The Letters of Franklin K. Lane, Personal and Political

get the credit, and Democrats who feared Republicans would. Hence, deadlock, and a great opportunity lost! ... Seers, or see-ers, that's what these men should be. Elder Statesmen, if you please, independent, away above politics. Doesn't it seem to you that we are coming to be altogether too dependent on the President? That office will be ruined. Every one with a sore thumb has come into the habit of running to the President. This is all wrong, all wrong. He cannot do his job well now. And he is only nominally doing it, and only nominally has been doing it for years. But each month seems to add to his duties as arbiter of everything from clothes to strikes, from baseball to disarmament. I see a tremendous field for a body of a few ripe minds who would talk so little, and so wisely, and so collectively, that they could get and hold the ear of the country, governmental and otherwise. I outlined for Mezes, in your old job, a series of lectures by Americans who have done things on Why America is Worth While--and he has expanded it into a whole course on America, so that I believe he will have something new and great--teaching history, geology, art, everything, by the history of that thing in America, and how it came to come here, or be here, or what it means here. Well, I have written you a book and must stop--I don't know where to address you but will send this to the Times. Please remember me to Mr. Ochs--who can see things, and here's hoping it won't be long before we meet. Yours always, FRANKLIN K. LANE To James H. Barry San Francisco Star Rochester, Minnesota, May 5, [1921] MY DEAR JIM,--I have nothing of importance to say, except that I am to be operated on tomorrow and hope for the best, for Dr. Will Mayo is to do the operating, and I am not in a very run-down condition. I find myself quite serene, for I can look forward even to the very worst result with the feeling that there is no one to meet me over there to whom I've done any wrong. And while I haven't done my best, my score hasn't been blank. I honestly believe I've added a farthing or two to the talent that was given me. My brother George is here, with his splendid philosophy and his Scotch songs; and Ned, my boy, and his bride have just come back, so that Anne and I are very well content that things are just as they should be. I go to St. Mary's Hospital where they have nuns for nurses, and when time comes for recuperation I shall go to the near-by estate of my old friend, Severance, the big St. Paul lawyer, whom I have known these thirty years. I hope, my dear old man, that you will find new occupation soon that will give you use for your pen, and sterling love of justice. My regards, sincere and hearty to your family, and my other friends. F. K. LANE To Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt Rochester, Minnesota, May 5, [1921] Just because I like you very much, and being a very old man dare to say so, I am sending this line, which has no excuse in its news, philosophy or advice; has no excuse, in fact, except what might be called affection, but of course this being way past the Victorian era, no one admits to affections! I will not belittle my own feeling by saying that I have a wife who thinks you the best Eastern product--and probably she'd move to strike out the word "Eastern." At any rate, I think I should tell you myself that I am to be operated on tomorrow, by Dr. Will Mayo, and am glad of it. We shall see what we shall see. I find myself quite serene about the matter, altho' I believe my heart is so bad that they fear giving ether and will keep me conscious if they can, applying only a local anesthetic. I'd like to have Anne's perfect sureness as to the future, but lacking it, I do not look forward with fear, even if the worst should happen. I've never done a wrong to any man or woman or child that I can now recall--but maybe my memory is failing. My boy and his bride came back this morning--happy! Oh, so happy! And my "best beloved" brother who sings Scotch songs is here--a great philosopher whom you would deeply admire--and our friends the Severances of St. Paul, thirty year-old friends, they come over tonight. So we will be a merry, merry company. I'd love to see you and the gay Cavalier, but let us hope it won't be long till we meet! Au revoir! F. K. L. To friends who had telegraphed and written urgently for news May 11, 1921 It is Wednesday afternoon and I am now sitting up in bed talking to my good friend, Cotter. Until yesterday I did not clearly visualize any one thing in this room and did not know that it had a window, except that there was a place that noise came through, but I did know that it had a yellow oak door that stared at me with its great, big, square eye, all day and all night. Last Friday, you see, about ten in the morning, I took the step that I should have taken months, yes, years ago. I was stretched on a stiff, hard table, my arms were clamped down and in three- quarters of an hour I had my appendix and my gall bladder removed, which latter was a stone quarry and the former a cesspool. Today, most tentatively, I crawled on to a chair and ate my first mouthful of solid food. But four days ago I managed to shave myself, and I am regarded as pretty spry. I have seen death come to men in various ways, some rather novel and western. I once saw a man hanged. And I have seen several men shot, and came very near going out that way myself two or three times, but always the other fellow aimed poorly. I was being shot at because I was a newspaper man, and I should have been shot at. There must be public concern in what is printed, as well as its truth, to justify it. That is something that newspapers should get to know in this country. After the earthquake in San Francisco, I saw walls topple out