The Letters of Franklin K. Lane, Personal and Political
and I am very glad I did not hear it, for it must have been a sad
day for Berkeley and for you. The address itself was a noble word.
I hear that you have bought Lucy Sprague's home and are to remain
in Berkeley. This is as it should be. You can ripen into the Sage
of Berkeley, and be a center of influence, stimulating the best in
others. A long, long life to you! Always sincerely and devotedly
yours,
FRANKLIN K, LANE
TO E. S. MARTIN LIFE
Washington, August 23, 1919
MY DEAR MR. MARTIN,-- ... It does not seem to me that this country
will rise to a class war. We have too many farmers and small
householders and women--put the accent on the women. They are the
conservatives. Until a woman is starving, she does not grow Red,
unless she is without a husband or babies and has a lot of money
that she did not earn. ... Cordially yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
TO GEORGE W. LANE
Washington, September 11, 1919
DEAR GEORGE,--You do not know how much of sympathy I send out to
you and how many words of prayer I send up for you. You need them
all, I expect. ... What a long siege you have had!
I suppose you will not be able to hear the President speak when he
is there. You will miss much. He is not impassioned nor a great
orator, such as Chatham or Fox, or Webster or Dolliver, or even
Bryan--but he has a keen, quick, cutting mind, the mind of a
really great critic, and his manner is that of the gentleman
scholar. He is first among all men to-day, which is much for
America.
My Nancy has been having a splendid time, even if she only saw
your ranch for a week--but she is the gayest thing alive--God
grant she may continue so always. ...
For the first time in twenty-five years we are living in an
apartment, large and in a nice place, but somehow my sense of the
fitness of things will not let me call the place "home"--altho' it
is the most comfortable habitation I have ever lived in, elevator,
whole floor to ourselves. ... and they let me keep my dog. I
wouldn't have come if they hadn't. We turned down a fine place
with a more expansive view because Jack was not wanted. But surely
in these days of doubt and disloyalty one must have some rock to
cling to, why not a trusting-eyed dog? ... But all this does not
recompense me for the absence of a "home"--which is a house,
anywhere. Yet we may have to do our own work. ... The cooks are
all too proud to work--I wish you would tell me just how this
economic problem should be settled. How much do you believe in
socialism or socialization? ... Do you think there can be a
partnership in business? I am inclined to think this can be worked
out, along lines of cooperative ownership, but not until an
enterprise is well standardized.
I expect bad times soon with labor. We are only postponing the
evil day. The President seems less radical than he was. He is
sobered by conditions, I suspect. The negro is a danger that you
do not have. Turn him loose and he is a wild man. Every Southerner
fears him.
... I am trying hard to believe something that might be called the
shadow of a religion--a God that has a good purpose, and another
life in which there is a chance for further growth, if not for
glory. But when I bump up against a series of afflictions such as
you have been subjected to, I fall back upon Fred's philosophy of
a purposeless or else a cruel God. ... I simply have a sinking of
the heart, a goneness, a hopelessness--not even the pleasure of a
resignation. Old Sid's cold mind has worked itself through to a
decision that there is no purpose and no future, and finds solace
in the ultimate; having reached the cellar he finds the
satisfaction of rest. I can't get there for my buoyancy, the hold-
over of early teachings or perhaps my naturally sanguine nature
will not permit me to hit bottom, but forever I must be floating,
floating--nowhere. Happy the man who strikes the certainty of a
rock-bottom hell, rather than one who is kept floating midway--
that is a purgatory worse than hell. I don't seem to have any
capacity for anger, as against God or man, for anything that
befalls me, but I get morbid over the injustices done to others.
Now I shall stop philosophizing on this matter for it is three in
the morning, and too hot to sleep, and such a time is made for
wickedness and not for righteousness.
I am sorry you will not see the President. He is worth hearing,
better than reading, and he always talks well. He can not pass his
treaty without some kind of reservations and he should have seen
this a month ago. The Republicans will not struggle to pass it in
his absence and think that they have done a smart thing, but in
the end Wilson and not Lodge would win by such a trick. The one
greatest of vices is smart-aleckism. Sometime I shall write an
essay on that subject. The burglar and the confidence operator and
the profiteer and the profligate and the defaulting bank cashier
are all victims of that disease--smart-aleckism. They will do a
trick, to prove how clever they are. I believe that is the way
ninety per cent of the boys and girls go wrong, and instead of
teaching them the Bible, why not try reducing the size of their
conceit and their disposition to boast. I just wonder how far
wrong I am on this?
... Don't let the family worry you. Call for the police if they
don't let you have your own way. ... What a plague of women! But
how did monks manage to live anyhow? Maybe they chose a hard
death--perhaps that was the secret of the whole monkery game!
