The Letters of Franklin K. Lane, Personal and Political Part 30

TO HON. WOODROW WILSON

THE WHITE HOUSE

Was.h.i.+ngton, June 8, 1916

MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT,--I see by the papers that it is repeatedly announced that you are writing the platform. Now I want to take the liberty of saying that this is not altogether good news to me.

Our platform should contain such an appreciation of you and your administration, that you could not write it, much less have it known that you have written it. It should be one long joyful shout of exultation over the achievements of the Administration, and I can't quite see you leading the shout.

The Republican party was for half a century a constructive party, and the Democratic party was the party of negation and complaint.

We have taken the play from them. The Democratic party has become the party of construction. You have outlined new policies and put them into effect through every department, from State to Labor.

Therefore, our platform should be generously filled with words of boasting that will hearten and make proud the Democrats of the country; a plain tale of large things simply done.

If there is any truth at all in the newspaper statement and any purpose in making it, perhaps the end that is desired might be reached by a statement that you are not undertaking to write the platform, but that at the request of some of the leaders you are giving them a concrete statement of your foreign policy.

Faithfully yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO MRS. FRANKLIN K. LANE

ESs.e.x ON CHAMPLAIN, N. Y.

Was.h.i.+ngton, June 22, 1918

MY DEAR ANNE,--I am just back this minute from Brown [University]

where I had a right good time. I arrived in the morning early and kept the Dean waiting for me for a half an hour. ...

After breakfast I went over to the University grounds, which are very quaint, on the crest of a hill with fine old buildings, and there found that Hughes was the hero of the day, of course; every step he took he was cheered. He was very genial about it. We marched in our robes, down through the winding streets of this old New England town to a meeting house one hundred and seventy-five years old, and there we sat in pews, while the President of Brown, Mr. Faunce, gave the degrees in Latin. I have not heard so much Latin since I left school. There were a pretty good looking lot of boys, about half of them New Englanders and about half of them Westerners. We heard some orations by the students and then marched up the hill again where we had lunch, and then went over to a great tent on the campus where William Roscoe Thayer--who wrote the life of Hay--President Faunce, Judge Brown, Mr. Hughes, and I spoke.

I spoke for about half an hour. My speech fitted in very well, because Thayer preceded me, and he spoke of the lack of an American spirit; I had already prepared a speech upon the abundance of American spirit, [Footnote: Speech published in book ent.i.tled, The American Spirit.] so that I answered Thayer, and answered him with scorn. I told him that if New England was growing weak in her American pride or her vigor that we would take these boys and carry them out West where there was not any lack of virility or hardiness or red blood, and that if they wanted to know whether the American was willing to fight or not, to go to any recruiting office of the United States to-day and see how crowded it was. I told them about our pioneers, who were taking up ten or twelve million acres of land, the men who had gone to Alaska, and then turned upon the real proposition which was that there was a difference between national spirit and martial spirit.

War used to be the only opportunity for glory or romance or achievement, while there are a million other opportunities now open, because man's imagination has grown. In the morning the College had given honorary degrees of LL.D. to Brand Whitlock and Herbert Hoover. So when I came to the close of my talk I told them about Hoover's Belgian work, and that Brand Whitlock had refused to leave Brussels; and while there was no English and no French and no Italian and no Spanish and no other flag in Brussels, the Stars and Stripes in front of the American Legation had never come down, and the Belgian peasant when he went to his work in the morning took his hat off in honor of our flag, and I asked those people to stand with me in front of that peasant to take their hats off and take heart.

Well, I had the crowd with me right along. Then Hughes came and he took American Spirit as his text, and he made it quite evident what his campaign is going to be; that it is going to be a charge, veiled and very poorly supported by facts, that we have not known where we were going, that we were vacillating, that we did not have any enthusiasm, that we did not arouse the people and make them feel proud that they were Americans. How in the mischief he is going to get away with this, I do not understand. Whom were we to be mad at--England, or Germany, or everybody in the world? Were we to war with the entire outfit? He seems to be able to have satisfied the Providence Journal, which is run by an Australian who has been running the spy system for the British Emba.s.sy, and has been printing a lot ... about Germany and all the German press. If he can get away with this he is some politician. I see that Teddy has had an understanding with him. Von Meyer was there yesterday to hold a conference with him.

But I do not think that we lost anything in the discussion of yesterday. There were not any Democrats there who were not on their toes at the end of the meeting; but, of course, practically everybody in Rhode Island is a Republican. It is the closest thing to a proprietary estate that I have ever seen.

... I left at 6 o'clock and on my way back met President Vincent, of Minneapolis, and George Foster Peabody. You knew that Frank Kellogg was nominated, [Footnote: For the United States Senate.]

didn't you, Clapp running third? ...

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO MRS. ADOLPH MILLER

Was.h.i.+ngton, July 4, 1916

... I see you with blooming cheeks and star-lit eyes peeping out from under a sun-bonnet, enshrined in all the glories of the mountain redwoods, and I long to be with you if only to get some of the freshness and joy of the California mountains into my rather desolate soul.

How is the old clam? Do his lips come together in that precise Prussian way, and does he order the universe about? Or does a new spirit come over him when he gets with nature? Is she a soothing mistress who smooths his stiff hair with her soft hand, and pats his cheek and nestles him in her arms, and with her cool breath makes him forget a federal, or any other kind, of reserve?

Why has nature been so unkind to me as to make me a lover but always from afar, never to come near her, never to compel me to a sweet surrender, never to give me peace and contentment, never to so surround me as to keep out the world of fools and follies and pharisees?

You know, I would like to write some servant girl novels. I believe I could do it. My love-making would either be rather tame and stiff or too intensely early Victorian. But I should like to swing off into an ecstasy of large turgid words and let my mind hear the mushy housemaid cry, "Isn't that just too sweet!" ...

I enclose a copy of my speech made at Brown University. Perhaps it will interest that old farmer potato bug. He does not deserve to have it said, but I miss him very much. Please obey him an you love me. Cut out all social activities, giving yourself up to the acquisition of a few more of the right kind of corpuscles in your too-blue blood. As always, yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

To Mrs. Franklin K. Lane

Ess.e.x-on-Champlain

Was.h.i.+ngton, July 4, 1916

... There is no news that I can give you. The weather is very warm. Politics is growing warmer. I think Heney will run for Senator in California, probably against Hiram Johnson. Will Crocker is also said to be a candidate for the Republican nomination. I could get the nomination by saying that I would accept. Phelan told me yesterday that he would see that all the necessary money was raised,--that I could win in a walk.

Dockweiler says the same thing. The latter is here and we have seen much of each other. What do you say if I run for Senator? I really feel very much tempted to do it at times because things have been made so uncomfortable by some of my fool colleagues who have b.u.t.ted in on my affairs; and then I feel I would like the excitement of the stump and to make the personal appeal once more.

You could go round with me over the State in an automobile. While I would not insist upon your making speeches for me, I know that your presence would add greatly to my success.

There is no telling what way this campaign may go. It may be a landslide for Wilson, it may be a landslide the other way. We have the hazards because we have the decision of questions. There is bound to be a lot of objection to whatever course we take with regard to Mexico. I fear from what Benjamin Ide Wheeler told me the other day that Germany any day may decide to put her submarines into active service again on the old lines, especially if things on land go as they have been going lately against the Teutons.

... I shall not decide in favor of accepting the nomination until I hear from you. In the meantime don't lose any sleep over it. And so my Nancy has a beau? Well, the little rascal must be given some good advice now. So I shall turn my attention to her ...

F.K.L.

Was.h.i.+ngton, July 24, 1916

... To-day I have spent most quietly,--had Bill Wheeler up for breakfast and then went to the Cosmos Club for lunch with Dockweiler. He is very anxious to get a Catholic on the Mexican Commission and so am I. I want Chief Justice White, but I fear the President won't ask him ...

Dear old Dockweiler is an awfully good man ... From youth he has gauged every act by his conception of the will of G.o.d, and in doubt has asked G.o.d's representative, the priest. What a comforting thing to have a church like that; it makes for happiness, if it does not make for progress. Why is it that progress must come from discontent? The latter is the divine spark in man, no doubt,

"O to be satisfied, satisfied, Only to lie at Thy feet."

is a hymn we used to sing in church. We yearn to be satisfied and yet we know because we are not satisfied we grow . ...

"The mystical hanker after something higher," is religion, and yet it should not be all of religion; for man's own sake there should be some cross to which one can cling, some Christ who can hear and give peace to the waves. I wish I could be a Catholic, and yet I can not feel that once you have a free spirit that it is right to go back into the monastery, and shut yourself up away from doubts, making your soul strong only through prayer. There are two principles in the world fighting all the time, and the one makes the other possible. There is no "perfect," there is a "better"

only. And in this fight one does not become better by prayer-- prayer is only the ammunition wagon, the supply train, where one can get masks for poison gas and cartridges for the guns.

Pfeiffer said a good thing the other day, quite like him to say it, too. We were talking of churches and he said he never went to one because he did not believe in abasing or prostrating himself before G.o.d, he saw no sense in it; G.o.d didn't respect one for it, and moreover he was part of G.o.d himself and he couldn't prostrate himself before himself. I asked him if he didn't recognize humility as a virtue, and he said, "No, the higher you hold your head the more G.o.d-like you are."

Humility, to me, seems to be the basis of sympathy. We stoop to conquer in that we are not self-a.s.sertive and self-a.s.sured, for if we "know" that we are right we can not know how others think or feel. We can not grow.

You know there are two great cla.s.ses of people, those who are challenged by what they see, and those who are not. Now the only kind who grow are the former. But what is it to grow? If we "evermore come out by that same door wherein we went" surely there is no object in being curious. Can there be growth when we are in an endless circle? ...