The Letters of Franklin K. Lane, Personal and Political Part 42

Wages cannot go down until the cost of living does, and production won't increase while people believe prices will be lower later on.

I to-day proposed to Secretary Gla.s.s that he enter upon a campaign to promote production, (1) by seeing what the Government could buy, (2) by seeing what the industries would take as a bottom price, (3) by getting the Food Administration at work to reduce prices. Perhaps it may do some good. ...

I have always thought the President was right in going across, and I believe that he will pull through a League of Nations. When I get a copy of it I will send you my speech on this subject, which is rather loose but is a plea for dreams.

Ned is going West to. work for Doheny in some oil field, starting at the bottom. I rather think this is right, but of course he won't stay as a laborer very long. The boy is fine and gay, and did splendid work, and is anxious to get into the game and make money. Just where he gets this desire for making money I don't know. Certainly I never had it. But he was telling me the other day of his hope that by forty he would have made enough money to retire. I told him you were the only fellow I ever knew who had actually retired, and you had only done it half way. He will report at Los Angeles, but I expect he will get up to see you as soon as he can. He has a remarkable affection for California, considering he has seen so little of it, and so has Nancy. They both regard it as the golden land where all things smile, and people have hearts. I have not attempted to cure them of their illusion.

Do write me a good, long letter, for I am always eager to hear from you.

F. K. L.

To George W. Lane

Was.h.i.+ngton, May 1, [1919]

MY DEAR GEORGE,--Well, what do you think of the Italian situation?

I think the President right, that Fiume should not go to Italy.

Certainly she has no moral claim, for by the Pact of London, Fiume was to go to Croatia. Orlando says that he is answering the call of the Italians in exile. Let them stay in exile, I say. They went into a foreign land to make money and now they wish to annex the land they are visiting, to the home country. How would we like it if the Chinese swamped San Francisco and then asked to be annexed to China? This is carrying the Fiume idea to its ultimate, a ridiculous ultimate, of course, as most ultimates are.

Whether he [President Wilson] gave out the statement as to the break too early, and without the consent of England and France, of course I don't know. Quite like him to do it if he thought the thing had hung long enough, and that Italy was too d.a.m.n predatory.

And she does seem to be. The New Idea seems to have less real hold in Italy--at least among the governing cla.s.s--than in any other European country. Her present position will postpone peace. This will cause us trouble over the extra session of Congress for our appropriations will run out. And perhaps in England it may give a chance for labor troubles to rise. It will postpone the return of good times to this country. But ultimately Italy will have to come through. If economic pressure were put upon her she would be compelled to yield at once, for she depends on England and ourselves for all the coal she uses, and on us chiefly for her wheat. Of course this form of coercion will not be resorted to.

She might think more kindly if she were given an extended credit, say of two hundred million dollars. But the people being aroused now over what they think is a matter of principle--loyalty to their compatriots in Fiume--they may not be able to compromise.

Lord Reading rather fears that this is the situation and that it might have been avoided if the President had not issued his statement when he did. However, I have no doubt that the President will have his way. He nearly always does. Surely the G.o.d that once was the Kaiser's is now his.

To be the First President of the League of Nations is to be the crowning glory of his life. I believe in the League--as an effort. It will not cure, but it is a serious effort to get at the disease. It is a hopeful effort, too, for it makes moral standards, standards of conduct between nations which will bring conventional pressure to bear on the side of peace, to offset the old convention of rus.h.i.+ng into war to satisfy hurt feelings.

Sooner or later there will come disarmament--the pistol will be taken away and the streets will be safer.

The boy is having a tough time in his oil work. It is so dirty!

But I hope he sticks out until he proves himself. I hear that the Dutch Sh.e.l.l people have bought out Cowdray in Mexico, and now are trying to get Doheny's lands. They bestride the earth, and as soon as their activities are known generally, this country will look upon the Standard Oil as the American champion in a big international fight.

... Well, dear old chap, I know that I could add nothing to your cure if I were there but I am not content to be so far away from you. ... F. K. L.

TO WILLIAM BOYCE THOMPSON ROOSEVELT PERMANENT MEMORIAL NATIONAL COMMITTEE

Was.h.i.+ngton, May 20, 1919

MY DEAR MR. THOMPSON,--I told Mr. Loeb that I would feel greatly honored to be a member of a Memorial Committee, to do honor to Ex- President Roosevelt. To-day, I receive an agreement which I am asked to sign in which the members of the Committee are to pledge themselves to a memorial for the furtherance of Mr. Roosevelt's policies. I do not know what such a phrase means. With some of his policies I know I was in hearty accord but as to others, such as the tariff, I have my doubts. This might be turned or construed into a great machine for propaganda of a partisan character, and it seems to me that the Colonel's memory is altogether too precious a national possession to have that construction possibly given to any memorial to him.

There are hundreds of thousands of Democrats, like myself, who admired him and who would contribute toward a memorial, who should not be asked to do this if it was any more than a straight-out memorial to the man, the soldier, the naturalist, the historian, the President, the intense, vital American.

And all of your officers, so far as I am acquainted with them, are Republicans. This does not seem to convey quite the right suggestion.

I have already planned for a lasting Roosevelt memorial in the creation of a park in California, to bear Colonel Roosevelt's name. I expect this will have Congressional approval at the present session of Congress.

Last night I talked with Senator Frank Kellogg about this matter, and he agrees with my view. He says that he understood the memorial was to be something in Was.h.i.+ngton of a permanent and artistic character, and perhaps the home at Oyster Bay, and that the personnel of all committees was to be popular, including if possible as many Democrats as Republicans.

