The Letters of Franklin K. Lane, Personal and Political Part 9

By the way, at the Sorbonne at Paris they are exhibiting the chair in which President Roosevelt will sit when he comes to deliver his address and I am thinking that he will have quite as hearty a reception in Paris as in any of our cities.

Very truly yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO JOHN H. WIGMORE

Was.h.i.+ngton, December 3, 1909

MY DEAR DOCTOR,--... I think there is but little doubt that De Vries will receive the appointment, though of course everything here is in absolute chaos. ... The best symptom in my own case is that I have been called in twice to consult over proposed amendments to the law, and the President's [Taft's] reference thereto in his forthcoming message. He seems to think my judgment worth something--more than I do myself, in fact--for down in my heart, though I do not let anybody see it, I am really a modest creature.

Since my return from the West we have had one merry round of sickness in the house ... but all are on their feet once more and as gay as they can be with a more or less grumpy head of the household in the neighborhood, (a.s.suming for the nonce that I am the head of the household).

The President is going to appoint Lurton. [Footnote: To the Supreme Bench.] He should have said so when he made up his mind to do it, which was immediately after Peckham's death. He would have saved himself an immense amount of trouble. Lurton seems to have been very hostile to the Interstate Commerce Commission, and is too old, but otherwise I hear nothing said against him. I really would like to see Bowers put on the bench very much. He has made a very favorable impression here, and is a clear lawyer, a very strong man, and in sympathy with Federal control that's real.

By the way, I had a talk the other day with Attorney General Wickersham regarding the treatment of criminals, and I believe you can secure through him the initiation of an enlightened policy in this matter. He told me that he was going to make some recommendations in his report, and perhaps the President may deal with the matter slightly in his message. Wickersham is a thoroughly modern proposition, and as he has charge of all the penitentiaries, and his recommendations, with relation to parole and such things, absolutely go with the President, I believe you could do more good in an hour's talk with him than you could effect in a year otherwise. If you could run down, during the holiday vacation, I would bring you two together for a talk on this matter, and you, also, might take up the very live question with the President of cutting off red-tape in the courts. Give my love to Mrs. Wigmore, and tell her, too, that we would be most delighted to see her here. Faithfully yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

On December 9,1909, President Taft reappointed Franklin K. Lane as a member of the Interstate Commerce Commission.

TO MRS. FRANKLIN K. LANE

En route to California, Monday, March [1910]

... I have spent a rather pleasant day reading, and looking at this great desert of New Mexico and Arizona. No one on board that I know or care to know, but the big sky and my books keep me busy.

Do you remember that picture in the Corcoran Gallery with a wee line of land at the bottom and a great high reach of blue sky above, covering nine-tenths of the canvas? I have thought of it often to-day--"the high, irrepressible sky." It is moonlight and the rare air gives physical tone, so that I feel a bit more like myself, as was, than is ordinary. ...

I have thought of a lecture to-day and you must keep this letter as a reminder and make me do it one of these days: THE PROBLEMS OF RAILROAD REGULATION. THE TRAFFIC MANAGER AS A STATESMAN: THE UNEARNED INCREMENT OF OUR RAILROADS.

And another: THE NEED OF A WORLD BANK: INTERNATIONAL AND INDEPENDENT FINANCIAL AUTHORITY, which shall fix standards of value, based on no one metal or commodity, but on a great number of staples.

I have thought much of the farm. It will be so far away and so impracticable of use! But such an anchor to windward, for two most hand-to-mouth spendthrifts! ...

TO THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Was.h.i.+ngton, April 29, 1910

MY DEAR MR. ROOSEVELT,--Mr. Kellogg tells me that he expects to see you in Europe, and I avail myself of his offer to carry a word of welcome to you, inasmuch as I must leave for Europe the day after your arrival in New York, the President having appointed me as a delegate to the International Railway Congress at Berne.

The country is awaiting you anxiously--not out of mere curiosity to know what your att.i.tude will be, but to lead it, to give it direction. The public opinion which you developed in favor of the "square deal" is stronger to-day than when you left, and your personal following is larger to-day than it ever has been. There is no feeling (or if there is any it is negligible) that the President [Taft] has been consciously disloyal to the policies which you inaugurated or to his public promises. He is patriotic, conscientious, and lovable. This was your own view as expressed to me, and this view has been confirmed by my personal experience with him. It is also, I believe, the judgment of the country at large. But the people do not feel that they control the government or that their interests will be safeguarded by a relations.h.i.+p that is purely diplomatic between the White House and Congress. In short we have a new consciousness of Democracy, largely resulting from your administration, and it is such that the character of government which satisfied the people of twenty years ago is found lacking to-day. Practically all the criticism to which this administration has been subjected arises out of the feeling of the people that their opinions and desires are not sufficiently consulted, and they are suspicious of everything and everybody that is not open and frank with them.

Outside of a few of the larger states the entire country is insurgent, and insurgency means revolt against taking orders. The prospect is that the next House will be Democratic, but the Democrats apparently lack a realization of the many new problems upon which the country is divided. Their success would not indicate the acceptance of any positive program of legislation; it would be a vote of lack of confidence in the Republican party because it has allowed apparent party interest to rise superior to public good. The prospect is that every measure which Congress will pa.s.s at this session will be wise and in line with your policies, but the people do not feel that THEY are pa.s.sing the bills.

