In my judgment the Interstate Trades Commission needs all of your concentrated energy for the next year. The bill should be your bill, and you should be the leading authority upon the matter.
Wilson should look to you for advice along this line of dealing with the trust problem. He will, if you have the greater body of information upon the subject. Of course Roosevelt did not know where he was going as to his Trades Commission, and he would not have had any opportunity were he elected to go any farther, ... because that Commission has got to feel its way along. Wilson, you can see from his speeches, has swallowed Brandeis' theory without knowing much about the problem, but he certainly has handled himself well during the campaign ... What he does will very largely depend, I think, upon those who surround him. He must have access to sources of information outside of the formal administrative officers who make up his Cabinet. This is a very delicate way of saying that he must have a sort of "kitchen cabinet" made up of men like you and myself who will be willing to talk frankly to him, and whom he will listen to with confidence and respect. If he can get the Southerners into line with the Northern Democrats he can make over the Democratic Party and give it a long lease of life. If he cannot do this, and his party splits, Roosevelt's party will come into possession of the country in four years, and hold it for a long time ...
I am glad to see that you have been able to take so personal and direct an interest in the campaign. Faithfully yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
Following the news of the Democratic victory, in the election of Woodrow Wilson to the Presidency, Lane sent these letters:--
To Woodrow Wilson Trenton, N. J.
Washington, November 6, 1912
MY DEAR GOVERNOR,--The door of opportunity has opened to the Progressive Democracy. I know that you will enter courageously. The struggle of the next four years will be to persuade our timid brethren to follow your leadership, "gentlemen unafraid." I am persuaded from my experience here that no President can be a success unless he takes the position of a real party leader--the premier in Parliament as well as a chief executive. The theoretical idea of the President's aloofness from Congress--of a President dealing with the National Legislature as if he were an independent government dealing with another--is wrong, because it has been demonstrated to be ineffective and ruinous. We need definiteness of program and cooperation between both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. There is generally one end of the Avenue that does not know its own mind, and sometimes it is one, and sometimes the other.
Your friends have been made happy through the campaign by the manner in which you have conducted yourself. You spoiled so many bad prophecies.
With heartiest of personal congratulations, believe me, faithfully yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
To William Jennings Bryan Washington, November 6, 1912
MY DEAR MR. BRYAN,--The unprecedented heroism of your fight at Baltimore has borne fruit, and every man who has fought with you for the last sixteen years rejoices that this victory is yours. Now comes the time when it is to be proved whether we are worthy of confidence. We shall see whether Democrats will follow a wise, aggressive, modern leadership. Faithfully yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
To James D. Phelan Washington, November 6, 1912
DEAR PHELAN,--Hurrah! Hurrah! and again Hurrah! You have done nobly. The victory in California came late, but it was none the less surprising and gratifying. We can dance like Miriam, as we see the enemies of Israel go down in the flood.
I shall expect to see you here before long. With warmest congratulations to you personally. As always, sincerely yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
To Herbert Harley
Washington, November 18, 1912
MY DEAR MR. HARLEY,--... There are many hopeful signs, as you say, not the least of which is that the Supreme Court has at last been moved to amend its equity rules. The whole agitation for judicial recall will do good because it will not lead to judicial recall but to the securing of a superior order of men on the bench and to simplified procedure. I find that it is better to decide matters promptly and sometimes wrongly than to have long delays. The people have very little confidence in our courts, and this is because of one reason: Our judges are not self-owned; either they are dominated by a political machine or by associations of an even worse character. Few men on the bench are corrupt; many of them are lazy, and others are chosen from the class who feel with property interests exclusively. I am heartily in sympathy with a movement such as that you are promoting. It is in my opinion a very practical way--perhaps the only practical way--of heading off universal judicial recall. This is a Democracy and the people are going to have men and methods adopted that will give them the kind of judicial procedure that they want. They are not going to be unfair unless driven to be radical by intolerable conditions. ...
Sincerely yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
Immediately after Woodrow Wilson's election in November, telegrams and letters from different parts of the country, and especially from his many friends in California, began to reach Lane asking that he should consider himself available for a Cabinet position, offering support and requesting his permission for them to make a strong effort in his behalf. This he emphatically refused, saying that he was not a candidate, but in spite of his refusals, editorials began to appear in many Western papers.
To Charles K. McClatchy Sacramento Bee
Washington, November 25, 1912
MY DEAR CHARLES,--I received your note and this morning have a copy of the paper containing the cartoon on "Unfinished Business," the original of which, by the way, I should like to have for my library. ...
I know absolutely nothing about the suggestion made by the Call as to my being appointed to the Cabinet. I rather think that it was Ernest Simpson's friendly act, though I have not heard from him at all. Three men have been to me from the Coast who wanted to be in the Cabinet, and I have told each one the same thing:--That I was not a candidate; that no one would speak to the President for me with my consent; but that I would not say that I would not accept an appointment, because I would do almost anything to make Wilson's administration a success, for I believe that he has faced the right way and the only difficulty that he will have will be in securing strong enough support to carry out his own policies. I think he lacks somewhat in adroitness and that his campaign was much less radical than he would voluntarily have made it. I do not know him and shall not go near him unless he sends for me. If he does send for me I shall tell him the truth regarding anybody of whom he speaks to me. I shall advocate nobody. I am not going to be a job peddler or solicitor. My present position makes all the demand upon my imagination, initiative, and capacity that my abilities justify. I could not work any harder or do any better work for the people in any position that the Government has to give. I am not at all enamored of the honor of a Cabinet place.
Now, I am talking to you in the utmost frankness as if you were sitting just across the table from me. Of course what I am saying to you is absolutely private and personal. ...
We will just let this matter rest "on the knees of the gods," and I shall try to serve with as little personal ambition moving me as is possible with a man who has some temperament.
Sincerely yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
To Ernest S. Simpson San Francisco, Cal.
Washington, November 26, 1912
MY DEAR SIMPSON,--How it ever entered into your head to give me so splendid a boom for a position in Wilson's Cabinet I do not know. Someone suggested that the tip came from Ira Bennett at this end, and I see that the Sacramento Bee suggests that the railroads wish to remove me from my present sphere of troublesomeness; but my own guess is that your own good heart and our long-time friendship was the sole cause of this most kindly act.
Some of the California papers, I notice, have had editorials saying I should stay where I am (which is not a disagreeable fate to be condemned to, barring a slight surplus of work), but of course Wilson is not going to appoint anyone to his Cabinet because of pull. He has a more difficult job than any President has ever had since Lincoln, because he has to reconcile a progressive Northern Democracy with a conservative Southern Democracy, and satisfy one with policies and another with offices. My guess is that he will have to turn over the whole question of patronage practically to his Cabinet and that he will become the actual leader of his party and attempt to formulate the legislative policies of the party. He has a distinct ideal of what the Presidency may be made. Whether he can make good under conditions so apparently irreconcilable is a question that time only can answer. His political family he will choose for himself. They ought to be the very largest men that our country can produce, and I am not fool enough to think that I am entitled to be in such a group.