The Letters of Franklin K. Lane, Personal and Political

You do not care to make the world righteous by dictatorship, because you know that it is not growth or the basis of growth, but the foundation of hate. Now the very cornerstone of Bolshevism is smartness--the get-even spirit. Because the Czars and the Dukes have oppressed the poor, because when this land was divided among the serfs the division was not what it pretended to be, and because the German business managers of Russian industry made wages and conditions that were brutal and brutalizing, the peasants and workmen have said, "Let us have done with the whole crew, and take all land and industry into our own hands, killing those who were our masters under the old economic system. Let us turn the whole world topsy-turvy in a night, and bring all down to where we are. In our aspiration for Beauty, let us kill what has been created. In our hunt for Justice, let us disregard fair dealing. In our purpose to level down, let us do it with the knife ruthlessly and logically," Thus disregarding the teachings of time, that men are not the creatures of logic, of passionless or passionate theses, but are the expression of an unfaltering Spirit. Whenever men have been the victims of logicalness they have been wrong. For instance, read the story of the Inquisition. They saw what they wanted clearly, those old Fathers of the Church. They knew their objective, which was to save men's souls. And they thought they knew the way. Logic told them that those who preached heresies were bringing men's eternal souls to everlasting hell fire. And they set about to stop the preaching. Had I believed as they did, I doubtless would have done as they did. But to be infallibly right is to be hopelessly smart. Thus it is with all who take a paper system and apply it to that strange thing called Life. This is the defect of the Intellectuals, the "parlor" Bolsheviks. (Better by far be an outdoor Bolshevik, a Red Guard, if you please, one who is in and of the fighting, who acts, who lives the theory!) They do not think in terms of human nature, of natural progress, of real facts. They say, "all men are born free and equal," and at once conclude that the stable boy can step from the stable door to the management of a factory or into the legislature. Now experience teaches that this is a most dangerous experiment, both for stable boy and society. The true philosophy of Democracy teaches that the stable boy shall have, through school and the step-ladder of free institutions, the chance to rise to the management of industry or the leadership of the Senate. That is why the foundation of Democracy is political. For out of political freedom will come social and economic freedom. That is why I favor woman suffrage, it gives women a chance to grow, to think along new lines and grow into new capacities. To feel acutely that things are badly ordered, and to feel that you know what opportunities men and women and boys and girls should have, is not a program of salvation, it is only the impulse toward finding one. Why then, because we do feel so, should we harness ourselves to a word that implies methods that we would not countenance, and give character to a movement that is at absolute defiance with America's spirit and purpose? There is danger, grave danger, in doing this. For we can upset our own apple-cart very easily these days. I have no more of this world's goods than the humblest workingman. No man is poorer than I am, measured by bank account standards. The education that I have, I fought for. Therefore I do not speak for a class. To defend the methods by which some men have made their money is not at all to my fancy. I see as clearly, I think, as one can, the necessity for the strong arm of society asserting itself, thrusting itself in where it has not been supposed to have any business. Yet I know that a Bolshevik movement, a capturing of what others have gained under the system which has obtained, and the brutal satisfaction of "getting even with the wage-masters" and making them feel to the depths of their souls and in the pain of their flesh every humiliation and torture, will permanently set nothing right. America is fair play. Is it a failure? Have you tried it long enough to know that it will not serve the world, as you think the world should be served? Is there any experiment that we cannot make? Are our hands tied? True, our feet may lag, our eyes may not see far ahead, but who should say that for this reason man should throw aside all the firmness and strength and solidity of order, forget all that he has passed through, and start afresh from the bottom rung of the ladder--from the muck of the primitive brute? There are things that we would not hold, that we think unworthy of our philosophy, that must be changed or else our sympathies and abiding hopes will be forever offended. And this would be to live right on under the pointing finger of shame. So we know it cannot last, this thing that offends, the badness and brutality of injustice, of unfairness to the weak, their inability to get a squarer chance. Yet this does not compel us to forsake the hopeful thing we have, for which all men have striven, these centuries through. Must we confess that revolution is still necessary? Are we no further ahead for all that Pym and Hampden and Sam Adams and Washington and all the rest of the glorified ones have done? This land is truly a land of promise because it may be a land of fulfilment. It shows the way by which without murder and robbery and class hatred and the burning up of what has been, men may go right on making experiments, and failing, making others and failing, and learning something all the time. So, I'm for America, because, if nationalization of land and industry are wise experiments to make, no one can stop us from making them, if partial nationalization of