The Letters of Franklin K. Lane, Personal and Political
energetically fought the case for the defendants, without asking
for a retainer. Their clients formed themselves into what they
called the San Miguel Defense Association. In a year the title of
the householders to their little homes was established beyond
peradventure.
With the warmth of Latin gratitude this service was remembered. In
1898 when Lane ran for his first political office, as City and
County Attorney, the San Miguel Defense Association revived its
energies, formed a Franklin K. Lane Campaign Club and sent out
vivid circulars about Franklin K. Lane, "who nobly fought for us.
... It is now our turn to stand by him and see that he is elected
by a very large majority." Their proclamation ended with the
appeal, "Vote for Franklin K. Lane, the Foe to Blackmailers."
As Lane's plurality in this first election was eight hundred and
thirty-two votes, there is little doubt that his grateful clients
played a real part in that success.
The Tacoma printers had also sent a testimonial, which was widely
distributed in the campaign, as to Lane's friendship to labor,
saying that they, in gratitude, had made him an honorary member of
their Typographical Union. The campaign was made on the rights of
the plain people, for its chief issue.
In the letter that follows, Lane, in 1913, tells of his formal
entry into politics, in 1898.
To P. T. Spurgcon Herald, McClure Newspaper Syndicate
Washington, December 30, 1913
DEAR MR. SPURGEON,--In reply to your inquiry of December 29,
permit me to say that I got into politics in this way:--
One day, while on my way to lunch, I met Mayor Phelan, of San
Francisco, who asked me if I would become a member of the
committee to draft a charter for the city. I said I would, and was
appointed. At that time I was practising law and had no idea
whatever that I would at any time run for public office, or take
any considerable part in public affairs. I helped to draft the
charter, and as it had to be submitted to the people for
ratification, I stumped the city for it. Later, when the first
election was held under it, my friends on the charter committee
insisted that I should accept the Democratic nomination for City
Attorney. Under the charter, the City Attorney was the legal
adviser of all the city and county officials, and it was his
business to define and construe this organic law, and the friends
of the charter wished some one who was in sympathy with the
instrument to give it initial construction.
I was nominated by the Democratic party by an independent movement
and was elected; later re-elected, and elected for a third term.
After an unsuccessful candidacy for the governorship, I was
appointed a member of the Interstate Commerce Commission by
President Roosevelt.
Cordially yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
To John H. Wigmore
San Francisco, November 14, 1898
MY DEAR WIGMORE,--This is a formal note of acknowledgment of the
service rendered me in the campaign, which has just closed
successfully. There were only three Democrats elected on the
general ticket, the Mayor, Assessor, and myself. I ran four
thousand five hundred votes ahead of my ticket. It was a splendid
tribute to worth! I never before realized how discriminating the
American public is. A man who scoffs at Democratic institutions
must be a tyrant at heart, or a defeated candidate. I tell you the
people know a good man when they see one.
My opponent was the present Attorney General of the State, W. F.
Fitzgerald, a very capable man, and probably the best man on the
Republican ticket. He has been steadily in office for thirty
years, in Mississippi, Arizona, and California, and this is his
first defeat; and I sincerely regret that I had to take a fall out
of such a gentleman.
Now, the perplexing problem arises as to how long I shall hold
office. The term is for two years. The new charter comes up before
the coming Legislature for approval in January, and that
instrument provides for another election next fall, to fill all
City and County offices. ...
I don't want to stay in politics, two years in the office will be
long enough for me. I hope that I shall make a creditable record.
I can foresee that strong pressure will be brought to bear upon me
to act with the Examiner in making things disagreeable for the
corporations, and I will have no easy task in gaining the approval
of my own party, and of my conscience and judgment at the same
time.
Let me thank you again very earnestly for what you did, and
believe me. Yours sincerely,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
The City Charter that Lane had helped to draft, with its many new
provisions, never before adjudicated, made his first term as City
and County Attorney one requiring an especial amount of laborious
legal study. To meet the pressing need, Lane organized his corps
of assistants to include several men of marked legal ability and
the industry that the task demanded, appointing his brother,
George W. Lane, as his first assistant.
It was partly due to the good team-work of the office that his
opinions rendered in four years were as "numerous as those
heretofore rendered by the department in about sixteen years," and
that during one of the years of his incumbency "snot a dollar of
damages was obtained against the city."
To John H. Wigmore
San Francisco, September 25, [1899]
MY DEAR WIGMORE,-- ... As an evidence of what I am doing I sent
you a brief three or four days ago in the Charter case. I have
another just filed on the question of county officers holding over
under the Charter, a third on the new primary law which is a grand
thing if we can make it stick, and a fourth on the taxation of
bonds of quasi-public corporations, and a fifth on the taxation of
National Bank stock.
I have hardly seen my baby for six weeks; have been at the office
from nine A.M. to eleven P.M. regularly. And now that I am nearly
dead a new campaign is on and I must run again. And, of course, I
have enemies now which I hadn't last year.
Thank you once again for so kindly remembering me.
Yours sincerely,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
Lane's first child, a son, was born in the spring of 1898. He is
the "Ned" of the letters--Franklin K. Lane, Jr. Lane's attitude
toward children is shown in many of his letters. His own boy gave
a strong impetus to his most disinterested social ideals. In
writing of the birth of a friend's baby he said, "For the child we
act nobly, its call to us is always to our finer side.
To John H. Wigmore
San Francisco, November 10
MY DEAR WIGMORE,--This is to be a mere bulletin. I am elected once
again--10,500 majority, the largest received by any candidate. You
expected me to run for Mayor I know. Well, it was offered me--the
nomination, I mean--and all my campaign expenses promised. But I
couldn't accept, having told the Labor Union people that I was a
candidate for City Attorney and not for Mayor. This Labor Union
Party is a new one, the outgrowth of the recent strike. They have
elected their Mayor, a musician named Schmitz, a decent,
conservative young man, who will surprise the decent moneyed
people and anger the laboring people with his
conservatism.[Footnote: Lane lived to smile at his too charitable
characterization of this San Francisco Mayor.] I didn't have one
single word of praise from a newspaper in the campaign. They
hardly mentioned the fact that I was a candidate. It was jolly
good therefore to win as I did.
And my congratulations to you, my honored friend, Dean Wigmore.
Next year I am to publish my Opinions, a copy of which, of course,
will go to you, but not by virtue of your office, old man. You are
arriving, of course, but there is something better in store. A
Federal Judgeship is the thing for you; and when I get into the
Cabinet you shall have it. But don't wait till then. I'm gray and
bald now and my boy patronizes me. So don't wait, but get your
lines out, and one of these days you'll make it. Where next I
shall land I don't know, probably in a law office, praying for
clients. ... Always yours,
F. K. L.
Lane's first majority in 1898 of 832 votes was increased to 10,500
in 1899, when he was re-elected; and two years later he won by a
still larger majority. A number of his opinions, as City Attorney,
were collected and bound in a volume, as none of them had been
reversed by the Supreme Court of the State.
He took much pleasure in a dinner club that he helped to form. The
members were University professors, lawyers, newspaper men, and a
few business men. "But," says one of them, "in spirit they were
poets, philosophers and prophets. They were aware that their
solutions of problems vexing to the brains of other men, would be
Utopian, but as they were not willing to be classed with ordinary
Utopians they named their club Amaurot, after the capital of
Utopia, thus signifying that while they dwelt in Utopia, they were
not subject to it but were lords of it--the teachers of its wisdom
and the makers of its laws."
His home life absorbed much of his leisure. He and his family had
moved into a modest house on Gough Street, in San Francisco, with
a view of the bay, Alcatraz Island, and the Marin Hills from the
upstairs living-room window--for no house was a home to Lane that
had no view--and in the back-yard, among its red geraniums and
cosmos bushes, he played Treasure Island and Wild West with his
boy.
In the summer of 1902, Lane was nominated as the Democratic and
Non-Partisan candidate for Governor of California. At the
Democratic Convention at Sacramento, an onlooker described the
excitement among the delegates before a selection was made,
"Throughout the night until late afternoon of the second day,
without any clear solution of the problem, came the roll-call of
the counties, then a wild stampede for the young City and County
Attorney of San Francisco, who was borne to the platform. ...
"It was Franklin K. Lane who stood a goodly and confident figure,
waving a palm-leaf fan for quiet. He said:--
"'I was in the rear of the hall when Governor Budd made his speech
and voiced the call of the party for a winner, and, in response to
his call, I have taken this platform.'"
This note of joyous truculence, with the little out-thrust of the
underlip, brought, as so often before and since, laughter and
applause.
A hot and spirited campaign followed. California is naturally
Republican, and Lane had many times challenged and attacked the
great powers of the State. He made as his chief issues,
Irrigation, Prison Reform, and a fairer share in the world's goods
for all the people. He traveled far and fast, often speaking six
times in a day, at different places, and sometimes riding a
hundred and fifty miles in twenty-four hours, over the rough roads
of remote counties.
While campaigning he outlined his notion of public service in this
way, "No man should have a political office because he wants a
job. A public office is not a job, it is an opportunity to do
something for the public. Once in office it remains for him to
prove that the opportunity was not wasted. ..." And again he
said,--"There is nothing that touches me so, in the little that I
have seen in political life, as this, that while it is a game in
which men can be mean, contemptible and dastardly, it is a game
also that brings out the finer, better, and nobler qualities. I
know why some men are in politics to their own financial loss.
Because they find it is a great big man's game, which calls for
men to fight it, and they want to stand beside their fellows and
do battle."
In regretting that he could not attend a Democratic meeting, at
Richmond, California, he sent this letter,--
TO LYMAN NAUGLE