The Letters of Franklin K. Lane, Personal and Political
fiendish. He has to have more light. But I really don't believe
there is any such fellow, who clearly sees what he did and
rejoices in it. All of us sing, "I want to be an angel." THERE is
the whole of revelation, and all things that tend to make us
gratify that desire are good. I guess that is pragmatism, in words
of one syllable.
You see that all religion comes from a desire to know something
definite. We prayed logically, in the old time, to the devil and
tried to propitiate him, so that harm would not come to us. That
is stage number one in our climb. Then we find the good spirit and
pray to him to whip the devil, which is stage number two. Then we
ask the good spirit to give us strength to whip the devil
ourselves. That is stage number three. Buddha and Christ come in
the number three stage, and that is where we are. We may find, as
stage number four, that the good spirit is only a muscle in our
brain or a fluid in our nerves, which we strengthen, and become
masters of ourselves--greater, stronger, more clear-sighted--
without any OUTSIDE Great Spirit. That we are all things in
ourselves, and that we are, in making ourselves, making the God. I
fancy that is Pfeiffer's idea. It is Mezes', I believe. Then comes
in the mystery of transmitting that highly developed spirit. A
woman of such a super-soul may marry a man of most carnal nature
whose children are held down to earth and gross things, and her
fine spirit is lost, unless it lives elsewhere. So we come back to
the question, how is the good preserved? "Never any bright thing
dies," may be true, but if so it means an immortality of the
spirit. This is all confusion and despair. We do not see where we
are going. But we must climb, we must grow, we must do better, for
the same reason that our bodies must feed. The rest we leave with
all the other mysteries ...
July 28, 1916
I am going to dinner ... and before I go alone into a lonesome
club, I must send a word to you. Not that I have any particular
word to say, for my mind is heavy, nor that you will find in what
I may say anything that will illumine the way, but why should we
not talk? What! may a friend not call upon a friend in time of
vacancy to listen to his idle babble? O these pestiferous dealers
in facts and these prosy philosophers, the world must have
surcease from them and wander in the great spaces. To idle
together in the sweet fields of the mind--this is companionship,
when thoughts come not by bidding, and argument is taboo; to have
the mind as open as that of a child for all impressions, and speak
as the skylark sings, this is the mood that proves companionship.
I shall be lonely to-night, going into a modern monastery and
driving home alone. The world is all people to me. I lean upon
them. They induce thought and fancy. They give color to my life.
They keep me from looking inward, where, alas! I never find that
which satisfies me. For of all men I am most critical of myself.
Others when they go to bed or sit by themselves may chuckle over
things well done; or find satisfaction in the inner life, as
George does; but not so with me. Thrown on myself I am a stranded
bark upon a foreign shore. And this I know is not as it should be.
Each one should learn to stand alone and find in contemplation and
in fancy the rich material with which to fashion some new fabric,
or build more solidly the substance of his soul.
I like to have you talk, as in your latest letter, of the making
of yourself. It seems so much more possible than that I could do
the same. But I am a miserable groping creature, cast on a sea of
doubt, rejecting one spar to grasp another, and crying all the
time against the storm, for help. I do not know another man who
has tortured himself so insistently with the problems that are
unsolvable. You are firmer in your grasp, and when you get
something you cling to it and push your way like a practical
person toward the shore, that shore of solid earth which is NOT,
but by the pushing you realize the illusion, or the reality, of
progress.
Here I am talking loosely of the greatest things, and perhaps
pedantically; well, we agreed to talk, didn't we, of anything and
everything? You have the birds, the lake, the mountains beyond,
the children next door, and the Fairy all our own, and I have my
desk to look at and outside brick blocks and the sky. If I ever do
hypnotize myself into any kind of faith, or find contentment in
any one thing, it will be the sky. The reason I like the water is
because it is so much like the sky. There is an amplitude in it
that gives me chance for infinite wanderings. The clouds and the
stars are somehow the most companionable of all things that do not
walk and talk.
Well, we have walked a bit together and have come to the edge of
the field where we look off and see the unending stretch of
prairie and the great dome. ...
FRANK
To William R. Wheeler
Washington, August 21, 1916
MY DEAR BILL,--Owing to your departure I have been laid up in bed,
ill for a week. You left on Thursday and on Friday night I went to
bed ... The doctors don't know what I had, excepting that I had
things with "itis" at the end of them. I have had allopaths,
Christian Scientists, osteopaths, and Dockweilers. The latter has
been my nurse at night, his chief service being to keep me
interested in the variety of his snoring. I really have had one
damn hell of a time. The whole back and top of my head blew out,
and I expected an eruption of lava to flow down my back. The only
explanation of it is a combination of air-drafts and a little too
much work and worry. I am now somewhat weak, but otherwise in
pretty good condition ...
I have no intention of saying anything in reply to Pinchot. He
wrote me thirty pages to prove that I was a liar, and rather than
read that again I will admit the fact.