I have presumed to say this much, thinking that perhaps you would regard my opinion as entirely unbiased, and in the hope that I might throw some light upon what I regard as the fundamental trouble which has to be dealt with. Whether you choose to re-enter political life or not, men of all parties desire your leaders.h.i.+p and will accept your advice as they will that of none other.

Pardon me for this typewriting, but I thought that you might prefer a letter in this form which you could read to one in my own hand which you could not read. Believe me, as always, faithfully yours.

FRANKLIN K. LANE

From Berlin, Lane received from Theodore Roosevelt, dated May 13, 1910, these lines,--

" ... I think your letter most interesting. As far as I can judge you have about sized up the situation right. With hearty good wishes, faithfully yours,

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

TO JOHN H. WIGMORE

Was.h.i.+ngton, March 2, 1911

MY DEAR JOHN,--No other letter that I have received has done me as much good or given me as much pleasure, or has been as much of a stimulus, as has yours. The fact that you took the time to go through the REPORT so carefully is an evidence of a friends.h.i.+p that is beyond all price, and of which I feel most unworthy. I have had the figures checked over, resulting in some slight changes, and will send you a revised copy as soon as it is printed. The newspaper criticisms are generally very friendly, although the FINANCIAL CHRONICLE, the WALL STREET JOURNAL, and other railway organs are extremely bitter. The Western papers do not seem to have been very much elated over the decision. It has appeared to me from the beginning as if they had been "fixed" in advance and that their reports were always biased for the railroads, but the country at large will realize, I think, before long, that the decisions are sound, sensible, and in the public interest. Some of the least narrow of the railroad men also take this view. The best editorial I have seen is in the New York EVENING POST. Sincerely yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

P. S. I got this note from Roosevelt this morning, headed THE OUTLOOK:--

"Fine! I am really greatly obliged to you, and I shall read the REPORT with genuine interest. More power to your elbow! Faithfully yours."

"This report was known," Commissioner Harlan explains, "as the Western Advance Rate Case. It was one of the first of the great cases covering many commodities and applying over largely extended territories. In his opinion denying the rate advances proposed by the carriers, Commissioner Lane discussed the Commission's new powers of suspending the operation of increased rates pending investigation and the burden of proof in such cases. He marshalled a vast array of facts and figures and announced conclusions that were accepted as convincing by the public at large. He then pointed out that the laws enforced by the Commission sought dominion over private capital for no other purpose than to secure the public against injustice and thereby make capital itself more secure."

TO WILLIAM R. WHEELER TRAFFIC BUREAU, MERCHANTS' EXCHANGE SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

Was.h.i.+ngton, June 27, 1911

DEAR SIR,--Adverting to yours of June 22, IN RE express rates, I beg to advise that nothing can be added to my previous letter unless it is the expression of my personal opinion that a rate should not be made for the carriage of 20,000 pound s.h.i.+pments by express.

We are receiving daily similar complaints to yours, respecting the nonadjustment of express rates, and if you will call at this office we shall be pleased to reveal the reason for our failure, hitherto, to grant the relief desired. It is extremely warm in Was.h.i.+ngton at the present time, but if anything could add to the disagreeableness of life in the city it is the unreasoning insistence on the part of the traffic bureaus of the country that express rates shall be fixed overnight.

I desire to say that I have given some year or two of more or less profane contemplation to this question, and have now engaged a large corps of men, under the direction of Mr. Frank Lyon as attorney for the Commission, to seek a way out of the inextricable maze of express company figures. Whether we will be able to find the light before the Infinite Hand that controls our destinies cuts short the cord, is a question to which no certain answer can be given. Would you kindly advise the importunate members of a most worthy inst.i.tution, that express rates to San Francisco possess me as an obsessment. My prayer is at night interfered with by consideration of the question--"What should the 100 pound rate be by Wells Fargo & Co. from New York to San Francisco?" And at night often I am aroused from sleep, feeling confident in my dreams that the mystic figure of "a just and reasonable rate,"

under Section One, on 100-pound s.h.i.+pments to San Francisco, had been determined, and awaken with a joyous cry upon my lips, to discover that life has been made still more unhappy by the torture of the subconscious mind during sleep.

No doubt your s.h.i.+ppers are being treated unfairly, both by the express companies and by the Interstate Commerce Commission. This is a cruel world. Congress itself adds to the torture, by almost daily referring to us some bill touching express rates or parcels post, or some such similar service, and while the thermometer stands at 117 degrees in the shade we are requested to advise as to whether express companies should not be abolished. It has only been by the exercise of a rare and unusual degree of self-control on my part, and by long periods of prayer, that I have refrained from advising Congress that I thought express companies should be abolished and designating the place to which they should be relegated.

As perhaps you may have heard, I shall visit the Pacific Coast in person during the next few weeks, and there I trust I may have the pleasure of meeting you and your n.o.ble Governing Committees, to whom I shall explain in person and in detail the difficulties attaching to the solution of this problem. ... Sincerely yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE