The Letters of Franklin K. Lane, Personal and Political Part 44

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 embarra.s.s 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 circ.u.mstances. 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 G.o.d 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 a.s.sures me that you are very happy, notwithstanding your marriage and your new religion, for which I am glad. An even better a.s.surance 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 a.s.set. 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 d.a.m.ned world is d.a.m.ned 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d'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 pa.s.sion, 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 pa.s.sed 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 d.a.m.n. 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 inst.i.tutions. 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 pa.s.sion? 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 pa.s.sion 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 pa.s.sionate 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 n.o.bler 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 n.o.ble 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]