Women let us down into the grave with much unction to our ego, I
mean sweet oil of adoration ... poured out upon the way down to
Avernus. ... Don't feel discouraged because you lie there. I feel
much more discontented than you do, right here at the heart of the
world. ... Love to Maude and Frances, and mention me with proper
respect and dignity to Miss Nancy Lane.
F. K.
TO VAN H. MANNING DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF MINES
Washington, September 24, 1919
MY DEAR MR. MANNING,--I have been intending for several days to
write you a letter regarding the Petroleum Institute, but the
opportunity has been denied me. Perhaps you will be good enough to
say to the gentlemen, whom I understand you are to meet tomorrow,
that I regard their work, if taken hold of whole-heartedly, as of
the greatest national importance. It is quite manifest now that
private enterprise must stand in the forefront in the development
of this industry, and that what the government can do will be
supplemental and suggestive. It is not an exaggeration to say that
millions of dollars must be spent in experiment before we know the
many services to which a barrel of oil can be put. There is almost
an indefinite opportunity for research work along this line.
Petroleum is a challenge to the chemists of the world. And now the
world is dependent upon it, as it is upon nothing else excepting
coal and iron, and the foodstuffs and textiles. It has jumped to
this place of eminence within twenty years, and the world is
concerned in knowing how large a supply there is and how every
drop of it can best be used. Practically, I think you should urge
that there be cooperative effort to protect against waste. The oil
men themselves should see the value of this and spend their money
freely to keep their wells from being flooded, to keep their pipe
lines from leaking, and to save their gas.
We are behind the rest of the world in the use of our oil for fuel
purposes. We are spendthrifts in this as in other of our national
resources. We can get three times as much energy as we do out of
our oil through the use of the Diesel engine, yet we are doing
little to promote development of a satisfactory type of stationary
Diesel, or marine design. Instead of seeing how many hundred
millions of barrels of oil we can produce and use, our effort
should be to see how few millions of barrels will satisfy our
needs. I say this although I am not a pessimist as to the
available supply, which I believe has been underestimated rather
than overestimated. I am satisfied that the man who has a barrel
of oil has something which, if he can save, is better than a
government bond. Throughout the Nation we must make a drive to
increase production--that is the slogan of this time--but that
does not mean that we should make a drive to exhaust resources
which God alone can duplicate.
Then too, I think that Congress can be largely helped by the sane
presentation of wise policies touching this industry. I have the
belief that whatever the body of oil men would agree upon would be
something that would make for the best use of petroleum, and for
the protection over a long period of this fundamental resource in
our industry. Congress has difficulty often in getting the large
view of practical men who speak without personal interest, and
such an Institute could speak not for the individual but for the
industry and show how it may best be developed in the interest of
the country.
To do these things, and to do them adequately, will require the
men in the industry to take the attitude of statesmen and not of
selfish exploiters. It means they must tax themselves liberally,
generously. It means that they must think of themselves as
trustees for a Public as wide as the world.
Please give my regards to the members of the Institute. Cordially
yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
TO E. C. BRADLEY
Washington, October 2, 1919
MY DEAR BRADLEY,-- ... I have all along said that the treaty could
not be ratified without some interpretive reservations. I think
that the President will see that, although he sees clearly, as I
do, that these interpretations are already in the treaty itself,
but on a question of construction two men may honestly differ. The
whole damn thing has gotten into the maelstrom of politics, of the
nastiest partisanship, when it ought to have been lifted up into
the clearer air of good sense and national dignity. ...
Hoover can be elected. He came home modestly and made a splendid
speech. We need a man of great administrative ability and of
supreme sanity who can lead us into quiet waters, if there are
any.
... We have imported, with our labor, their discontent, and the
theories which are founded upon it to obtain the price. But the
American workingman is a sensible fellow, when he can have the
chance to think without being overwhelmed by fear, and he will
realize that his betterment in a material way must come through
his own individual growth and the growth of the conscience of the
people who believe in a square deal. The serious thing in the
whole situation, to my mind, is the fact that so many workingmen
seem to accept the idea that they are of a fixed class; that they
can not move out of their present conditions; that they want
always to remain as employees and have no hope of becoming
superintendents, employers, managers, or capitalists; and
therefore think that their only prospect is in bettering their
condition as a part of a class. Great propaganda should be carried
on to show how false this is and how much demand there is for men
of ability.
With warm regards, old man, I am cordially yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
TO MRS. LOUISE HERRICK WALL
Washington, Friday, [October 10, 1919]
MY DEAR MRS. WALL,--We heard through Ned of the Commodore's death,
and you can realize how shocked and terribly grieved we were, and
still are.
Poor dear girl, there is nothing anyone can say that will help
even a little bit. Every word of appreciation makes the loss more
serious. And you need no one to tell you that he was loved by us,
and every single person who really knew him. He was to me
Christlike, beautiful, gentle, wise and noble. Since that first
day, nearly thirty years ago on Grays Harbor, I have known him as