and was elected; later re-elected, and elected for a third term.
After an unsuccessful candidacy for the governorship, I was
appointed a member of the Interstate Commerce Commission by
President Roosevelt.
Cordially yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
To John H. Wigmore
San Francisco, November 14, 1898
MY DEAR WIGMORE,--This is a formal note of acknowledgment of the
service rendered me in the campaign, which has just closed
successfully. There were only three Democrats elected on the
general ticket, the Mayor, Assessor, and myself. I ran four
thousand five hundred votes ahead of my ticket. It was a splendid
tribute to worth! I never before realized how discriminating the
American public is. A man who scoffs at Democratic institutions
must be a tyrant at heart, or a defeated candidate. I tell you the
people know a good man when they see one.
My opponent was the present Attorney General of the State, W. F.
Fitzgerald, a very capable man, and probably the best man on the
Republican ticket. He has been steadily in office for thirty
years, in Mississippi, Arizona, and California, and this is his
first defeat; and I sincerely regret that I had to take a fall out
of such a gentleman.
Now, the perplexing problem arises as to how long I shall hold
office. The term is for two years. The new charter comes up before
the coming Legislature for approval in January, and that
instrument provides for another election next fall, to fill all
City and County offices. ...
I don't want to stay in politics, two years in the office will be
long enough for me. I hope that I shall make a creditable record.
I can foresee that strong pressure will be brought to bear upon me
to act with the Examiner in making things disagreeable for the
corporations, and I will have no easy task in gaining the approval
of my own party, and of my conscience and judgment at the same
time.
Let me thank you again very earnestly for what you did, and
believe me. Yours sincerely,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
The City Charter that Lane had helped to draft, with its many new
provisions, never before adjudicated, made his first term as City
and County Attorney one requiring an especial amount of laborious
legal study. To meet the pressing need, Lane organized his corps
of assistants to include several men of marked legal ability and
the industry that the task demanded, appointing his brother,
George W. Lane, as his first assistant.
It was partly due to the good team-work of the office that his
opinions rendered in four years were as "numerous as those
heretofore rendered by the department in about sixteen years," and
that during one of the years of his incumbency "snot a dollar of
damages was obtained against the city."
[Illustration with caption: FRANKLIN K. LANE AS CITY AND COUNTY
ATTORNEY]
To John H. Wigmore
San Francisco, September 25, [1899]
MY DEAR WIGMORE,-- ... As an evidence of what I am doing I sent
you a brief three or four days ago in the Charter case. I have
another just filed on the question of county officers holding over
under the Charter, a third on the new primary law which is a grand
thing if we can make it stick, and a fourth on the taxation of
bonds of quasi-public corporations, and a fifth on the taxation of
National Bank stock.
I have hardly seen my baby for six weeks; have been at the office
from nine A.M. to eleven P.M. regularly. And now that I am nearly
dead a new campaign is on and I must run again. And, of course, I
have enemies now which I hadn't last year.
Thank you once again for so kindly remembering me.
Yours sincerely,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
Lane's first child, a son, was born in the spring of 1898. He is
the "Ned" of the letters--Franklin K. Lane, Jr. Lane's attitude
toward children is shown in many of his letters. His own boy gave
a strong impetus to his most disinterested social ideals. In
writing of the birth of a friend's baby he said, "For the child we
act nobly, its call to us is always to our finer side.
To John H. Wigmore
San Francisco, November 10
MY DEAR WIGMORE,--This is to be a mere bulletin. I am elected once
again--10,500 majority, the largest received by any candidate. You
expected me to run for Mayor I know. Well, it was offered me--the
nomination, I mean--and all my campaign expenses promised. But I
couldn't accept, having told the Labor Union people that I was a
candidate for City Attorney and not for Mayor. This Labor Union
Party is a new one, the outgrowth of the recent strike. They have
elected their Mayor, a musician named Schmitz, a decent,
conservative young man, who will surprise the decent moneyed
people and anger the laboring people with his
conservatism.[Footnote: Lane lived to smile at his too charitable
characterization of this San Francisco Mayor.] I didn't have one
single word of praise from a newspaper in the campaign. They
hardly mentioned the fact that I was a candidate. It was jolly
good therefore to win as I did.
And my congratulations to you, my honored friend, Dean Wigmore.
Next year I am to publish my Opinions, a copy of which, of course,
will go to you, but not by virtue of your office, old man. You are
arriving, of course, but there is something better in store. A
Federal Judgeship is the thing for you; and when I get into the
Cabinet you shall have it. But don't wait till then. I'm gray and
bald now and my boy patronizes me. So don't wait, but get your
lines out, and one of these days you'll make it. Where next I
shall land I don't know, probably in a law office, praying for
clients. ... Always yours,
F. K. L.
Lane's first majority in 1898 of 832 votes was increased to 10,500
in 1899, when he was re-elected; and two years later he won by a
still larger majority. A number of his opinions, as City Attorney,
were collected and bound in a volume, as none of them had been
reversed by the Supreme Court of the State.
He took much pleasure in a dinner club that he helped to form. The
members were University professors, lawyers, newspaper men, and a
few business men. "But," says one of them, "in spirit they were
poets, philosophers and prophets. They were aware that their
solutions of problems vexing to the brains of other men, would be
Utopian, but as they were not willing to be classed with ordinary
Utopians they named their club Amaurot, after the capital of
Utopia, thus signifying that while they dwelt in Utopia, they were
not subject to it but were lords of it--the teachers of its wisdom
and the makers of its laws."
