinet meeting to Houston and Wilson, who agreed. It follows:--

If they (the Allies) ask you (the President), "Are you satisfied that we can get terms that will be satisfactory to us without unconditional surrender?"

You will answer, "Yes--through the terms of the Armistice."

"By an armistice can you make sure that all the fourteen propositions will be effectively sustained, so that militarism and imperialism will end?"

"Yes, because we will be masters of the situation and will remain in a position of supremacy until Germany puts into effect the fourteen propositions."

"Will that be a lasting peace?"

"It will do everything that can be done without crushing Germany and wiping her out--everything except to gratify revenge."

November 1, 1918

At last week's Cabinet we talked of Austria--again we talked like a Cabinet. The President said that he did not know to whom to reply, as things were breaking up so completely. There was no Austria-Hungary. Secretary Wilson suggested that, of course, their army was still under control of the Empire, and that the answer would have to go to it.

Theoretically, the President said, German-Austria should go to Germany, as all were of one language and one race, but this would mean the establishment of a great central Roman-Catholic nation which would be under control of the Papacy, and would be particularly objectionable to Italy. I said that such an arrangement would mean a Germany on two seas, and would leave the Germans victors after all. The President read despatches from Europe on the situation in Germany--the first received in many months.

Nothing was said of politics--although things are at a white heat over the President's appeal to the country to elect a Democratic Congress. He made a mistake. ... My notion was, and I told him so at a meeting three or four weeks ago, that the country would give him a vote of confidence because it wanted to strengthen his hand. But Burleson said that the party wanted a leader with GUTS--this was his word and it was a challenge to his (the President's) virility, that was at once manifest.

The country thinks that the President lowered himself by his letter, calling for a partisan victory at this time. ... But he likes the idea of personal party-leadership--Cabinet responsibility is still in his mind. Colonel House's book, Philip Dru, favors it, and all that book has said should be, comes about slowly, even woman suffrage. The President comes to Philip Dru in the end. And yet they say that House has no power. ...

Election Day. November 5, [1918]

At Cabinet some one asked if Germany would accept armistice terms. The President said he thought so. ...

The President spoke of the Bolsheviki having decided upon a revolution in Germany, Hungary, and Switzerland, and that they had ten million dollars ready in Switzerland, besides more money in Swedish banks held by the Jews from Russia, ready for the campaign of propaganda. He read a despatch from the French minister in Berne, to Jusserand, telling of this conspiracy. Houston suggested the advisability of stopping it by seizing the money and interning the agitators. After some discussion, the President directed Lansing to ask the Governments in Switzerland and Sweden to get the men and money, and hold them, and then to notify the Allies of what we had done and suggest that they do likewise. Lansing suggested a joint Note, but the President vetoed this idea, wanting us to take the initiative. He spoke of always having been sympathetic with Japan in her war with Russia, and thought that the latter would have to work out her own salvation. But he was in favor of sending food to France, Belgium, Italy, Serbia, Roumania, and Bulgaria just as soon as possible; and the need was great, also in Austria.

He said that the terms had been agreed upon, but he did not say what they were--further than to say that the Council at Versailles had agreed to his fourteen points, with two reservations:--(1) as to the meaning of the freedom of the seas, (2) as to the meaning of the restoration of Belgium and France. This word he had directed Lansing to give to the Swiss minister for Germany--and to notify Germany also that Foch would talk the terms of armistice. ... He is certainly in splendid humor and in good trim--not worried a bit. And why should he be, for the world is at his feet, eating out of his hand! No Caesar ever had such a triumph! ...

November 6, 1918

Yesterday we had an election. I had expected we would win because the President had made a personal appeal for a vote of confidence, and all other members of the Cabinet had followed suit, except Baker who said he wanted to keep the Army out of politics. The President thought it was necessary to make such an appeal. He liked the idea of personal leadership, and he has received a slap in the face--for both Houses are in the balance. This is the culmination of the policy Burleson urged when he got the President to sign a telegram which he (Burleson) had written opposing Representative Slayden, his personal enemy, from San Antonio, and, in effect, nominating Burleson's brother-in-law for Congress. We heard of it by the President bringing it up at Cabinet. Burleson worked it through Tumulty. The President said that he did not know whether to write other letters of a similar nature as to Vardaman, Hardwick, ET AL. I advised against it, saying that the voters had sense enough to take care of these people. Burleson said, "The people like a leader with guts." The word struck the President's fancy and although Lansing, Houston, and Wilson also protested, in as strong a manner as any one ever does protest, the letters were issued. ... Even before the Slayden letter was one endorsing Davies, in Wisconsin, as against Lenroot. ... Then came the letter to the people of the whole country, reflecting upon the Republicans, saying that they were in great part pro-war but not pro-administration.

November 11, 1918

On Sunday I heard that Germany was flying the red flag, and postponed my promised visit to the Governors of the South, to be held at Savannah. At eleven yesterday word came that the President would speak to Congress at one, and that he would have no objection if the Departments closed to give opportunity for rejoicings. I went to a meeting of the Council of National Defence and spoke, welcoming the members. It was a meeting called by Baruch to plan reconstruction--but the President had notified him on Saturday that he could not talk or have talking on that subject. So all I could do was to give a word of greeting to men who are bound to be disappointed at being called for nothing.

The President's speech was, as always, a splendidly done bit of work. He rose to the occasion fully and it was the greatest possible occasion. ... Lansing says that they (he and the President) had the terms of Armistice before election--terms quite as drastic as unconditional surrender.

TO DANIEL WILLARD PRESIDENT, BALTIMORE AND OHIO RAILROAD

Washington, November 7, 1918

DEAR MR. WILLARD,--I am extremely sorry to receive word that you are leaving us, but of course you are going into a sphere of action much larger than the one you are in here, and we must yield you with every grace, no matter how unwillingly. You will be gone from us only a short time, I trust, and then I shall have the opportunity of seeing more of you and continuing a friendship which has been of very real value to me.

All that you say about the Advisory Commission is true, and more. If the history of the Council of National Defence and of the Advisory Commission is ever written it will be seen that you gentlemen, who gave your time and experience freely, gave the first real impulse to war preparation, and we missed out only because we did not have more authority to vest in you. I am very proud of the first six months of the Council's work and of the Commission's work.

I received your letter telling me of the death of your son and daughter-in-law, and I did not have the heart to write you another line. The mystery and the ordering of this world grow altogether inexplicable when the affections are wrenched. It requires far more religion or philosophy than I have, to say a real word that might console one who has lost those who are dear to him. Ten years ago my mother died, and I have never become reconciled to her loss. This is a wrong state of mind, and I hope that you are sustained by that unfaltering trust of which Bryant spoke. Sincerely yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

To James H. Hawley

Washington, November 9, 1918

MY DEAR GOVERNOR,--... To my great surprise we have lost both Houses. We felt sure that we would carry both, and did not appreciate the extent to which the Republicans would be consolidated by the President's letter, which, from what I hear was one of the inducing causes of the result; although not by any means the only one, for the feeling in the North and West was strong that the South in some way was being preferred. I am fresh from a talk with Senator Phelan who, to my surprise, tells me that these were the factors in the New England States from which he has just come. ...

The Wilson administration may be judged by the great things that it has done--the unparallelled things--and the election of last Tuesday will get but a line in the history of this period, while the Versailles conference and the Fourteen Points of Wilson's message will have books written about them for a century to come. Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

To Samuel G. Blythe London, England

Washington, November 13, 1918

MY DEAR SAM,--I had not seen the review of my little book of speeches [Footnote: The American Spirit.] made by the Daily Mail until you sent it to me. I guess we are a nation of idealists and it won't do any harm to have a little of this leaven thrown into the European lump. I am amused when I read the reviews on this book to see myself regarded as the rather imaginative interpreter of the national attitude, after these twenty years of quiet, stiff legal opinions on municipal law and rail-road problems.

Glad to hear of the boy! He is a poor correspondent, as most two- fisted young chaps are apt to be. I envy you your opportunity now to see the revolution in Germany, and it? possible spreading elsewhere. I think you might write an I article on how revolution comes to a country; a picture of just how the thing happens; what the first step was; what kind of organization there was and how they went about their business and got hold of the Government. There is I a whole book in this, but immediately there is a chance for a couple of mighty interesting articles.

Here we have gone wild over the victory and peace, and the fact that the election went against us means nothing, so far as international questions are concerned. We had not fixed the price on cotton while we had fixed the price on wheat, and that made the North feel that this is a Southern Administration. The Republicans were united for the first time in ten years. These are the big reasons for the shift. You see we have no idea here of Cabinet responsibility or votes of confidence or lack of confidence. I expect there will be some fun in Congress for the next two years. As always, cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO GEORGE W. LANE

Washington, December 16, 1918

MY DEAR GEORGE,--I have your long letter, telling me of all your sad experiences with red tape and how you have settled down at last to do your bit at home. You have gone through the bitterness that most fellows have experienced in trying to do anything with the Government. I really am very sorry that you had to make such a financial sacrifice and break up your home and then be fooled, but probably it is all for the best. The war is over, the boys are coming home soon and this brings me to the main point.

Ned got home this morning. Nancy, Anne, and I went to Norfolk to meet him. He had no expectation of seeing us there and at eight o'clock on a very rainy foggy morning, we came up along side of his transport and he was taken by surprise. He had a fine lot of boys with him, but since May he had been at the Naval Aviation Headquarters as one of the General Staff.

He had many narrow escapes; had men killed standing beside him, torn to pieces by shrapnel; was knocked over by the concussion of shells; was over the lines in the battle of Chateau-Thierry in an aeroplane, flew across the Austrian-Italian lines and chased the German on his retreat through Belgium.

He seems to be in good health, though rather nervous. He very much admires the men who were his comrades and his superiors, but is glad to be out of it all. I think he would like to get on a big farm. My plan for getting farms for the soldier is making slow progress. I have got to put in all my effort now to get some decisive answer out of Congress--either yes or no. ...

[Ned] has seen France very thoroughly, all the north of Italy from Rome up, England, and Ireland. In the latter spot, he was shot at three times, notwithstanding a general order that no Irishman is allowed to have a gun. He was challenged to a duel by a Frenchman who tried to get away with his seat in a car. He gave the Frenchman a good licking and then discovered that he was liable to court martial, but he got the seat and then told the French lieutenant he would throw him out of the car window if he talked any more about dueling. The following morning he offered the Frenchman a cigarette which was taken, and they shook hands and parted.

He went up in an aeroplane in Italy at one place and had a hunch, he said, that something was wrong with the machine and so he brought it down and landed. Another fellow took it up, an Italian. He got up about one thousand feet in the air and the gas tank exploded. The poor fellow came down burnt to a cinder, all within five minutes. He shot a German from the Belgian trenches and has been recommended four times for promotion, but hasn't got it yet. With much love to Frances and yourself, I am, affectionately yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO EDGAR C. BRADLEY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR

Washington, [December 18, 1918]

MY DEAR BRADLEY,--You wouldn't let me close my sentence yesterday and I don't propose to close it to-day. Yet I am not going to let you drive westward toward the land and people we both love so much, without letting you carry a word of affection and greeting from me, which you can just throw to the winds when you get there, throw it out of the window to Tamalpais, it will sweep over those eucalyptus trees on the right, throw it up to the Berkeley hills, which now are turning green, I suppose, throw it up the long stretch of Market Street till it reaches Twin Peaks, and let it flow down over "south of the slot" that was, and up over Nob Hill, even to the sacred brownstone of the Pacific-Union.

Go with a heart that is full of rejoicing that peace has come, through our sacrifice as well as that of other of the nobler peoples of earth, and with a heart that is proud that you were able to help with your strength and sane judgment and great gentleness of speech and manner, in carrying on this nation's affairs in the day of its greatest adventure. We shall all miss you greatly, whether you are gone two weeks or two years! Do just what you think is right, just what she who is so much to you thinks you should do. There is no better test of a man's duty.

If you can't return we shall stagger on. I shan't stop climbing this ladder because a rung is gone--tho' many a rung is gone--and a damn hard old ladder this is sometimes. ...

F.K.L.

XI

AFTER-WAR PROBLEMS--LEAVING WASHINGTON

1919

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

TO E. C. BRADLEY

Washington, January, 1919

MY DEAR BRADLEY,-- ... I am terribly broken up over Roosevelt's death. He was a great and a good man, a man's man, always playing his game in the open. ...

I loved old Roosevelt because he was a hearty, two-fisted fellow. ... The only fault I ever had to find with him was that he took defeat too hard. He had a sort of "divine right" idea, but he was a bully fighter. I went to his funeral and have joined in mass meetings in his memory, which I suppose is all I can do. ... Of course ... he said a lot of things that were unjust and unjustifiable, but if a fellow doesn't make a damned fool of himself once in a while he wouldn't be human. The Republicans would have nominated him next time undoubtedly. They are without a leader now, and we are just as much up in the air as ever. ... I am standing by the President for all I am worth. I talked to the Merchants' Association the other day and gave him a great send- off, but they didn't rise to their feet at all, which is the first time this has happened in two years. ... Sincerely yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO GEORGE W. LANE

Washington, January 30, 1919

MY DEAR GEORGE,-- ... The one thing that bothers us here is the problem of unemployment. We have not, of course, had time to turn around and develop any plan for reconstruction. Our whole war machine went to pieces in a night. Everybody who was doing war work dropped his job with the thought of Paris in his mind, with the result that everything has come down with a crash, in the way of production, but nothing in the way of wages or living costs. Wages cannot go down until the cost of living does, and production won't increase while people believe prices will be lower later on. I to-day proposed to Secretary Glass that he enter upon a campaign to promote production, (1) by seeing what the Government could buy, (2) by seeing what the industries would take as a bottom price, (3) by getting the Food Administration at work to reduce prices. Perhaps it may do some good. ...

I have always thought the President was right in going across, and I believe that he will pull through a League of Nations. When I get a copy of it I will send you my speech on this subject, which is rather loose but is a plea for dreams.

Ned is going West to. work for Doheny in some oil field, starting at the bottom. I rather think this is right, but of course he won't stay as a laborer very long. The boy is fine and gay, and did splendid work, and is anxious to get into the game and make money. Just where he gets this desire for making money I don't know. Certainly I never had it. But he was telling me the other day of his hope that by forty he would have made enough money to retire. I told him you were the only fellow I ever knew who had actually retired, and you had only done it half way. He will report at Los Angeles, but I expect he will get up to see you as soon as he can. He has a remarkable affection for California, considering he has seen so little of it, and so has Nancy. They both regard it as the golden land where all things smile, and people have hearts. I have not attempted to cure them of their illusion.

Do write me a good, long letter, for I am always eager to hear from you.

F. K. L.

To George W. Lane

Washington, May 1, [1919]

MY DEAR GEORGE,--Well, what do you think of the Italian situation? I think the President right, that Fiume should not go to Italy. Certainly she has no moral claim, for by the Pact of London, Fiume was to go to Croatia. Orlando says that he is answering the call of the Italians in exile. Let them stay in exile, I say. They went into a foreign land to make money and now they wish to annex the land they are visiting, to the home country. How would we like it if the Chinese swamped San Francisco and then asked to be annexed to China? This is carrying the Fiume idea to its ultimate, a ridiculous ultimate, of course, as most ultimates are.

Whether he [President Wilson] gave out the statement as to the break too early, and without the consent of England and France, of course I don't know. Quite like him to do it if he thought the thing had hung long enough, and that Italy was too damn predatory. And she does seem to be. The New Idea seems to have less real hold in Italy--at least among the governing class--than in any other European country. Her present position will postpone peace. This will cause us trouble over the extra session of Congress for our appropriations will run out. And perhaps in England it may give a chance for labor troubles to rise. It will postpone the return of good times to this country. But ultimately Italy will have to come through. If economic pressure were put upon her she would be compelled to yield at once, for she depends on England and ourselves for all the coal she uses, and on us chiefly for her wheat. Of course this form of coercion will not be resorted to. She might think more kindly if she were given an extended credit, say of two hundred million dollars. But the people being aroused now over what they think is a matter of principle--loyalty to their compatriots in Fiume--they may not be able to compromise. Lord Reading rather fears that this is the situation and that it might have been avoided if the President had not issued his statement when he did. However, I have no doubt that the President will have his way. He nearly always does. Surely the God that once was the Kaiser's is now his.

To be the First President of the League of Nations is to be the crowning glory of his life. I believe in the League--as an effort. It will not cure, but it is a serious effort to get at the disease. It is a hopeful effort, too, for it makes moral standards, standards of conduct between nations which will bring conventional pressure to bear on the side of peace, to offset the old convention of rushing into war to satisfy hurt feelings. Sooner or later there will come disarmament--the pistol will be taken away and the streets will be safer.

The boy is having a tough time in his oil work. It is so dirty! But I hope he sticks out until he proves himself. I hear that the Dutch Shell people have bought out Cowdray in Mexico, and now are trying to get Doheny's lands. They bestride the earth, and as soon as their activities are known generally, this country will look upon the Standard Oil as the American champion in a big international fight.

... Well, dear old chap, I know that I could add nothing to your cure if I were there but I am not content to be so far away from you. ... F. K. L.

TO WILLIAM BOYCE THOMPSON ROOSEVELT PERMANENT MEMORIAL NATIONAL COMMITTEE

Washington, May 20, 1919

MY DEAR MR. THOMPSON,--I told Mr. Loeb that I would feel greatly honored to be a member of a Memorial Committee, to do honor to Ex- President Roosevelt. To-day, I receive an agreement which I am asked to sign in which the members of the Committee are to pledge themselves to a memorial for the furtherance of Mr. Roosevelt's policies. I do not know what such a phrase means. With some of his policies I know I was in hearty accord but as to others, such as the tariff, I have my doubts. This might be turned or construed into a great machine for propaganda of a partisan character, and it seems to me that the Colonel's memory is altogether too precious a national possession to have that construction possibly given to any memorial to him.

There are hundreds of thousands of Democrats, like myself, who admired him and who would contribute toward a memorial, who should not be asked to do this if it was any more than a straight-out memorial to the man, the soldier, the naturalist, the historian, the President, the intense, vital American.

And all of your officers, so far as I am acquainted with them, are Republicans. This does not seem to convey quite the right suggestion.

I have already planned for a lasting Roosevelt memorial in the creation of a park in California, to bear Colonel Roosevelt's name. I expect this will have Congressional approval at the present session of Congress.

Last night I talked with Senator Frank Kellogg about this matter, and he agrees with my view. He says that he understood the memorial was to be something in Washington of a permanent and artistic character, and perhaps the home at Oyster Bay, and that the personnel of all committees was to be popular, including if possible as many Democrats as Republicans.

Under these circumstances I beg leave to withhold my signature to the agreement sent me. I would have no objection to asking Congress to provide for a memorial, though I think this should be deferred as a matter of policy until the public had subscribed generously. Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO BENJAMIN IDE WHEELER PRESIDENT EMERITUS, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

Washington, June 16, 1919

MY DEAR WHEELER,--I have seen your goodbye address at Berkeley, and I am very glad I did not hear it, for it must have been a sad day for Berkeley and for you. The address itself was a noble word. I hear that you have bought Lucy Sprague's home and are to remain in Berkeley. This is as it should be. You can ripen into the Sage of Berkeley, and be a center of influence, stimulating the best in others. A long, long life to you! Always sincerely and devotedly yours,

FRANKLIN K, LANE

TO E. S. MARTIN LIFE

Washington, August 23, 1919

MY DEAR MR. MARTIN,-- ... It does not seem to me that this country will rise to a class war. We have too many farmers and small householders and women--put the accent on the women. They are the conservatives. Until a woman is starving, she does not grow Red, unless she is without a husband or babies and has a lot of money that she did not earn. ... Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO GEORGE W. LANE

Washington, September 11, 1919

DEAR GEORGE,--You do not know how much of sympathy I send out to you and how many words of prayer I send up for you. You need them all, I expect. ... What a long siege you have had!

I suppose you will not be able to hear the President speak when he is there. You will miss much. He is not impassioned nor a great orator, such as Chatham or Fox, or Webster or Dolliver, or even Bryan--but he has a keen, quick, cutting mind, the mind of a really great critic, and his manner is that of the gentleman scholar. He is first among all men to-day, which is much for America.

My Nancy has been having a splendid time, even if she only saw your ranch for a week--but she is the gayest thing alive--God grant she may continue so always. ...

For the first time in twenty-five years we are living in an apartment, large and in a nice place, but somehow my sense of the fitness of things will not let me call the place "home"--altho' it is the most comfortable habitation I have ever lived in, elevator, whole floor to ourselves. ... and they let me keep my dog. I wouldn't have come if they hadn't. We turned down a fine place with a more expansive view because Jack was not wanted. But surely in these days of doubt and disloyalty one must have some rock to cling to, why not a trusting-eyed dog? ... But all this does not recompense me for the absence of a "home"--which is a house, anywhere. Yet we may have to do our own work. ... The cooks are all too proud to work--I wish you would tell me just how this economic problem should be settled. How much do you believe in socialism or socialization? ... Do you think there can be a partnership in business? I am inclined to think this can be worked out, along lines of cooperative ownership, but not until an enterprise is well standardized.