either, or both, appeals to us as something that will right manifest wrongs, we can try that solution. And to cry quits on the best that civilization has done, because all that is wished for may not be realized or realizable today, is to lose perspective and balance, and jump out the window because the stairs go round and round. There is really no use, and therefore no sanity, in being too gay or too grave over this old world of ours. That smart Devil, who is for the static life, is just now particularly active in his favorite old line of propaganda. He knows that the fruit of the tree will bring the millennium. Eat it and you will be happy. He knows the short cuts to freedom and justice. He knows that the curses that are promised for the breaking of the laws of the hunt will be turned into songs. So he is urging and urging, telling you, with your imagination and sensitiveness, that all is so bad that it is best to take the great risk, telling the poor sightless ones that their very primitive feelings and powers are the only safe guides, their last ultimate reliance and hope. And out of despair comes the bitter fruit we find in Russia, where they have wrought what they call an economic revolution, but have in fact produced nothing, for chaos is nothing. The wise Tinker who wrote of the Pilgrim's Progress was too true a Christian Scientist, a Christian and a Scientist, if you please, to picture his hero reaching the gate of gold by adopting Despair as his guide. Progress means the discovery of the capable. They are our natural masters. They lead because they have the right. And everything done to keep them from rising is a blow to what we call civilization. Bolshevism is the supremacy of the least capable who have the most power, most physical power. The thing Democracy will do is to breed capacity, give capacity its "show." The premiums, the distinctions, must go to capacity to promote it, to bring it forth, to make it grow, to be its sunshine. A chance at the sunshine, that's the motto. Sincerely yours, FRANKLIN K. LANE Washington, 20 [March, 1919] You said, you will remember, that you did not mind such unconventional things as penciled letters--so here goes, Mrs. Radium. This is to be a conventional letter, too, one of the bread and butter variety, the quail and dove, pigeon pie, creamed macaroni variety, for all of which much thanks, likewise for much stimulating talk, your help in planting my garden, many motor flights through brown woods, and some most charming company, including a man named Ellis and his celebrated son, the pigeon shooter. We left you in the best possible hands, a lion and lioness [Footnote: Mr. and Mrs. John Galsworthy.] who through long years of civilized captivity came tamely to your bars to be tickled and patted, and, no doubt, when properly fed, purred back. If I were you, I would loot their typewriter. Therein are the secrets of the British government, copies of all unknown treaties, plans for the extermination of Bolsheviki generally and the female kind in particular; likewise, therein you will find, narrated with particularity, the details of all loose conversations had with hotel clerks, commercial travelers, teachers, chauffeurs, and others of the illuminati, in which "impressions" are given to foreign authors hunting for "copy." Mr. George Creel has these aforesaid gents of the illuminati staked out, so to speak, for this very purpose. Your dear friend Vera, the political Vamp, is no doubt conducting these sweet Innocents abroad, tho' not in person of course, being much too crafty and cunning for that. She has directed them by the wireless magic of her mind to Horsebranch on the Hill, there to discover a radiating and luminous Lady, hidden in the pine woods, who will reveal among other things the following: (1) The nature of Woodrow Wilson's personal character; (2) The full reasons for his conduct; (3) His occult international designs; (4) How he purposes to free Ireland; (5) The value of being House-broken; (6) The real name of the Man in the Iron Mask. And much, much more--for she is a well, a fountain, a geyser, a Niagara, reversed, of information, misinformation, knowledge, ignorance, modesty, audacity, in captivating breeches or in modest demure caps or in flowing evening robe. Wise Vera, wise Creel-- they know their business! The English snooper, with typewriter in hand, will have a generous swig of the Scotch whiskey of the vintage of '56, and his tied tongue will loosen, a confiding and tender and sympathetic hand will softly clasp his, and the Dark Flower will open to the world--rather mixed that figure! eh, what? Now, of course, this is not what I took my pen in hand to write, not at all. I had intended after the formalities had been duly observed to tell you a few words about my wife. Excellent woman, that! But very jealous! very! No sense of her own place! Unwilling to subordinate herself. Since she "came into my life" she has walked around in it and otherwise behaved familiarly and at home. Never, never I beg of you, permit anyone to come into your life. It decidedly makes for clutter and disturbance. However, as I was saying, she is an excellent woman and has been to the Doctor who says that she has suffered much. (Charge for same $10.) As he wishes to make the same charge for many days the excellent wife will not go to Charleston but remain here, that the charge may lawfully be imposed. (This is where the Christian Scientists are more Scientific for they could make the charge in absentia.) However and notwithstanding, the Peace Conference still lives. By wireless I have the news that Lloyd George is still doing politics, that Orlando is Fiuming (give that one to the Englisher), that Colonel House has not told all he knows to Lansing, and that Henry White dined last night with a Duchess who held his hand four minutes while telling him terrible things.