The Letters of Franklin K. Lane, Personal and Political Part 21

And what is this I hear about your having neuritis and going to the hospital? d.a.m.n these nerves, I say! d.a.m.n them! I have to swelter here because I can't let an electric fan play on my face, nor near me, without getting neuralgia. And swelter is the word, for it has been 104-5 degrees, with humidity, to boot, this week.

Nerves--that means a wireless system, keen to perceive, to feel, to know the things hidden to the ma.s.s. I look forward to years of torture with the accursed things. The only thing that relieves, and of course it does not cure, is osteopathy, stimulating the nerve where it enters the spine. But never let them touch the sore place. That is fatal. It raises all the devils and they begin sc.r.a.ping on the strings at once.

Well, by the time this reaches you I hope you will be quite a bit fitter. Avoid strain. Don't lift. Don't carry. If you stretch the infernal wires they curl up and squeal.

May the G.o.d of Things as they Are be good to you. ... Mother may know all about us. How I wish I could know that it was so. You have the philosophy that says--"Well, if it is best, she does." I wish I had it. My G.o.d, how I do cling to what sc.r.a.ps of faith I have and put them together to make a cap for my poor head. With all the love I have.

Frank

To Cordenio Severance

Was.h.i.+ngton, September 24,1914

My dear Cordy,--I have just received your note. Why don't you come down here and spend three or four days resting up? Nancy and Anne will be delighted to cart you around in the victoria and show you all the beautiful trees and a sunset or two, and we will give you some home cooking and put you on your feet, and then you will have an opportunity to beg forgiveness for not having gone up to Ess.e.x.

I am mighty sorry that you have been ill. If we had had the faintest notion that you were, we would have stayed in New York to see you, but as it was we came down on the Albany boat and we went directly from the boat to the train. I think that we would have stopped over two or three hours and seen you anyway if it had not been for the presence of our dog, who was regarded by the women as the most important member of the family.

Did you ever travel with a dog? We came down through Lake George, and the Secretary of the Interior sat on a beer box in the prow of the steams.h.i.+p, surrounded by automobiles and kerosine oil cans and cooks and roustabouts, because they would not let a dog go on the salon deck. Only my sense of humor saved me from beating my wife and child, and throwing the dog overboard. On the train some member of the family had to stay with the dog and hold his paw while he was in the baggage car. The trouble with you and me is that we are not ugly enough to receive such attention. If we had undershot jaws and projecting teeth and no nose, we probably would be regarded with greater tenderness and attention.

Ned is at Phillips-Exeter and is the most homesick kid you ever heard of. He writes two letters a day and has sent for his Bible, and tells us he is going to church. If that is no evidence, then I am no judge of a psychological state.

Come on down. Faithfully yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

To Hon. Woodrow Wilson

The White House

Was.h.i.+ngton, October 1, 1914

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT,--Mother Jones called on me yesterday and I had a very interesting and enjoyable chat with her. During our talk some reference was made to the sterling qualities of your Secretary of Labor, for whom she entertains the highest regard.

She told me this little story about him:--

One evening sometime ago, when there was a strike of some workmen in Secretary Wilson's town, she was in the Secretary's home waiting to see him. The Secretary was engaged in another room with representatives of those opposed to the strikers, and she overheard their talk. One of the men said, "Mr. Wilson, you have a mortgage on this house, I believe."

The reply was in the affirmative.

"Then," said the speaker, "if you will see that this strike is called away from our neighborhood--we don't ask you to terminate it, but merely to see that the strikers leave our town--if you will do this, we will take pleasure in presenting you with a large purse and also in wiping off the mortgage on your home."

Mr. Wilson arose, his voice trembling and his arm lifted, and said, "You gentlemen are in my house. If you come as friends and as gentlemen, all of the hospitalities that this home has to offer are yours. But if you come here to bribe me to break faith with my people, who trust me and whom I represent, there is the door, and I wish you to leave immediately."

Mother Jones concluded by saying, "Mr. Wilson never tells this story, but I heard it with my own ears, and I know what a real man he is."

I wish that you could have heard the story yourself. I am telling it to you now, for I know how pleased you will be to hear of it, even in this indirect way. Faithfully yours, FRANKLIN K. LANE

On November 30, 1914 Colonel Roosevelt wrote to Lane saying,--

"That's a mighty fine poem on Uncle Sam's Thanksgiving! I wish you would give me a chance to see you sometime.

"I do not know Mr. Garrison and perhaps he would resent my saying that I think he has managed his Department excellently; but if you think he would not resent it, pray tell him so. I hear nothing but good of you--but if I did hear anything else I should not pay any heed to it. ..."

To Theodore Roosevelt

Was.h.i.+ngton, December 3, 1914

MY DEAR COLONEL,--I have just received your note of November 30th, and I am very much gratified at your reference to my Thanksgiving lines. You may be interested in knowing that the Home Club, before which I read these lines, is an inst.i.tution that I organized since becoming Secretary, for the officers and employees of my Department. ...

You may rest a.s.sured that I shall convey your message to Mr.

Garrison, and I know that he will be just as pleased to receive it as I am in being able to carry it.

... The work of the Department keeps me pretty closely to my desk, so that I have few opportunities of getting away from Was.h.i.+ngton.

I certainly shall not let a chance of seeing you go by without taking advantage of it.

Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

To Hon. Woodrow Wilson

The White House

Was.h.i.+ngton, January 9, 1915

MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT,--That was a bully speech, a corker! You may have made a better speech in your life but I never have heard of it. Other Presidents may have made better speeches, but I have never heard of them. It was simply great because it was the proper blend of philosophy and practicality. It had punch in every paragraph. The country will respond to it splendidly. It was jubilant, did not contain a single minor note of apology and the country will visualize you at the head of the column. You know this country, and every country, wants a man to lead it of whom it is proud, not because of his talent but because of his personality,--that which is as indefinable as charm in a woman, and I want to see your personality known to the American people, just as well as we know it who sit around the Cabinet table. Your speech glows with it, and that is why it gives me such joy that I can't help writing you as enthusiastically as I do. Sincerely yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

To Lawrence F. Abbott

Outlook

Was.h.i.+ngton, January 12, 1915

MY DEAR MR. ABBOTT,--I enclose you two statements made with reference to our public lands water power bill and our western development bill. The power trust is fighting the power bill, although as amended by the Senate Committee it is especially liberal and fair and will bring millions of dollars into the West for development of water power. There seems to be no real opposition to the western development bill, generally called the leasing bill, excepting from those who believe that all of our public lands should be turned over to the States.

These are non-partisan measures. They have been drafted in Consultation with Republicans and Progressives, as well as Democrats, and I regard them as the ultimate word of generosity on the part of the Federal Government, because all of the money produced is to go into western development. If these bills are killed, I fear that the West will never get another opportunity to have its withdrawn lands thrown open for development upon terms as satisfactory to it.

It is easy to understand why men who already have great power plants on public land should be opposing such a bill as our power bill, and equally easy to understand why the coal monopolists should be fighting off all opportunity for any compet.i.tor to get into the field. The oil men are anxious for such legislation. Of course this legislation is not ideal, because it is the result of compromise between minds, as to methods. The power bill is vitally right in one thing; that the rights granted revert at the end of fifty years to the Government, if the Government wishes to take the plant over. The development bill is right, because it sets aside a group of archaic laws under which monopoly and litigation and illegal practices have thrived. Both of these bills have pa.s.sed the House, and are before the Senate. I trust that the fixed determination of those who are hostile to them will not prevail.