The Letters of Franklin K. Lane, Personal and Political
TO SIDNEY E. MEZES
PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
Washington, September 7, 1915
MY DEAR SID,--I enclose a more formal letter for presentation to
your friend, Baron de--. Why in hell you should plague me with
this thing, except that I am the only real good-natured man
connected with the Government, I don't understand. Speaking of
good nature reminds me that you are a clam; in fact, a clam is
vociferous alongside of you.
As you know I have been guiding the affairs of this Government for
the past three months, and have received advice from every man,
woman, and child in the country, including the German-American
Union, the Independent Union, the Friends of Peace, the Sons of
Hibernia, and all the other troglodytes that live; and yet, you
alone have not thought me of sufficient consequence to advise me
as to what to do with the Kaiser or Carranza or Hoke Smith or
Roosevelt.
Before you go back to work why don't you come down here and spend
a day or two? We can have a perfectly bully time, and I will tell
you how to run your University and you can tell me how to run the
Government. ...
I have not seen House nor heard from him, though I have wanted to
talk with him more than with any other human being, these three
months gone. Yours as always,
F. K. L.
TO CORDENIO SEVERANCE
Washington, September 13, 1915
MY DEAR CORDY,--I envy you very much the opportunity that you have
to entertain Miss Nancy Lane. [Footnote: Born January 4, 1903.]
When she is herself, she is a most charming young lady. She has
powers of fascination excelled by few. If she grows angry, owing
to her artistic temperament, and throws plates at you or chases
you out of the house with a broom, you must forgive her because
you know that great artists like Sarah Bernhardt often have this
failing.
Perhaps you do not know it, but she used to be a great violinist
in her younger days. I doubt if she knows one string from another
now. The only strings that she can play on are your heart strings,
or mine, or any other man's that comes into her neighborhood. I
shall rely upon your honor not to propose to her, because she is
already engaged to me; in fact, we have been engaged nearly twelve
years, and if she should become engaged to you, I will sue you for
stealing her affections and will engage the firm of Davis Kellogg
and Severance to prosecute my suit. If she says anything about a
desire to get back to school, you can put it down as a bluff, and
I trust that you will not swamp her with attentions and with
company lest it should turn her head. She is accustomed to the
simple life--a breakfast of oatmeal porridge, a luncheon of boiled
macaroni, and a dinner of hash--these are the three things that
she is used to. If she shows any disposition to be affectionate
toward you or Aunt Maidie, I trust that you will repress her with
an iron hand. The young women of this day, as you know, are very
forward, and these new dances seem to be especially designed to
destroy maiden modesty.
... You may tell her that her brother seems to be very anxious to
hear from her, being solicitous two or three times a day as to the
mail. I judge from this that he is expecting a letter from her--or
someone else.
You are very good to be giving my little one such a fine time. My
love to Maidie. Cordially yours,
F. K. L.
TO FREDERICK DIXON
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
Washington, October 7, 1915
DEAR MR. DIXON,--I have your letter of October 1st. You have asked
me a very difficult question, which is really this:--How to get
into a man's nature an appreciation of our form of government and
its benefits?
I cannot answer this question. There are certain natures which do
not sympathize with the exercise of or the development of common
authority, which is the essence of Democracy. They are
instinctively monarchists. They love order more than liberty. They
do not see how a balance can be struck between the two. By force
of environment and education their sons may see otherwise. I know
of no other way of making Americans, than by getting into them by
environment and education a love for liberty and a recognition of
its advantages. Cordially yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
TO ROBERT H. PATCHIN
Washington, November 27, 1915
MY DEAR PATCHIN,--Mrs. Lane and I would be delighted to join in
your fiesta to Mrs. Eleanor Egan, but we just can't. Why? Because
we have a dinner on December 2nd, also because we are neutral. ...
We can not countenance any one who has been in jail. To have been
in jail proves poverty. Nor do we regard it as fitting that a
young woman should have been torpedoed and spent forty-five
minutes in the water splashing around like Mrs. Lecks or Mrs.
Aleshine. If she was torpedoed why didn't she go down or up like a
heroine? Then she would have had an atrocious iron statue erected
in her honor among the other horrors in Central Park. After her
experience she will doubtless be more sympathetic toward those of
us who are torpedoed daily and weekly and monthly and have to
splash around for the amusement of a curious public.
I hope your dinner of welcome and rejoicing will be as gay as the
cherubic smile of the Right Honorable Egan. Cordially,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
TO FRANCIS R. WALL
Washington, November 27, 1915
MY DEAR WALL,--I wish that I had time for a long letter to you,
such as yours to me. But I am only to-day able to get at my
personal correspondence which has accumulated in the last six
weeks. These have been times of annual reports and estimates, and
we have a large number of internal troubles which need constant
attention.
