The Letters of Franklin K. Lane, Personal and Political
wherever possible, and interviewed all those who wished to see him
upon business from seven in the morning until twelve or one at
night. Sometimes, in a day, he went a hundred and fifty miles in
an automobile, spoke to many groups of farmers in different
places, heard their complaints against the Department, and told
them what the Government was trying to do for them.
During this first tour of inspection Lane reached Portland,
Oregon, the latter part of August, and received a telegram from
the President asking him to go directly to Denver, there to
represent the President and address the Conference of Governors,
on August 26th.
Lane left the completion of the proposed itinerary of
investigation, in Oregon, to Miller and turned back to Colorado.
He made the opening address at the Governors' Conference and then
rejoined his party in San Francisco, the first of September. Here,
after several days of conferences and speeches, while standing in
the sun reviewing the Admission Day parade of the Native Sons, he
collapsed. This proved to be an attack of the angina pectoris
which, several years later, returned with violence. For three
weeks he was ill, but at the end of that time, against the
doctor's orders, he insisted upon returning to Washington to his
work.
To Mark Sullivan Collier's Weekly
Washington, November 6, 1913
MY DEAR SULLIVAN,--I want to thank you for your sympathetic notice
regarding my hard luck out in California, and to let you know that
I am in just as good shape now as I have been for twenty years.
At the end of your little comment you spoke of conditions in the
lower grades of the Department as being almost as bad as if they
were corrupt. I have not your article before me, but I think this
is the meat of it. I wish you would tell me just what you mean by
this. I know that lots of things come to men like you that do not
reach my ears, although I have retained pretty well my old
newspaper faculty of smoking things out.
If we have anything here that is almost rotten, I want to know it
before it gets thoroughly rotten. I have found a lot of things
that were wrong, and have set most of them right. There has
already been a great improvement; for instance, in Indian
affairs. Under the last Administration, for example, the highest
bid on 200,000 acres of Indian oil lands was one-eighth royalty
and a bonus of one dollar an acre. We recently leased 10,000 of
these same acres at one-sixth royalty and a bonus of $500,000.
I have had an examination made into probate matters, in Oklahoma,
and found an appalling condition of things. In one county where
there are six thousand probate cases pending, all involving the
interests of Indian minors, the guardians in three thousand cases
were delinquent in filing reports, and otherwise in complying with
the law. This week I have arranged with the Five Civilized Tribes
to institute a cooperative method of checking up all of these
accounts and giving them personal consideration; especially
appointing an attorney to look after the interests of these minors
in each of the counties in eastern Oklahoma. We are to aid the
Oklahoma courts in cleaning up the State.
Let me have any facts that will be of help. Cordially yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
To Edward M. House
Washington, November 19, 1913
MY DEAR COLONEL,--I had a call last Sunday morning from Mr. Blank
of New York, who came to feel me out on the reorganization of the
Democratic party in New York City, with particular reference to
the question of how to treat one William R. Hearst ...
... [He] has been working for some years, evidently in more or
less close but indirect alliance with Hearst, through Clarence
Shearn and a man named O'Reilly, who is Hearst's political
secretary. In re-creating the Democratic organization in New York,
he felt it necessary to take Hearst's assistance.
I was perfectly frank with him, saying that Hearst would be
pleased no doubt to reorganize a new Tammany Hall, or any other
Democratic organization, provided he could run it. He would stand
in with anybody and be as gentle as a queen dove for the purpose
of destroying the existing organization, but that he was a very
overbearing and arbitrary man, with whom no one could work in
creating a new organization, unless he regarded himself as an
employee of Hearst. Moreover, I did not see how it was possible to
take Hearst and his crowd, even on a minority basis, so long as
they were fighting the Administration, and that I understood
Hearst had recently more emphatically than ever read himself out
of the Democratic Party. I told Blank that ... I should not expect
any cooperation between the Federal Government and an organization
in which Hearst was a factor. However, I said that I knew nothing
whatever as to the feeling of any member of the Cabinet or the
President respecting the matter, because I had not discussed the
matter with them.
... I am writing this because I want you to know what is going on.
Evidently Blank came over from New York on the midnight train and
had no other business here except to see me, and perhaps others,
on this matter. ... Cordially yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
When President Wilson took Franklin K. Lane from the Interstate
Commerce Commission to put him in his Cabinet there arose the
question of his successor, on the Commission. After consulting
Lane, the President appointed in his place, John Marble, also of
California. A few months after his appointment Mr. Marble died
suddenly, and Lane lost one of his closest friends.
To James H. Barry San Francisco Star
Washington, December 1, 1913
MY DEAR JIM,--I didn't get your telegram until Monday, but I had
taken care of you in the same way that I took care of myself, in
regard to flowers. I bought three bunches, one for you, one for
Mrs. Lane, and one for myself.
The most surprising thing, my dear Jim, is the manner in which
Mrs. Marble has taken John's death. We took her to our house,
where the morning after his death she told me that she had talked
with him; that he had chided her on breaking down constantly.
Since then, both morning and evening, she says she has seen him
and talked with him. The result is a spirit on her part almost of
gayety, at times. She is really reconciled to his going, because
he has told her that it was best and that he has other work to do.
I don't know what to say of all this. It mystifies me. It has
tended greatly to support me against the depth of sorrow which I
felt at the beginning. There is no evidence of hysteria on her
part, whatever. She dictated to Mrs. Lane, who was sitting beside
her, some of the things that John said to her. It certainly is a
glorious belief, at such a time, and I am not prepared to say that
it is not so, and that its manifestations are not real.
... It is an impossible thing to get a man to take his place,
either on the Commission or in our hearts. I believe that he
worked himself to death ... Affectionately yours,
F. K. L.
To Edward F. Adams
Washington, January 10, 1914
MY DEAR MR. ADAMS,-- ... Our most difficult problem is that of
water. Colorado, for instance, claims that all of the water that
falls within her borders can be used and should be used
exclusively for the development of Colorado lands. Southern
California has made a protest against my giving rights of way in
the upper reaches of the Colorado for the diversion of water on to
Colorado lands saying that Imperial Valley is entitled to the full
normal flow of the Colorado. The group of men who hold land in
Mexico south of the Imperial Valley make the same claim. Arizona
wishes to have a large part of this water used on her soil, and
the people of Colorado are divided as to whether the water should
be carried over on to the eastern side of the Rockies or allowed
to flow down in its natural channel on the western side.
We have a similar trouble as to the Rio Grande, which rises in
Colorado, where the Coloradans claim all the water can be used and
can be put to the highest beneficial use. New Mexico, Texas, and
Old Mexico all claim their right to the water for all kinds of
purposes. If we recognize Colorado's full claim there is probably
enough water in Colorado to irrigate all of her soil, but portions
of Wyoming, Nebraska, Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and
Utah would remain desert.
If you can tell me how to solve this problem so as to recognize
the right that you claim Colorado has, and to maintain the rights
that the Federal Government and the adjoining States have, I shall
certainly be deeply grateful.
With all good wishes for the New Year, believe me as always,
affectionately yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
The Hon. Woodrow Wilson The White House
Washington, March 11, 1914
MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT,--I have your note of yesterday referring to
me the correspondence between yourself and the Civil Service
Commission on the question of the participation of women Civil
Service employees in woman suffrage organizations. I think perhaps
I am a prejudiced partisan in this matter for I believe that the
women should have the right to agitate for the suffrage.
Furthermore, I think they are going to get the suffrage, and that
it would be politically unwise for the administration to create
the impression that it was attempting to block the movement. I
should think it the part of wisdom for you personally to make the
announcement that women Civil Service employees will be protected
in the right to join woman suffrage organizations and to
participate in woman suffrage parades or meetings. This is
practically what the Civil Service Commission says, but in a more
careful, lawyer-like manner, whereas whatever is said should be
said in a rather robust, forthright style. The real thing that we
are after in making regulations as to political activity is to
keep those who are in the employ of the Government from using
their positions to further their personal ends or to serve some
political party. What they may do as individuals outside of the
Government offices is none of our business, so long as they do
nothing toward breaking it down as a merit service, do not
discredit the service, or render themselves unfit for it ...
The spoils system is a combination of gratitude and blackmail. The
merit system is an attempt to secure efficiency without
recognizing friendship or fear. We can safely allow the
participation of merit system employees in an agitation so long as
they do not go to the point where official advantage may be had
through the agitation by securing a reward through party success
...
I believe you might well make a statement of two or three hundred
words in which you could state your decision with the philosophy
that underlies it, in such a manner as to make the women
understand that you are taking a liberal attitude and yet
protecting the full spirit of the Civil Service idea. Cordially
yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
In March 1914, for the second time, Lane was invited to the
University of California to receive a degree. This was an honor
from his Alma Mater that he greatly desired. The previous year,
the reorganization of his Department and the pressure of new work,
had made it impossible for him to leave Washington. But this year
he had promised to go.
To Benjamin Ide Wheeler President, University of California
Washington, 13 [March, 1914] [The day I was to be with you.]
MY DEAR DOCTOR,--I was prepared to leave last Friday--tickets,
reservations all secured. I had made a mighty effort. My
conservation bills were not all out of Committee but I had
arranged to get them out. The House was to caucus and the Senate