My regards to the Lady Alice Isabel. As always affectionately
yours,
FRANKLIN K. LAKE
To James Harlan
[August, 1916]
MY DEAR JIM,--I am writing you from my bed where I have been laid
up for a few days with a hard dose of tonsillitis. Don't know what
happened but the wicked bug got me and I have suffered more than
was good for my slender soul.
I am so glad to hear of your Mother's improvement. Bless her noble
heart! I hope she lives a long time to give you the inspiration of
that beautiful smile.
The Mexican business does not hasten as I had hoped. Brandeis'
withdrawal was a great surprise to us and I can't quite understand
it. Meantime the railroad situation engrosses our attention fully,
and Mexico can wait ...
Hughes' speeches have been a surprise and disappointment to me ...
One might fancy a candidate for Congress doing no better but not a
man of such record and position. I think your dear old party
relies upon holding the regular party men out of loyalty and
protection, and buying enough Democrats and crooks to get the
majority. But I don't believe it can be done. The Republican
organization is perfect, but the people are not as gullible as
once they were.
Tell me some more about the Latin-American. How much form should I
put on? Can you warm up to them? How do you get the truth out of
them? And how do you get them to stay by their word? What are they
suspicious of, silence or volubility? Do they expect you to ask
for more than you expect to get? Do they appreciate candor and
fair dealing, or must you be crafty and indirect? If they expect
the latter I am not the man for the job, but I can be patient and
listen. My love to the Lady Maud.
FRANK
To Hon. Woodrow Wilson
The White House
Washington, August 28, 1916
MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT,--I have had talks this morning with three
men, all of them Democrats, all of them strongly for you under any
circumstances. None of them are related to railroads or to labor
unions. Two of them have recently been out of this city and
believe that they have a knowledge of the feeling of the country.
All express the same view and I want to tell it to you in case you
write a message to Congress.
They say that the people do not grasp the meaning of your
statement that society has made its judgment in favor of an eight-
hour day. This, the people think, is a matter that can be
arbitrated. They ask why can't it be arbitrated? They say that the
country feels that you have lined yourself up with the labor
unions irrevocably for an eight-hour day, as against the railroads
who wish to arbitrate the necessity for putting in an eight-hour
day immediately, and irrespective of the additional cost to the
railroads. They say that the men are attempting to bludgeon the
railroads into granting their demand which has not been shown to
the people to be reasonable. This demand is that the men should
have ten hours pay for eight hours work or less. They say that if
this question cannot be arbitrated, the railroads must yield on
every question and that freight rates and passenger rates instead
of going down, as they have for the past twenty years, must
inevitably increasingly go up. They say that the people do not
realize that you have been willing to entertain any proposition
made by the railroads, but that you have stood steadfastly for
something which the men have demanded.
Now, all of this indicates a lack of knowledge of what your
position has been. I am giving you the gist of these conversations
because they represent a point of view so that if you desire you
may meet such criticism.
You must remember, Mr. President, that the American people have
not had for fifty years a President who was not at this period in
a campaign bending all of his power to purely personal and
political ends. Your ideality and unselfishness are so rare that
things need to be made particularly clear to them. Faithfully
yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
In the beginning of September Lane was appointed Chairman of the
American-Mexican Joint Commission, the other Americans being Judge
George Gray, of Delaware, and John R. Mott, secretary of the Young
Men's Christian Association. The Mexican members were Luis
Cabrera, Minister of Finance, Alberto Pani, and Ignatio Bonillas,
afterward Ambassador to Washington.
It was the hope of the Administration that this Commission would
lay the foundation for a better understanding between America and
Mexico. The Commission started its work in New London, but later
as the hearings dragged on, they went to Atlantic City.
Just before this Commission was named, Lane wrote to his brother,
"I have been turned all topsy turvy by the Mexican situation. I
have suggested to the President the establishment of a commission
to deal with this matter upon a fundamental basis, but Carranza is
obsessed with the idea that he is a real god and not a tin god,
that he holds thunderbolts in his hands instead of confetti, and
he won't let us help him."
To Alexander Vogelsang
Acting Secretary of the Interior American-Mexican Joint Commission
September 29, 1916
MY DEAR ALECK,--Don't worry about yourself. Don't worry about the
office. You will be all right, and so will the office. I am not
worrying about you because I haven't got time to. I'll take your
job if you will take mine. The interpreting of a city charter is
nothing to the interpreting of the Mexican mind. Dealing with
Congress is not so difficult as dealing with Mexican statesmen. I
have had some jobs in my life, but none in which I was put to it
as I am in this. Now I have not only a question as to what to do
in the making of a nation, the development of its opportunity, the
education of its people, the establishment of its finances, and
the opening of its industries in the establishment of its
relations with other countries, but also the problem as to where
the men can be found that can carry out the program, once it is