I expect bad times soon with labor. We are only postponing the evil day. The President seems less radical than he was. He is sobered by conditions, I suspect. The negro is a danger that you do not have. Turn him loose and he is a wild man. Every Southerner fears him.

... I am trying hard to believe something that might be called the shadow of a religion--a God that has a good purpose, and another life in which there is a chance for further growth, if not for glory. But when I bump up against a series of afflictions such as you have been subjected to, I fall back upon Fred's philosophy of a purposeless or else a cruel God. ... I simply have a sinking of the heart, a goneness, a hopelessness--not even the pleasure of a resignation. Old Sid's cold mind has worked itself through to a decision that there is no purpose and no future, and finds solace in the ultimate; having reached the cellar he finds the satisfaction of rest. I can't get there for my buoyancy, the hold- over of early teachings or perhaps my naturally sanguine nature will not permit me to hit bottom, but forever I must be floating, floating--nowhere. Happy the man who strikes the certainty of a rock-bottom hell, rather than one who is kept floating midway-- that is a purgatory worse than hell. I don't seem to have any capacity for anger, as against God or man, for anything that befalls me, but I get morbid over the injustices done to others. Now I shall stop philosophizing on this matter for it is three in the morning, and too hot to sleep, and such a time is made for wickedness and not for righteousness.

I am sorry you will not see the President. He is worth hearing, better than reading, and he always talks well. He can not pass his treaty without some kind of reservations and he should have seen this a month ago. The Republicans will not struggle to pass it in his absence and think that they have done a smart thing, but in the end Wilson and not Lodge would win by such a trick. The one greatest of vices is smart-aleckism. Sometime I shall write an essay on that subject. The burglar and the confidence operator and the profiteer and the profligate and the defaulting bank cashier are all victims of that disease--smart-aleckism. They will do a trick, to prove how clever they are. I believe that is the way ninety per cent of the boys and girls go wrong, and instead of teaching them the Bible, why not try reducing the size of their conceit and their disposition to boast. I just wonder how far wrong I am on this?

... Don't let the family worry you. Call for the police if they don't let you have your own way. ... What a plague of women! But how did monks manage to live anyhow? Maybe they chose a hard death--perhaps that was the secret of the whole monkery game! Women let us down into the grave with much unction to our ego, I mean sweet oil of adoration ... poured out upon the way down to Avernus. ... Don't feel discouraged because you lie there. I feel much more discontented than you do, right here at the heart of the world. ... Love to Maude and Frances, and mention me with proper respect and dignity to Miss Nancy Lane.

F. K.

TO VAN H. MANNING DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF MINES

Washington, September 24, 1919

MY DEAR MR. MANNING,--I have been intending for several days to write you a letter regarding the Petroleum Institute, but the opportunity has been denied me. Perhaps you will be good enough to say to the gentlemen, whom I understand you are to meet tomorrow, that I regard their work, if taken hold of whole-heartedly, as of the greatest national importance. It is quite manifest now that private enterprise must stand in the forefront in the development of this industry, and that what the government can do will be supplemental and suggestive. It is not an exaggeration to say that millions of dollars must be spent in experiment before we know the many services to which a barrel of oil can be put. There is almost an indefinite opportunity for research work along this line.

Petroleum is a challenge to the chemists of the world. And now the world is dependent upon it, as it is upon nothing else excepting coal and iron, and the foodstuffs and textiles. It has jumped to this place of eminence within twenty years, and the world is concerned in knowing how large a supply there is and how every drop of it can best be used. Practically, I think you should urge that there be cooperative effort to protect against waste. The oil men themselves should see the value of this and spend their money freely to keep their wells from being flooded, to keep their pipe lines from leaking, and to save their gas.

We are behind the rest of the world in the use of our oil for fuel purposes. We are spendthrifts in this as in other of our national resources. We can get three times as much energy as we do out of our oil through the use of the Diesel engine, yet we are doing little to promote development of a satisfactory type of stationary Diesel, or marine design. Instead of seeing how many hundred millions of barrels of oil we can produce and use, our effort should be to see how few millions of barrels will satisfy our needs. I say this although I am not a pessimist as to the available supply, which I believe has been underestimated rather than overestimated. I am satisfied that the man who has a barrel of oil has something which, if he can save, is better than a government bond. Throughout the Nation we must make a drive to increase production--that is the slogan of this time--but that does not mean that we should make a drive to exhaust resources which God alone can duplicate.

Then too, I think that Congress can be largely helped by the sane presentation of wise policies touching this industry. I have the belief that whatever the body of oil men would agree upon would be something that would make for the best use of petroleum, and for the protection over a long period of this fundamental resource in our industry. Congress has difficulty often in getting the large view of practical men who speak without personal interest, and such an Institute could speak not for the individual but for the industry and show how it may best be developed in the interest of the country.

To do these things, and to do them adequately, will require the men in the industry to take the attitude of statesmen and not of selfish exploiters. It means they must tax themselves liberally, generously. It means that they must think of themselves as trustees for a Public as wide as the world.

Please give my regards to the members of the Institute. Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO E. C. BRADLEY

Washington, October 2, 1919

MY DEAR BRADLEY,-- ... I have all along said that the treaty could not be ratified without some interpretive reservations. I think that the President will see that, although he sees clearly, as I do, that these interpretations are already in the treaty itself, but on a question of construction two men may honestly differ. The whole damn thing has gotten into the maelstrom of politics, of the nastiest partisanship, when it ought to have been lifted up into the clearer air of good sense and national dignity. ...

Hoover can be elected. He came home modestly and made a splendid speech. We need a man of great administrative ability and of supreme sanity who can lead us into quiet waters, if there are any.

... We have imported, with our labor, their discontent, and the theories which are founded upon it to obtain the price. But the American workingman is a sensible fellow, when he can have the chance to think without being overwhelmed by fear, and he will realize that his betterment in a material way must come through his own individual growth and the growth of the conscience of the people who believe in a square deal. The serious thing in the whole situation, to my mind, is the fact that so many workingmen seem to accept the idea that they are of a fixed class; that they can not move out of their present conditions; that they want always to remain as employees and have no hope of becoming superintendents, employers, managers, or capitalists; and therefore think that their only prospect is in bettering their condition as a part of a class. Great propaganda should be carried on to show how false this is and how much demand there is for men of ability.

With warm regards, old man, I am cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO MRS. LOUISE HERRICK WALL

Washington, Friday, [October 10, 1919]

MY DEAR MRS. WALL,--We heard through Ned of the Commodore's death, and you can realize how shocked and terribly grieved we were, and still are.

Poor dear girl, there is nothing anyone can say that will help even a little bit. Every word of appreciation makes the loss more serious. And you need no one to tell you that he was loved by us, and every single person who really knew him. He was to me Christlike, beautiful, gentle, wise and noble. Since that first day, nearly thirty years ago on Grays Harbor, I have known him as one of the rare spirits of the world, and Anne and I have loved him deeply. Surely he must live on, and we must all see him again!

May strength come to you out of the Infinite resources of the Universe to bear this blow. The world was made better by him! In deep sympathy,

FRANK LANE

TO--

Wednesday, November, [1919]

MY DEAR OLD MAN,--I am sitting alone in my den having come down stairs to write a line on my report, but instead have been lured into an evening of delight with Robert Louis Stevenson, whose letters, in four volumes, I advise you to read for the spirit of the man. Much like your own, my brave fine fellow! He went through tortures with a smile and a merry imagination which made him great, and makes all of us, and many more to come, his debtor. I know how little you read. The birds have been yours and the trees and the dogs and fishes, but there are men in the world, or have been, whom one can know through their writings. Did you ever read Trevelyan's three volumes on GARIBALDI? No,--well get it before you are a week older and you will thank me for ever and a day.

All of this, however, I had not intended to write, rather to tell you ... how emotional I have been all day with the old soldiers passing by on parade--the last that many of them will ever have.

Fifty years ago, Andrew Johnson received Grant's returned forces on the same spot. There were 180,000, or so, then--and 20,000 now --crippled, lame, one-legged, bent, halting most of them, but determined to make the long journey from the Capitol to the White House, and prove that they had lived this long time and were still good for a longer journey. There was little of gaiety among them, tho' some were swinging flags, torn, tattered, be-shot ... and raised their hats to the President as they passed, tho' most of them, doubtless, were sorry that he was not a Republican. It was a time to remember.

... Nancy is back after her tour of glory--larger than ever but not less tender or playful. She is the brightest spirit I have ever met--and all her vanities are so dear and human and lie so frankly exposed. I thank you for your kindness to her, she loves you very much; yes, really recognizes those qualities which some cannot see, poor blind things! But I can, and she can, and Frances can, and many more when you give them a look in. May your grass grow and soul keep warm and your spirit lift itself in song at morning and at night. Affectionately always,

F.L.

TO M. A. MATHEW

Washington, November 3, 1919

MY DEAR MR. MATHEW,--I have your letter of October 27th, and I appreciate very much its kind words. The Industrial Conference was not a success because we got into the steel strike at first, and people talked about their rights instead of talking of their duties. We will have another conference, however, which I think will do some real work and lay a foundation for the future. The coal strike is a bad one, but the people are not in sympathy with it, and sooner or later, in my judgment, it will come to an adjustment situation in which the President will be perfectly willing to participate. He, by the way, is getting along very well, but I expect it will be many weeks before he is himself again. ... Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K LANE

TO HERBERT C. PELL, JR. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Washington, November 8, 1919

MY DEAR MR. PELL,--I wish you success with your Constitutional League. I have no objection whatever to my name being used in connection with it, providing the League is not an institution for denouncing people or denouncing theories of government or economic panaceas; but is a positive, aggressive institution for the presentation to our people of the fact that we have in this Democracy a method of doing whatever we wish done, which avoids the necessity for anything like revolutionary action. The objection to Bolshevism is that it is absolutism--as Lenine has said himself, the absolutism of the proletariat. It is an economic government by force, while our Democracy is a government by persuasion.

I find that no good comes from calling names. The men who are to be reached are the men who are not committed against us, but are disposed to be with American institutions. We must show them that we have a system that it is worth while betting on, and that if they have another way of doing things economical, machinery by which it can be instituted is in the people's hands. Our policy is to look before we leap, and to submit our methods to the judicial judgment of the people. This permits any doctrine to be preached that does not subvert our institutions. Where do our institutions come from? What have they been effective in bringing about? What is the condition of the United States as a whole compared with other countries? Can we hope to work out our salvation without civil war? These are legitimate questions, the answer to which is found in this other question--is not political Democracy the one practical way to eventual industrial Democracy? Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO HENRY P. DAVISON

Washington, November 23, 1919

MY DEAR MR. DAVISON,--I wired you yesterday my conclusion, as to your very generous and patriotic offer, which was the same that I had come to before seeing you in New York. Your appeal was so strong and went so much to my impulse for public service that you made me feel that, perhaps, I was giving undue weight to the considerations I had presented to you. So I sought the judgment of others--all of them men of large distinction whom you know, or at least have confidence in, and without dissent I found them saying, voluntarily and unbidden, what I had said to you--that for me to undertake this work of arousing the best patriotic feeling of America, on a salary, would make seriously against the success of the work and against my own value in it, or in anything else I might undertake. If I were rich I would go into it with my whole heart. But a poor man can not be charged with making money out of the exploitation of the good opinion others have of his love of country. This is not squeamishness, it is a rough standard, arrived at by instinct rather than by any refined process of reasoning.

I say this to you because of my deep confidence in you and my very real confidence that you are my friend, and sought to do me a kindness and give me an opportunity. Now let me see if I can be of any help in this work. ...

[Here followed a full detailed plan of an Americanization program, that concluded with the paragraph.]

These outline some methods of reaching the public with the idea that this is a land that is lovable, prosperous, good-humored, great, and noble-spirited. To carry it out will cost a great deal of money, I should say that not less than five million a year should be available. With warm regard, cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO GEORGE W. LANE

Washington, November 28, [1919]

MY DEAR GEORGE,--Do not be surprised if you hear that I am out of the Cabinet soon, for I have been offered two fifty thousand a year places, and another even more. I don't want to leave if it will embarrass the President, but I do want something with a little money in it for awhile. ... But I must see the President before I decide ... and I don't know when that will be, now that he is sick.

This life has a great fascination for everyone and I dread to leave it; for anything else will bore me I am sure. I deal here only with big questions and not with details--with policies that affect many, and yet I have but a year and a half more, and then what? Perhaps it is as well to take time by the forelock, tho' I do not want to decide selfishly nor for money only. I must go where I can feel that I am in public work of some kind. ...

... I have served him [the President] long and faithfully under very adverse circumstances. It is hard for him to get on with anyone who has any will or independent judgment. Yet I am not given to forsaking those to whom I have any duty. However we shall see, I write you this, that you may not be misled by the thought that there has been or is any friction. Of course you won't speak of it to anyone.

I am so glad you are able to be out a little bit. "Ain't it a glorious feelin'?" The farm must look mighty good. Well, old man, goodnight, and God give you your eyes back! With my warmest love,

FRANK

TO C. S. JACKSON OREGON JOURNAL

Washington, December 29, 1919 MY DEAR SAM,--I hear from Joe Teal that your boy has been lost at sea, and I write this word, not in the hope that I can say anything that will minimize your loss, for all the kindly words of all men in all the world could not do as much as one faint smile from that boy's lips could do to bring a bit of joy into your heart.

But you are an old, old friend of mine. It is more than thirty years since we dreamed a dream together which you were able to realize. We both have had our fortune in good and bad, and on the whole I think our lives have not added to the misery of men, but have done something toward making life a bit more kind for many people. And why should that boy be taken from you? There is the mystery--if you can solve it you can solve all the other mysteries. I hope you have some good staunch faith, which I have never been able to get, that would enable me to look upon these things in humility, in the confidence that this thing we call a body is only a temporary envelope for a permanent thing--a lasting, growing thing called a spirit, the only thing that counts. If we can get that sense we can have a new world. I do not believe we will change this world much for the good out of any materialistic philosophy or by any shifting of economic affairs. We need a revival--a belief in something bigger than ourselves, and more lasting than the world.

With my warmest sympathy, I am, yours as always,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO JOHN CRAWFORD BURNS

Washington, December 29, [1919]

MY DEAR JOHN,--The manner in which you write assures me that you are very happy, notwithstanding your marriage and your new religion, for which I am glad. An even better assurance is the picture of the bride. By what wizardry have you been able to lure and capture so young, good, and intelligent-looking a girl? I presume she was fascinated by the indirectness of your speech, the touches of humor and your very stern manner. John, you are a humbug, you have made that aloofness and high indifference a winning asset. I shan't give you away. Only you fill me with a mortifying envy.

As for your religion, various of your friends think it odd. I think that you are a subject for real congratulation. A man who can believe anything is miles ahead of the rest of us. I would gladly take Christian Science, Mohammedanism, the Holy Rollers or anything else that promised some answer to the perplexing problems. But you have been able to go into the Holy of Holies and sit down on the same bench of belief with most of the saints--this is miraculous good fortune. I mean it. I am not scoffing or jeering. I never was more serious.

This whole damned world is damned because it is standing in a bog, there is no sure ground under anyone's feet. We are the grossest materialists because we only know our bellies and our backs. We worship the great god Comfort. We don't think; we get sensations. The thrill is the thing. All the newspapers, theatres, prove it. We resign ourselves to a life that knows no part of man but his nerves. We study "reactions," in human beings and in chemistry-- recognizing no difference between the two--and to my great amazement, the war has made the whole thing worse than ever. John, if you have a religion that can get hold of people, grip them and lift them--for God's sake come over and help us. I know you can understand how people become Bolsheviks just out of a desire for definiteness and leadership. The world will not move forward by floating on a sea of experimentation. It gets there by believing in precise things, even when they are only one-tenth true. I wish I had your faith--as a living, moving spirit. Some day I pray that I may get with you where you can tell me more of it and how you got it.

I am leaving the Cabinet, tho' the precise date no one knows, for the President is not yet well enough to talk about it. He seems to be too done up to stand any strain or worry. But I must have some money, for my years are not many, Anne is far from well, and Nancy is a young lady, and a very beautiful one. She has just come out and is quite the belle of the season, tho' like her father, too anxious for popularity.

Great good luck of all kinds to you in 1920, old man--and do give me a line now and then.

F. K. L.

TO FRANK I. COBB NEW YORK WORLD

Washington, [1919]

MY DEAR FRANK,--I have read your speech on Prussianizing the Americans, and I concur. Of course repression ... promotes the growth of error. We are not going to destroy socialism, or prevent it from coming strong by refusing to answer it.

But I have a notion that you have not expressed as directly as I should like:--That the newspaper is not influential enough to stop it and perhaps does not care to, sometimes. Where are the papers that are respected for their character? They are few. The most of them are believed to be the allies of every kind of Satan. "They are rich; their ads. run them; they pander to circulation, no matter of what kind, to get ads.", that is the answer of the plain people. If the papers were things of thought and not of passion, prejudice and sensation and interest, they could do the work that police and courts are called upon to do. They could effectively answer the agitator. But the people do not believe them when they cry aloud. Maybe I am wrong, but isn't there a grain, or a gram, of truth in this?

For a year and a half I have been bombarding Congress with a demand for a bill that would make a campaign, through the schools, against illiteracy. I have made dozens of speeches for it, written a lot, lobbied much, until Congress passed a law stopping my working up sentiment for it, by a joint resolution. How much sentiment has the press created? You had one or two editorials. The Times one. No one else in New York gave a damn. The Congressmen were not made to feel that those ignorant foreigners who were fifty-five per cent of the steel workers, must learn to read papers that were written in American, not in Russian or Yiddish or Polish or Italian.

I tell you seriously we are not a serious people except when we are scared. "Rights of free speech, O yes! they must be preserved. Democracy has its balancing of forces." All this is forgotten when the government is at stake--our institutions. These mottoes and legends and traditions presuppose someone who will enlighten the people and a people that can be enlightened. Otherwise you will get the strong arm at work. It is inevitable. Has there been any meeting of editors to map a course that will truthfully reveal what Bolshevism is? or how absurd the talk of wage-slavery is? or why the miners strike? or why this is the best of all lands?

Tell me why workmen don't believe what you print, unless it is some slander on a rich man, or some story that falls in with prejudices and hatreds?

Answer me that and you will know why the people sit indifferent while papers are suppressed, speakers harried, and espionage is king.

Mind you, I am not saying that you are alone to blame. Congress is. The States are. The cities are. The people are. They have let everything drift. What is our passion? What do we love? Do we think, or do we go to the movies? The socialist takes his philosophy seriously. The rest of us have no philosophy that is a passion with us.

But there, I have scolded enough. You are right, but you are not fundamental or basic or something or other, which means that you can't put out a fire unless you have a fire department that is on the job. Tenderly yours,

F. K L.

Lane never outgrew his passionate belief in the moral responsibility of the press. To Fremont Older, when he took charge of the SAN FRANCISCO CALL, Lane telegraphed:--

"There is no other agency that can serve our national purpose that is one-half as powerful as a free press, and no other that has one-half the responsibility. We need a press that will stand for the right, no matter whether its circulating or advertising is increased or not by such a position, and that means a press that includes in its understandings and sympathies the whole of society and serves no purpose other than the promotion of a happier and nobler people. Journalism is the greatest of all professions in a free country, if it is bent upon being right rather than being successful. I hope that you may be both."

TO MRS. LOUISE HERRICK WATT

Watkins Glen, New York, [December, 1919]

MY DEAR MRS. WALL,--I am reminded by your letter to Anne that I have said no word to you since that first word of attempt at support, which I threw out on the first day. I meant it all and more. Wall was always in my mind, as at heart, the truest Democrat I knew. He really lived up to the standard of the New Testament. He did love his neighbor as himself. He never did good or kindness out of policy, but always from principle, from nature--which can be said of very few in this world. He was without cowardice of any kind, and without hypocrisy. I believe he had no vanity. He had the pride of a noble man and lived as generously toward the world as I have ever known man to live. This might be said of one who was austere, but the dear, old Commodore was to me, and to us all, the very symbol of warmth. The one thing I criticised in him was his unwillingness that people should discover him for the fanciful, humorous, wise, and exquisitely tender man that he was. He did not leave an enemy, I know, unless that man was a scoundrel. And with all his reticence he impressed himself profoundly on hundreds. I know if there is another world that Wall and I will find each other, and he will be with the gladdest, gayest of the spirits. I hope you can look forward to such a meeting with the confidence that Anne has, which always astonishes me and makes me envious. He has gone to the one place, if any such place there is, where the greatest longing of his soul can be gratified--his love for justice.

If you have a picture of him, no matter how poor, won't you let me have it, that I may hang it beside my work desk, and looking at it find inspiration and be reminded of the sane, loving, lovable, high-hearted chap whom I held as a brother?

Dear lonely woman, I wish I could speak one word that would lighten your sense of loss, in him and in your mother. I know that you are not lacking in courage, but stoutness of heart does not bring comfort, I know. How exceptional your loss because how exceptional your fortune--such a man and such a mother. Very sincerely yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANK

TO MRS. M. A. ANDERSEN

Sunday, [December, 1919]

... The whole of mankind is searching for affection, tenderness,-- not physical love but sweet companionship. We could get along with fewer pianos and victrolas if we had a more harmonious society. We really don't like each other much better than Alaskan dogs. Now what is the reason for that? Are we afraid of them stealing from us--our houses, sweethearts, or dollars? Or are we so stupid that we don't know each other, never get under the skin to find out what kind of a fellow this neighbor is? Certainly we are self- centered and we wonder that people don't like us when we don't try to find what is likable about them--and keep stressing their unlikable qualities.

