The Letters of Franklin K. Lane, Personal and Political
MY DEAR MR. NAUGLE,-- ... The cause of Democracy is being given
more sincere and thoughtful interest this campaign than for many
years. One of its cardinal principles is that the individual is
more important to the State than mere property, and that the
welfare of the majority of our citizens must always be paramount
and their rights prevail, no matter what the weight of influence
in the other side of the balance. It is work and personal worth
which make a State great both politically and industrially, and in
my estimation they are to be found in largest proportions in the
Democratic party. For these reasons I believe there will be a very
large change in the vote of this State in our coming election.
Reports have reached me from many parts of the State, and I am
entirely satisfied that we shall win this fight provided that we
do our full share of earnest work, if that be lacking we don't
deserve it. ... Yours for honest victory,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
At first Hearst's powerful paper, the San Francisco Examiner, took
a negative tone toward Lane's candidacy but soon became
dangerously, if covertly, antagonistic. Of Hearst's methods of
attack Lane wrote, in detail, on July 3, 1912, to Governor Woodrow
Wilson, then Democratic nominee for the Presidency. After
enumerating one specific count after another against the Examiner
Lane said:--
"When a boy putting myself through college I was business manager
of a temperance paper which advocated prohibition. He [Hearst]
published extracts from this paper and credited them to me, and on
the morning of election day sent a special train throughout the
whole of Northern California containing an issue of his paper,
appealing to the saloon-keepers and wine-growers for my defeat.
"... No editorial word of his disfavor appeared, but in every news
article there was in the headline a cunning turn or twist,
calculated to arouse prejudice against me. I notice in this
morning's issue of the American the same policy is being pursued
regarding you.
"Now the great mistake I made was in not boldly telling the public
just what I knew. ... I felt that it was a personal matter with
which the public was not concerned, but I know now, as I have
gotten older and seen more of politics, that it was a public
matter of the first importance, as to which the public should have
had knowledge.
"Later when he [Hearst] budded as a candidate for President, in
1904, he sought an interview with me and said that he was not to
blame for the policy that had been pursued. Our interview closed
with this dialogue:--
"'Mr. Lane, if you ever wish anything that I can do, all you will
have to do will be to send me a telegram asking, and it will be
done.'"
"To which I responded, 'Mr. Hearst, if you ever get a telegram
from me asking you to do anything, you can put that telegram down
as a forgery.'"
In a State like California, one of whose chief industries was the
growing of wine-grapes, and where the Examiner was the farmer's
paper, at least one phase of the attack upon Lane bore heavy
fruit. Upon election day the count between Lane and Dr. George
Pardee, the Republican candidate, was found to be close. In the
end several thousand votes, unmistakably intended for Lane, were
thrown out upon technicalities. Lane was defeated, and Dr. Pardee
took office. It was a bitter blow.
The night when the final bad news was brought to Lane in his home,
he called his son, of four, to him, leaning down he put his arm
around the boy very gravely and tenderly, and said, "Ned, it isn't
my little son, it is Dr. Pardee's little boy that is going to have
that white pony."
The boy caught the emotion in his father's voice, and said
cheerily, "O, that's all right, Dad. That's all right."
Lane found that in spite of the loss of the Governorship his
circle of personal contacts had been greatly widened by his
campaign. He had come to know, and be known by, the men most
prominent in California public affairs and he had made, and
confirmed, many friendships with men who had given themselves
whole-heartedly to his advancement. Of these friendships he wrote,
in 1920, to his friend Timothy Spellacy, "Eighteen years I have
known you and never a word or act have I heard of, or seen, that
did not make me feel that the campaign for Governor was worth
while because it gave me your acquaintance, friendship,
affection. ... When I get mad, as I do sometimes, over something
that the Irish do, I always am tempted to a hard generalization
that I am compelled to modify because of you and Mike and Dan
O'Neill, in San Francisco--and a few more of the Great Irish."
Lane's second child, Nancy, was born January 4, 1903.
Early in that year Lane was given the complimentary vote of his
party in the California Legislature for United States Senator.
He was chosen in April to go to Washington to argue the case of
the need of the City of San Francisco for a pure water supply from
the Hetch-Hetchy Valley, an unused part of the Yosemite Park.
A curious opposition to this measure had been worked up in the
East by a small group of well-intentioned nature lovers who did
not, perhaps, realize that this was one of many thousand valleys
in the Sierras, and one not, in any sense, unique in its beauty.
The plan proposed to convert a remote, mosquito-haunted marsh,
dreaded even by hunters because of the "bad-going" into a large
lake-reservoir to feed the city of San Francisco. This was the
first of Lane's fights to assure to man the use of neglected
resources, and at the same time, by great care, to protect natural
beauty for his delight.
While in Washington on this errand, he met President Roosevelt
several times. Their informal talks served to increase Lane's
strong liking for the vigorous man of action, then at the height
of his powers.
To his friend he writes of all this.
To John H. Wigmore San Francisco, May 9,1903
MY DEAR WIGMORE,--My trip East was a great success. After leaving
you I stayed three or four days in Washington, where I found the
Department of the Interior pretty well stacked against me; I,
however, succeeded in having a day fixed upon which an argument
would be listened to, and after this victory went to New York,
where I met many old friends and made some new ones. ...
Upon my return to Washington I had several days of argument before
the Department, saw the President [Roosevelt] twice and lunched
with him, and then went South; was invited by the Legislature of
Texas to speak before them, which I did with much satisfaction,
especially as there were but two Republicans in both houses.
I stopped with my old friend Mezes, in Austin, who is the dean of
the University, ... and easily the most influential man socially,
politically, and educationally in the institution. ...
I am having an extremely disagreeable time. The Democrats here
insist upon my running for Mayor, urging it as a duty which I owe
to the party, because they say I am the only man who can be
elected; and as a duty to the city, because they say that the
scoundrels who are now in office will continue, and worse ones
come in, unless we can elect some clean Democrat. I urge
everything against the thing, that comes to my mind, including my
poverty, the fact that I made four campaigns in five years, my
personal aversion to the office of Mayor, the inability of any one
to please the people of San Francisco as Mayor, the conspiracy of
the newspapers that exists against a government that is not
controlled by them, and the fact that to insist upon my taking
this office would be an act of political murder on the part of my
friends. ... Yours as always,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
Heavy and continued pressure, through the spring and summer, was
brought, by his party, to bear upon Lane to accept the nomination
for Mayor of San Francisco. His letters show his reluctance and
distress. The appeal was made personal, with reminders of
sacrifices made for him. He at last agreed to run. His judgment of
the situation was fully confirmed in the final event. His defeat
was unequivocal. San Francisco had no idea of accepting a
Democratic mayor with a leaning toward reform. Lane analysed the
political situation in this letter:--
To John H. Wigmore
San Francisco, January 26, 1904
MY DEAR WIGMORE,--What the effect of my defeat for Mayor will be,
it is of course impossible to say. Its immediate effect has been
to throw me into the active practice of law, and thus far I have
not starved. It will, of course, not lead to my retirement from
politics, but it will postpone no doubt, the realization of some
ambitions. I think I wrote you just what my state of mind was
previous to the nomination. I did not wish to make the fight, did
everything that was in my power to avoid the nomination, and even
went so far as to hold up the convention in a formal letter which
I addressed to it, telling them that I did not wish to be Mayor of
San Francisco and begging them to get some one else.
The fight was along class lines entirely; the employers on one
side and the wage earners on the other. The Republican nominee
represented the employers, the Union Labor nominee, the wage
earners. I stood for good government, and in the battle my voice
could hardly be heard. It was a splendid old fight in which every
interest that was vicious, violent, or corrupt was solidly against
me. And while I did not win the election, I lost nothing in
prestige by the defeat, save among politicians who are always
looking for availability. It was not, in the nature of things, up
to me to run for Mayor, but my people all believed that I was
assured of election and felt that I was the only man who could
possibly be elected. I acted out of a sense of loyalty to my party
and a desire to do something to rid the city of its present cursed
administration. However, it may in the end be a very fortunate
thing, for I know no career more worthless than that of a
perpetual office-seeker.
I received a letter from a friend in New York yesterday telling me
that Senator Hill [Footnote: In campaigning New York for
Cleveland, Lane had met David B. Hill.] had told him that the New
York delegation would cast its vote for me for Vice-President at
the Democratic National Convention, and that he regarded me as the
most available man to nominate; but, of course, I sent back word
that that was not to be considered.
I should judge from the EXAMINER here, that Hearst was making a
very strong fight for a delegation from Illinois. His boom seems
to me to be increasing. That it is possible for such a man to
receive the nomination, is too humiliating to be thought of. ...
Very sincerely yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
The day after his defeat Lane had written to thank a generous
friend:--
TO WILLIAM R. WHEELER
San Francisco, Wednesday [November, 1908]
MY DEAR WILL,--I can't go to the country without saying to you
once more that your self-sacrifice and manliness throughout this
campaign have endeared you to me to a degree that words cannot
convey.
I had hoped the last day or two that I would be able to make your
critics ashamed to look you in the face, and that they would in
time come pleading to you for recognition. But now you must be
content with knowing that you did a man's part, and set a standard
in friendship and loyalty which my boy shall be taught to strive
for.
I earnestly hope that your business relations will not be
disturbed by this trouble into which I got you. Had I been out of
it Crocker couldn't have won. My vote would largely have gone for
Schmitz.
Give my love to Mrs. Wheeler and believe me, always your friend,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
Wheeler, himself a Republican, belonged, at the time, to a firm of
irreconcilable Republicans, who had expressed sharp disapproval of