upon a man. And I have had more intimate glimpses still of the picturesque and of the prosaic ways by which men come to their taking off. But never before have I been called upon deliberately to walk into the Valley of the Shadow and, say what you will, it is a great act. I have said, during the past months of endless examination, that a man with little curiosity and little humor and a little money who was not in too great pain could enjoy himself studying the ways of doctors and nurses, as he journeyed the invalid's path. It was indeed made a flowery path for me, as much as any path could be in which a man suffered more humiliation and distress and thwarting and frustration, on the whole, than he did pain. But here was a path, the end of which I could not see. I was not compelled to take it. My very latest doctor advised me against taking it. I could live some time without taking it. It was a bet on the high card with a chance to win, and I took it. I undressed myself with my boy's help, in one of the hospital rooms, and then arraying myself in my best suit of pajamas and an antique samurai robe which I use as a dressing gown, submitted myself to being given a dose of dazing opiate, which was to do its work in about fifteen minutes. I then mounted a chair and was wheeled along the corridor to the elevator, stopping meantime to say "adieu" to my dear ones, who would somehow or other insist upon saying "good-bye," which is a different word. I was not to be given the usual anesthetic, because my heart had been cutting up some didos, so I must take a local anesthetic which Was to be administered by a very celebrated Frenchman. I need not tell you that this whole performance was managed with considerable eclat, and Doctor Will Mayo, probably the first surgeon of the world, was to use the knife; and in the gallery looking on were Doctor Finney, of Johns Hopkins, Doctor Billings, of Chicago, Doctor Vaughan of the Michigan University, and others. On the whole, it was what the society reporter would call a recherche affair. The local anesthetic consists of morphine and scopolamin. It is administered directly by needle to the nerves that lead to those particular parts which are to be affected by the operation. This I watched myself with the profoundest interest. It was painful, somewhat, but it was done with the niceness and precision that make this new method of anesthesia a real work of art. I should think that the Japanese, with their very rare power at embroidery, might come to be past masters in this work. There were some insertions very superficial and some extremely deep. Over the operator's head, there were a half dozen heads peering intently at each move he made, while the patient himself was free to lift his head and look down and see just what was being done. I did not test myself, as I should have, to see whether I was paralyzed in any part. Just when this performance came to a head, Doctor Mayo came in and said, "Well, I am going in for something." I said, "That's right, and I hope you will get it." His statement did not conclusively prove confidence that he would find the cause of my trouble by going in. ... I knew there could be no such definiteness, but I said to myself, "He will get it, if it's there." For two days I had had knowledge that this operation was to take place at this time, and my nerves had not been just as good as they should have been. Those men who sleep twelve hours perfectly before being electrocuted have evidently led more tranquil lives than I have, or have less concern as to the future. Ah, now I was to know the great secret! For forty years I had been wondering, wondering. Often I had said to myself that I should summon to my mind when this moment came, some words that would be somewhat a synthesis of my philosophy. Socrates said to those who stood by, after he had drunk the hemlock, "No evil can befall a good man, whether he be alive or dead." I don't know how far from that we have gone in these twenty-four hundred years. The apothegm, however, was not apposite to me, because it involved a declaration that I was a good man, and I don't know anyone who has the right so to appreciate himself. And I had come to the conclusion that perhaps the best statement of my creed could be fitted into the words, "I accept," which to me meant that if in the law of nature my individual spirit was to go back into the great Ocean of Spirits, my one duty was to conform. "Lead Kindly Light" was all the gospel I had. I accepted. I made pretense to put out my hand in submission and lay there. "All through, doctor?" "Yes, doctor." "Very well, we will proceed." And I was gradually pushed through the hall into the operating room. The process there was lightning-like. I was in torture. "Lift me up, lift me up." "What for?" "I have one of those angina pains and I must ease it by getting up and taking some nitro." That had been my practice, but I did not reason that never before had the pain come on my right side. "Give him a whiff of ether." The tenderest arms stole around my head and the softest possible voice--Ulysses must have heard it long ago--"Now do take a deep breath." I resisted. I had been told that I would see the performance. "Please do, breathe very deeply--just one good deep breath." That pain was burning the side out of me. I tried to get my hand up to my side. Of course it was tied down. I swore. "Oh Christ! This is terrible." "It will stop if you will reach for a big breath,"--and I resigned myself. Men who are given the third degree have no stronger will than mine. I knew I was helpless. I must go through. I must surrender to that Circean voice. I heard the doctor in a commonplace monotone say, "This is an unusual case--"--the rest of this sentence I never heard. There was a long ray of gray light leading from my bed to my door.