All of which homily leads up to the Holidays. I hope that you will enjoy them. Nancy is having no end of a gay time, and knows how really good a time she is having, I do believe. She is the rarest combination of old woman and baby I have ever known, cynically wise, almost, and soft innocence. She has a dozen beaux and is extravagant about, and to, each. ...

The President is getting better slowly, but we communicate with him almost entirely through his doctor (Grayson). I shall be mighty sorry to leave here, where we have so many friends, but my hope is to get enough to buy a place in California, one of these days, and settle down to the normal life of digging a bit in the soil and then digging a bit in the brain.

Give my warmest regards to the Captain. You have ripened into a fine beauty and a great usefulness, and I hope that you will find serenity of mind and soul, which is all that the great have ever searched for. With much love,

FRANK

TO GEORGE W. LANE

[December, 1919]

MY DEAR GEORGE,--Things are going well notwithstanding the President's illness. No one is satisfied that we know the truth, and every dinner table is filled with speculation. Some say paralysis, and some say insanity. Grayson tells me it is nervous breakdown, whatever that means. He is however getting better, and meantime the Cabinet is running things. ...

Ned is here and having a good time with all his old girls, some of whom have married and are already divorced, so he feels an old man. Nancy is lovely and merry and quite a belle. She took with the Prince of Belgium, and was quite as happy as you would be with having caught a six-pound trout--just the same feeling, I guess.

Politically things do not look interesting. There are no big men in the line except Hoover. The country wants some manly, two- fisted administrator and it doesn't care where he comes from.

I hope your eye is better, dear old man. My love to Frances.

F. K. L.

The Dan O'Neill to whom the next letter was written, was a friend of early days. Lane always liked to recall this episode. O'Neill, a big elderly Irishman, was in the City employ, while Lane was City and County Attorney, and had formed for his "Chief"--as he lustily called him--a most disinterested affection. After Lane's defeat for Mayor of San Francisco, O'Neill came one day and asked for an interview. When greetings were over he stood hesitating and twirling his hat, until Lane said, "Well, Dan, what can I do for you?"

"You see, Chief," he answered, "The wife and I were talking it over last night. We know how these damned campaigns of yours have been taking the money. You see, we have two lots of land--out there," with a jerk of the hat toward the great outside, "and a little house--and we're well and strong, and all the children doing fine at school--and we can, easy as not, put a mortgage on the house, for two or three thousand. We'd like it fine if you'd take it, until you get going again."

Lane did not have to mortgage his friend's house, but it was these "sweet uses of adversity," more than anything else, that tempered, for him, the pain of defeat. This friendship lasted to the end of his life. In 1915, when going back from California on a hurried trip, Lane wrote to O'Neill, "I did not see much of you and I am sorry I didn't. It was my fault, I know. Your dear old Irish face is a joy to me every time I see it, and whenever I go out you must not fail to turn up, else I shall be brokenhearted."

When Lane was very ill in 1921, O'Neill came to pay his respects to the wife of his Chief. As she went out into the hallway of her friend's house, in San Francisco, the whole place seemed filled by O'Neills, for he stood there and all his three great sons--one a fire captain, and stalwart men all. It was a sad meeting and parting.

TO DAN J. O'NEILL

Washington, December 24, 1919

MY DEAR DAN,--I am delighted to get your nice letter. It is as charming a letter as I ever received, because you tell me of all the family and that they are doing well, and that you are in good health, and that you want me back with you--all of which makes me love you more and more. Give to the whole family my good holiday greetings. Make them earnest and hearty.

I haven't got money enough, Dan, to pay my fare back after living here so long, and I shall have to make some before coming back there, but I hope to do it some one of these days. ...

Dan, I know you have been a bad man, and I know you have been a good man; and there will be a place in Heaven for you, old fellow. You have been an honest citizen, a credit to your country, and so have your children, and you will never know anyone who is fonder of you than I. Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO EAMLIN GARLAND

December 3l, 1919

MY DEAR GARLAND,--I am going up to New York on the eleventh to talk to the moving picture people at the Waldorf-Astoria. I had them down here and had a resolution put through the Committees on Education of both House and Senate, asking the Moving Picture Industry to interest itself in Americanization, and I have been appointed at the head of a committee to take charge of this work. I have some schemes myself that I want very much to talk to you about regarding Americanization.

I do not know how much time I will be able to give to this work because I have got to make some money, but I am going to use my spare time that way. Suppose when I get to New York I telephone you and see if we can not get together. Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

To one of the Moving Picture Weeklies, Lane contributed this paragraph on Americanizing the foreign born:--"The one sure way to bring the foreign born to love this land of ours is to show our pride in its present, faith in its future, and interpret America to all in terms of fair play and square dealing. America gives men nothing--except a chance,"

TO HUGO K. ASHER

Rochester, Minnesota, January 3, 1920

MY DEAR HUGO,--I have not written you because my own plans must be determined by circumstances. I think, however, that I shall leave very soon. I hate to go because the work is so satisfactory. ...

Bryan has come back. What strength he will develop, no one can tell. He evidently has determined that he will not be pushed aside or disregarded. He has been, and will continue to be as long as he lives, a great force in our politics. People believe that he is honest and know he is sympathetic with the moral aspirations of the plain people. They distrust his administrative ability, but on the moral question, they recognize no one as having greater authority.

... I hear there is talk among the business people of setting up a third party and nominating Hoover. Two things the next President must know--Europe and America, European conditions and American conditions. The President of the United States must be his own Secretary of State. We need administration of our internal affairs and wise guidance economically. Hoover can give these. He has the knowledge and he has the faculty. He has the confidence of Europe and the confidence of America. He is not a Democrat, nor is he a Republican. He voted for Wilson, for Roosevelt, and McKinley. But he is sane, progressive, competent. The women are strong for him and there are fifteen million of them who will vote this year. It would not surprise me to see him nominated on either ticket, and I believe I will vote for him now as against anybody else.

But I must quit talking politics because I am going out of it entirely, completely, and I really have been out of politics ever since I left California. I have tried to take a broad non-partisan view of things which is one of the reasons I have had hard sledding. But I am going without a grouch, without a complaint or a criticism--with a great admiration for Wilson and with a thorough knowledge of his defects; and with a more sympathetic attitude toward my colleagues than any can have who do not know the circumstances as well as I do. ... Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO ADMIRAL CARY GRAYSON

Washington, January 5, 1920

MY DEAR ADMIRAL,--As you know, I am contemplating resigning. It has been my purpose to wait until such time as the President was well enough to see me and talk the matter over with him. I understand from Mr. Tumulty that the President is prepared to name my successor, and that it would not in any way add to his embarrassment to fill my place in the immediate future. I would like to know if this is the fact, for my course will be shaped accordingly. Two years ago I had an offer of fifty thousand a year which I put aside because I thought it my duty to stay while the war was on. When Mr. McAdoo resigned, this offer was renewed but I then thought that I should await the conclusion of formal peace, which all expected would come soon. While the President was West, I promised that I would take the matter up with him on his return, and since then I have been waiting for his return to strength. I need not tell you that I am delighted to know that he is in such condition now as to turn to matters that in the best of health are vexatious, if this is the fact.

My sole reason for resigning is that I feel that I am entitled to have assurance as to the future of my family and myself. I have been in public life twenty-one years and have less than nothing in the way of private means. ... And having given the better part of my life to the public, I feel that I must now regard the interest of those dependent upon me. I wish you would be perfectly frank with me, for I would do nothing that with your knowledge you would think would make against the welfare of our Chief. Cordially,

FRANKLIN K LANE

TO HERBERT C. PELL, JR. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Washington, January 31, 1920

MY DEAR CONGRESSMAN,-- ... It is our boast and our glory that we have a form of government under which men can make their conception of society into law, if they can persuade their neighbors that their dream is one that will benefit all. There is nothing more absurd than to contend that the last word has been spoken as to any of our institutions, that all experimenting has ended and that we have come to a standstill. ... We are growing. But this does not mean that all change must be growth and that we can not test by history, especially by our own experiences and knowledge, the value of whatever is proposed as a substitute for what is. The dog that dropped the meat to get the shadow of a bigger piece is the classical warning. We are for what is, not because it is the absolute best but because it has worked well. It is sacred only because it has been useful. Until a system of government, or of economics, or of home life, can be demonstrated to be an improvement on what we have, we shall not hysterically and fancifully forsake those which have served us thus far.

Our Government is not our master but our tool, adaptable to the uses for which it was designed; our servant, responsive to our call. This makes revolution an absurdity. But it also makes a sense of responsibility a necessity. And while we may not have broken down in this regard we certainly have weakened. We have proceeded in the belief that automatically all men would come to see things as we do, have a sense of the value of our traditions and a consciousness of the deep meanings of our national experiences. The things we believed in we have not taught. Hence the need for such institutions as the Constitutional League which, however, can not do for each of us the duty that is ours of living the spirit of our Constitution. Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO HON. WOODROW WILSON THE WHITE HOUSE

Washington, February 5, 1920

MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT,--It is with deep regret that I feel compelled to resign the commission with which you saw fit to honor me, by appointing me to a place in your Cabinet, now almost seven years ago. If it will meet your convenience I would suggest that I be permitted to retire on the first of March.

With the conditions which make this step necessary you are familiar. I have served the public for twenty-one years, and that service appeals to me as none other can, but I must now think of other duties.

The program of administration and legislation looking to the development of our resources, which I have suggested from time to time, is now in large part in effect, or soon will come into effect through the action of Congress.

I return this Department into your hands with very real gratitude that you have given me the opportunity to know well a working force holding so many men and women of singular ability and rare spirit.

I trust that you may soon be so completely restored to health that the country and the world may have the benefit of the full measure of your strength in the leadership of their affairs. The discouragements of the present are, I believe, only temporary. The country knows that for America to stand outside the League of Nations will bring neither pride to us nor confidence to the world.

Believe me, my dear Mr. President, always, cordially and faithfully yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO FRANK W. MONDELL

Washington, February 13, 1920

MY DEAR MR. MONDELL,--I wish to acknowledge, with the warmest appreciation, your letter of yesterday, and to say that I am literally forced out of public life by my lack of resources. The little property that I have been able to save is all gone in an effort to make both ends meet, and I find myself at fifty-five without a dollar, in debt, and with no assurance as to the future. I assure you that it is with the deepest regret that I leave public life for I like it, and the public have treated me handsomely, especially the men in Congress with whom I have had to deal, and not the least of these, yourself.

I should like to stay, especially so, that we could put into effect some of the legislation for which we have been fighting, such as the oil bill, the power bill, and the farms-for-soldiers bill. I shall leave a set of regulations as to the oil leases ready for operation. The power bill will come into effect soon, I hope. I am responsible for the three-headed commission, but it was the only chance I saw of getting any unity as between the different branches of the government.

Letters are still coming in from the boys who want to go on farms, and I hope that we will be able to lead Congress to see that this is a farsighted measure.

I thank you very much for your many courtesies to me. I trust that your career may be one of still greater usefulness and expanding opportunity. With the warmest regards, cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

Late in the year 1919, Lane wrote to James E. Gregg:--"... The soldier-farms bill has been reported favorably by the Committee on Public Lands to the House, but has not yet been taken up for consideration on the floor. ... Of course, some of the opposition has been by those who say the plan does not do something for all of the soldiers, but this is hardly a good objection, as no other constructive suggestion seems to have been made by any one that would do anything for any of the soldiers, except the cash bonus, which I believe is altogether impossible, improvident, and not in the interest either of the country or the soldier."

TO ROBERT W. DE FOREST

Washington, February, 1920

MY DEAR MR. DE FOREST,--I do not know that I have received another letter which has made me feel as conscious of the gravity of the step I have taken as has yours. I have accumulated much in twenty years of public life that ought to be forever at the service of the public, and if I were alone in the world I would not think of going out. But I must think now for a time in a narrower field. Your own career shows that without holding office a man may do a great good and give wide public service. Perhaps this opportunity may be mine.

I shall be in New York soon and I hope very much to see you and see you often. Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

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

TO WILLIAM PHELPS ENO

Saugatuck, July 5, [1920]

Here I am at your desk looking out of your window into your trees, up the gentle rise of your formal garden into the brilliant crown of rambler roses above the stone gateway.

This is a very delightful picture. The sun is just beginning to pour into the garden. He is looking through the apple trees and having hard work to make even a splash of golden green upon the lawn, but the silver spruce and the tiara of roses get the full measure of his morning smile and are doing their best to show that they understand, appreciate, and are glad. Oh, it is a great morning!

And on the water side it has been even more stimulating, I have walked along the stone wall, the water is down, very low, the boat is stranded, like some sleeping animal, with its tether lying loose along the pebbly strand. The gulls are crying to each other that there is promise of a gulletfull. Nearer shore the fish are leaping--only one or two I think but they make just enough noise to make one realize that there is life in the smooth water, that it is more than a splendid silver mirror for the sun which streams across it. I disturbed a solitary king-fisher as I went out to the wharf. He rose from his perch upon the rope, circled about for a minute and then settled back, on his watch for breakfast.

It is altogether lovely, a quiet, gentle, kindly morning, such as you have often seen, no doubt, when Judah Rock is making its giant fight to rise triumphant from the sea.

But this is not a bit of geologic prophecy nor a Chapter I. to a love story, that I am writing. This is a bread-and-butter letter. I have been your guest and I am telling you that I have enjoyed myself. But you, of course, wish something more than the bald statement that I like your place and that your bread was good and your butter sweet. Yes, you deserve more, for this place is an expression of yourself. No one can be here and not see you at every turn, even though you may be right now in Paris "making the way straight." You have put your love of beauty, your restrained love for color, and your exceptional sense of balance into the whole establishment. It is a man's house--things are made for use; the chairs will stand weight; the couches are not fluff; one can lean with safety on the tables. But everywhere the eye is satisfied. My bed is beautiful, French I fancy, yet it is comfort itself. The lamp beside my bed is a dull bit of bronze which does not poke itself into your sleepy eye, yet you know that it fits the need, not only for light but for satisfaction to the eyes after the light comes. And the bath tub--may I speak of a bath tub in a bread-and-butter letter?--the bath tub is not too long--do you ever suffer from the long, long stretch into the cold water at your back and the imperfect support to the head which imperils your entire submergence?--your bath tub is not too long, and I grab it on both sides to get out. And as I dry myself I look down into that garden of precise, trimmed and varied green upon which the rambler roses smile.

It is well to have had money. No Bolshevism comes out of such a place as this. It makes no challenge to the envy of the submerged tenth. It has not ostentation. It gives off no glare, and it is all used. For men who can put money to such use, who do not over- indulge their own love for things of beauty, nor build for luxurious living, but mould a bit of seashore, some trees and a rambling house into an expression of their own dignified and balanced natures, for such men I am quite sure there is or will be, no social peril from the Red.

And may I close with a word, an inadequate and most feeble word, as to the Lady of the House who so perfectly complements the beauty and the refinement of her setting. She would make livable and lovable a shack, and she would draw to it those who think high thoughts. She has an aura of sympathy and companionability which makes her one with the healing earth and the warming, encompassing sunshine; May you and she give many more sojourners as much of the right stimulus as you have given yours affectionately,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO ROLAND COTTON SMITH

New York, July 9, [1920]

MY DEAR PADRE,--Oh, that I could reply to you in kind, but alas and alack! the gift divine has been denied me. My Nancy comes to me tomorrow--Praise be to Allah! and I shall duly, and in appropriate and prideful language, I trust, present her with your mellifluous lines.

When the spirits Good and Bad will permit me to visit Ipswich I cannot say. Are Doctors of the carnal or the spiritual? They hold me. So soon as I was given a few ducats these banditti rose to rob me. Polite, they are, these modern sons of Dick Turpin, and clever indeed, for they contrive that you shall be helpless, that you may not in good form resist their calculated, schemed, coordinated blood-drawing. And I had as lief have a Sioux Medicine man dance a one-step round my camp fire, and chant his silly incantation for my curing, as any of these blood pressure, electro-chemical, pill, powder specialists. Give me an Ipswich witch instead. Let her lay hands on me. Soft hands that turn away wrath. Have you such or did your ancestors, out of fear of their wives, burn them all?

Well, this is no way for a sober, sick, sedate citizen to be talking to a Man of the Cloth, even tho' he be on vacation. Have you read any of Leonard Merrick's novels? CONRAD IN QUEST OF HIS YOUTH, for instance? If not, do so now. They are what you literati would designate as G. S.--great stuff.

Give me another cheering line, do! For I live in a world that is not altogether lovely.

F. K. L.

TO JAMES M. COX DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE FOR PRESIDENT

New York City, July 25, 1920

MY DEAR GOVERNOR,--I shall presume upon your flattering invitation to speak frankly, not in the hope that I may in any way enlighten a man of such experience and success, but that I may possibly accentuate some point that you may recognize as important, which in the rush of things, might be overlooked. If I should appear in the least didactic, I beg that you charge it to my desire for definiteness, and my inability to give the atmosphere of a personal conversation.

A WORD AS TO GENEROSITY

The unforgivable sin in our politics is a lack of generosity. Smallness, meanness, extreme partisanship, littleness of any kind --these are not in accord with the American conception of an American leader. A clever thing may gratify a man's own immediate partisan following, but the impression on the country at large is not good. We want a FULL, adequate appreciation of the fact that there is hardly more than a film that divides Republican from Democrat; indeed, in that fact lies our hope of success. We must win FIRST VOTERS and Independents.

Let me be concrete;--The war was won by Republicans as well as Democrats. ... Therefore, I would say, give generously of appreciation to the Republicans, who raised Liberty Loans, who administered food affairs, who put their plants at the Nation's service, who directed the various activities, such as aeroplane making, and transporting and financing during the war. ...

A day has come when partisanship with its personalities and bitterness does not satisfy the public. We have seen things on too large a scale now to believe in the importance of trifles, or in the adequacy of trifling men. We must have men who are large enough to be international and national at the same time, to be politicians and yet American statesmen, to subordinate always the individual ambition and the party advantage to the national good.

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

I feel that we have not tried to interpret the League of Nations to our people in terms of America's advantage. We Democrats are looked upon as International visionaries because we have not been willing to deal practically with a practical situation.

The League is not anti-national, it is anti-war; its aim is to defer war and reduce the chances of war between nations. This is to be effected, not by creating a super-nation, or by binding us to abide by the decisions of a super-national tribunal, but by establishing the method and machinery by which the opinion of the world may become effective as against those inclined toward war.

By adopting the League, we do not pledge ourselves to any war under any circumstances, without the consent of Congress. And because we have not been willing to say this, we are now in danger of losing the one chance the world has had to get the nations together.

Loyalty to the President's principles does not mean loyalty to his methods. They have been wrong as to the League, in my opinion. You could deal with Congress, even a Republican Congress, on this matter, I believe, and come out with the essentials. ...

Don't let Bryan get away from you, if you can help it, because he really represents a great body of moral force and opinion. But don't pay the price to Bryan or Wilson or Hearst or Murphy or any one else, of being untrue to your own belief as to the wise and practicable national policy, that you may gain their support.

There couldn't be a better year in which to lose, for something real. You can not win as a Wilson man, nor as a Murphy man, nor as a Hearst man. The nation is crying out for leadership, not pussy- footing nor pandering. Be wrong strongly if you must be wrong, rather than be right weakly. You can only win as a Cox man, one who owns himself, has his own policies, is willing to go along, not with a bunch of bosses, but with any reasonable man, asks for counsel from all classes of men and women, does not fear defeat, and expects a victory that will be more a party victory than a personal one, and more a people's victory than a partisan one.

YOUR ENEMIES

Pick a few enemies and pick them with discretion. Chiefly be FOR things. But be against things and persons, too, so that the nation can visualize you as leading in a contest between the constructive forces and the destructive critical forces.

And the thing to be against is the man who is looking backward, who talks of the "good old days," meaning (a) money in politics, buying votes in blocks of five; (b) human beings as commodities, Homestead strikes, and instructions how to vote in the pay envelop; (c) privately controlled national finances as against the Federal Reserve System; (d) taxation of the poor through indirect taxes on pretext of protecting industry; (e) seventy-five cent wheat; (f) dollar a day labor; (g) the saloon-bossed city; (h) no American Merchant Marine; all goods carried abroad under foreign flags--those were the "good old days," for which the Standpat Republican is sighing.

But the world has moved in the past twenty-five years, and America not only has moved it, but has kept in the lead. ...

WHAT WE WANT

A greater America--that is our objective.

We want our unused lands put to use.

We want the farm made more attractive through better rural schools, better roads everywhere, more frequent connection between town and farm, better means of distribution of products.

We want more men with garden homes instead of tenement houses.

We want our waters, that flow idly to the sea, put to use; more stored water for irrigation, more hydroelectric plants to supply industries, railroads and home and farming activities. There should be electric lights upon the farm, and power for the sewing machine and the churn. It can be done because it is being done on the best farms of the far West.

We want our streams controlled so that they do not wash away our cities, farms, and railroads, and so as to redeem the submerged bottom lands for the next generation. ...

