The Letters of Franklin K. Lane, Personal and Political Part 49

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 a.s.sumption.

[Ill.u.s.tration with caption: FRANKLIN K. LANE IN 1917. TAKEN IN LAFAYETTE NATIONAL PARK]

What a h.e.l.l 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! c.o.x, 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 G.o.ds 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 j.a.pan, 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 d.a.m.nedest 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 compet.i.tion 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 trans.m.u.tation of bra.s.s 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 d.a.m.n fools, like myself, and do things too strenuously, and then go bang. d.a.m.n that Irish temperament, anyway! O G.o.d, 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. G.o.d 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.