The Letters of Franklin K. Lane, Personal and Political Part 57

Please tell your dear Mother that I have her book, and last night read two chapters. I know Bok and did not think him capable of such a literary work, or that he had such character as his book reveals. ... My love to the Troop, and write just as often as you can.

F. K. L.

To Curt G. Pfeiffer

Pasadena, 22 [February, 1921]

MY DEAR OLD PFEIFFER,--I have treated you shamefully. Yes, I have, don't protest! But I have been pretending to be busy. Mr. Doheny wanted me to go to Mexico, and Anne did not want me to go, and I have had a hard time. They have gone and we have come out here with Mrs. Severance, in the loveliest hillside spot you ever saw.

Flowers and trees all about and mountains in the distance.

Wonderful land!

To-day I celebrated G. W.'s birthday by taking on a new doctor.

... Thought I had escaped from doctors but it is not so to be. ...

This is all my news. I do wish I were there to talk politics with you. Poor Harding! He will suffer the politicians, I fear, till they undo him. ...

The Germans seem to have recovered their audacity. They should have been driven into their own land and then some. I am not for revenge nor for their paralyzing, but just reparation they should pay. Perhaps things have been botched, I do not trust Briand. I'd trust Hoover to get all they could pay, and he's the only one I know who could be just and at the same time sensible in method, but he can't be used where he should be used. ...

March 31

... You are a delight and joy to a thirsty man, a true water carrier, you give of the water of life. For you know that men shall not live by bread alone. Not only words of wisdom, sage counsel, come from you, but there is a heart behind which does not wane with the years, but on the contrary grows stronger and more generous. I look forward to returning to New York to be able once again to feel with you the pleasure of an intellectual companionship, wherein the mind is so refined as to be emotionally sympathetic. You would take the greatest joy out of the beauty in which I am living. ... The night is fragrant (Do you remember telling me of that j.a.panese criterion?) with orange, wisteria, and jasmine. Oh, this is exquisite country, if I only had health! But there is little beauty where pain is, and my pain holds on even when I was with my brother on his farm, eighty acres, south of San Jose, tucked in the foothills--raises nothing but kindliness and a few vegetables and some hay. It is the sweetest place in its spirit I have ever felt, and lovely physically, too. I wish I could get you to go out there with me. Put up a comfortable adobe on the k.n.o.b of a hill with a wide prospect and then make things grow, including our own souls. ...

I'm going back there in a week or two, then East, I hope, to Ned's wedding. ... The girl is all a girl should be, I believe. Smaller than he is, a tiny thing in fact, very gentle in voice and manner, sweet natured, musical, wholesome.

... I still dream of that place on the Shepaug river, in Connecticut, where you think I would be lonesome. A winter here with George and a summer there with you, would quite suit me. ...

Well, write me, for books are not old friends after all, are they?

Forever and ever yours,

F. K. L.

Writing of the days of their youth Pfeiffer said later, "Friendships are inexplicable, they defy a.n.a.lysis, but whatever it was that we might be doing, we were usually in harmony about it. I can only explain it by saying that we liked each other. We liked each other just as we were, and we knew each other with intimacy that deepened with the years, and never disappointed us. The magic circle came later to include others, and they were accepted and appreciated with the same affection and trust. ... It is a singular and beautiful thing that such a multiple and intimate relationship should have survived throughout all of our lives.

Perhaps it was because we were friends without capitulation. ...

"Some of us did not meet again, after that first period, for years, but whenever we did meet, it was always in the spirit of the early days. A few words would tell us what we knew of the latest doings of the rest, and we would then 'carry on' just as if there had never been a break in our intercourse. The strength of our joint memories, based on our youthful experiences in common and added to from time to time, grew with the years."

To John G. Gehring

Pasadena, February 24, [1921]

MY DEAR DOCTOR-AND-MORE,--This is a note of cheer written by a somewhat dolorous duffer who spent last night in pain, but this morning is rather comfortable. ...

Am reading William James' Varieties of Religious Experience, and it is really the most helpful religious or philosophical work I have ever read. Nothing else anywhere near as good for the groping mind that wants to be led cautiously, reasonably, suggestively to the "Water of Life," but shown that there is water there. (Pretty poor figure, but perhaps understandable.) I must re-read his answer to the questionnaire in his Letters, and compare it with his conclusions in this book. You remember my thought that probably Emerson, William James, and Henry George had been the greatest writing minds we had produced. Probably you can improve on this.