We want fewer boys and girls, men and women, who can not read or write the language of our laws, newspapers, and literature, ... that those who live with us may really be of us. ...

We should dignify the profession of teaching as the foundation profession of modern democratic life. ...

We want definite and continuing studies made of our great industrial fiscal and social problems. The framing of our policies should not be left to emotional caprice, or the opportunism of any group of men, but should be the result of sympathetic and deep study by the wisest men we have, irrespective of their politics. There should be industrial conferences, such as those recently inaugurated, to arrive at the ways by which those who furnish the financial arm of industry and those who furnish the working arm of industry may most profitably and productively be brought into cooperation. ... Through the study of what has been done we can give direction to our national thought and work with a will toward a condition in which labor will have recognition and be more certainly insured against the perils of non-occupation and old age, and capital become entitled to a sure return, because more constantly and productively USED.

Then, too, we need a study made of the health conditions of our children,--of the reason for the large percentage of undeveloped and subnormal children who are brought to our schools, and the larger number who do not reach maturity. ... Underfed boys and ignorant boys are the ones who turn to Bolshevism. We can not stand pat and let things drift without their drifting not to the "good old days" but to bad new days.

Why should not our system of taxation be subject for the profoundest study? ... We must find ways by which the individual may have tools for production which his skill and foresight and thrift have created and yet take for society in taxes what society itself gives. ... There must come to society an increasingly large portion of the wealth created by each generation through inheritance taxes. Thus all our boys and girls will start the race of life more nearly at the scratch. This will be for the making of the race and for the enriching of the whole of society. Yet there must be saved, surely, the call upon the man of talent for every ounce of energy that he has and every spark of imagination.

We want our soldiers and sailors to be more certain of our gratitude and to have an opportunity to realize their own ambition for themselves. We must not be driven into any foolish or impossible course by the pressure of a desire to win their votes. On the contrary, the pressure should come from us who had not the opportunity to risk our lives, that those who did take such risk shall be highly honored. For those who will identify themselves with the tilling of the soil, there should be farms, small yet complete, for which they can gradually pay on long time. For others there should be such education for professional or industrial life as they desire. For others, a home, not a speculation in real estate, but a piece of that American soil for which they fought. For these things we can pay without extra financial strain, if we dedicate to this purpose merely the interest upon the monies which other nations owe us. The extent of our willingness to help these men is not to be measured by their request but rather by our ability and their lasting welfare. ...

We are to extend our activities into all parts of the world. Our trade is to grow as never before. Our people are to resume their old place as traders on the seven seas. We are to know other peoples better and make them all more and more our friends, working with them as mutually dependent factors in the growth of the world's life. For this day a definite foreign policy must be made, one that is fair; to which none can take exception. Our people shall go abroad for their good and the good of other lands, with their skilled hands and their resourceful minds, and their energetic capital, and they must be assured of support abroad, as at home, in every honest venture.

TRUE AMERICANISM

AMERICA's ambition is to lead the world in showing what Democracy can effect. This would be my conception of the large idea of the campaign. It involves much more than the League of Nations. This is our hour of test. We must not be little in our conception of ourselves, nor yet have a conceit that is self-destructive.

America must prove herself a living thing, with policies that are adequate to new conditions. ... We wish an international settlement that will enable us to be more supremely great as nationalists. This is the significance of the League of Nations. It is a plan of hope. It is the only plan which the mind of man has evolved which any number of nations has ever been willing to accept as a buffer against devil-made war. ... It is a monumental experiment which this century and other centuries will talk of and think of and write of because it involves the lives of men and women under it, and there is the possibility of giving our full thought and energy and wealth to making life more enjoyable and finer instead of more horrible and cruel. While other nations are in the mood, we should agree with them, that we may spend our lives and money in a rivalry of progress rather than in a competition in the art of scientific boy-murder. There are times when war is the ultimate and necessary appeal, but those times should be made fewer by American genius and sacrifice.

And our prestige and power should not be wasted at this critical time, because out of some fecund mind may come an abstract and legalistic plan for some other kind of League. Let us be practical. Let us go to the fullest limit with other nations who are now willing to join hands with us, yet never yielding the Constitutional Congressional control over our war making. ... Let us take thought to-day of our opportunities else these may not exist tomorrow. ... Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO TIMOTHY SPELLACY

August 2, 1920

MY DEAR TIM,--Here you are, when you are sick yourself, worrying about me. Now, don't give any concern to any matter excepting getting thoroughly well, just as soon as possible. You are doing too much. You are not resting enough, and you are worrying. You have got enough to take care of yourself and your family for the rest of your lives, you have the respect of every one who knows you, and the affection of every one who knows you well; in fact, you have nothing to work for, and every reason to be contented. So I suggest that you learn, in your later years, how to bum. I have no doubt that Mike will come across something very good in Colombia, if he doesn't get the fever, or break his blooming neck. I have never seen so aggressive a group of old men as you fellows are. You will not admit that you are more than twenty-one. ...

With my warmest regards, as always cordially yours, FRANKLIN K. LANK

With the presentation of an Irish flag, August 10, 1920.

To Edward L. Doheny, with the cordial esteem of Franklin K. Lane.

This flag is a symbol. It stands for the finest thing in a human being--aspiration--the seed of the Divine. It represents the noblest hope of a thwarted and untiring people. It makes a call to the heart of every generous-minded man, and gives vivifying impulse to the home-loving of all faces. It is a symbol of a people to whom most of the arts were known when England and America were forest wastes, whose women have made the world beautiful by their virtue, and whose men have made the world free by their courage.

To Franklin D. Roosevelt New York, August, [1920]

DEAR OLD MAN,--This is hard work--to say that I can't be with you on this great day in your life. [Footnote: Notification ceremonies following Franklin D. Roosevelt's nomination as Vice-president by the Democratic party.] You know that only the mandate of the medical autocrats would keep me away, not that I could do you any good by being there, but that you might know that many men like myself take pride in you, rejoice in your opportunity, and keep our faith in Democracy because out of it can come men of ideals like yourself. I know/that you will not allow yourself to become cheap, undignified, or demagogical. Remember, that East and West alike, we want gentlemen to represent us, and we ask no man to be a panderer or a hypocrite to get our votes. Frankness, and largeness, and simplicity, and a fine fervor for the right, are virtues that some must preserve, and where can we look for them if not from the Roosevelts and the Delanos?

It is a great day for you and for all of us. Be wise! Don't be brilliant. Get plenty of sleep. Do not give yourself to the handshakers. For now your word carries far, and it must be a word worthy of all you stand for. I honestly, earnestly ask God's blessing on you. As always,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

Our love to your dear Mother,--proud happy Mother,--and to Eleanor.

To Mrs. George Ehle

Katonah, September, 1920

TO THE EHLE,--Now this is a pleasure to have a minute's talk with you in the cool under an apple tree. You are gay, with Grouitches, and other festive creatures, while I am glum, gloomy and lugubrious. You know this is a novel experience for me to be in care of two nurses and a doctor, not to speak of a wife; but I am obedient, docile, humble, tractable, and otherwise dehumanized. The plan here is to follow my boy's statement of the modern prescription for women, "Catch 'em young; treat 'em rough; tell 'em nothing." Well, they don't catch me young, but otherwise the prescription is filled. They reduced me to weakness, dependence, and a sort of sour-mash, and now they say that on this foundation they will build me up. Tho' I am still to lose some weight, being only twenty-four pounds under my average for twenty years. I will emerge from this spot, if I emerge at all, a regular Apollo, and will do Russian dances for you on that lovely lawn under the mulberry tree. And what happy memories of that spot I do have, and they cluster about you, with your soft hand and your understanding eye and your sympathetic mouth. You don't mind my making love to you in this distant fashion do you? Well, this is a charming jail, but jail it is after all, for I can't flee, though all the leisure in the world were mine--and it irks an American eagle or eaglet.

Dear Anne has been improving here. She now is jolly, tho' it has been hot. Responsibility kills her, and I thrive on it.

I believe I will take that place we went to see on the Shepaug. Ryan, my friend, is to manage it. Well, we have a place of refuge, eh? where the wicked and the boring and the ununderstanding cannot pursue.

But oh! my dreams do not come true these days, the magic touch is lost, the Fairies have been hurt in their feelings, my Daemon has deserted, and instead of beauty and joy and power, sweet content and warm friendship, I am struggling merely to live--and to what end?

Please go into my room some morning early and look out to the gate, the cobwebs must be diamond-sprinkled on the circle at the doorway, the catalpa trees must stand like stiff, prim, proper, knickerbockered footmen, on either side of the hedge, the ground must rise in a very gradual swell and culminate in the rose- covered gate. Throw it a kiss for me--(I wonder if there could be any roses left?). All of it is a lovely bit of man's handiwork, and Mr. Eno should have been born poor so that his planning mind, conceiving things of beauty in regular and balanced form, could have been used by many.

Tell him I got his nice letter and will drop him a line one day. With much love,

FRANK LANE

TO ISADORE B. DOCKWEILER

Washington, September 25, 1920

MY DEAR DOCKWEILER,--It is a great disappointment that I am not able to speak in California this year, I wished so much to say a word that might be helpful to Senator Phelan. I helped in his election six years ago, and I wanted to be able to say to those whom I then addressed, that Phelan had thoroughly made good in Washington. He has been strong, honest, courageous, loyal to California and the country, and at every minute he has been at the service of his constituents. That is much to say, isn't it? Well, every word is true. ...

These things I know, for I have watched him through the past six years and for many years before. Indeed, it is more than thirty years now since we first joined with boyish enthusiasm in the activities of the Young Men's Democratic League, and always I have wondered at his willingness to make himself the target of so much criticism because of his loyalty to convictions that have not pleased those in political or social power. He thinks; he does not take orders. And you can rely on his being superior to the partisan phase of any real issue. This self-respecting, or self- owned individual is the sort of man we need to promote in our political life, or else we will soon find ourselves back in the pre-Roosevelt days of political invertebrates. I found in Washington the secret of the exceeding great authority which the older states carry in Congress, they return their Senators and Congressmen, term after term, and give them opportunity to rise to positions of eminence in the national legislature. The usefulness of a Senator is not to be measured by the roundness of his periods, nor even by the soundness of his ideas. He must pass through a period of impatient waiting before his status is such that he can really have the opportunity to have his ideas considered seriously. By returning men who have been faithful, the State strengthens itself in Washington and eventually gains greatly in prestige, as in the case of Julius Kahn. Senator Phelan has now passed through this initial period of gaining status, and his future will be one of an assured and much strengthened position among his colleagues. Not to return Phelan will mean a loss at Washington that California can ill afford at this critical time, for in the national mind he is identified with her prime concerns.

... These are to be most momentous times ... Just where we are going no one knows, but clearly the people here, as elsewhere, are bent upon testing the value of Democracy as a cooperative organization of men and women, and are determined to make of it a fuller expression of human capacities and hopes. We must feel our way carefully at such a time, but we must act constructively, else there will surely come a dangerous radical reaction. Sympathy must be checked by wisdom, a wise knowledge of man's limitations and tendencies, that we do not take on burdens we cannot safely carry. Yet we must dare, and dare purposefully. What can this Democracy do for men and women--that is the super-question which rises like Shasta and follows one throughout the day, dominating every prospect. And the answer must be wrought out of the sober thought and the proved experience of our statesmen. ... Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

In September, 1920, he wrote,--"Things look dark to me politically. The little Wilson (as distinguished from the Great Wilson) is now having his day. Cox is making a manly fight on behalf of the President's League, but the administration is sullen, is doing nothing. Cox will be defeated not by those who dislike him but by those who dislike Wilson and his group. This seems mighty unjust."

To Hall McAllister

Katonah, September 25 [?], 1920

MY DEAR HALL,--This paper is a concession to my love for color, it is not yellow, but golden, and to make the touch truly Californian I should write with a blue pencil.

I cannot write as gaily or as bravely as you did, for I have been pretty well beaten down to my knees. My nights are so unforgivably bad--wakened up two or three times, always with this Monster squeezing my heart in his Mammoth hand--By God, it is something Dante overlooked ...

Take my advice, dear Hall, and avoid doing any of the things which the 3793 Doctors I have paid tell me cause this thing--among them are;--smoking, eating, drinking, swearing, working.

You can recover partially--not wholly under any circumstances--if you arrive at a state of Nirvana before death. ... Gay life this, my boy! I've been so wicked and fast and devilish and hoggish and gluttonous and always rotten and riotous that I needs must spend a few months in this agony by way of preliminary atonement before I may get even a chance at purgatory.

You know that sometimes in the most terrific crushing pain, I laugh, at the thought that my steady years of drive and struggle to help a lot of people to get justice, or a chance, should be gloriously crowned by an ironical God with an end that would make a sainted Christian, in Nero's time, regret his premature taking- off. ...

Tell that most charming of all women, who is your sister, that her noble man was in great good fortune; and I envy him because the Gods showed their love for him even up to the last. The wicked, torturing devils respected his gay spirit as he passed along and forgot to fill him full of arrows, poisoned arrows, as he ran the gauntlet down to the River. Her letters are beauteous reflections of her thoroughbred soul, and they give delight to Anne and myself. ... Yours as always,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO MRS. GEORGE EHLE

Bethel, October [3], 1920

That is so charming and gracious a letter that it must be answered within the day, not that any word in kind can be returned, but the spirit may be echoed. We may be short in words but not in feeling. Let me tell you, Lady Ehle, about this place. It is Nirvana-in- the-Wilderness, the Sacred, Serene Spot. Beautiful, for it is a ridge surrounded by mountains--or "mountings"--of gold and green, russet and silver. Noiseless, no dogs bark or cats mew or autos honk. Peaceful--no business. Nothing offends. Isn't that Nirvana? No poverty. People independent but polite. Children smile back when you talk to them, and you do. And the sky has clouds that color and that cast shadows on purpling mountains and stretches of meadow. Yes, this is one lovely spot over which a man named Gehring presides, unofficially, modestly, gently; he has given it purpose for being, for here he does good by healing, and some of his wealthy patients have put up a handsome inn in his honor--and they have said so in a bronze tablet over the mantel.

How much good he can do me I cannot say, but he is trying, Oh, ever so hard to touch my trouble-centre, and I shall give him a full chance yet awhile.

Wouldn't it be splendid if Shepaug were assured, or any other place of simple beauty to which we could retire to commune with the things that, alas, one only discovers to be the really great things, the worth while things, late in life. Daily would we foregather beside that stream to build some kind of altar to the God of Things as we Hope they may sometime Be. ...

Give my regards to the Duke of Saugatuck and tell him that his picture on horseback is good enough to enlarge--and then I want one.

And to you, The Ehle, may the peace that gay souls need and seldom get, and the joy that good souls long for, be with you always. And do write some more!

F. K. L.

TO BENJAMIN IDE WHEELER

Bethel, [October 28, 1920]

MY DEAR B. I.,--It has been along time since your letter came, but until now I have not felt that I could write. Most of the time I have been in pain and I have also been much discouraged over the condition of my health. No one wants to hear a man talk of his aches and I haven't much else on my mind. I am beginning to crawl a bit health-wards, I think; at any rate I am moving on that assumption.

What a hell of a condition the land is in politically. Cowardice and hypocrisy are slated to win, and makeshift and the cheapest politics are to take possession of national affairs. Better even obstinacy and ego-mania! Cox, I think, has made a gallant fight. He is to be beaten because Wilson is as unpopular as he once was popular. Oh! if he had been frank as to his illness, the people would have forgotten everything, his going to Paris, his refusal to deal with the mild Reservationists--everything would have been swept away in a great wave of sympathy. But he could not be frank, he who talked so high of faith in the people distrusted them; and they will not be mastered by mystery. So he is so much less than a hero that he bears down his party to defeat.

And after election will come revolt in the Republican party, for it is too many-sided for a long popularity.

I am sorry to be out of it all, but the Gods so willed. I did want to help Phelan. The country will think that what he has stood for, as to California matters, especially oil and Japan, has been repudiated if he is not returned. He was California incarnate in Washington.

Remember me to the Lady and the Soldier. Always your friend,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

To John W. Hallowell

Bethel, November 3, 1920

MY DEAR JACK,--You have so much idle time hanging, dragging, festooning on round and about your hands that I want to give you a job, something to do. Eh, what!

I have taken it into my head, caput, cranium, that I will read Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and as the only copy here is too poorly printed to read, and furthermore as I wish to own said work myself, I would that you make purchase of same and send it to me. Now, I do not wish an expensive copy, nor a large copy, nor a heavy copy. Therefore I think it would be best to buy a good second-hand set, say in half-leather--perhaps you can get it in six or eight volumes--and it must not be heavy, because I read in bed. About the size of an ordinary novel would be very good, and pretty good sized type--leaded not solid. Yes, the more I think of a second-hand set, the better I like the idea --old binding but strong, old paper but light, old type but clear. Twelve dollars I enclose for a second-hand set. By devoting twenty dollars worth of time to the search I know you can get a second hand set for twelve dollars. That is uneconomical, but think of the fun you will have. I suggest to you that this was the very thing you needed to do to bring perfect contentment into your life. Search for Gibbon, pretty backs, good type, light in weight for twelve dollars. Oh what joy you will have! Really I should be selfish enough to do it myself but now that I have said so much about it I can't withdraw this boon. ...

Well, get Gibbon and "with all thy getting get understanding."

F. K. L.

TO JOHN W. HALLOWETT

Bethel, November 12, [1920]

MY DEAR JACK,--I said nothing of the kind to myself. This is what I said, "Now I want a Gibbon. Not a show-off set but a useful one--light and small and well bound. How can I get it? Cotter in New York? What does Cotter know of learning and books of learning? What interest does New York take in such things anyway? There are second-hand stores there but they must be filled with novels and such trumpery. No one in New York ever read Gibbon--ninety-nine percent never heard of him. So why should I send to New York? No, Boston is the place. There is the city of the Erudite, the Home of Lodge, and incidentally of Parkman, Bancroft, Thayer, Morse, Fiske, and all others who have minds to throw back into the other days, and make pictures of what has been. Every house there has its Gibbon, of course, and some must, in the course of nature, fall into the hands of the dealers. So to Boston,--and who else but Jack Hallowell who knows what a book is, how in respectability it should be bound, and what size book is a pleasure and what a burden. A man of learning, identified with scholarship, through his athletic course in Harvard, and withal a man of business who will not pay more than a thing is worth. Ideal! Hence the letter and consequent trouble to good Jack Hallowell, who as per usual "done his damnedest for a friend," as Bret Harte says, in writing a perfect epitaph. ...

The reason I sent twelve dollars needs explanation. I put that limit because a very handsome edition of eleven volumes sold for that price to a friend of mine. It was red morocco, tooled, etc., and I thought surely twelve dollars would buy something as good as I needed.

Now you have the whole mysterious story. Make the most of it as Patrick Henry suggested to George III.

I have your dear Mother's book and will write her when I have read it. I also have a letter saying that Hoover has named me as treasurer of his twenty-three million or billion fund. ...

Thank you for your kindness and write me as often as you can. ...

F. K. L.

TO ROBERT LANSING

Bethel, Maine, November 10, [1920]

MY DEAR LANSING,--It is good to see that letter-head, but aren't you afraid to enter into competition with Mr. Tumulty, who has now, I see, bought the old Shepard mansion and will settle in Washington. How do they do it with the high cost of living what it is? ... The transmutation of brass into gold is becoming a commonplace.

To-night's paper speaks of Knox as probable Secretary of State. ... Tell me where the opposition is to come from--who are to lead us? ... All possible leaders have been submerged, squelched, drowned out, in the past eight years. I wish the whole country had gone unanimously for Harding. Then we might have started on a fresh, clean footing to create two parties that represent liberal and conservative thought. As it is, I think you will see Hearst and Johnson and La Follette try to capture the radicals of both parties and make a new party of their own. Then I shall be with all the rascals I have been fighting since boyhood--the Wall Street rascals--as against the other group. But maybe the Lord cares a bit for us after all.

I mend very slowly, but I delight in your recovery and wonder at it. ... I do beg you will give me all the gossip of Washington that you can, for I am here in a wilderness, beautiful but not exciting. As always,

F. K. L.

To Carl Snyder

Bethel, November 13, [1920]

Dear Carl,--This is extremely disagreeable business, this of repairs and restoration. I suppose I am doing fairly well considering that I have been more than half a century getting my gearings askew and awry. But I am taking orders now and say "Thank you," when I get them. Just when I shall be well enough to take hold again is not yet discoverable.

Strange how little news there is when you are above the clouds. One must be local to be interested in ninety percent of what the papers print. Make me a hermit for a year and I could see things in the large I believe, and ignore the trifles which obscure real vision. But a monk must be checked by a butcher. The ideal must be translated into the possible. "Man cannot live on bread alone"-- nor on manna.

Outside it is snowing beautifully, across an insistent sun, the fire is crackling and I do not know that I am ill but for the staring bottles before me.

Give me a line when you have a free minute--and take to your Beautiful Lady my warm regards.

F. K. L.

To William R. Wheeler

Bethel, 17 [November], 1920

My dear Bill,--...I am mighty sorry to hear about the Lady Alice Isabel. Funny that these women are like some damn fools, like myself, and do things too strenuously, and then go bang. Damn that Irish temperament, anyway! O God, that I had been made a stolid, phlegmatic, non-nervous, self-satisfied Britisher, instead of a wild cross 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!