I am afraid that we are going to have a great deal of trouble in
getting our preparedness program through, because of dissension in
our own ranks and because the Republicans are so anxious to take
advantage of this emergency to raise the tariff duties and to gain
credit for whatever is done in the way of preparation. We are too
much dominated by partisanship to be really patriotic. This is a
very broad indictment, but it seems to be justified. Of course,
the people like Bryan and Ford, and the women generally, are moved
by a philosophy that is too idealistic, and some of them are only
moved, I fear, by an intense exaggerated ego. If I would have to
name the one curse of the present day, I would say it is the love
of notoriety and the assumption by almost everyone that his
judgment is as good as that of the ablest. Of course, the trouble
with the ablest people is that they are so largely moved by forces
that do not appear on the surface, that one does not know that the
views they express are really their own judgment. Democracy seems
to be government by suspicion, in large part. We have faith in
ourselves, but not in each other. A man to be a good partisan
seems called upon to believe that every man of different view is a
crook or a weakling. This is the Roosevelt idea. And half of it is
the Bryan idea.
I wish that I could see you, old man, and have one of our old time
talks. ...
I shall bear in mind what you say as to the availability of your
service, but I hope it may not be necessary to take you from that
land of sunshine and dreams that seems so remote from this center
of intrigue and trouble. Affectionately yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
TO JOHN H. WIGMORE
Washington, December 8, 1915
MY DEAR JOHN,-- ... Things are not looking at all nice as to
Germany and Austria. I know that the country is not satisfied, at
least part of it, with our patience, but I don't see just what
else we can do but be patient. Our ships are not needed anywhere,
and our soldiers do not exist. To-day brings word of the blowing
up of an American ship. Of course, we do not know the details but
the thing looks ugly.
Wasn't the President's message on the hyphenated gentlemen bully?
You could not have beaten that yourself. And your dear friend T.
Roosevelt, did certainly write himself down as one large and
glorious ass in his criticism of the message. He hates Wilson so,
that he has just lost his mind. I wish I didn't have to say this
about Roosevelt, because I am extremely fond of him (which you are
not), but a poorer interview on the message could not have been
written. ... As always yours,
F. K. L.
The following letter was written to Mrs. Adolph Miller when she
was in a hospital in New York.
TO MRS. ADOLPH C. MILLER
Washington, December 12, [1915]
MY DEAR MARY,--We have just returned from Church and all morning I
have been thinking of you and Adolph--praying for you I suppose
in my Pagan way.
Poor dear girl, I know you are brave but I'd just like to hold
your hand or look steadily into your eyes, to tell you that you
have the best thing that this world gives--friends who are one
with you. I can see old Adolph with his grimness and his great
love, which makes him more grim and far more mandatory, what a
sturdy old Dutch Calvinist he is! He really is more Dutch than
German--Dutch modified by the California sun--and Calvinist
sweetened by you and Boulder Creek, and Berkeley and William James
and B. I. Wheeler and his Saint of a Mother. Well, let him pass,
why should I talk of him when you really want me to talk of
myself!
Last night we had the GRIDIRON dinner, and the President made an
exalted speech. He is spiritually great, Mary, and don't you dare
smile and think of the widow! We are all dual, old Emerson said it
in his ESSAY ON FREE WILL, and Adolph can tell you what old Greek
said it. And this duality is where the fight comes in, and the two
people walk side by side, to-day is Jekyll's day, and tomorrow is
Hyde's, and so they alternate.
Well, the GRIDIRON was a grind on Bryan and Villard and Ford, and
a boost for preparedness and Garrison and the Army and Navy. Tell
Adolph they had a Democratic mule, two men walking together under
a cover, the head end reasonable, the hind end kicking--the front
end of course represented the Wilson crowd and the hind end the
Bryan-Kitchin,--and the two wouldn't work together. The whole
thing was splendidly done and was a lesson to the few Democrats
who were there--which they won't learn.
Nancy went to her second party last night--a joyous thing in a new
evening cloak of old rose, which made her feel that Cleopatra and
the Queen of Sheba and Mrs. Galt and all other exalted ladies had
nothing on her. What a glorious thing life would be if we could
remain children, with all the simple joys and none of the horrors
that age brings on. There is certainly a good fifty per cent
chance that this fine spirit will marry some damn brute who will
worry and harass the soul out of her. For so the world goes. I
hope she'll be as fortunate as you have been.
To-night we go to the Polks to see Mrs. Martin Egan who was on a
torpedoed ship in the Mediterranean, and although she couldn't
swim floated forty-five minutes till rescued. You must know the
Polks well. She has very real charm and your old Mormon of a
husband will desert his other fairies for her.
Now I have gossiped and preached and prophesied and mourned and
otherwise revealed what passes through a wandering mind in half an
hour, so I send you, at the close of this screed, my blessing,
which is a poor gift, and I would send you the parcel post limit
of my love if it weren't for Anne and Adolph, who are narrow-
minded Dutch Calvinists. May good fortune betide you and bring you
back very soon to the many whose hearts are sympathetic.
FRANK
TO MRS. MAGNUS ANDERSEN
Washington, D.C., December 24, [1915]
MY DEAR MAUDIE,--It is Christmas eve, and while Nancy and Anne are
filling the mysterious stockings, I am writing these letters to
the best of brothers and sister. It has been a long, a
disgracefully long time since I wrote you, but I have kept in