Part 15
MY DEAR AVERY,--I am very glad to hear from you and to get your verse. I had a glorious time at Berkeley. I could have received no honor that would have given me greater satisfaction, but oh! as I look over that old list of professors and associate professors! I don't know a tenth of them, and I never heard of half of them. How far I am removed from the scholastic life, and how far we both are from those old days when you used to sit with your pipe in your mouth, in front of your cabin, and discourse to me upon God and men!
Well, we don't any of us know any more about God, but we know something more about man. But after all is said and done, I guess I like him about as much, as I did in the enthusiastic days when we used to quiz old Moses. The streak of ideality that I had then I still retain. The reason that I have remained a Democrat is because I felt that we gave prime concern to the interests of men, as such, and had more faith that we could help on a revolution.
These are times of trial. The well we look into is very deep. The stars are not very bright. It is hard to find our way, but the pilot has a good nerve. I know the trouble that Ulysses had with Scylla and Charybdis.
Thank you, old man, very heartily for your word of cheer. Cordially yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
TO JOHN F. DAVIS
Washington, August 2, 1915
MY DEAR JOHN,--I am very glad to get your letter of July 28, telling me your views regarding the last note. I believe the paragraph to which you refer was absolutely essential to make Germany understand that we meant business; that she could not have taken our opposition seriously is evidenced by her previous note, and which, I think, was as insulting as any note ever addressed by one power to another. Think of the absurd proposition, that we should be allowed a certain number of ships to be prescribed by Germany upon which our people could sail! Of course, if we accepted her conditions, we would have to accept the conditions that any other belligerent, or neutral, for that matter, might impose. What becomes of a neutral's rights under these conditions?
The Leenalaw case shows that Germany can do exactly what we have been asking her to do; namely, give people a chance to get off the ship before they blow her up. This is good sense and good morals; and the whole neutral world is behind us. If, in response to our note, Germany had said, "We regret the destruction of American lives, and are willing to make reparation, and have directed our submarines that they shall not torpedo any ships until the ship has been given an opportunity to halt," there would have been no trouble; but Germany evidently did not take us seriously. Our English was a bit too diplomatic.
I am writing you thus frankly, and in confidence, of course, because I respect your opinion greatly. Cordially yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
In the middle of August, Lane joined his family at Essex-on- Champlain, New York, for a few days. While there he went with Mr. and Mrs. James S. Harlan to Westport, some miles further south on the lake, to see the summer boat races and water sports. Mr. Harlan's motor-boat, the Gladwater, which had been built on his dock by Dick Mead, won the race, and that evening on their return Lane gave the following letter to the successful builder:--
August 21, 1915
To "Dick" Mead on winning the race at Westport in the Gladwater.
We wonder sometimes why man was made, so full is life of things that terrorize, that sadden and embitter. This life is a sea; tranquil sometimes but so often fierce and cruel. And you and I are conscript sailors. Whether we will or no we must sail the sea of life, and in a ship that each must build for himself. To each is given iron and unhewn timber, to some more and to some less, with which to fashion his craft. Then the race really starts.
Some of us build ships that are no more than rafts, formless, lazy things that float. Fair weather things for moonlight nights. But others, high-hearted men of vision, will not be satisfied to drift with the current or accept the easy way. They know that they can do better than drift, and they must! The timber and the iron become plastic under their touch. The dreams of the long night they test in the too-short day. They make and they unmake; they drop their tools perhaps for a time and drift; they despair and curse their impatient and unsatisfied souls. But rising, they set to work again, and one day comes the reward, the planks fit together, and feeling the purpose of the builder, clasp each other in firm and beautiful lines; the unwilling metal at last melts into form and place and becomes the harmonious heart of the whole --and so a ship is born that masters the cruel sea, that cuts the fierce waves with a knife of courage.
To dream and model, to join and file, to melt and carve, to balance and adjust, to test and to toil--these are the making of the ship. And to a few like yourself comes the vision of the true line and the glory of the victory. Sincerely yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
TO JOHN CRAWFORD BURNS
ROME, ITALY
Washington, August 31, 1915
MY DEAR JOHN,-- ... I met three friends of yours in New York the other day, Lamb, Fletcher, and Pfeiffer, to whom I told in my dismal way, the correspondence that we have been carrying on, and all sympathized with me very sincerely.