I can't tell you anything new about myself. I hope it is not a delusion that I am growing slowly better. I cultivate that idea anyway. ...

It was a slaughter, the election, and properly did it come to us. Now be wise and you can have this land for many years. But foolish conceit will put you out in four. ...I wish you Republicans had carried all the South. I am glad for Lenroot--very! ... But Phelan's defeat has about broken my heart and for Henderson and Chamberlain and Thomas I am especially grieved. Well, it will be a changed world in Washington, and I'm sorry I can't be in it and of it.

Anne has gone to Washington to see Nancy who has not been well, so I am alone but not for long. I get on all right. God bless you, my dear old chap, and do rest awhile beneath your own fig tree. My love to Alice. Affectionately as always,

F. K. L.

To George Otis Smith

Bethel, [November] 18, [1920]

Dear George Otis,--I love this Maine of yours. It is beautiful, and its people are good stuff--strong, wholesome, intelligent young men. I like them greatly. I'd be content to sit right down here and wait for whatever is to come. It is a place of serenity. There is no rush, yet people live and the necessary things get done. It doesn't have any Ford factories, but I rather fancy it makes the men who go West and make the factories.

The autumn has been one long procession of gay banners on the hillsides, and now that the snow has come the pines are blue and the mountains purple; and mountains five thousand feet high are just as good, more companionable, than mountains fifteen thousand feet high. What is more lovely, stately and of finer color than a line of these receding hills which walk away from you, as if they continued clear across the continent?

I must get out against my wish, to have a lot more testing done-- for this doctor differs with the others--and I rather think he is right. But I hope to get back here and enjoy this air. No wonder this stock was for prohibition, the air itself is an intoxicant, especially when the snow is on the ground and it comes to you gently; it is as bracing as a cocktail, not a sensuous wine like the Santa Barbara air--tell Vogelsang this--but I presume more like the High Sierras, where the fishing is good.

I shall read your speeches with the deepest interest. Keep up the publicity. It affects Congress and it justifies the good doctrine we have preached. Cordially,

F. K. Lane

Have read the speeches and they are everything they should be. Right theory, clear statement, conclusive facts. A few too many figures perhaps, you should keep your prime figures in the air longer so they can be visualized. This may be called juggling figures in the right sense.

Lane

To George W. Wickersham

Bethel, Maine, 18 [November, 1920]

My dear G. W.,--I have your good letter. By 'good' I mean many things--well done as a bit of sketchy composition, a welcome letter, kindly also in spirit, cheering, timely, telling of things that interest the receiver, one, too, having the flavor of the household whence it comes, altogether a good letter. I had one also from Her; which I brutally answered with a preachment--in pencil, too, for I can't write with comfort at a desk and, after all, what have white paper and ink in common with these woods? I am for harmony--a reconciler, like Harding. ...

Root, as you say, would give a good smack to the meal. The country would at once say Harding knows how to set a good table. But tell me--will he be a Taft? a McKinley? a Hayes? or a Grant? Pshaw! why should I ask such a question? Who knows what a man will turn out to be! Events may make him greater than any, or less. A war, a bullet, a timely word of warning to a foreign power, a fierce fight with some unliked home group, the right sort of a deal on postal rates with newspapers and magazines--any one of these might lift him into a national hero; while a sneaking act revealed, a little too much caution, a period of business depression, would send him tumbling out of the skies.

These be indeed no days for prophesying--Wilson gone, Clemenceau gone, Venizelos gone,--Lloyd George alone left! The wise boy had his election at the right moment, didn't he? Surely statesmanship is four-fifths politics. Harding's danger, as I see it, will lie in his timidity. He fears; and fear is the poison gas which comes from the Devil's factory. Courage is oxygen, and Fear is carbon monoxide. One comes from Heaven--so you find Wells says,--and the other would turn the universe back into primeval chaos. Wilson, be it said to his eternal glory, did not fear. They send word to me from the inside that he believed in Cox's election up to the last minute, although the whole Cabinet told him defeat was sure. He "was right, and right would prevail"--surely such faith, even in oneself, is almost genius!

I am glad you put Lincoln first in your list of great Americans. I decided that question for myself when I came to hang some pictures in my library. Washington or Lincoln on top? And Lincoln got it. I have recently read all his speeches and papers, and the man is true from the first day to the last. The same philosophy and the same reasoning were good in 1861 as in 1841. He was large enough for a great day--could any more be said of any one?

Lincoln made Seward and Chase and Stanton and Blair his mates. He did not fear them. He wished to walk with the greatest, not with trucklers and fawners, court satellites and panderers. His great soul was not warm enough to fuse them--they were rebellious ore-- but his simplicities were not to be mastered by their elaborate cogencies.

McKinley was simple in his nature, at bottom a dear boy of kind heart, who put his hand into the big fist of Mark Hanna and was led to glory.

Is Harding great and masterful in his simplicity, or trustful and yielding? and if the latter where is the Hanna? Well, I don't want to die in these next few months, anyway, till some questions are answered. This would be a part of my Cabinet if I were Harding:-- Root, State; Hoover, Treasury; Warren of Michigan, Attorney- General; Wood, War; Willard (of Baltimore)

You enviously write of my opportunity to read and contemplate. I have done some of both. But that's a monk's life, and even a monk has a cell of his own, and a bit of garden to play with; and he can think upon a God that is his very own, an Israelitish Providence; and, in his egotism, be content. Yes, with a cell and a book and a garden and an intimate God, one should be satisfied to forego even health. But I hold with old Cicero that the "whole glory of virtue is in activity," and therefore I call my discontent divine.

You speak of great Americans, and have named all four from political life. I concur in your selection. Now what writers would you say were most distinctly American in thought and most influential upon our thought, men who a hundred years hence will be regarded not great as literary men but as American social, spiritual, and economic philosophers? It occurs to me that this singular trio might be selected--Emerson, Henry George, and William James. What say you?

Say "Hello" to the young Colonel for me.

F. K. L.

Lincoln haunted Lane's imagination, the humor, friendliness, loneliness, and greatness of the man. This--written for no formal occasion but to express part of his feeling--has found its way to others who, too, reverence the great American.

Lincoln's Eyes

I never pass through Chicago without visiting the statue of Lincoln by St. Gaudens and standing before it for a moment uncovered. It is to me all that America is, physically and spiritually. I look at those long arms and long legs, large hands and feet, and I think that they represent the physical strength of this country, its power and its youthful awkwardness. Then I look up at the head and see qualities which have made the American--the strong chin, the noble brow, those sober and steadfast eyes. They were the eyes of one who saw with sympathy and interpreted with common sense. They were the eyes of earnest idealism limited and checked by the possible and the practicable. They were the eyes of a truly humble spirit, whose ambition was not a love for power but a desire to be supremely useful. They were eyes of compassion and mercy and a deep understanding. They saw far more than they looked at. They believed in far more than they saw. They loved men not for what they were but for what they might become. They were patient eyes, eyes that could wait and wait and live on in the faith that right would win. They were eyes which challenged the nobler things in men and brought out the hidden largeness. They were humorous eyes that saw things in their true proportions and in their real relationships. They looked through cant and pretense and the great and little vanities of great and little men. They were the eyes of an unflinching courage and an unfaltering faith rising out of a sincere dependence upon the Master of the Universe. To believe in Lincoln is to learn to look through Lincoln's eyes.

To Benjamin Ide Wheeler

Bethel, 18 [November, 1920]

MY DEAR B. I.,--From both ends of this continent we talk to each other. We have both retired from active things and can with some degree of removal, and from some altitude, look upon the affairs of men. Frankly, it challenges all my transcendental philosophy to convince me that "deep love lieth under these pictures of time." And yet I must so believe or die. It is a disheartening time-- Wilson, a wreck and beaten. Clemenceau, beaten and out. And now Venizelos gone. Only Lloyd George, the crafty, quick-turning, sometimes-lying, never-wholly-frank politician left, because he called his election when spirits had not fallen.

And little men take their places, while Bolshevism drives Wrangel into the sea, possesses all Russia and Siberia, and is a success politically and militarily, tho' a failure economically and socially. We have passed the danger of red anarchy in America, I think, tho' no one should prophesy as to any event of to-morrow. Communism, and socialism with it, have been made to pause. Yet nothing constructive is opened by the world for men to think upon, as a means of bettering their lot and answering the questions flung to them by Russia, Germany, England, and our own home conditions.

I can see no evidence of constructive statesmanship on this side the water, excepting in Hoover. The best man in Congress is Lenroot, and he writes me that unless the Republicans do something more than fail to make mistakes that the Democrats will take the power from them in another four years. But I am nothing for parties. I cannot wait for an opposition to come in. I would like to see the Republicans now address themselves to the problems of the world at large and of this land. If Knox is to be Secretary of State, as the rumor is, we will have Steel Trust Diplomacy,--which will give us safety abroad, which is more than we have had for some years--but it will be without vision, without love for mankind. Root would give the Republicans great assurance and confidence. He would make them smack their lips and feel that Harding was not afraid of the best near him. Hoover may or may not have a Cabinet place, but his brain is the best thing working in America to-day, on our questions. If Penrose and Co. beat him they will regret it,

If I were Harding I'd put Root, Lowden, Wood, Hoover, and Johnson if he wanted it, into my Cabinet and I'd gather all the men of mind in the country and put them at work on specific questions as advisors to me, under Cabinet officers. One group on Taxes and Finance, one on Labor and Capital, one on Internal Improvements, one on Education and Health. And have a program agreeable to Congress, which is sterile because it is a messenger-boy force for constituents.

The Democrats could do this if they had the men,--but look over the nation and see how short we are of talent of any kind. It may be an opposition party but it has no force, no will, no self- confidence. It hopes for a miracle, vainly hopes. It cannot gather twenty first-rate minds in the nation to make a program for the party. I tried it the other day--men interested in political affairs, outside Congress--try it yourself. Get twenty big enough to draft a national program of legislation for the party. I sent the suggestion to George White, chairman of the National Committee, and gave him a list, and at the head I put you and President Eliot, classing you both as Democrats, which probably neither of you call yourselves now, tho' both voted for Cox. ...

If I get to California I must see you. But I shall play my string out here before trying the Western land. My best regards to the Lady. Yours always, LANE

To Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt

Bethel, Maine, [November, 1920]

To THE DEAR ROOSEVELTS,--... You realized what was coming, but I fear Cox did not; could not believe that his star would not pull through. I wish Georgia and Alabama had gone, too. The American born did not like Wilson because he was not frank, was too selfish and opinionated. The foreign born did not like his foreign settlements. So they voted "no confidence" in his party. What we will do in this land of mixed peoples is a problem. Our policies now are to be determined by Fiume and Ireland--not by real home concerns. This is dangerous in the extreme. Demagogues can win to power by playing to the prejudices of those not yet fully American. ... As always,

F. K. L.

To Lathrop Brown

Bethel, [November] 20, [1920]

MY DEAR LATHROP,--You are wrong, dead wrong, viciously, wilfully wrong. I do like this exact science business. I worked at it and in it on the railroad problems for seven years. There is only one thing that beats it, puts it on the blink, and that is inexact human nature which does wicked things to figures and facts and theories and plans and hopes. Prove, if you will, that there is no margin at all over wages, and a nominal return on capital, and you do not kill the desire of someone to run the shop. ... Talking of business men, what about the Shipping Board? O, my boy, they have something to explain--these Hurleys and Schwabs! ... How does this sound to you? They let their own tanks lie idle, commandeered those of Doheny and rented them to the Standard Oil--so that they could bid when Doheny couldn't--eh, what? ...

F. K. L.

To Timothy Spellacy

Bethel, [November] 22, [1920]

MY DEAR TIM,--I hear from Mike that you are not in New York, and so I am writing you out of "love and affection," as I hope to see Mike but won't see you when I go to New York for Thanksgiving. It was my hope that we three could have a good talk over Mike's Colombia plans, but do not trouble yourself with these business concerns. Get well--that's the job for both you and me. We have been too extravagant of ourselves, and especially you, you big- hearted, energetic, unselfish son of Erin! Eighteen years I have known you and never a word or an act have I heard of or seen that did not make me feel that the campaign for Governor was worth while, because it gave me your acquaintance, friendship, affection. And Ned and George love you as I do. When I get mad, as I do 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--. ...

Well, my dear fellow, drop me a line when you feel like it and be sustained in your weakness by the unfaltering affection of thousands who know you, among them--

FRANKLIN K. LANE

To Frank I, Cobb New York World

New York, December 6, [1920]

DEAR FRANK,--You are right, but too far ahead. We must come to Cabinet responsibility, and I am with you as an agitator. Twenty years may see it.

This morning you chide the Republicans for not having a program. Good God, man, why so partisan? What program have we? Will we just oppose; vote "Nay," to all they propose? That way insures twenty years as "outs"--and we won't deserve to be in. What we lack is just plain brains. We have a slushy, sentimental Democracy, but don't have men who can concrete-ize feeling into policy, if you know what that means. A program--a practicable, constructive program--quietly drawn, agreeable to the leaders in both Houses, pushed for, advocated loudly! That's our one hope--Agree? Yours cordially,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

To John G. Gehring

New York, December 9, [1920]

Well, my dear Doctor, here I am at another cross-roads. ... I leave ... in a day or two with a new dietary and some good advice. The latter in tabloid form being:--"Drop business for a time, go into it again slowly, and gradually creep into your job." All of which is wise, and commends itself greatly to my erstwhile mind, but is much like saying, "Jump off the Brooklyn bridge, "slowly." ... I am not resigned, of course. Because I cannot see the end. Definiteness is so imperative to some natures. However, I think that I have done all that an exacting Deity would demand, and cannot be accused of suicide, if things go badly.

Our plan is to go to Washington to see some old friends thence south and so to California, for a couple of months. Delightful program if one had health, but in exchange I would gladly take a sentence to three months in a chain-gang on the roads.

One of my friends has suggestively sent me Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. To offset it I went out at once and bought a new suit of bright homespun clothes and a red overcoat--pretty red. In addition I have a New Thought doctor giving me absent treatment. I am experimenting with Hindu deep breathing, rhythmical breathing, in which the lady who runs this hospital is an adept. And what with an osteopath and a regular and a nurse and predigested food, I am not shirking. If melancholy gets the better of me now-- Kismet!

Tell your dear Lady that it was infinitely good of her to write, (and she has, I may say, quite as brilliant a pen-style as speech.) And one day I shall write her when the world looks better. My best reading has been William James' Letters; and that which amused me most a new novel, entitled Potterism, by Rose Macauley, which cuts into the cant and humbug of the world right cruelly. I see your beautiful serene landscape and envy you. And I envy those who hear your hearty chuckle each morning in the Inn. As always,

F. K. L.

To John W. Hallowell

New York, December 9, [1920]

DEAR JACK,--I have tried out New York again and find it lacking as before. No help! They do not know. ... So I am going to Californi...A. I wish I were to be near you--you really have a special old corner in all that is left of my heart. And one of these days well indulge ourselves in a good time--a long pull together again.

I have been reading William James' Letters--and real literature they are--far better than all your novels. What a great Man--a mind, plus a man. Not to have known James in the last generation is to have missed its greatest intellect; Roosevelt and James and Henry George were the three greatest forces of the last thirty years. Sometime when you come across a good photo or engraving or wood-cut, or something, of James, will you buy it and send it to me? I want a human one--not a professional one. I guess he couldn't be the pedantic kind anyway.

Billy Phillips has a new baby-boy born Monday.

My plan is to leave here in a week, go to Washington and see Nancy, and get a glimpse of some of my old people in the Department, thence to South Carolina and then probably California for two or three months. Ah me--most people would think this luxury--I think it hell! But it may be for my great spiritual good. Certainly if I could have you to walk with for these months, and more of William James to read, I could take a step or two forward.

Have also been reading a bit of Buddhism lately. It is too negative--that is almost its chief if not its only defect, as an attitude toward life. It won't make things move but it will make souls content. And I can't get away from the thought that we are here as conquerors, not as pacifists. I can't be the latter, save in the desire.

Peabody dropped in yesterday from Chicago. (I have forgotten whether you knew him well or not.) Able chap, fond of me, as I of him. My boy works for him. He sent me a gorgeous edition of Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy which I have always wanted, largely because it is one of the curiosities of the world. ...

Write me as often as your Quaker spirit moves you to utterance. Your dinner got quite a send-off in these papers, which is something, for New York to recognize Boston! Terribly tough job though. Poor babies! Hard to believe in a good God and a kind God, isn't it?

I hear talk of shoving Hoover outside the breastworks. Fools! Fools! Best for him but worse for the country. Whole question of Republican success turns on the largeness of Harding. I don't ask a Lincoln--much less will do. If he is only a smooth-footed politician he will fail. So far he has been the gentleman. ...

My love to your whole circle, from Grandmother down. Affectionately,

F. K. L.

To John G. Gehring

Rochester, Minnesota, December 31, [1920]

MY DEAR PADRE,--It is the last night of an unhappy year. Never do I wish for such another. No joy--defeat, dreary waiting. These words describe not merely my personal history and attitude but fairly picture those of the world. It took guts to live through such an unillumined, non-productive, soul-depressing year. Did any good come out of it? Yes, to me just one thing good--I came to know you, your Lady and the beauteousness of Bethel. And after all a man does not do any better in any year than make a friend. No man makes seventy friends in a life-time, does he? So I must not repine nor let the year go out in bitterness. On the credit side of my account book I have something that can be carried over into 1921, whereas most people can only carry over Hope.

I hope there is something significant and more than suggestive in my turning up here on the last day of the year for examination-- "Getting a ready on" for a New Year--that's what you would optimistically shout if you were here, I know. And that is my Goodbye word to 1920--"You haven't beaten me, and I have lived to take your brush."

I am being ground and wound and twisted and fed into and out of the Mayo mill, and a great mill it is. Of course they are giving me a private view, so to speak. Distinguished consideration is a modest word for the way in which I am treated--not because of my worth but because of my friends--. Those men are greater as organizers, I believe, than as workmen, which is saying much indeed, for they are the surgeons supreme. ... Two to three hundred people, new people, a day pass through [their shop]. Sixty to seventy thousand a year received, examined, diagnosed, treated perhaps, operated on (fifty per cent), and cared for. The machinery for this is colossal and superbly arranged.

Dr. Mayo told me to come over at two o'clock and register. ... I stood in line and was duly registered, telling name, and other such facts, non-medical. Then a special guide took me to Dr. Mayo, who had already heard my story at the hotel but who, wished it in writing. Accordingly, I was presented to a group of the staff and one man assigned as my escort. I answered him a thousand questions, touching my physical life for fifty-six years. Then to the tonsil man, who saw a distinct "focus," now there, a focus in the tonsils! Nose and ears without focus or focii or focuses. Down an elevator, through a labyrinth of halls, down an inclined plane, up a flight of steps, two turns to the left and then a group of the grumpiest girls I ever saw or heard or felt. They were good looking, too, but they didn't care to win favor with mere males. They had a higher purpose, no doubt. They openly sneered at my doctor escort. They lifted their eyebrows at my good-looking young son, and they told me precisely where to sit down. I was not spoken to further. My ear was punched and blood was taken in tubes and on slides by young ladies who did not care how much of my blood they spilled or extracted. They were so business-like, so mechanical, so dehumanized, these young ladies with microscopes! One said cryptically "57," another said "53." I was full of curiosity but I did not ask a question. They tapped me as if I were a spring--a fountain filled with blood--and gave me neither information, gaiety or entertainment in exchange. Each one I am convinced has by this life of near-crime, which she pursues for a living, become capable of actual murder.

Thus has my first day gone. It is cold here--slushy underfoot, snow dirty, sky dark. How different from a place we know!

There are one hundred and fifty physicians and surgeons in the clinic, and Heaven knows how many hundred employees. No hospitals are owned and run by the Mayos; all these are private, outside affairs. The side tracks are filled with private cars of the wealthy. Scores of residences, large, small, fine, and shabby are little hospitals. The town has grown 5,000 in five years, all on account of the Mayos, these two sons of a great country doctor who without a college education have gathered the world's talent to them.

I am tomorrow to be medically examined further, to the revealing of my terrible past, my perturbed present, and pacific future. The result of which necromancy I shall duly report. I am afraid that they will not find that an operation will do good, if so I shall truly despair. And if they decide for the knife, I shall go to the guillotine like the gayest Marquis of the ancient regime. Yes, I should do better for I have my chance, and he, poor chap, had none.

I received your Christmas present in the spirit that sent it. I can't say "No! No!"--for I preach mixing pleasure with business. Things are all wrong when we don't. I will never repay you. If I could, or did, you would receive none of the blessings that come from giving gifts. The truth is, we knew each other years ago, perhaps centuries ago, and you have done a good turn to an old friend for which the old friend is glad, because it makes the tie more binding.

I told you I would send Wells' history to you, and to it I have added one of the greatest of human documents, William James' Letters. I hope you love the largeness of the man, to be large and playful and useful, I say, man, can you beat that combination? I believe I know another beside James who meets the specifications. And strangely enough he, too, evolved from physician to psychologist, to philosopher.

