The Letters of Franklin K. Lane, Personal and Political Part 39

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 pa.s.sed. 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 ca.n.a.ls, 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 cla.s.ses 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 cla.s.s unrepresented in these two divisions--the managing cla.s.s 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