Things look brighter now. The President seems to have been able to make Germany hear him at last. I am very much surprised that you think we ought to enter the war. Now that you have secured Italy to intervene, what is the necessity? What have you to offer by way of a bribe? I see that you are distributing territory generously. Or do you think that we should go in because we were threatened as England was--although she says it was Belgium that brought her in? Fletcher is very much for fighting; Lamb says that the Allies will win in the next two weeks. Pfeiffer thinks that nobody will win. I can't tell you what I think. If I were only nearer I would have more fun with you. Affectionately yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
TO SIDNEY E. MEZES
PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
Washington, September 7, 1915
MY DEAR SID,--I enclose a more formal letter for presentation to your friend, Baron de--. Why in hell you should plague me with this thing, except that I am the only real good-natured man connected with the Government, I don't understand. Speaking of good nature reminds me that you are a clam; in fact, a clam is vociferous alongside of you.
As you know I have been guiding the affairs of this Government for the past three months, and have received advice from every man, woman, and child in the country, including the German-American Union, the Independent Union, the Friends of Peace, the Sons of Hibernia, and all the other troglodytes that live; and yet, you alone have not thought me of sufficient consequence to advise me as to what to do with the Kaiser or Carranza or Hoke Smith or Roosevelt.
Before you go back to work why don't you come down here and spend a day or two? We can have a perfectly bully time, and I will tell you how to run your University and you can tell me how to run the Government. ...
I have not seen House nor heard from him, though I have wanted to talk with him more than with any other human being, these three months gone. Yours as always,
F. K. L.
TO CORDENIO SEVERANCE
Washington, September 13, 1915
MY DEAR CORDY,--I envy you very much the opportunity that you have to entertain Miss Nancy Lane. [Footnote: Born January 4, 1903.] When she is herself, she is a most charming young lady. She has powers of fascination excelled by few. If she grows angry, owing to her artistic temperament, and throws plates at you or chases you out of the house with a broom, you must forgive her because you know that great artists like Sarah Bernhardt often have this failing.
Perhaps you do not know it, but she used to be a great violinist in her younger days. I doubt if she knows one string from another now. The only strings that she can play on are your heart strings, or mine, or any other man's that comes into her neighborhood. I shall rely upon your honor not to propose to her, because she is already engaged to me; in fact, we have been engaged nearly twelve years, and if she should become engaged to you, I will sue you for stealing her affections and will engage the firm of Davis Kellogg and Severance to prosecute my suit. If she says anything about a desire to get back to school, you can put it down as a bluff, and I trust that you will not swamp her with attentions and with company lest it should turn her head. She is accustomed to the simple life--a breakfast of oatmeal porridge, a luncheon of boiled macaroni, and a dinner of hash--these are the three things that she is used to. If she shows any disposition to be affectionate toward you or Aunt Maidie, I trust that you will repress her with an iron hand. The young women of this day, as you know, are very forward, and these new dances seem to be especially designed to destroy maiden modesty.
... You may tell her that her brother seems to be very anxious to hear from her, being solicitous two or three times a day as to the mail. I judge from this that he is expecting a letter from her--or someone else.
You are very good to be giving my little one such a fine time. My love to Maidie. Cordially yours,
F. K. L.
TO FREDERICK DIXON
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
Washington, October 7, 1915
DEAR MR. DIXON,--I have your letter of October 1st. You have asked me a very difficult question, which is really this:--How to get into a man's nature an appreciation of our form of government and its benefits?
I cannot answer this question. There are certain natures which do not sympathize with the exercise of or the development of common authority, which is the essence of Democracy. They are instinctively monarchists. They love order more than liberty. They do not see how a balance can be struck between the two. By force of environment and education their sons may see otherwise. I know of no other way of making Americans, than by getting into them by environment and education a love for liberty and a recognition of its advantages. Cordially yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
TO ROBERT H. PATCHIN
Washington, November 27, 1915
MY DEAR PATCHIN,--Mrs. Lane and I would be delighted to join in your fiesta to Mrs. Eleanor Egan, but we just can't. Why? Because we have a dinner on December 2nd, also because we are neutral. ...
We can not countenance any one who has been in jail. To have been in jail proves poverty. Nor do we regard it as fitting that a young woman should have been torpedoed and spent forty-five minutes in the water splashing around like Mrs. Lecks or Mrs. Aleshine. If she was torpedoed why didn't she go down or up like a heroine? Then she would have had an atrocious iron statue erected in her honor among the other horrors in Central Park. After her experience she will doubtless be more sympathetic toward those of us who are torpedoed daily and weekly and monthly and have to splash around for the amusement of a curious public.
I hope your dinner of welcome and rejoicing will be as gay as the cherubic smile of the Right Honorable Egan. Cordially,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
TO FRANCIS R. WALL
Washington, November 27, 1915
MY DEAR WALL,--I wish that I had time for a long letter to you, such as yours to me. But I am only to-day able to get at my personal correspondence which has accumulated in the last six weeks. These have been times of annual reports and estimates, and we have a large number of internal troubles which need constant attention.
I am afraid that we are going to have a great deal of trouble in getting our preparedness program through, because of dissension in our own ranks and because the Republicans are so anxious to take advantage of this emergency to raise the tariff duties and to gain credit for whatever is done in the way of preparation. We are too much dominated by partisanship to be really patriotic. This is a very broad indictment, but it seems to be justified. Of course, the people like Bryan and Ford, and the women generally, are moved by a philosophy that is too idealistic, and some of them are only moved, I fear, by an intense exaggerated ego. If I would have to name the one curse of the present day, I would say it is the love of notoriety and the assumption by almost everyone that his judgment is as good as that of the ablest. Of course, the trouble with the ablest people is that they are so largely moved by forces that do not appear on the surface, that one does not know that the views they express are really their own judgment. Democracy seems to be government by suspicion, in large part. We have faith in ourselves, but not in each other. A man to be a good partisan seems called upon to believe that every man of different view is a crook or a weakling. This is the Roosevelt idea. And half of it is the Bryan idea.
I wish that I could see you, old man, and have one of our old time talks. ...
I shall bear in mind what you say as to the availability of your service, but I hope it may not be necessary to take you from that land of sunshine and dreams that seems so remote from this center of intrigue and trouble. Affectionately yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
TO JOHN H. WIGMORE
Washington, December 8, 1915
MY DEAR JOHN,-- ... Things are not looking at all nice as to Germany and Austria. I know that the country is not satisfied, at least part of it, with our patience, but I don't see just what else we can do but be patient. Our ships are not needed anywhere, and our soldiers do not exist. To-day brings word of the blowing up of an American ship. Of course, we do not know the details but the thing looks ugly.
Wasn't the President's message on the hyphenated gentlemen bully? You could not have beaten that yourself. And your dear friend T. Roosevelt, did certainly write himself down as one large and glorious ass in his criticism of the message. He hates Wilson so, that he has just lost his mind. I wish I didn't have to say this about Roosevelt, because I am extremely fond of him (which you are not), but a poorer interview on the message could not have been written. ... As always yours,
F. K. L.
The following letter was written to Mrs. Adolph Miller when she was in a hospital in New York.
TO MRS. ADOLPH C. MILLER
Washington, December 12, [1915]
MY DEAR MARY,--We have just returned from Church and all morning I have been thinking of you and Adolph--praying for you I suppose in my Pagan way.
Poor dear girl, I know you are brave but I'd just like to hold your hand or look steadily into your eyes, to tell you that you have the best thing that this world gives--friends who are one with you. I can see old Adolph with his grimness and his great love, which makes him more grim and far more mandatory, what a sturdy old Dutch Calvinist he is! He really is more Dutch than German--Dutch modified by the California sun--and Calvinist sweetened by you and Boulder Creek, and Berkeley and William James and B. I. Wheeler and his Saint of a Mother. Well, let him pass, why should I talk of him when you really want me to talk of myself!
Last night we had the GRIDIRON dinner, and the President made an exalted speech. He is spiritually great, Mary, and don't you dare smile and think of the widow! We are all dual, old Emerson said it in his ESSAY ON FREE WILL, and Adolph can tell you what old Greek said it. And this duality is where the fight comes in, and the two people walk side by side, to-day is Jekyll's day, and tomorrow is Hyde's, and so they alternate.
Well, the GRIDIRON was a grind on Bryan and Villard and Ford, and a boost for preparedness and Garrison and the Army and Navy. Tell Adolph they had a Democratic mule, two men walking together under a cover, the head end reasonable, the hind end kicking--the front end of course represented the Wilson crowd and the hind end the Bryan-Kitchin,--and the two wouldn't work together. The whole thing was splendidly done and was a lesson to the few Democrats who were there--which they won't learn.