Well, here's hoping that he and his High-Souled Partner meet with many joys and few sorrows in 1921.

F. K. L.

XIII

LETTERS TO ELIZABETH 1919-1920

To Mrs. Ralph Ellis

[Camden, North Carolina, March, 1919]

MY DEAR ELIZABETH,--And so they call you a Bolshevik! a parlor Bolshevik! Well, I am not surprised for your talk gives justification for calling you almost anything, except a dull person. When one is adventurous in mind and in speech--perfectly willing to pioneer into all sorts of mountains and morasses--the stay-at-homes always furnish them with purposes that they never had and throw them into all kinds of loose company. I have forgotten whether or no there was a Mrs. Columbus, but if the Old Man on his return spoke an admiring word of the Indian girls he saw on Santo Domingo you may be sure that he was at once regarded as having outdone that Biblical hero who exclaimed, "Vanity of Vanities, all is Vanity!," after having run his personal attachees up into the thousand.

Yes, the very solemn truth is that adventuring is dangerous business, and mental adventuring most dangerous of all. We forgive those who do things that are strange, really more readily than those who talk of doing them. People are really afraid of talk, and rightly so, I believe. The mind that goes reaching out and up and around and through is a disturber, it bumps into every kind of fixed notion and takes off a chip here and there, it probes into all sorts of mysteries and opens them to find that they are hollow wind-bag affairs, tho' always held as holy of holies heretofore. To think, to speculate, to wonder, to query--these imply imagination, and the Devil has just one function in this Universe --to destroy, to kill, or suppress or to divert or prevent the imagination. Imagination is the Divine Spark, and old Beelzebub has had his hands full ever since that spark was born. "As you were," is his one military command. His diabolical energy is challenged to its utmost when he hears the words "Forward March!" There is not much--ANYTHING--of beauty or nobility or achievement in the world that he has not fought, and all of it has been the fruit of imagination, the working of the creative mind. You see I come very near to believing in that old personal Devil which my Presbyterian father saw so vividly, and which our friend Wells has recently discovered, Satan is smart, and that is a very dreadful thing to be, I never like to hear the Yankee called smart, it is a term of reproach. I don't like to think of a Smart Set. And my refuge is in the knowledge that there is just one thing that destroys smartness and that is, to put it in a very high-sounding word, Nobility. There is the test we can all put to ourselves--and it really is conscience and ethics and religion all in one--is the idea smart or is it noble? I'd take my chances of going to Heaven on the conformity of conduct to that criterion.

But all this seems a far way from Parlor Bolshevism--yet it is not so far. For it all comes down to this. The Lord he prompts us to think and to advance, and the Devil he urges us to be smart, to switch our thinkings, our very right thinkings, our progressive impulses, to side tracks that will serve his ends.

And that is just what is happening to a lot of the finest minds. Men and women who see clearly that things are wrong, who have enough insight and knowledge to get a glimpse into the unnecessary suffering of the world and who mentally come down with a slap-bang declaration that this must stop, are allowing themselves to be called by a name that history will execrate, and to smooth over and palliate and defend things that are bad, out of which good will not come.

You have no love for Czarism any more than you have for Kaiserism. You do not care to make the world righteous by dictatorship, because you know that it is not growth or the basis of growth, but the foundation of hate. Now the very cornerstone of Bolshevism is smartness--the get-even spirit. Because the Czars and the Dukes have oppressed the poor, because when this land was divided among the serfs the division was not what it pretended to be, and because the German business managers of Russian industry made wages and conditions that were brutal and brutalizing, the peasants and workmen have said, "Let us have done with the whole crew, and take all land and industry into our own hands, killing those who were our masters under the old economic system. Let us turn the whole world topsy-turvy in a night, and bring all down to where we are. In our aspiration for Beauty, let us kill what has been created. In our hunt for Justice, let us disregard fair dealing. In our purpose to level down, let us do it with the knife ruthlessly and logically," Thus disregarding the teachings of time, that men are not the creatures of logic, of passionless or passionate theses, but are the expression of an unfaltering Spirit. Whenever men have been the victims of logicalness they have been wrong. For instance, read the story of the Inquisition. They saw what they wanted clearly, those old Fathers of the Church. They knew their objective, which was to save men's souls. And they thought they knew the way. Logic told them that those who preached heresies were bringing men's eternal souls to everlasting hell fire. And they set about to stop the preaching. Had I believed as they did, I doubtless would have done as they did. But to be infallibly right is to be hopelessly smart. Thus it is with all who take a paper system and apply it to that strange thing called Life.

This is the defect of the Intellectuals, the "parlor" Bolsheviks. (Better by far be an outdoor Bolshevik, a Red Guard, if you please, one who is in and of the fighting, who acts, who lives the theory!) They do not think in terms of human nature, of natural progress, of real facts. They say, "all men are born free and equal," and at once conclude that the stable boy can step from the stable door to the management of a factory or into the legislature. Now experience teaches that this is a most dangerous experiment, both for stable boy and society. The true philosophy of Democracy teaches that the stable boy shall have, through school and the step-ladder of free institutions, the chance to rise to the management of industry or the leadership of the Senate. That is why the foundation of Democracy is political. For out of political freedom will come social and economic freedom. That is why I favor woman suffrage, it gives women a chance to grow, to think along new lines and grow into new capacities.

To feel acutely that things are badly ordered, and to feel that you know what opportunities men and women and boys and girls should have, is not a program of salvation, it is only the impulse toward finding one. Why then, because we do feel so, should we harness ourselves to a word that implies methods that we would not countenance, and give character to a movement that is at absolute defiance with America's spirit and purpose? There is danger, grave danger, in doing this. For we can upset our own apple-cart very easily these days. I have no more of this world's goods than the humblest workingman. No man is poorer than I am, measured by bank account standards. The education that I have, I fought for. Therefore I do not speak for a class. To defend the methods by which some men have made their money is not at all to my fancy. I see as clearly, I think, as one can, the necessity for the strong arm of society asserting itself, thrusting itself in where it has not been supposed to have any business. Yet I know that a Bolshevik movement, a capturing of what others have gained under the system which has obtained, and the brutal satisfaction of "getting even with the wage-masters" and making them feel to the depths of their souls and in the pain of their flesh every humiliation and torture, will permanently set nothing right. America is fair play. Is it a failure? Have you tried it long enough to know that it will not serve the world, as you think the world should be served? Is there any experiment that we cannot make? Are our hands tied? True, our feet may lag, our eyes may not see far ahead, but who should say that for this reason man should throw aside all the firmness and strength and solidity of order, forget all that he has passed through, and start afresh from the bottom rung of the ladder--from the muck of the primitive brute?

There are things that we would not hold, that we think unworthy of our philosophy, that must be changed or else our sympathies and abiding hopes will be forever offended. And this would be to live right on under the pointing finger of shame. So we know it cannot last, this thing that offends, the badness and brutality of injustice, of unfairness to the weak, their inability to get a squarer chance.

Yet this does not compel us to forsake the hopeful thing we have, for which all men have striven, these centuries through. Must we confess that revolution is still necessary? Are we no further ahead for all that Pym and Hampden and Sam Adams and Washington and all the rest of the glorified ones have done? This land is truly a land of promise because it may be a land of fulfilment. It shows the way by which without murder and robbery and class hatred and the burning up of what has been, men may go right on making experiments, and failing, making others and failing, and learning something all the time.

So, I'm for America, because, if nationalization of land and industry are wise experiments to make, no one can stop us from making them, if partial nationalization of either, or both, appeals to us as something that will right manifest wrongs, we can try that solution. And to cry quits on the best that civilization has done, because all that is wished for may not be realized or realizable today, is to lose perspective and balance, and jump out the window because the stairs go round and round.

There is really no use, and therefore no sanity, in being too gay or too grave over this old world of ours. That smart Devil, who is for the static life, is just now particularly active in his favorite old line of propaganda. He knows that the fruit of the tree will bring the millennium. Eat it and you will be happy. He knows the short cuts to freedom and justice. He knows that the curses that are promised for the breaking of the laws of the hunt will be turned into songs. So he is urging and urging, telling you, with your imagination and sensitiveness, that all is so bad that it is best to take the great risk, telling the poor sightless ones that their very primitive feelings and powers are the only safe guides, their last ultimate reliance and hope. And out of despair comes the bitter fruit we find in Russia, where they have wrought what they call an economic revolution, but have in fact produced nothing, for chaos is nothing. The wise Tinker who wrote of the Pilgrim's Progress was too true a Christian Scientist, a Christian and a Scientist, if you please, to picture his hero reaching the gate of gold by adopting Despair as his guide.

Progress means the discovery of the capable. They are our natural masters. They lead because they have the right. And everything done to keep them from rising is a blow to what we call civilization. Bolshevism is the supremacy of the least capable who have the most power, most physical power. The thing Democracy will do is to breed capacity, give capacity its "show." The premiums, the distinctions, must go to capacity to promote it, to bring it forth, to make it grow, to be its sunshine. A chance at the sunshine, that's the motto. Sincerely yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

Washington, 20 [March, 1919]

You said, you will remember, that you did not mind such unconventional things as penciled letters--so here goes, Mrs. Radium.

This is to be a conventional letter, too, one of the bread and butter variety, the quail and dove, pigeon pie, creamed macaroni variety, for all of which much thanks, likewise for much stimulating talk, your help in planting my garden, many motor flights through brown woods, and some most charming company, including a man named Ellis and his celebrated son, the pigeon shooter.

We left you in the best possible hands, a lion and lioness [Footnote: Mr. and Mrs. John Galsworthy.] who through long years of civilized captivity came tamely to your bars to be tickled and patted, and, no doubt, when properly fed, purred back. If I were you, I would loot their typewriter. Therein are the secrets of the British government, copies of all unknown treaties, plans for the extermination of Bolsheviki generally and the female kind in particular; likewise, therein you will find, narrated with particularity, the details of all loose conversations had with hotel clerks, commercial travelers, teachers, chauffeurs, and others of the illuminati, in which "impressions" are given to foreign authors hunting for "copy." Mr. George Creel has these aforesaid gents of the illuminati staked out, so to speak, for this very purpose. Your dear friend Vera, the political Vamp, is no doubt conducting these sweet Innocents abroad, tho' not in person of course, being much too crafty and cunning for that. She has directed them by the wireless magic of her mind to Horsebranch on the Hill, there to discover a radiating and luminous Lady, hidden in the pine woods, who will reveal among other things the following: (1) The nature of Woodrow Wilson's personal character; (2) The full reasons for his conduct; (3) His occult international designs; (4) How he purposes to free Ireland; (5) The value of being House-broken; (6) The real name of the Man in the Iron Mask.

And much, much more--for she is a well, a fountain, a geyser, a Niagara, reversed, of information, misinformation, knowledge, ignorance, modesty, audacity, in captivating breeches or in modest demure caps or in flowing evening robe. Wise Vera, wise Creel-- they know their business! The English snooper, with typewriter in hand, will have a generous swig of the Scotch whiskey of the vintage of '56, and his tied tongue will loosen, a confiding and tender and sympathetic hand will softly clasp his, and the Dark Flower will open to the world--rather mixed that figure! eh, what?

Now, of course, this is not what I took my pen in hand to write, not at all. I had intended after the formalities had been duly observed to tell you a few words about my wife. Excellent woman, that! But very jealous! very! No sense of her own place! Unwilling to subordinate herself. Since she "came into my life" she has walked around in it and otherwise behaved familiarly and at home. Never, never I beg of you, permit anyone to come into your life. It decidedly makes for clutter and disturbance. However, as I was saying, she is an excellent woman and has been to the Doctor who says that she has suffered much. (Charge for same $10.) As he wishes to make the same charge for many days the excellent wife will not go to Charleston but remain here, that the charge may lawfully be imposed. (This is where the Christian Scientists are more Scientific for they could make the charge in absentia.)

However and notwithstanding, the Peace Conference still lives. By wireless I have the news that Lloyd George is still doing politics, that Orlando is Fiuming (give that one to the Englisher), that Colonel House has not told all he knows to Lansing, and that Henry White dined last night with a Duchess who held his hand four minutes while telling him terrible things.

But this is too frivolous altogether for a statesman to be writing to one whose mind is interested only in serious things! I can see her steady, cold, stern eye of reproach. "And this to me," she says, "And 'twere not for thy hoary beard, etc., etc."

I tell you frankly, tho' you may not believe it, that I am not entirely in a sober mood. Yesterday I planted bulbs with a lady who was not bulbous. The day before I shot pigeons for a lark. And I am boastful! fair boastful, my Lady! My secretary and my confidential clerk and my many dark-hued messengers are solemnly impressed with my prowess with gun and spade. The truth shall not be heard in the land. I am my own talebearer and my own censor. I know more about agriculture than the Secretary of Agriculture, and I know more of Labor than the Secretary of the same. And for this, this glorious bursting into fruitfulness at so advanced an age-- you and your good man are responsible and to be credited in the Golden Book in which is written, What the Plain People Do for Each Other.

Thanking you for the Bread and Butter, believe me yours for Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

F. K L.

Washington, Saturday, [January 19, 1980]

I am clothed in sackcloth and sitting in ashes. My head is bowed in humility and I am beating my breast in contrition. There is no joy in my face and my eyes look downward. Truly I am full of regret. Did she not write long, joyous, inquiring, curious, inviting pages to me? and I have not answered! And now will she ever make her face to shine upon me and give me peace?

I would fly to her--yes, fly to her in monoplane, biplane, or triplane--but many things deter me. A wife, who is busy with the Gods of the Elder Days; a daughter, who is busy with the God of the present day--to wit, a young man named Philip, surnamed Kauffmann, son of "The Star" six feet two in stockings or otherwise, late of His Majesty's Navy, Princeton, Football, etc., etc. The marriage is to be tied in April, God willing, Nancy ordering, Philip consenting, Father paying.

As if this were not enough to hinder, the desk must be cleared for exit--the office desk; for the place that knew me through seven long years of trouble, anxiety, insult, joy, humiliation, satisfaction, achievement, companionship, hope, shall soon know me no more, forever.

Verily, I say unto you, that if ever mortal man or mortal mind needed rest, recreation, recuperation, and other alliterative things, that same man is now writing to the Lady Elizabeth Ellis, of Terraced Garden, in Camden, by the Wateree. And he is writing without hope that he will see the Lady and her Lord and the Princeling, for moons and moons. This is a sad, sad word for him to write. But the whole world is skew-jee, awry, distorted and altogether perverse. The President is broken in body, and obstinate in spirit. Clemenceau is beaten for an office he did not want. Einstein has declared the law of gravitation outgrown and decadent. Drink, consoling friend of a Perturbed World, is shut off; and all goes merry as a dance in hell!

Oh God, I pray, give me peace and a quiet chop. I do not ask for power, nor for fame, nor yet for wealth. Lift me on the magic carpet of the Infinite Wish and lay me down on a grassy slope, looking out on a quiet sunny sea, and make me to dream that men are gentle and women reasonable. And forgive us our trespasses, Amen!

And again I pray--Give me patience. Let me not ask for today what may not come until tomorrow. Let mine eyes not be filled with visions of things as they would be in a world wherein men were Gods. Let mine ears be closed to Siren calls which lure to the rocks. Stiffen my soul to make the climb. Keep from my heart cynical despair. Make my mouth to speak slow words, and curb my tongue that it may not outrun the Wisdom taught by the years. Give surety to my steps, O Lord, and lead me by the hand for I know not the way.

Your telegram lures as your letter did. But such pleasures are not for us, because of our sins. "And those that are GOOD shall be happy!"

Work. Work. Work. It is the order of the One Supreme. It keeps us from being foolish, and doing as fools do. It is needed for the mastery of a world that has its Destiny written, as surely as we have ours. It is a chain and a pair of wings; it binds and it releases. It is the master of the creature and the tool of the Creator. It is hell, and it lifts us out of hell into heaven. It was not known in Paradise, but there could be no Paradise without it. A curse and a Savior! Our life-term sentence and the one plan of salvation! Work for the weary, the wasted, and the worn. Work-- for the joyous, the hopeful, the serene. Work--for the benevolent and the malevolent, the just and the cruel, the thoughtful and the unheeding. Work--for things that life needs, for things that are illusions, for dead-sea fruit, for ashes; and work for a look at the stars, for the sense of things made happier for many men, for the lifting of loads from tired backs, for the smile of a tender girl, for the soft touch of a grateful mother, for the promise it brings to the boy of one's hopes.

Work! Why work? It is the order of the One Supreme.

So saying, at one o'clock of Sunday morning, he lifted up his hand and waved three times to the Southward--once for the Lady of the Troubled Heart, who flirts with the Angel of Destruction, thinking he may turn out to be a God, and once for the Lord of the Lady, serenely fatalistic, and the third, and this a very big one, for the Princeling who is making a manly battle, cheerfully, confidently. The Friend of the Three.

F. K L.

Washington, [February 5, 1920]

And so, again the Boy has been attacked by a strange enemy, and you are fighting. That is what you have been doing for years, fighting for that bit of life you love more than your own self. You did not think you could do it when you were a girl, did you? You have wondered at yourself many, many times. And wondered at the Fate which brought this long challenge to you. But it has been a splendid fight, hasn't it? A glorious fight against odds. There has been no justice in it. No justice, and our souls do so want justice, an even chance, something in front of us that we can see and know and fight. God knows why such tortures come to some, while others sail on such smooth seas. Can it be that there is no soul excepting the one we make for ourselves by fighting? Are those really blest who have such challenges given to their spirits? Or is this all by way of excusing God, or Nature, for the unexplainable?

There is no way to make the fight excepting to believe that the fight is the thing--the one, only, greatest thing. (To deny this is to leave all in a welter, and drift into purposeless cynicism, --blackness.) To determine that this is the way, the truth, and the life, is to get serenity. Then the winds may howl and the seas roll, but there can be no wreck.

I know you don't like to be coddled. You are not of the cotton- batting school. You can take and give. But "may I not" say a word of appreciation and perhaps of stimulation--give you a good masculine thump on the shoulder by way of saying that for one who lives in a mist you have lots of gimp. To love something better than oneself is the first step, I guess, toward making that soul.

Please read the note, in special envelop, to Ralphie, when he will be interested. By Jove, how fortunate that we could not leave. All my force is sick. Three of my assistants are laid up. Six hundred and eighty people in my Department are in bed. And I am struggling to get out and leave my job up to date. Good fortune!

F. K. L.

[Katonah, August, 1920]

... You know that I love you--yes, just as much as Ralph Ellis, who is a tough sailor man, and Anne Lane, who is a citizen of two worlds, will let me. But I would love you more, much more, if you did not have to be induced by my wife to write to me. Your love letter was all right, but it was procured. Do you get that word-- procured--and my wife was the procuress. This may be de rigueur and comme il faut and umslopogass on Long Island, but it does not go in Katonah--peaceful, pure Katonah!

Here, in this sweet centre, if a lady wishes "for to make eyes" at a man, by way of a letter, she does it without being told to do it by the said man's wife. And then to open, "Dear Mr. Lane,"--Gosh Lizzie! isn't that pretty warm!

My anger is so great that I am now sitting up in bed at the weary hour of two to relieve myself--for otherwise I cannot sleep.

Your remarks upon the distraught condition of the public mind, the unfortunate fix into which the Polacks have fixed themselves, the heart-breaking cry that you send out for men to get together and be sensible, before they are sadder,--these things have no lodgement in my soul-center. For I am loved by a lady who speaks much of free speech and courage and candor and other virtues of prehistoric existence, but who talks of herself all through her letter and never of me at all. How can the fire be kept burning with a cold back-log like that? Talk about me! That's the first principle of all conversation--even not amorous. Well, you are a good woman, Mrs. Ellis, and I hope Mr. Ellis is well, and that you are not having trouble with the help. Goodbye, Mrs. Ellis!

Come, sweet Elizabeth, let us join hands and go for a gay climb over the piney hills--you can sing your minor note of sad distress--your miserere, if you can, in the face of the puffy clouds, and I will laugh at you for having too much of world concern in your heart. The blessings do not come to those who are "troubled about many things." The soul is an individual, you know. We are saved by units not en masse. Every individual is a species --isn't that what splendid Bergson says? So come away from responsibilities and let your poor heart, which is so unselfish that it cannot rest, indulge itself in the luxury of a peaceful forgetting, for a few days.

Practically, this seems like a good place--the process is to reduce you to a pulp and then gradually restore you to form. I am just emerging from the mash.

Do give my greetings--graduated calorically as your judgment suggests--to the many friends in your neighborhood who have forgotten me.

Devotedly, yet very sore,

F. K. L.

[September]

This is a sentimental letter from a sentimentalist to a sent--, for a sent--. It is by way of atonement, chiefly. I want to be forgiven for all the hard things I have said to you. I feel that I owe you much, at least a good word, for all the bad ones I have given you.

You are a health-giver. That's not such a bad name, is it? In fact I don't know a better. It doesn't sound sentimental, no husband would be alarmed by it, and yet it carries in it implications of gaiety and tenderness and rompishness with a touch of mysterious adoration. Altogether it is a very real large word that does not signify virtues but rather attractivenesses. Mind, I don't say that you have not the virtues--all of them, offensive and defensive, but the attractivenesses make life, don't they? And to be a health-giver is not merely to have charm. That is the spell- casting power, to be filled with witchery, to be a witch. Yes, I believe it is something like that--very much in fact, but the witchery must be balsamic, it must be radiant, it must go out in rays or circles or waves, because it can't help going out, not purposefully and selfishly, like the casting of a net--it must be balsamic and radiant, the outbreathing of pines.

Now this is a very nice name I have called you--you can put it into Latin or Greek or French and make it sound much better to the unimaginative. But you deserve it, and I hope my little girl will become one.

FRANKLIN K. LANE

Katonah, Sunday, [September 25, 1920]

... We leave here on Wednesday (D. V.) for Bethel because you said to. Now how soon will you follow--a day--a week? Not more!

You made up your mind that you would go there, and there is now to be proof given whether your mind is weak or riding strong.

Anne is to have H. Beale there, and they move in circles barred to me. So I shall sorely need someone who knows my language. And I am not frivolous when I say that you and I need nothing more than a religious faith of some kind. Mohammedan, Christian Science, or what you will. We are both religious--deeply. We pray--we do things for the good of men and women,--but we do not relate ourselves properly to the Great Enveloping, Permeating Spirit. I have sought to, vainly, for many years, and yet I have not been persistent. "Seek and ye shall find!" I want to believe that the God of Things as They Are is not wilfully cruel. Is He indifferent?

Are we mastering something? Tell me! Do you know? What philosophy have you come to?

Well, all this we can talk over when we reach Bethel. Say, do you ever answer letters or is it your Queenly prerogative to drop your sweethearts down the public oubliette?

F. K. L.

Washington, 27 [December, 1920]

My wife won't let me call on you, "not now, anyhow," she says. Oh, you have so many enemies! Adolph and Mary, Senator and Mrs. Kellogg, Chief Justice and Mrs. White, Dr. and Mrs. Gehring. All are against you, and against me--all plotting, planning, and conspiring with my wife to keep us apart. They know the hold you have on me, that I had rather have you as my doctor than any one else in the whole vasty Universe--but why sigh? I am to be torn away on Wednesday and rushed to Rochester, where the Mayos will take me in hand, and do their worst. I have great hope that they may cut me into happiness, and carve me into health, and slice me into strength.

So, as Anne wired, we shall not see you in Camden, nor Ralph nor the Junior nor anything that is Ellis--not for some moons anyway.

... The reason for going to Mayos? To see if it is true that my stomach and my gall bladder have become too intimate. Rochester is the Reno where such divorces are granted.

I'd like to say I love you and the whole kit and caboodle, but my wife won't let me.

F. K. L.

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

To Mrs. Philip C. Kaujfmann

Rochester, Minnesota, January 1,1921

To that little Fairy with whom a young fellow named Frank Lane used to wander in the woods, hunting the homes of the Fairies,-- Greetings on her birthday! Has she found where they live? I believe she has. They live where eyes are bright with love, and hands are gentle and kind, where feelings are not hurt and there is song hummed, and Play, a very real God, still lives,

... I think that we have got to see each other some how, somewhere, because life is passing awfully fast and there is one best thing in it--supremely, overwhelmingly best--and that is affection. I've chased around after fame and work for others, but I just wish I had spent pretty much all my time loving you and Mother and Ned, and let everything else come way down on the list. The people who really love us are so few, aren't they? Lots of them like us, lots of them are glad to be with us, but few can be counted on "world without end, Amen."

... This is surely a very uncertain and unsatisfactory world for me right now. How much we all do like definiteness and how few are willing to trust the future to the Great Spirit. We fuss and fume as if it would do good rather than ill. Happiness is the thing we all desire and it is to be had easily through a most simple philosophy; do your best and then have faith that things will come right. Happy people are those who live with happy thoughts; those who see good in people and by brave and cheerful thinking are superior to depression and bitterness.

The longer I live the more I am convinced that it is our duty to be gay; not reckless, never that; not boisterous, but light- hearted. It saves doctor's bills, brings success, and is the one method, the natural method, by which we become really big, and by that I mean superior to the evil forces that try to break us down. ... To be gay one must see how very little some things are, and how very big other things are. And the big things are things like love and goodness and unselfishness; and the little things are the selfish mean things, self-indulgent things, things generally that come out of one's vanity, one's love of one's self. Get rid of that and life becomes a pretty good place. Envy, vanity, self- indulgence--these are devils.

... I wish you would really sink yourself into some religion. To start right is so important. You will miss much joy in life, I am convinced, by not having a faith; something to live by, something that explains the questions that rise each hour. Buddhism does not claim to be supernatural, is not founded on miracles, and yet Buddha taught the philosophy of Christ five hundred years before He came. The central note is getting above self--real self- mastery. Possessing, mastering your body and mind so that you do not allow envy or hatred to possess you, and do not hanker after "things," possessions, or fame or popularity, and keep strong hold on wilfulness and anger and your passions. Its fundamental maxim is that unhappiness and sorrow come from ignorance of Truth--and Truth is found by submerging self. The body is not bad, the lusts of the body and the mind are not bad, but the body is no more than an envelop for the soul, its master.

Good-night to you both, you are fast asleep by now. ... In my long days and nights I think so much about you, wondering what the Gods have in store for her who has been so much to me. Much, much love little one.

DAD

To Benjamin Ide Wheeler

Rochester, Minnesota, January I, 19L1

To the Wheelers with the warmest greetings of the Lanes! A bonny year be this to you--a year of sunny faces--may you live surrounded by those whom you love and damned indifferent to all the rest!

I, Franklin K. Lane, am trying to find out if the last doctor in New York was right. He said my trouble came from an improper alliance between my gall-bladder and my pyloric orifice, and that here in Rochester they could be summarily divorced. (If you don't know where the pylorus is you may locate it as the N. W. 1/4 of the N. W. 1/4 of the stomach. Until you reach fame you never have a pylorus--and then it is most costly.) So here I am in a real Reno, hoping that a knife will be able to "put me to work anew," ... and writing this as a proof of "love and affection," whatever the legally great may mean by the distinction. ...

And talking of language, have you read what Wells has to say in his Outline of History on this subject? I found it very interesting; probably all old stuff to you, however. Can there be a science of language, or of anything that a human creates? I am rather Bergsonian in my idea of the individual man--each is a species.

Miller is very unhappy because [Governor] Harding may leave the Board. He [Miller] will go if the new man is not satisfactory. But I think he will be. For Harding will be conservative and a great respecter of wealth. And Miller while a radical in many things is a classicist as to Finance.

If Harding leaves out Hoover he will do himself and the country harm, and Hoover good. At last the sun shines!

F. K. L.

To Lathrop Brown

Rochester, Minnesota, January 3, [1921]

Well, my dear young Spirit of the Renaissance, I am not yet dead, not even dying. Slowly I am doing the stations of the Cross in this most thorough institution. I am delighted with my experience. Here is concentrated every form of torture and annoyance to which one can be legally subjected. Cruel and unusual punishments are forbidden by the Constitution, but I take it that one may yet take torture and punishment, if he pays for it. All that I have ever done, been or thought has been revealed--probed for, and found out. ...

Truly, this is the most scientifically organized organization of scientists that ever was. Henry Ford could not improve upon it. Combine him with M. Pasteur, add a touch of one Edison, and a dose of your friend, Charlie Schwab, and you have the Mayo Clinic, big, systematized, modernized, machinized, doctorial plant, run by a couple of master workmen. I am seeing it all, and am prepared for any fate. Thus far I am no more than twenty-one years of age. My organs seem to be working union hours and to react with proper promptitude, self-respect and authority. Tomorrow I am to be photographed and fluoroscoped--and then will come the verdict. If it is the guillotine I shall go gaily, like one of your ancestors in those tumbril days of France. What I fear is an order to "rest," on a new diet. But I guess whatever is said will be the last word--the Supreme Court decision. Fine reputation, that, for two young chaps who never went to Harvard, eh, what?

Well, tell me the news. You have been silent too long. I long to know of your further adventures in politics with one G. White. ...

And now, my dear Lathrop, may I extend to you the greetings of the New Year. May you have a continuous and abiding and keen sense that you are doing good, likewise doing well.

F. K. L.

To Mrs. George Ehle

Rochester, Minnesota, January, [1921]

It is only a little below freezing. The sky is grey. Snow, hard and frozen over, covers the ground, sleighs go through the streets, jingling their merry way. Boys throw each other down upon the encrusted snow. Girls in red woolen caps pick their way cautiously. Farm horses drawing sleds make their heavy way. And in these sleds, families sitting on the heaped straw in the bed of the wooden box, smiling mothers and happy babies, lined up together, warm, protected from the wind. Trees outlined against the sky, looking like dark coral rising out of a sea of snow into the dull light. An old man, gaunt, bewhiskered, trudges along confidently although he looks over eighty. A younger man, evidently a stranger, feels his cautious way over the slippery walk, covered with furs, hands, head, and body. After him a still younger man, without an overcoat--a postman.

Can you see it all? Do you recognize the picture? Was it once part of your life? This world is not so very bad when nature challenges every one to fight for life. Nothing doing for me now! That's the word. Too much risk. ...

Bless you, Lady Dear of the Understanding Eye. May we yet meet upon the gentle banks of the Shepaug and there make medicine for our poetic souls.

Anne has been a trump through these ten days of anxiety. Yours affectionately,

F. K. L.

To Mrs. William Phillips

Rochester, Minnesota, January 11, [1921]

The black cat, yellow-eyes, came, dear Lady Caroline--came to me here in a hospital and I put him on my table alongside my tiny bust of Lincoln, which is the sacred place. I wish indeed those eyes could see within this shell of mine and tell what it is that twists my heart, physically turns it on its axis, so that its polarity is changed. From mystery to mystery we have traveled the past year, Anne, with her unfaltering trust, and I, a doubting Thomas. We came here for an operation, but the doctors somewhat doubt its wisdom at all, certainly not now, when pneumonia might befall. So after ten hard days of closest examination I go forth from this, the Supreme Court of Surgery in the Land, with no decision. "Wait and see what good it has done to live without tonsils, and in the California sunshine until spring." ... But they live in the Land of Guess!

And so another baby has come to bless you and William! Truly you are a confident couple! Age would hesitate to bring into a world, so filled with shadow, an increasing number of our species. What a supreme act of faith the continuance of the race is. ... Oh, the cunning of Nature--how empty the heart of man or woman who has not felt the clutch of a baby's hand, or drunk deep of the heaven- made perfume of a baby's breath. And the impulse that babies give to life, the challenge that they make to the father is always a noble one. It is not so as to women; less, as to ourselves. We are urged to courses that are petty, unworthy, selfish, debasing, supine, and brutal by our own natures or those of our mates. But for the child we act nobly, its call to us is always to our finer side, and so gradually we are lifted higher. Did any man in history ever do a cruel or wicked thing because of the appeal made to him by the smile of his child? He may have accredited his action to the prompting of love for his baby, but I believe it would be found that there was another motive, generally an overwhelming personal vanity; so great a lust for power, perhaps, that it would carry across the gulf of death.

I hardly believe that you need fear immediate expulsion from your new-found Eden. My expectation is that you will be treated with kindness by the new Administration, which will act most cautiously on all things. I shall know how to get a word, any word you wish, to the new President, I think, and my services as you know are at your order at any time. But if you are sent into the Limbo of private life you will be welcomed by a host who have preceded you and who will selfishly rejoice.

My gayest greetings to Sir William and, in cloudy Holland, may the sun shine in your hearts always.

FRANKLIN K. LANE

To James H. Barry

San Francisco Star

Rochester, Minnesota, January 12, [1921]

DEAR JIM,--The Star has set--it goes the way of Nature--the circle must be completed. The only question one may ask is, "Was it useful?" I think it was, Jim, it held many to the true course, it was an honest guide in a bewildering world.

Do let us meet when I am West, and talk of Henry George and John Marble and Arthur McEwen, who have gone on, and left not their like. ...

F. K. L.

To Michael A. Spellacy

Rochester, Minnesota, January 12, [1921]

MY DEAR MIKE,-- ... I shall await your re-coming with great interest. Truly you should write up what you see. Get good pictures and I will get it all in the National Geographic Magazine, and then we'll see what the Cosmos Club will say! I am in earnest about this--keep a diary in which you write, in your own gay style, what you see, and you will soon have fame as well as fortune.

The news from Mexico is not very encouraging. Obregon is sick so much, and without policy, without dependable friends. Cardinal Gibbons came near dying, but, thank God, pulled through! A very wonderful man. I am very fond of him and he likes me I know, for I handled the Indians for seven years and had no trouble, because he and I had a flat understanding that I should take my church troubles, if any arose, to him.

The old Chief Justice called on us in Washington. He is seventy- five and almost totally blind. And the greatest Chief since John Marshall.

De Valera has landed and I expect things to be doing pretty soon. The British are greatly mystified as to how he got over and back. You see you are not the only adventurer on the face of the globe. We used to think that these were prosey, stoggy, flat-footed days, but there is any amount of adventure--from the fields of Flanders to the mountains of Colombia--even the Spanish main has had its rebirth.

Mrs. Lane wants me to thank you for your thought of her. As you know no one holds a deeper, surer place in her heart than you and Tim.

Well, old chap, I am sitting in bed--four in the morning--with a devilish sore throat and without anything to eat or much sleep for thirty-six hours, so if this screed is not one of great illumination or information you will know that it was only a message of cheer and good-will from one who is fond of you, but who warns you to be careful for all of our sakes. As always,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

To William R. Wheeler

Rochester, Minnesota, January 13, [1921]

DEAR BILL,--Off to see you eventually, I trust, tomorrow. Had my tonsils out, won't do anything else till Spring. Meantime I want to see no doctors. Having tried twenty, and come "out by that same door wherein I went." An osteopath, yes. Faith cure--Indian Medicine men--anything else, but no doctors! I turn from Esculapius to Zoroaster, from medicine to the sun. I want to "lie down for an aeon or two." (Alice knows where that comes from.) With much love to you both.

FRANK

To V. C. Scott O'Connor

[Rochester, Minnesota], January 13, [1921]

MY DEAR SCOTT O'CONNOR,--It is a joy to get your letter and to know of your new book which I have not seen, for the very good reason that for five months I have been in hospitals. Angina pectoris they call it, but where it comes from they don't say, they don't know. Am off to California for a couple of months, then probably back to New York.

I have read Wells' History, which seems to me the most remarkable thing of the historical essay kind ever hit off; and therein I discovered your friend Asoka, but I have been able to learn little else about him.

Buddhism attracts me greatly, as perhaps the most perfect attitude on the negative side that has ever been developed and largely lived. It is not complete for a temperate zone people, who are and must be aggressive. Nor does it reveal, so far as I know, the spiritual possibilities that Christianity does. The constructive seems to be lacking. But it is so far ahead of the purely opportunist attitude that Christianity takes that I should like to be a Buddhist, I verily believe.

I see that Lord Reading goes to India. He is the greatest of diplomats, an oriental by nature, and will do good, if good can be done in that unhappy situation. I admire the cheerful way Lloyd George keeps. He is a great man. Each six months I have looked to see him fall, but he keeps up, even with Ireland, India, Egypt, South Africa on his back.

Tell me what you are doing now, anything beside writing, and writing what next? I wish that I had the literary endowment-- ideas, plus style, plus energy. Good fortune to you always. Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

Letter sent to several friends

Rochester, Minnesota, January 10, 1921

"And when they came upon the Snark, they found it was a Boojum--or words to that effect--and so, my dear Jack, they couldn't operate now.

There is the whole story. Details there are, of course. But Meissonier's style never did appeal to me. After peering into, and probing, all known and unknown parts of the Mortal Man, they found that the heart in one part changed its polarity,--turned over, by George, or tried to,--hence the Devil's clutch. But why did it do this vaudevillian act? Bugs, bugs, of course. But where? So they chased them to their lair in that wicked, nasty-named and most vulgar organ known as the gall-bladder. Damn the gall-bladder! Out it must come! On with the knifing! But soft, not so swift. Suppose the heart should try to play its funny stunt in the midst of the operation? Or suppose again in this icy weather, pneumonia should ensue and the naughty heart should take to turning? Eh, what then, my brave Bucko? "No," they said, "We are experts in eliminating this same appropriately named organ from the system--eight thousand times have we done it. It is a twenty-five minute job, A mere turn of the wrist and out the viper comes. And it never comes back! This is positively its last appearance, save as a memento for the morbid-minded in a bottle of alcohol. But hearts that do somersaults and lungs that choke up, fill us with fear. So out with the tonsils where bugs accumulate and men decay, and then off with you to California where bugs degenerate and men rejuvenate. Then come back when the sun shines and the trees begin to burgeon and the trick will be done. Hold yourself where you are, grow better if you can, and we'll have to take the risk of the tumbling heart, but the pneumonia risk will be gone."

Thus saith the Prophets! And this day, therefore, will be spent with the Master of the mysterious fluoroscope, who reverses Edward Everett Hale and looks "in and not out," and with the dentist who must fill a pesky tooth, and then with the surgeon who tears out tonsils. Rather a full day, eh? And after two days in hospital, or three, over the hills to 8 Chester Place, Los Angeles,--by no means a poor-house,--but alas! carrying the malevolent bugs and their nesting place with me. Then I shall rest, "and faith I shall need it, lie down for an aeon or two, till the Master of all good workmen shall put me to work anew."

I am disappointed. I would take the risk if it were left to me. But I shall go West--why did those soldier boys ever use that phrase with such sinister meaning, or did it signify a better land to them? I shall go West in good hope that I shall return, and meantime will try to develop a strong propaganda in favor of race suicide in the land of the bothering bacteria, Adios.

F. K. L.

To John G. Gehring

Rochester, Minnesota, January 13, [1921]

MY DEAR PADRE,--I wrote you an impressionistic sketch of what the politicians call the "local situation," a couple of days since. ... It is subject to attack on every possible ground as to details, for no man can know from it what these doctors found. But it is a perfect picture from the artist's standpoint, because it produces the result on the viewer or reader that is truth, and that result is a large, purple befuddlement. I am whole, but I have a pain. ...

After I had practically been declared one hundred per cent pluperfect I gave the electric cardiograph man a picture or exhibition performance under an attack. This revealed to him a change in polarity in the current passing through, which signified something, but what that something was, other than that I was having a spasm, I don't know. ...

The smug, mysterious gentleman who made this picture was much pleased, apparently at nothing more than that he had proved that I had a clutch of the heart, which I had announced, by wire, before arriving here.

Am I impatient or am I a damn fool?

Well, with my tonsils out I am in Royal Baking Powder condition and tomorrow we start for California. I cannot hope to be out there till May or June, when you would come. But Heaven knows I'd like to introduce you to the Yosemite! ...

Do you know I am beginning to admire myself. Now many have thought that that was my favorite sport. But I can assure you that no one ever felt more humble than I have, any appearance to the contrary being a bluff for success--effect. But now that I have been wisely and scrupulously and unscrupulously examined by the most exalted rulers of the Inner Temple, and they pronounce me all that man should be, why shouldn't I strut some? But, damn it, strutting brings that Devil's clutch--and a man cannot be anything more strutty than a dish-rag then. In William James you will find a questionnaire, "Why do I believe in immortality? 'Because I think I'm just about ready to begin to live.'" There speaks self- justifying age--I'm there, too.

I'd love to look on Bethel this morning, and see what your poet- partner calls the hills in their wine bath. Good luck.

LANE

To Lathrop Brown

Los Angeles, [January] 15, [1921]

MY DEAR LATHROP,--I have yours of the eleventh. First question, as to men and women for the Executive Committee,

Answer: Get men who can make a program, something that the party can push, outside Congress, if too cowardly in. People who don't want anything, if possible.

Think of these! (I don't say they will do, but they stand for something.)

Charles W. Eliot. Benjamin Ide Wheeler. (Ex-President of the University of California. Ex-Chairman, Democratic Committee, Elmira, New York.) E. M. House. Frank L Cobb. John W. Davis. Robert Lansing. R. Walton Moore. (Congressman from Virginia, big fellow.) Gavin McNab. Governor Parker, of Louisiana. James D. Phelan. Van-Lear Black.

For solid thought I'd choose out of that bunch--Eliot and Moore. For cleverness--Black and McNab. For diplomacy--House and Davis. For progressiveness--House and Parker. For Conservative Democracy --Wheeler and Lansing. For writing ability--Cobb and Eliot.

I know no women who think, particularly. ...

The kind of publicity we need is the advocacy by the National Committee, and by Democrats in Congress of first class measures, known to be Democratic measures, part of a program.

I'll tell you how to get all the publicity you want when I see you--or White--a new kind, cheap, but requiring brains. ...

F. K L.

To Lathrop Brown

Los Angeles, January, [1921]

DEAR LATHROP,--(1) You are right as to standardization. The Devil devised it as a highway to socialism. It is the Bible of the great Tribe of Flatfoot, not for artists like you and myself. And speaking of programs, please read what Wells says in his first volume of Outline of History, on David, Solomon, Moses. It will delight your anti-semitic soul. ...

Yes, standardization is like all else, good--for a distance. The whole bally outfit of life is a matter of balance, maintained by war among the unintelligent bacilli and other primitives, and by will among men (goat feed for men, eh?) But do you get my point? Something to it!

