It was a giant's task, an impossible task, for a small group of newspaper writers and college undergraduates. The short career of the Municipal Reform League ended when Wigmore went East to study law, leaving Lane determined to increase his efficiency by earning his way through college and the Hastings Law School.
The first letters of this volume follow the theme of the political interests of the two young men.
TO JOHN H. WIGMORE
Oakland, February 27, 1888
MY DEAR WIGMORE,--I am thinking of getting back in your part of the world myself, and this is what I especially wanted to write you about. I desire to see the world, to rub off some of my provincialisms, to broaden a little before I settle down to a prosaic existence. So, as I say, I want to live in Boston awhile and my only possibility of so doing is to get a position on some Boston paper, something that will afford me a living and allow some little time for social and literary life. However I don't care much what the billet is. I can bring letters of recommendation from all the good newspaper men in San Francisco, both as to my ability at editorial work (I have done considerable for the San Francisco NEWS LETTER and EXAMINER), and at all kinds of reportorial work. ...
I passed the law examination before the Supreme Court last month, so I am now a full-fledged--but not a flying, attorney. I have not determined definitely on going into law. ...
Politically speaking we Mugwumps out here are happy. ... California has been opposed to Cleveland on every one of his great proposals (civil service reform, silver question, tariff reform), and yet the Republicans must nominate a very strong man to get this State this year. The people admire old Grover's strength so much, he is a positive man and an honest man, and when the people see these two exceptional virtues mixed happily in a candidate they grow to love and admire him out of the very idealism of their natures.
But I must not bother the Boston attorney any longer. Write me all you know of opportunities there and believe me always your friend,
FRANK K. LANE
TO JOHN B. WIGMORE
Oakland, May 9, 1888
MY DEAR WIGMORE,--Of course I would have to stand my chances in getting a position. Newspaper men, perhaps more than any other class, are rated by ability. Civil Service Reform principles rule in every good newspaper office to their fullest extent. When I wrote you, I was unsettled as to my plans for the coming year. My brother desired to spend a year or so in Boston and I thought of accompanying him. He has changed his plans and so have I. ... I am regularly on the Chronicle staff, chiefly writing sensational stories. I get a regular salary of twenty-five dollars a week besides some extras, and have as easy and pleasant a billet as there is on the paper, though editorial work would be more to my liking.
These arrangements do not interfere, however, with my Boston plan, for sooner or later I shall breathe its intellectual atmosphere, that I may outgrow provincialism and become intellectual by force of habit rather than will. How long it will be before the wish can be gratified I cannot tell. Probably next year. You see the law is not altogether after my taste. I feel it a waste of time to spend days quarreling like school-boys over a few hundred dollars. I feel all the time as if I must be engaged in some life work which will make more directly for the good of my fellows. I feel the need which the world manifests for broader ideas in economics, politics, the philosophy of life, and all social questions. Feeling so, I cannot coop myself in a law library behind a pile of briefs, spending my days and nights in search of some authority which will save my client's dollar. I am unsettled, however, as to my permanent work. ...
Oakland, September 20, 1888
... The copies of the Massachusetts law have been duly received and put to the best of use. On my motion our Young Men's League appointed a Committee to draft a law for presentation to the Legislature. Judge Maguire, Ferd, [Footnote: Ferdinand Vassault, a college friend. ] and two others, with myself, are on that Committee and we are hard at work. I send to-day a copy of the Examiner containing a ballot reform bill just introduced by the Federated Trades. It is based on the New York law but is very faulty. We are working with that bill as a basis, proposing various and very necessary amendments. We hope to get our bill adopted in Committee as a substitute for the one introduced, and believe that the Federated Trades will be perfectly willing to adopt our measure. ...
Tell me, please, how you select your election officials in your large cities. Our mode of selection is really the weak point with us, for no matter how good a law we might procure, its enforcement would be left to "boss" tools--corruptionists of the worst class. ...
Oakland, December 2, 1888
... Your letter breathes the sentiments of thousands of Republicans who voted against Cleveland. They are now "just a little" sorry that so good a man is beaten. I never quite understood your political position. Your letter to Ferd giving your reason was, I must say, not conclusive, for I cannot believe that you can find a greater field of usefulness or power in the Republican than in the Democratic party, surely not now that the new Democracy--a party aggressive, filled with the reform spirit, and right in the direction it takes, now that such a party is in the field.
You surely ought to join us on the tariff fight, but then I wish you the best of fortune whatever your choice. Ferd and several others with myself are now organizing what will some day be a great state, if not a great national institution. We call it the Young Men's Democratic League [Footnote: This plan seems to have been to enlarge the influence of the League mentioned in a former letter.]--it is to be made up of young men from twenty-one to forty-five; its scope--national politics, election of President and Congressmen, and its immediate purpose to inform the people on the tariff question. When our Constitution is published you shall have one. We expect to organize branches all over the State and in a year or two will be strong in the thousands.
Your election article was of a singular kind but VERY good. I have loaned it out among the old crowd. I spoke of it to Judge Sullivan, who is compiling authorities on the "intention of the voter" as governing, where the spelling is wrong on a ballot. Sullivan ran for Supreme Justice and ran thousands ahead of his ticket (the Democratic) but thinks that he was defeated by votes thrown out in Alameda and Los Angeles counties because of irregularities in the ballot--in one case his initials were printed "J. D." instead of "J, F."--in another instance, his name was printed a little below the title of the office, because of the narrowness of the ticket. If these ballots were counted for him he thinks he would have won. ...
Fourteen years later, when the electoral count was made of Franklin K. Lane's ballots for Governor of the State of California, between eight and ten thousand ballots were thrown out on similar ground of "irregularities," and he was counted out, "the intention of the voter" being again frustrated.
To John H. Wigmore
San Francisco, California, January 29, 1889
My dear Wigmore,-- ... I want to report progress. We now have our bill complete. ... The bill I send has been adopted by the Federated Trades and will be substituted by them for their bill now before the House. ...
On Saturday evening there will be one of those huge "spontaneous" mass meetings (which require so much preparation) in support and endorsement of the bill. The most prominent men in both Houses of the Legislature will speak. ...
San Francisco, February 17, 1889
... I never have been busier in my life than in the last two weeks. Ballot Reform has taken up a very great portion of my time. I have just returned from a lobbying trip to Sacramento. The bill will not pass, though the best men in both Houses favor it. I went up on the invitation of the chairman of the Assembly Committee to address the Committee. I spoke for an hour and a half. At the end of that time only one man in the group openly opposed the scheme, and he confessed that the bill would do just what I claimed for it, and made this confession to the Committee. "But," said he, "it tends to the disintegration of political parties and as they are essential to our life we must not help on their destruction." ...
The Committee of the Senate decided without any debate on the bill to report adversely to it. I got them to reconsider their vote, and we will have a hearing at any rate before the bill is killed. The Legislature is altogether for boodle. ...
Your book has been of the greatest assistance to me. I virtually made my speech from it and left the book with the chairman of the Committee at his special request. ... If it had come out a month sooner we would have stood fifty per cent better chance of getting the bill through, because the papers would have come to the front so much sooner and we would have been thirty days ahead with our bill. I tell you I felt quite proud in addressing the distinguished legislature to refer to "my friend Wigmore's book." ...