The Letters of Franklin K. Lane, Personal and Political Part 10

TO LAWRENCE F. ABBOTT OUTLOOK

Washington, December 4, 1911

MY DEAR ABBOTT,-- ... We are making history fast these days, and at the bottom of it all lies the idea, in the minds of the American people, that they are going to use this machine they call the Government. For the centuries and centuries that have pa.s.sed, government has been something imposed from above, to which the subject or citizen must submit. For the first century of our national life this idea has held good. Now, however, the people have grown in imagination, so that they appreciate the fact that the government is very little more than a cooperative inst.i.tution in which there is nothing inherently sacred, excepting in so far as it is a crystallization of general sentiment and is a good working arrangement. And the feeling with relation to big business, when we get down to the bottom of it, is that if men have made these tremendous fortunes out of privileges granted by the whole people, we can correct this by a change in our laws.

They do not object to men making any amount of money so long as the individual makes it, but if the Government makes it for him, that is another matter.

I have been meeting ... with some of the committees, in Congress and out, that are drafting bills regulating trusts, and I expect something by no means radical as a starter.

You ask as to leadership in both Houses. There is not much in the Lower House that can be relied upon to do constructive work, so far as I can discover. Our Democratic leaders all wear hobble skirts. But in the Senate there is some very good stuff.

I expect to be in New York in January, and then I hope to see you.

Very truly yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

When he was running for Governor in 1902, Lane made prison reform one of the foremost issues of his campaign. Several years later when a movement was started pet.i.tioning the Governor to parole Abraham Ruef, who had served a part of his term in the penitentiary for bribery in San Francisco, Lane signed the pet.i.tion. This brought a letter of remonstrance from his friend Charles McClatchy, editor and owner of the Sacramento Bee, who felt that such a movement was ill-timed and not in the interest of the public good.

TO CHARLES K. MCCLATCHY SACRAMENTO BEE

Washington, December 12, 1911

MY DEAR CHARLES,--I have your letter regarding the paroling of Abraham Ruef, and, far from taking offense at what you say, I know that it expresses the opinion of probably the great body of our people, but I have long thought that we dealt with criminals in a manner which tended to keep them as criminals and altogether opposed to the interests of society. I am not sentimental on this proposition, but I think I am sensible. We are dealing with men convicted of crime more harshly and more unreasonably than we deal with dogs. Our fundamental mistake is that we utterly ignore the fact that there is such a thing as psychology. We are treating prisoners with the methods of five hundred years ago, before anything was known about the nature of the human mind. ... There are, of course, certain kinds of men who should for society's sake be kept in prison as long as they live, just as there are kinds of insane people that should be kept in insane asylums until they die. ...

I think if you will get the thought into your mind that our present penal system is Silurian and unscientific--the same to-day as it was 10,000 years ago--you will see my stand-point. Our penitentiaries develop criminals, they make criminals out of men who are not criminals to begin with--boys, for instance. They debase and degrade men. The state by its system of punishment reaches into the heart of a man and plucks out his very soul. I am speaking of men who are when they enter responsive to good impulses. ...

I thoroughly appreciate the spirit in which you have written me, and I hope that you will get my point of view. I have known Abe Ruef for over twenty-five years. He was a perfectly straight young man and anxious to help in San Francisco. I do not know the influences that turned him into the direction that he took, but I am absolutely certain that that man has suffered mental tortures greater than any that he would have ever suffered if he had gone to a physical h.e.l.l of fire. He may appear brave, but he is in fact, I will warrant you, a heart-broken man, because he has failed of realizing his own decent ideals. ... He never was my friend, politically, socially, or otherwise, but my judgment is that society will be better off if he is allowed the limited freedom that a parole gives and given an opportunity to live up to his own ideal of Abe Ruef.

Regards to Val, your wife, and family. As always, faithfully yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO CHARLES K. MCCLATCHY SACRAMENTO BEE

[Washington, January, 1912]

MY DEAR CHARLES,--I have your note regarding Ruef. ... It seems to me you have made one good point against me, and only one,--that there are poor men in jail who ought to be paroled at the end of a year. Very well, why not parole them? If they are men who have been reached by public opinion and are subject to it, I see no reason why they should be kept in jail. Every case must be dealt with by itself and to each case should be given the same kind of treatment that I give to Ruef. You will be advocating this thing yourself one of these days, calling it Christian and civilized and denouncing those who do not agree with you as being barbarians. It may be that Ruef fooled me when he was just out of college, but I was a member of the Munic.i.p.al Reform League which John H. Wigmore, now Dean of the Northwestern University Law School, Ruef and myself started. It did not last very long, but I think that Ruef was as zealous as any of us for good government.

With many wishes for the New Year, believe me always, my dear Charles, yours faithfully,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO JOHN CRAWFORD BURNS LONDON, ENGLAND

December 13, 1911

MY DEAR BURNS,--I have felt grievously hurt, at hearing from Pfeiffer several times, that you had written him, and nary a word to me. The idea that I should write to you when you had nothing in the world to do but write me, never entered my head. I want you to understand distinctly the position which you now occupy in the minds of your friends. You are a gentleman of leisure, traveling in Europe with an invalid wife, necessarily bored, and anxious to meet with anything that will give you an interesting life. Under the circ.u.mstances, you may relieve your mind at any time, of any intellectual bile, by correspondence. ... If you wish something serious to do, I will formally direct you to make a report upon Railway Rates and Railway Service in Europe. This will give you some diversion in between your attacks of religion and architecture.

Pfeiffer, I presume, has returned from the Far West, but so far I have not heard from him. The last letter I got was from the Yosemite. He seems to have been enchanted with that country. He says there is nothing in Europe to compare with it. It is splendid to see a fellow of his age, and with all of his learning, keep up his enthusiasm. It seems to me that he is more appreciative and buoyant than he was twenty years ago, and he is really very sane.

His sympathies, unlike yours, are with the present and not with the dead past.

You will be interested in knowing that Mr. T. Roosevelt is likely to be the next Republican nominee for President. Within the last six weeks it has become quite manifest that Taft cannot be elected. ... And so you see, the whirligig of time has made another turn. Big Business in New York is looking to Roosevelt as a statesman who is practical. The West regards him as the champion of the plain people. He is keeping silent, but no doubt like the negro lady he is quite willing to be "fo'ced."

On the Democratic side all of the forces have united to destroy Wilson, who is the strongest man in the West. The bosses are all against him. They recently produced an application which he had made for a pension, under the Carnegie Endowment Fund for Teachers, which had been allowed to lie idle, unnoticed for a year or so after its rejection, but owing to campaign emergencies was produced, at this happy moment, to show that Wilson wanted a pension. As a Philadelphia poet whom you never heard of says:--

"Ah, what a weary travel is our act, Here, there, and back again, to win some prize, Those who are wise their voyage do contract To the safe s.p.a.ce between each others' eyes."

This line is in keeping with my reputation as an early Victorian.

... Do write me some good long letters. You have a better literary style than any man who ever wrote a letter to me, and I love you for the prejudices that are yours. Give my love to your wife. As always yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANES

TO THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Washington, December 10, 1911

MY DEAR COLONEL,--I have been thinking over what I said yesterday, and I am going to presume upon my friendship and, I may say, my affection for you to make a suggestion:

Even though the call comes from a united party and under circ.u.mstances the most flattering, do not accept it unless you are convinced of two things: (1) that you are needed from a national standpoint and not merely from a party standpoint; (2) that you are certain of election.

Sacrifice for one's country is splendid, but sacrifice for one's party is foolish. You must feel a.s.sured before acceding to the call, which I believe will certainly come, that it is more than party-wide, and that it is sufficiently strong to overcome the trend toward Democratic success. If I were asked I would say that I think both of these conditions are present--that the desire to have you again is much broader than any party, and so large that it would insure your victory;--but no man is as wise a judge of these things as the man himself whose fortunes are at stake.

Thanking you again for the pleasure of a luncheon, believe me, as always, faithfully yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

Roosevelt in a letter marked PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL replied:-- ... "That is a really kind and friendly letter from you, and I appreciate it. Now I agree absolutely with you that I have no business under any circ.u.mstances to accept any such call, even in the greatly improbable event of its coming, unless I am convinced that the need is National, a need of the people and not merely a need of the Party. But as for considering my own chances in any such event, my dear fellow, I simply would not know how to go about it. I am always credited with far more political sagacity than I really possess. I act purely on public grounds and then this proves often to be good policy too. I a.s.sure you with all possible sincerity that I have not thought and am not thinking of the nomination, and that under no circ.u.mstances would I in the remotest degree plan to bring about my nomination. I do not want to be President again, I am not a candidate, I have not the slightest idea of becoming a candidate, and I do not for one moment believe that any such condition of affairs will arise that would make it necessary to consider me accepting the nomination.

But as for the effect upon my own personal fortunes, I would not know how to consider it, because I would not have the vaguest idea what the effect would be, except that according to my own view it could not but be bad and unpleasant for me personally. From the personal standpoint I should view the nomination to the Presidency as a real and serious misfortune. Nothing would persuade me to take it, unless it appeared that the people really wished me to do a given job, which I could not honorably shirk. ..."

TO SAMUEL G. BLYTHE

Washington, January 6, 1912

MY DEAR SAM,--... I, too, have been reading William James. His VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE is the only philosophic work that I was ever able to get all the way through. This thing gave me real delight for a week.

Have just read Mr. John Bigelow's REMINISCENCES, or bits thereof, and find that the aforesaid John is much like another John that we know in this city, the fine friend of the Pan-American Bureau. He seems to have been a dignified and solemn gentleman who carried on correspondence with a great many men for a number of years, without ... having indulged in a flash of humor in all his respectable days. ...