(2) George White will be eaten up first thing he knows, unless he moves. Your friend McAdoo is here declining the next nomination daily, speaking much, and, I understand, well. ... Why doesn't G. W. get Frank Cobb and Hooker, of the Springfield Republican, and Van-Lear Black, and Senator Walsh, and Phelan, and Congressman Walton Moore together, or any other group, and put up his plan and ask them what they think of it tentatively,--just a quiet chat, but start.

He doesn't need to resign, if he can get someone as a quiet organizer "who will give all his time" to take up that job under him, with sub-organizers. Who is this genius who can organize inorganic matter, and give it life? Thought He was dead sometime!

"Wanted--A Miracle Man who can overcome a majority of seven million votes with a hearty handshake and a warm brown eye. Need have no program, no money. Must be a hypnotist who can make the people forget a few things and believe a few things that are not true. Must be able by reciting poetry to make the cunning capitalist see that he is safer in the hands of the Democrats than elsewhere, and at the same time educate the worker by a pass of the hand to know that it is decent to stay bought. Must have received the Gift of Tongues on the Day of Pentecost, so as to talk Yiddish, in New York; Portuguese and Gaelic, in Massachusetts; Russian and German, in Chicago; Scandinavian, in the Northwest; Cotton and Calhoun, in the South; John Brown and wheat, in Kansas; gold and Murphy, on 14th Street; and translate Jesus Christ into Bolshevism, Individualism, Capitalism, Lodgeism, Wilsonism! Must be as honest as old Cleveland and as clear of purpose as Abraham Lincoln."

Put this want ad. in the papers and send me, by freight car, the replies. With my warmest,

F. K. L.

To Adolph C. Miller

Los Angeles, January 26, [1921]

DEAR ADOLPH,--I see that Harding [Footnote: Governor Harding of the Federal Reserve Board--a rumor of resignation.] is to leave you, and this is a note of sympathy. What will you do? Poor chap! I know the satisfaction you have had out of working with him and now he follows Warburg, Delano, and Strauss. By Jove, that's why we can't make things go as other countries do--because we can't give our people enough to live on. This is at once the meanest and most generous of Republics. Mean collectively, generous individually.

He will wait until after March 4th. "Right oh!" I expect you to have some say as to his successor, especially as to the new Governor. And if you can't work with the new man you can lift your skirts and skip! Freedom of movement, assured as to all by Adam Smith, is exclusively the prerogative of the fortunate few. Don't be downhearted! You can't be as badly off as you were for several years. Just think how unlucky I am as compared with you, and pat yourself on the back and take one of the old time struts. Good belly! Good brains! Good pocket-book! Good friends near you! Good dog to walk with in the woods--and woods in which you can walk! Good house, with your own books to look at you friendly-like. Oh boy, rejoice and be glad!

February 17, [1921]

We are most terribly disappointed. Your promised visit was a bright spot,--a sunshiny place--to which we have looked forward as to nothing else since we came here. Well, life is a series of such jars, and child-like I submit, but am not reconciled.

... Are you coming later? How is Mary? We really seem far away from our friends. The land is beautiful, but friends convert a shack into a palace, a desert into a heaven.

F. K. L.

To John G. Gehring

Pasadena, near Paradise, February 18

Before breakfast this morning, indeed before dressing, I sent you a message which was a combined confession, apologia, report, and appeal. I said, "I have done wrong, I apologize, I am slightly better, and I hope and pray you will not become downhearted." I also promised to write and here I am at it. But you would have had this letter just as early anyway, for this morning was to be yours and mine. All other mornings for two weeks and more have belonged to someone else. I have been pretending to work, by going to the office each day. And last night I said good-bye to the Napoleon of our institution, who took his private car and rolled away to Mexico, to Galyeston first, thence by private yacht to Tampico, there to see his properties and spend two or three weeks.

... They desired us to go greatly, and ours would have been every possible comfort that one can have while traveling, ... but the tyrant Anne thought that as I was picking up a bit it was wrong to change conditions, and I yielded, hardly against my judgment, but strongly against my desire.

So here I am, the first hour after release, sitting on the porch of a villa, looking across a valley at amethyst mountains, crowned with a sprinkling of blue and white snow. The noises that come to me are not raucous;--the twitter of birds, a rooster crowing, a well-pump throbbing its heart out, the shouts of some children at play, a distant school bell, with no silver in its alloy, however, the swish of a wood-sawing machine in some back-yard. So my ears are not lonesome. Immediately before me is the gray-lavender bole of a tall eucalyptus, not a leaf or branch for fifty feet, and then a drooping cascade of blue-green feathers. Beyond it a few feet a red-blue eucalyptus, sturdy, branching almost at the ground and in blossom. These stand near the border of a drive which is marked by a cypress hedge, trimmed and proper, and beyond the drive, on the front of the terrace are magnolia and iron-wood and avocado and palm and spruce, rising up out of beds of carnations and geraniums, jasmine and pansies (all violet), and cherokee roses, five-petaled, white with golden centers, and rose colored-- (the wild rose with a university education, a year or two in Italy, and the care of a good maid). While beyond this terrace are orange, and tangerine, and lemon, and grapefruit with their green, yellow, and deep red-golden fruit pendant; and still further on, a fringe of blossoming pear trees tell you that this is not the tropics after all. The breeze is a gentle woman's hand, a soft touch, kindly, tender, emotional, but not disturbing. It is not lotus-eating time. I don't know that that time ever comes here. Autos whisk through the woods, buildings are going up, the air is dry and has tang; it has challenge in it, but it does not give off the heady champagne of the air that the snow breathes out on your Millbrook hillside.

I remember as I looked from my window at the sunset at Bethel saying to myself, "Can there be any fairer spot than this?" And this morning as I saw the sun rise into the pink and blue of the sky, empurpling the shadowed hills and splashing rose leaves on the snowy mountains, I again said "Is there anything lovelier, anywhere?" Great blessing, these catholic eyes! Should the heart be equally catholic? There is a real problem in philosophy and sociology for you!

And now that you know how happily circumstanced I am as to environment your doctorial demand is for something as to the behavior of the organs and nerves which we call the physical man. Well, I can't tell you much. I do not rise and walk half a block without that trigger being pulled, but the explosion is not dynamite, rather poor black powder, I should say. If I walk half a dozen blocks I stop a half a dozen times, and once or twice nibble at a precious pellet of nitro. At night I am wakened as of yore, but the agonizing, crushing pains do not come every night. ... I eat prunes and bran biscuit and coffee for breakfast; a bit of cooked fruit (and that in this land of oranges and alligator pears and ripe raspberries!), chicken and green peas, and bran biscuit and tea for lunch; a couple of green vegetables and bran biscuit and a small black, for dinner. And all this I write with a supreme sense of virtue, which Simon Stylites or St. Benedict could not more than parallel. As to smoking--a pipe, generous in size but of the mildest possible tobacco, after breakfast. A mild, large cigar after lunch, and pause here and worship--no cigar after dinner. (But this latter is a Lenten innovation. I would not have you think I am preparing for immediate ascension.)

As to treatment, an osteopath and a Christian Scientist are my present complement. Each morning the former, and each evening the latter. The former to gratify myself, the latter to gratify a dear friend who "believed and was saved." The osteo is rational, the C. S., with limitations and reservations. ...

The C. S. is a woman, the sister of an artist I used to know. If she did not ask or expect that I believe certain things, we would get on better. I can believe in God as the Principle of Life, that seems scientific. I am willing to call Him Spirit, that is Christian. That He is Supreme in the Universe, I admit. That sin and sickness may with further light be overmastered I do not deny; physical death, of course, seems to me a thing not worth bothering about. But that God is all good, I cannot asseverate in the living presence of a few Devils whom I know, unless I deny that He is omnipresent and omnipotent, or unless I say that Bad is Good. God cannot be good and all powerful without being also responsible for Bad, and therefore be both Good and Bad. This I can believe, and it brings me to Emerson's transcendentalism, which is set forth in the Sphinx--"Deep Love lieth under these pictures of Time, which fade in the light of their meaning sublime." In a word we are growing into the Good. The Bad is not the ultimate, but is none the less real. This is better than Manicheism, the Miltonian contest between the Good Spirit and the Bad, which Wells also in his Invisible King presents; a simple theory, understandable but not to my mind subject to careful scrutiny. There is but one God, one Force, one Principle, one Spirit, and it is working its way through, expressing itself as best it can. And Evil is a partial view, one phase of undevelopment, the muck through which, by God's own law, we must come; and indeed He could not have sent us any other way. This means that He is bound, too. Is this supposable? Omnipresent? Yes! All pervading! In all! But Omnipotent? No, not in the sense that He could change the Order of Things, for He is the Order of Things Himself. Is there even in Him complete Freedom of Will, freedom to make a world other than this? One wishes, in a sense, to say so, but the horror of it! for then He is responsible for the cruelty of the ant-heap, the feeding of the carnivorous upon the vegetable eaters, the preying and persecution of the malevolent upon the kindly--and He could have made it all otherwise! With a Free Will He could have brought growth without pain, being omnipotent. Here we see God as a monster,--responsible for sweat shops and the Marne, in the sense that His will could have averted these things. So I say God is not Good, save in the sense that He is that sunrise this morning. But night cometh, when thieves break through and steal. More sunlight--that is the meaning of the phrase "God is Good"--a belief in a tendency, in the temporality of darkness, of night, a sureness that the day will come and "There will be no night there."

This is a long disquisition, but I just had to get it out of my system; yet I can't, it bothers, and confuses, and perplexes, and hinders, I believe. Better brush it away for practical purposes and have the Will to Believe, for thence cometh strength. Pragmatically C. S. works out with certain people; and to them it is Truth. I wish it were so with my doubting mind, that I could believe. I am willing to be cured tho' I do not understand and cannot believe, and this they say they can do. But it has not been done with me.

Lunch broke into this discourse, and then a walk. This time on the other side of the house, the other side of the hill. There I found a new world. Palms, huge ones, thirty feet across, with their dead branches strewing the ground, making a coarse woven carpet; and pines, large ones, yet not so gigantic as yours on the road beyond the creek; and acacia in full golden bloom, glorious, yet modest tree, a very rare, non-self-assertive tree, a truly Christian tree, beautiful but not prideful. Bamboo in great clumps, erect, yielding but not to be broken--wise, tenacious orientals! And I walked on the off-cast seed of the pepper, and beside cacti higher than my head with spears of crimson, and across a sweep of lawn over which oranges had been dropped, by the generosity of an up- hill row of trees that were saying, "We must make room for the next generation." The flowers (oxalis) and leaves I enclose made a mat, close clinging to the earth, a mat of white, red, and lavender resting on these clover-like leaves that rested in turn directly on the ground. And all about, a hundred plants I did not know, into which my footsteps sent quail and rabbit, that did not fear me really but could not quite say that Man is Love.

I have written you a long line, may it serve for a time as a word also to your dear Lady, whose letter and rare bit of verse I have also received. I do hope that you soon master whatever ails you. Don't lose faith in yourself, above all things. Believe that you are all that your friends believe you to be--a Civilized Medicine Man. Be as deluded as we are. Affectionately,

LANE

To John W. Hallowell

Los Angeles, February 21, 1921 MY DEAR JACK,--It is Sunday morning, very early; the sun is trying to get out of bed, a mocking bird is hailing its effort with great gurgling. I am sitting near an open window looking down into orange trees, which are a very dark shadow, and I am just as happy in my heart as I can be with a bum heart, and no home, and a scattered family. But --! Bad word that "but."

Roots we all have and we must not be torn up from them and flung about as if we were young things that could take hold in any soil. I have been, all America has been, too indifferent to roots--home roots, school roots, work roots. ... We should love stability and tradition as well as love adventure and advancement.

Your new job interests me, but I wonder if you will go with the Secretary of Commerce [Hoover], ... I guess he did right. But unless he gets to be the leading adviser he'll have to get out. For I'm afraid we are to see too much politics--Republican Burlesonism in the saddle. Government by unanimous consent is not practicable, and it looked as if this were Harding's motto until Hoover's appointment. Hoover will be the man to whom the country will look for some guidance along progressive lines, and the country will expect too much, more than any man can deliver.

Please tell your dear Mother that I have her book, and last night read two chapters. I know Bok and did not think him capable of such a literary work, or that he had such character as his book reveals. ... My love to the Troop, and write just as often as you can.

F. K. L.

To Curt G. Pfeiffer

Pasadena, 22 [February, 1921]

MY DEAR OLD PFEIFFER,--I have treated you shamefully. Yes, I have, don't protest! But I have been pretending to be busy. Mr. Doheny wanted me to go to Mexico, and Anne did not want me to go, and I have had a hard time. They have gone and we have come out here with Mrs. Severance, in the loveliest hillside spot you ever saw. Flowers and trees all about and mountains in the distance. Wonderful land!

To-day I celebrated G. W.'s birthday by taking on a new doctor. ... Thought I had escaped from doctors but it is not so to be. ...

This is all my news. I do wish I were there to talk politics with you. Poor Harding! He will suffer the politicians, I fear, till they undo him. ...

The Germans seem to have recovered their audacity. They should have been driven into their own land and then some. I am not for revenge nor for their paralyzing, but just reparation they should pay. Perhaps things have been botched, I do not trust Briand. I'd trust Hoover to get all they could pay, and he's the only one I know who could be just and at the same time sensible in method, but he can't be used where he should be used. ...

March 31

... You are a delight and joy to a thirsty man, a true water carrier, you give of the water of life. For you know that men shall not live by bread alone. Not only words of wisdom, sage counsel, come from you, but there is a heart behind which does not wane with the years, but on the contrary grows stronger and more generous. I look forward to returning to New York to be able once again to feel with you the pleasure of an intellectual companionship, wherein the mind is so refined as to be emotionally sympathetic. You would take the greatest joy out of the beauty in which I am living. ... The night is fragrant (Do you remember telling me of that Japanese criterion?) with orange, wisteria, and jasmine. Oh, this is exquisite country, if I only had health! But there is little beauty where pain is, and my pain holds on even when I was with my brother on his farm, eighty acres, south of San Jose, tucked in the foothills--raises nothing but kindliness and a few vegetables and some hay. It is the sweetest place in its spirit I have ever felt, and lovely physically, too. I wish I could get you to go out there with me. Put up a comfortable adobe on the knob of a hill with a wide prospect and then make things grow, including our own souls. ...

I'm going back there in a week or two, then East, I hope, to Ned's wedding. ... The girl is all a girl should be, I believe. Smaller than he is, a tiny thing in fact, very gentle in voice and manner, sweet natured, musical, wholesome.

... I still dream of that place on the Shepaug river, in Connecticut, where you think I would be lonesome. A winter here with George and a summer there with you, would quite suit me. ... Well, write me, for books are not old friends after all, are they? Forever and ever yours,

F. K. L.

Writing of the days of their youth Pfeiffer said later, "Friendships are inexplicable, they defy analysis, but whatever it was that we might be doing, we were usually in harmony about it. I can only explain it by saying that we liked each other. We liked each other just as we were, and we knew each other with intimacy that deepened with the years, and never disappointed us. The magic circle came later to include others, and they were accepted and appreciated with the same affection and trust. ... It is a singular and beautiful thing that such a multiple and intimate relationship should have survived throughout all of our lives. Perhaps it was because we were friends without capitulation. ...

"Some of us did not meet again, after that first period, for years, but whenever we did meet, it was always in the spirit of the early days. A few words would tell us what we knew of the latest doings of the rest, and we would then 'carry on' just as if there had never been a break in our intercourse. The strength of our joint memories, based on our youthful experiences in common and added to from time to time, grew with the years."

To John G. Gehring

Pasadena, February 24, [1921]

MY DEAR DOCTOR-AND-MORE,--This is a note of cheer written by a somewhat dolorous duffer who spent last night in pain, but this morning is rather comfortable. ...

Am reading William James' Varieties of Religious Experience, and it is really the most helpful religious or philosophical work I have ever read. Nothing else anywhere near as good for the groping mind that wants to be led cautiously, reasonably, suggestively to the "Water of Life," but shown that there is water there. (Pretty poor figure, but perhaps understandable.) I must re-read his answer to the questionnaire in his Letters, and compare it with his conclusions in this book. You remember my thought that probably Emerson, William James, and Henry George had been the greatest writing minds we had produced. Probably you can improve on this.

Have been interested myself in thinking of a list of books that have made great movements in the world, Darwin's Descent of Man, for illustration. Books that have provoked the minds of men into action of one kind or another:--The Bible, Koran, in religions, of course! What started modern medicine? I mean in the way of a book?

What are, or have been, the great movements in history, anyway? Wars, of course, don't count, when merely predatory.

Man's relation to God. Man's relation to the World. Man's relation to Man. Man's relation to the Good. Man's relation to the True. Man's relation to the Beautiful.

These ought to cover Art, Science, Philosophy, Religion, Progress. Civilization of every kind. And this progress has come in waves, hasn't it? Did any book start, or give evidence of the starting of these waves? That's the question. Outside religion and philosophy books were the results not the causes of movements. How true is that? As always and always,

F. K. L.

To D. M. Reynolds

Pasadena, [February, 1921]

I'm writing this late at night and will mail it in the morning, for I'm going to Santa Barbara for a couple of days. Do with it what you will. Judge for me what it is wise to say. And be as condensed as possible.

What I've written is to be dropped in at the right places, it is not conservative. Will see you next week, I hope, perhaps Saturday.

F. K. LANE

Cooperation is the word of this century and we don't know what it means yet. We work together most imperfectly in things political, and we are just beginning to feel our way into the worlds of social and industrial life. I'm not afraid of socialism. I really don't know anyone who is. We're all afraid of blundering attempts at getting a thing called by that name, which is a mechanical method of bringing the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, without changing the human spirit.

The call for socialism or communism is generally a call for more of justice and of honesty and of fair dealing between men, rather than a demand for any particular and organized method of carrying on industrial life. If business is squarely conducted we won't try experiments in mechanicalizing and sterilizing business. But a few more years of profiteering, and Conservatives would have become Reds.

Now we should be studying and planning for a safer industrial life, one in which there will be fewer waves, a safer and more even sea. That we can have, if we are willing to be less greedy now, less venturesome and predatory.

The only people who have done much in the way of substantial thinking as to cooperative action, collective action, are those who think in terms of immediate and large fortunes for themselves, through plans of capitalizing combined brains and money. Their example is a good one to follow in lesser things, where the object is not great wealth but a more even measure of good living. Insurance is the right word for it, business life insurance through honest cooperation. You mark my word, that is the next big move in business affairs. Nationalization of things is not their socialization. Not at all. It may mean their deserialization, their withdrawal from the use of society altogether, or their more imperfect use. Calling things by nice names, popular alluring names, does not solve problems. Nevertheless such names evidence our social dreams. We all feel that there must be more of justice in the economic world. But we don't want it at the expense of society, that is at our own expense, for that means Bolshevism and Bolshevism is paralysis. ...

Oil is one of the fine forms of Power that we know, for many purposes the handiest. Industrially it is as indispensable and staple as the soil itself. To lose faith in the future of oil-- why, that's as unthinkable as to lose faith in your hands. Oil, coal, electricity, what are these but multiplied and more adaptable, super-serviceable hands? They may temporarily be unemployed but the world can't go round without them.

A slack time is always one of fear, never of confidence. And no policies should be adopted in such an atmosphere. For the man who can afford to take the long view these are great days. He can take up what others cannot carry. Better still he can prepare for the demand of to-morrow, or the day after to-morrow--find more oil, if you please, plan for its fuller use, as we are talking of oil, but the principle applies to everything. Take the railroads. Their car shortage is mounting and their out-of-order equipment is way up. This has always been so in hard times. But this is the very time when they should have plenty of money, to get road bed and equipment in perfect shape for to-morrow's rush. No, the nation would do no better if it had the roads. Congress doesn't think ahead two years. It is a reflector, not a generator. The fault is ours.

Right now the call in national affairs of every kind is for the long view; we have use for the men who can see this nation in its relation to other nations, next year and next generation, and for men in business who can think in terms of 1922, and 1925, and 1945. That's what really big business can do--hold its breath under water and watch the waves.

To Mrs. Cordenio Severance

[Pasadena, March, 1921]

DEAR MAIDIE,--It is six in the morning. The sun is a long streak of salmon pink in a gray skirt of fog. Chanticleer is very loud and conquering. The little birds are twittering all about, in wisteria, in oranges; and over on the hillside, by the cherokee roses, there was a mocking bird that hailed the dawn, or its promise, an hour ago.

And for all this beauty, this gay cheer, this soul-lifting day- breaking I have you to thank. It is the one most exquisite spot in which I have ever laid my head. And pity is that I have been so down-cast that I could not feel fully what was here, nor show what I did feel.

Forgive me for my many ungraciousnesses and credit yourself, I beg, with having done all and everything that human hands and heart could do to make me "come back."

You have spent a lifetime doing good, giving out of your heart, and the only reward you can get is the evidence of understanding in paltry words like these.

F. K. L.

To Alexander Vogelsang Assistant Secretary of the Interior

Los Angeles, March 4, [1921]

DEAR ALECK,--The end has come. We were identified with an historic period, one of the great days of the world. And none can say that our part, of relatively slight importance maybe, was not well played. We did not strut and call the world to witness how well we