Nancy went to her second party last night--a joyous thing in a new evening cloak of old rose, which made her feel that Cleopatra and the Queen of Sheba and Mrs. Galt and all other exalted ladies had nothing on her. What a glorious thing life would be if we could remain children, with all the simple joys and none of the horrors that age brings on. There is certainly a good fifty per cent chance that this fine spirit will marry some damn brute who will worry and harass the soul out of her. For so the world goes. I hope she'll be as fortunate as you have been.
To-night we go to the Polks to see Mrs. Martin Egan who was on a torpedoed ship in the Mediterranean, and although she couldn't swim floated forty-five minutes till rescued. You must know the Polks well. She has very real charm and your old Mormon of a husband will desert his other fairies for her.
Now I have gossiped and preached and prophesied and mourned and otherwise revealed what passes through a wandering mind in half an hour, so I send you, at the close of this screed, my blessing, which is a poor gift, and I would send you the parcel post limit of my love if it weren't for Anne and Adolph, who are narrow- minded Dutch Calvinists. May good fortune betide you and bring you back very soon to the many whose hearts are sympathetic.
FRANK
TO MRS. MAGNUS ANDERSEN
Washington, D.C., December 24, [1915]
MY DEAR MAUDIE,--It is Christmas eve, and while Nancy and Anne are filling the mysterious stockings, I am writing these letters to the best of brothers and sister. It has been a long, a disgracefully long time since I wrote you, but I have kept in touch pretty well through George and Anne. ... So you have now a philosophy--something to hang to! I am glad of it. The standpoint is the valuable thing. There are profound depths in the idea that lies under Christian Science, but like all other new things it goes to unreasonable lengths. "Be Moderate," were the words written over the Temple on the Acropolis, and this applies to all things. This world is curiously complex, and no one knows how to answer all our puzzles. Sometimes I think that God himself does not. There is a fine poem by Emerson called, THE SPHINX, which is the most hopeful thing that I have found, because it recognizes the dual world in which we live, for everything goes not singly but in pairs--good and evil, matter and mind. Then, too, you may be interested in his essay on FATE.
Dear Fritz--dear, dear boy, how I wish I could be there with him, though I could do no good. ... Each night I pray for him, and I am so much of a Catholic that I pray to the only Saint I know or ever knew and ask her to help. If she lives her mind can reach the minds of the doctors just as surely as there is such a thing as transmission of thought between us, or hypnotism. I don't need her to intercede with God, but I would like her to intercede with man. Why, oh why, do we not know whether she is or not! Then all the universe would be explained to me. The only miracle that I care about is the resurrection. If we live again we certainly have reason for living now. I think that belief is the foundation hope of religion. Anne has it with a certainty that is to me nothing less than amazing. And people of noble minds, of exalted spirits, not necessarily of greatest intellects have it. George has it in his own way, and he is certainly one of the real men of the earth. The President has it strongly. He is, in fact, deeply, truly religious. The slanders on him are infamous.
... We are to have the quietest possible Christmas. No one but ourselves at dinner--I give no presents at all--for financially we are up to our eyebrows. I probably will work all day except for an hour or two which I shall use in playing with Nancy, for her gay spirit will not allow anything but the Christmas spirit to prevail. She is so like our Dear One, so determined, cheerful, hopeful, courageous, yet very shy. Ned will be out all night at dances and tomorrow too, for he is a most popular chap and very well-behaved indeed. His manners are excellent and he has plenty of dash. He is learning these things now which I learned only after many years, the little things which make the conventional man of the world.
I hope that you will find the New Year one of great peace of mind and real serenity of soul. May you commune with the Spirit of the Infinite and find yourself growing more and more in the spiritual image of the Dear One.
My tenderest love to you and to your good high-hearted man, and to the Boy.
FRANK
TO MRS. ADOLPH C. MILLER
Washington [1915]
This is a Christmas letter and is addressed:--"To a Brave Young Woman." I am afraid it is not just as cheery and merry as it should be because, you see, it's like this, I am poor--very, very poor, and I have very good taste--very, very good taste. Now those two things can't get on together at Christmas. Then, too, I am busy--very, very busy, so I don't have time to shop. Now if you were very, very poor and had very, very good taste and were very, very busy and couldn't shop--how in heaven could you buy anything for anyone?