Under these circ.u.mstances I beg leave to withhold my signature to the agreement sent me. I would have no objection to asking Congress to provide for a memorial, though I think this should be deferred as a matter of policy until the public had subscribed generously. Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO BENJAMIN IDE WHEELER PRESIDENT EMERITUS, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

Was.h.i.+ngton, June 16, 1919

MY DEAR WHEELER,--I have seen your goodbye address at Berkeley, and I am very glad I did not hear it, for it must have been a sad day for Berkeley and for you. The address itself was a n.o.ble word.

I hear that you have bought Lucy Sprague's home and are to remain in Berkeley. This is as it should be. You can ripen into the Sage of Berkeley, and be a center of influence, stimulating the best in others. A long, long life to you! Always sincerely and devotedly yours,

FRANKLIN K, LANE

TO E. S. MARTIN LIFE

Was.h.i.+ngton, August 23, 1919

MY DEAR MR. MARTIN,-- ... It does not seem to me that this country will rise to a cla.s.s war. We have too many farmers and small householders and women--put the accent on the women. They are the conservatives. Until a woman is starving, she does not grow Red, unless she is without a husband or babies and has a lot of money that she did not earn. ... Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO GEORGE W. LANE

Was.h.i.+ngton, September 11, 1919

DEAR GEORGE,--You do not know how much of sympathy I send out to you and how many words of prayer I send up for you. You need them all, I expect. ... What a long siege you have had!

I suppose you will not be able to hear the President speak when he is there. You will miss much. He is not impa.s.sioned nor a great orator, such as Chatham or Fox, or Webster or Dolliver, or even Bryan--but he has a keen, quick, cutting mind, the mind of a really great critic, and his manner is that of the gentleman scholar. He is first among all men to-day, which is much for America.

My Nancy has been having a splendid time, even if she only saw your ranch for a week--but she is the gayest thing alive--G.o.d grant she may continue so always. ...

For the first time in twenty-five years we are living in an apartment, large and in a nice place, but somehow my sense of the fitness of things will not let me call the place "home"--altho' it is the most comfortable habitation I have ever lived in, elevator, whole floor to ourselves. ... and they let me keep my dog. I wouldn't have come if they hadn't. We turned down a fine place with a more expansive view because Jack was not wanted. But surely in these days of doubt and disloyalty one must have some rock to cling to, why not a trusting-eyed dog? ... But all this does not recompense me for the absence of a "home"--which is a house, anywhere. Yet we may have to do our own work. ... The cooks are all too proud to work--I wish you would tell me just how this economic problem should be settled. How much do you believe in socialism or socialization? ... Do you think there can be a partners.h.i.+p in business? I am inclined to think this can be worked out, along lines of cooperative owners.h.i.+p, but not until an enterprise is well standardized.

I expect bad times soon with labor. We are only postponing the evil day. The President seems less radical than he was. He is sobered by conditions, I suspect. The negro is a danger that you do not have. Turn him loose and he is a wild man. Every Southerner fears him.

... I am trying hard to believe something that might be called the shadow of a religion--a G.o.d that has a good purpose, and another life in which there is a chance for further growth, if not for glory. But when I b.u.mp up against a series of afflictions such as you have been subjected to, I fall back upon Fred's philosophy of a purposeless or else a cruel G.o.d. ... I simply have a sinking of the heart, a goneness, a hopelessness--not even the pleasure of a resignation. Old Sid's cold mind has worked itself through to a decision that there is no purpose and no future, and finds solace in the ultimate; having reached the cellar he finds the satisfaction of rest. I can't get there for my buoyancy, the hold- over of early teachings or perhaps my naturally sanguine nature will not permit me to hit bottom, but forever I must be floating, floating--nowhere. Happy the man who strikes the certainty of a rock-bottom h.e.l.l, rather than one who is kept floating midway-- that is a purgatory worse than h.e.l.l. I don't seem to have any capacity for anger, as against G.o.d or man, for anything that befalls me, but I get morbid over the injustices done to others.

Now I shall stop philosophizing on this matter for it is three in the morning, and too hot to sleep, and such a time is made for wickedness and not for righteousness.

I am sorry you will not see the President. He is worth hearing, better than reading, and he always talks well. He can not pa.s.s his treaty without some kind of reservations and he should have seen this a month ago. The Republicans will not struggle to pa.s.s it in his absence and think that they have done a smart thing, but in the end Wilson and not Lodge would win by such a trick. The one greatest of vices is smart-aleckism. Sometime I shall write an essay on that subject. The burglar and the confidence operator and the profiteer and the profligate and the defaulting bank cas.h.i.+er are all victims of that disease--smart-aleckism. They will do a trick, to prove how clever they are. I believe that is the way ninety per cent of the boys and girls go wrong, and instead of teaching them the Bible, why not try reducing the size of their conceit and their disposition to boast. I just wonder how far wrong I am on this?

... Don't let the family worry you. Call for the police if they don't let you have your own way. ... What a plague of women! But how did monks manage to live anyhow? Maybe they chose a hard death--perhaps that was the secret of the whole monkery game!

Women let us down into the grave with much unction to our ego, I mean sweet oil of adoration ... poured out upon the way down to Avernus. ... Don't feel discouraged because you lie there. I feel much more discontented than you do, right here at the heart of the world. ... Love to Maude and Frances, and mention me with proper respect and dignity to Miss Nancy Lane.

F. K.