Have been interested myself in thinking of a list of books that have made great movements in the world, Darwin's Descent of Man, for ill.u.s.tration. Books that have provoked the minds of men into action of one kind or another:--The Bible, Koran, in religions, of course! What started modern medicine? I mean in the way of a book?

What are, or have been, the great movements in history, anyway?

Wars, of course, don't count, when merely predatory.

Man's relation to G.o.d.

Man's relation to the World.

Man's relation to Man.

Man's relation to the Good.

Man's relation to the True.

Man's relation to the Beautiful.

These ought to cover Art, Science, Philosophy, Religion, Progress.

Civilization of every kind. And this progress has come in waves, hasn't it? Did any book start, or give evidence of the starting of these waves? That's the question. Outside religion and philosophy books were the results not the causes of movements. How true is that? As always and always,

F. K. L.

To D. M. Reynolds

Pasadena, [February, 1921]

I'm writing this late at night and will mail it in the morning, for I'm going to Santa Barbara for a couple of days. Do with it what you will. Judge for me what it is wise to say. And be as condensed as possible.

What I've written is to be dropped in at the right places, it is not conservative. Will see you next week, I hope, perhaps Sat.u.r.day.

F. K. LANE

Cooperation is the word of this century and we don't know what it means yet. We work together most imperfectly in things political, and we are just beginning to feel our way into the worlds of social and industrial life. I'm not afraid of socialism. I really don't know anyone who is. We're all afraid of blundering attempts at getting a thing called by that name, which is a mechanical method of bringing the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, without changing the human spirit.

The call for socialism or communism is generally a call for more of justice and of honesty and of fair dealing between men, rather than a demand for any particular and organized method of carrying on industrial life. If business is squarely conducted we won't try experiments in mechanicalizing and sterilizing business. But a few more years of profiteering, and Conservatives would have become Reds.

Now we should be studying and planning for a safer industrial life, one in which there will be fewer waves, a safer and more even sea. That we can have, if we are willing to be less greedy now, less venturesome and predatory.

The only people who have done much in the way of substantial thinking as to cooperative action, collective action, are those who think in terms of immediate and large fortunes for themselves, through plans of capitalizing combined brains and money. Their example is a good one to follow in lesser things, where the object is not great wealth but a more even measure of good living.

Insurance is the right word for it, business life insurance through honest cooperation. You mark my word, that is the next big move in business affairs. Nationalization of things is not their socialization. Not at all. It may mean their deserialization, their withdrawal from the use of society altogether, or their more imperfect use. Calling things by nice names, popular alluring names, does not solve problems. Nevertheless such names evidence our social dreams. We all feel that there must be more of justice in the economic world. But we don't want it at the expense of society, that is at our own expense, for that means Bolshevism and Bolshevism is paralysis. ...

Oil is one of the fine forms of Power that we know, for many purposes the handiest. Industrially it is as indispensable and staple as the soil itself. To lose faith in the future of oil-- why, that's as unthinkable as to lose faith in your hands. Oil, coal, electricity, what are these but multiplied and more adaptable, super-serviceable hands? They may temporarily be unemployed but the world can't go round without them.

A slack time is always one of fear, never of confidence. And no policies should be adopted in such an atmosphere. For the man who can afford to take the long view these are great days. He can take up what others cannot carry. Better still he can prepare for the demand of to-morrow, or the day after to-morrow--find more oil, if you please, plan for its fuller use, as we are talking of oil, but the principle applies to everything. Take the railroads. Their car shortage is mounting and their out-of-order equipment is way up.

This has always been so in hard times. But this is the very time when they should have plenty of money, to get road bed and equipment in perfect shape for to-morrow's rush. No, the nation would do no better if it had the roads. Congress doesn't think ahead two years. It is a reflector, not a generator. The fault is ours.

Right now the call in national affairs of every kind is for the long view; we have use for the men who can see this nation in its relation to other nations, next year and next generation, and for men in business who can think in terms of 1922, and 1925, and 1945. That's what really big business can do--hold its breath under water and watch the waves.

To Mrs. Cordenio Severance

[Pasadena, March, 1921]