The Letters of Franklin K. Lane, Personal and Political Part 45

... 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 l.u.s.tily 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 d.a.m.ned 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 circ.u.mstances. 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 att.i.tude toward my colleagues than any can have who do not know the circ.u.mstances 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 embarra.s.sment 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 ent.i.tled to have a.s.surance 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 inst.i.tutions, 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 subst.i.tute for what is. The dog that dropped the meat to get the shadow of a bigger piece is the cla.s.sical 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 inst.i.tutions as the Const.i.tutional League which, however, can not do for each of us the duty that is ours of living the spirit of our Const.i.tution. Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE