The Letters of Franklin K. Lane, Personal and Political Part 61

To Mr. and Mrs. Louis Hertle Gunston Hall on the Potomac

Rochester, Minnesota, May 2

DEAR PEOPLE,--What good angel ever put it into your heart to wire us--and such a warm electric message!

I tell you this is not Gunston Hall--so few birds, flowers, trees --but I like the great sweep of the sky out here. There is nothing mean about this land of ours. It gives you something, and gives it to you generously, something lovable wherever you are.

The Doctors have not decided what to do with me. ... But we'll be out of suspense this week, I expect.

I can see your garden now--fountain, hedge, roses, bird-boxes, pergola, box and all--with the dignified, stately Potomac way out yonder, beyond the cleared fields and the timber. Lucky people, and you deserve it all. No one, not even the Bolsheviks, would take it from you. Cordially yours always,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

To Alexander Vogelsang

Rochester, Minnesota, May 4, 1921

DEAR ALECK,--I must pa.s.s under the knife, that is the verdict. On Friday morning the act takes place. And out will come gall- bladder, adhesions, appendix and all things appertaining thereto, including hereditaments, reversions, lives in posse, and sinecures. So that's that!

They say that my heart has grown much worse in the last three months, but that I probably have four chances out of five of pulling through, which is more chance than I ever had in politics in California. I believe I am to be operated on while conscious, as they fear to give ether. I trust my curiosity will not interfere with the surgeon's facility.

Ah well, this old sh.e.l.l is not myself, and I have never felt that the world's axis was located with reference to my habitat. But this is so interesting an old world that I don't want to leave it prematurely, because one does run the risk of not coming upon one equally interesting. So I shall think of you and try to see you later, in the new offices in the Mills Building. May clients come thick as dogwood in Rock Creek Park; and trout streams in hidden places be revealed unto you, within an hour's flight by aero.

Affectionately,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

P. S. Give my regards to the boys with you and in the office, when you see them--and to Wade Ellis and Ira Bennett and others who may be interested. Love to your dear Lady!

To John Finley New York Times

Rochester, Minnesota, May 4, [1921]

MY DEAR FINLEY,--I have your postal from London and it cheereth me--Yea, thou hast done a kindly act to one who is sore beset. ...

When you and I can talk together I want to urge a new field upon your great paper. Perhaps you can take it up with Mr. Ochs and perhaps he can see how he can add to his usefulness and to the glory of his paper's name.

My thought is that there should be somewhere--and why not in New York?--a Place of Exchange for the New Ideas that the world evolves each year, a central spot where all that is new in science, philosophy, practical political machinery, and all else of the world's mind-products shall be placed on exhibition where those interested may see. Why should not the Times do this?

It would cost very little. All the plant needs would be a building which would contain one or two fine halls for public speaking, and a few properly appointed apartments. No faculty--but a super- university with all the searchers and researchers, inventors, experimenters, thinkers of the world for faculty. No students--but every man the world round interested in the theme under consideration, welcome, as student without pay. The only executive officer a Director, whose business would be to see that the great minds were tapped,--a high cla.s.s impresario, who would know who had thought thoughts, developed a theory, found a new problem, or a new method of solving an old one, and [would] bring the thinker on the stage and present him to those who knew of what he talked; and could intelligently, quickly, distribute it to the ends of the earth.

Money? The lecturer would get his expenses from his home and back again, and be cared for appropriately in one of the apartments.

Otherwise the incidental expenses of administration. Aside from the single and simple building the whole thing should not cost more than $100,000 a year.

To ill.u.s.trate--it took years for the world to know what Rutherford was doing with radium. Why should he not have been brought to some central place and there, before all the students who might choose to come, tell his story? Pasteur, Einstein, Bergson, Wright Brothers, Wells (theory of Education). These names are suggestive.

The great of the world could walk, as it were, in the groves with their pupils and critics, and we could have a new Athens. Whatever progress the world had made, in whatever line, would be reported at that time. And the world would know in advance that this was to be so. Germany has been the world thought center for forty years.

England is now planning to take Germany's place. Why not America?

But the government has not the imagination, and this must be done quickly.

Why not the Times? And why shouldn't you start it for the Times-- be the first Director?

Then I want someone to take over another of my ideas--a sort of Federal Reserve Board on the good of the nation, an unofficial group of men with foresight, who would be a spur to government and suggest direction. Somebody whose business it would be to attend to that which is n.o.body's business and so waits, and waits, until sometimes too late. Why should we have had no plans for caring for our soldiers as to employment and giving them the right bent on their return?

There was no one to concentrate attention--the attention of Congress and the public--on any definite plan. I tried it with my scheme for making farms for soldiers, but Congress, as soon as it found that I was really agitating, pa.s.sed laws making it impossible for me to use a sheet of paper or the frank for the purpose. I do not say my plan was the best possible. Then someone should have come forward with another, and pushed it against a Congress made up of Republicans who feared that Democrats would get the credit, and Democrats who feared Republicans would. Hence, deadlock, and a great opportunity lost! ...

Seers, or see-ers, that's what these men should be. Elder Statesmen, if you please, independent, away above politics.

Doesn't it seem to you that we are coming to be altogether too dependent on the President? That office will be ruined. Every one with a sore thumb has come into the habit of running to the President. This is all wrong, all wrong. He cannot do his job well now. And he is only nominally doing it, and only nominally has been doing it for years. But each month seems to add to his duties as arbiter of everything from clothes to strikes, from baseball to disarmament.

I see a tremendous field for a body of a few ripe minds who would talk so little, and so wisely, and so collectively, that they could get and hold the ear of the country, governmental and otherwise.

I outlined for Mezes, in your old job, a series of lectures by Americans who have done things on Why America is Worth While--and he has expanded it into a whole course on America, so that I believe he will have something new and great--teaching history, geology, art, everything, by the history of that thing in America, and how it came to come here, or be here, or what it means here.

Well, I have written you a book and must stop--I don't know where to address you but will send this to the Times. Please remember me to Mr. Ochs--who can see things, and here's hoping it won't be long before we meet. Yours always,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

To James H. Barry San Francisco Star

Rochester, Minnesota, May 5, [1921]

MY DEAR JIM,--I have nothing of importance to say, except that I am to be operated on tomorrow and hope for the best, for Dr. Will Mayo is to do the operating, and I am not in a very run-down condition.

I find myself quite serene, for I can look forward even to the very worst result with the feeling that there is no one to meet me over there to whom I've done any wrong. And while I haven't done my best, my score hasn't been blank. I honestly believe I've added a farthing or two to the talent that was given me.

My brother George is here, with his splendid philosophy and his Scotch songs; and Ned, my boy, and his bride have just come back, so that Anne and I are very well content that things are just as they should be. I go to St. Mary's Hospital where they have nuns for nurses, and when time comes for recuperation I shall go to the near-by estate of my old friend, Severance, the big St. Paul lawyer, whom I have known these thirty years.

I hope, my dear old man, that you will find new occupation soon that will give you use for your pen, and sterling love of justice.

My regards, sincere and hearty to your family, and my other friends.

F. K. LANE

To Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt

Rochester, Minnesota, May 5, [1921]

Just because I like you very much, and being a very old man dare to say so, I am sending this line, which has no excuse in its news, philosophy or advice; has no excuse, in fact, except what might be called affection, but of course this being way past the Victorian era, no one admits to affections! I will not belittle my own feeling by saying that I have a wife who thinks you the best Eastern product--and probably she'd move to strike out the word "Eastern." At any rate, I think I should tell you myself that I am to be operated on tomorrow, by Dr. Will Mayo, and am glad of it.

We shall see what we shall see.

I find myself quite serene about the matter, altho' I believe my heart is so bad that they fear giving ether and will keep me conscious if they can, applying only a local anesthetic.

I'd like to have Anne's perfect sureness as to the future, but lacking it, I do not look forward with fear, even if the worst should happen. I've never done a wrong to any man or woman or child that I can now recall--but maybe my memory is failing.

My boy and his bride came back this morning--happy! Oh, so happy!

And my "best beloved" brother who sings Scotch songs is here--a great philosopher whom you would deeply admire--and our friends the Severances of St. Paul, thirty year-old friends, they come over tonight. So we will be a merry, merry company. I'd love to see you and the gay Cavalier, but let us hope it won't be long till we meet! Au revoir!