His home life absorbed much of his leisure. He and his family had
moved into a modest house on Gough Street, in San Francisco, with
a view of the bay, Alcatraz Island, and the Marin Hills from the
upstairs living-room window--for no house was a home to Lane that
had no view--and in the back-yard, among its red geraniums and
cosmos bushes, he played Treasure Island and Wild West with his
boy.
In the summer of 1902, Lane was nominated as the Democratic and
Non-Partisan candidate for Governor of California. At the
Democratic Convention at Sacramento, an onlooker described the
excitement among the delegates before a selection was made,
"Throughout the night until late afternoon of the second day,
without any clear solution of the problem, came the roll-call of
the counties, then a wild stampede for the young City and County
Attorney of San Francisco, who was borne to the platform. ...
"It was Franklin K. Lane who stood a goodly and confident figure,
waving a palm-leaf fan for quiet. He said:--
"'I was in the rear of the hall when Governor Budd made his speech
and voiced the call of the party for a winner, and, in response to
his call, I have taken this platform.'"
This note of joyous truculence, with the little out-thrust of the
underlip, brought, as so often before and since, laughter and
applause.
A hot and spirited campaign followed. California is naturally
Republican, and Lane had many times challenged and attacked the
great powers of the State. He made as his chief issues,
Irrigation, Prison Reform, and a fairer share in the world's goods
for all the people. He traveled far and fast, often speaking six
times in a day, at different places, and sometimes riding a
hundred and fifty miles in twenty-four hours, over the rough roads
of remote counties.
While campaigning he outlined his notion of public service in this
way, "No man should have a political office because he wants a
job. A public office is not a job, it is an opportunity to do
something for the public. Once in office it remains for him to
prove that the opportunity was not wasted. ..." And again he
said,--"There is nothing that touches me so, in the little that I
have seen in political life, as this, that while it is a game in
which men can be mean, contemptible and dastardly, it is a game
also that brings out the finer, better, and nobler qualities. I
know why some men are in politics to their own financial loss.
Because they find it is a great big man's game, which calls for
men to fight it, and they want to stand beside their fellows and
do battle."
In regretting that he could not attend a Democratic meeting, at
Richmond, California, he sent this letter,--
TO LYMAN NAUGLE
MY DEAR MR. NAUGLE,-- ... The cause of Democracy is being given
more sincere and thoughtful interest this campaign than for many
years. One of its cardinal principles is that the individual is
more important to the State than mere property, and that the
welfare of the majority of our citizens must always be paramount
and their rights prevail, no matter what the weight of influence
in the other side of the balance. It is work and personal worth
which make a State great both politically and industrially, and in
my estimation they are to be found in largest proportions in the
Democratic party. For these reasons I believe there will be a very
large change in the vote of this State in our coming election.
Reports have reached me from many parts of the State, and I am
entirely satisfied that we shall win this fight provided that we
do our full share of earnest work, if that be lacking we don't
deserve it. ... Yours for honest victory,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
At first Hearst's powerful paper, the San Francisco Examiner, took
a negative tone toward Lane's candidacy but soon became
dangerously, if covertly, antagonistic. Of Hearst's methods of
attack Lane wrote, in detail, on July 3, 1912, to Governor Woodrow
Wilson, then Democratic nominee for the Presidency. After
enumerating one specific count after another against the Examiner
Lane said:--
"When a boy putting myself through college I was business manager
of a temperance paper which advocated prohibition. He [Hearst]
published extracts from this paper and credited them to me, and on
the morning of election day sent a special train throughout the
whole of Northern California containing an issue of his paper,
appealing to the saloon-keepers and wine-growers for my defeat.
"... No editorial word of his disfavor appeared, but in every news
article there was in the headline a cunning turn or twist,
calculated to arouse prejudice against me. I notice in this
morning's issue of the American the same policy is being pursued
regarding you.
"Now the great mistake I made was in not boldly telling the public
just what I knew. ... I felt that it was a personal matter with
which the public was not concerned, but I know now, as I have
gotten older and seen more of politics, that it was a public
matter of the first importance, as to which the public should have
had knowledge.
"Later when he [Hearst] budded as a candidate for President, in
1904, he sought an interview with me and said that he was not to
blame for the policy that had been pursued. Our interview closed
with this dialogue:--
"'Mr. Lane, if you ever wish anything that I can do, all you will
have to do will be to send me a telegram asking, and it will be
done.'"
"To which I responded, 'Mr. Hearst, if you ever get a telegram
from me asking you to do anything, you can put that telegram down
as a forgery.'"
In a State like California, one of whose chief industries was the
growing of wine-grapes, and where the Examiner was the farmer's
paper, at least one phase of the attack upon Lane bore heavy
fruit. Upon election day the count between Lane and Dr. George
Pardee, the Republican candidate, was found to be close. In the
end several thousand votes, unmistakably intended for Lane, were
thrown out upon technicalities. Lane was defeated, and Dr. Pardee
took office. It was a bitter blow.
The night when the final bad news was brought to Lane in his home,
he called his son, of four, to him, leaning down he put his arm
around the boy very gravely and tenderly, and said, "Ned, it isn't
my little son, it is Dr. Pardee's little boy that is going to have
that white pony."
The boy caught the emotion in his father's voice, and said
cheerily, "O, that's all right, Dad. That's all right."
Lane found that in spite of the loss of the Governorship his
circle of personal contacts had been greatly widened by his
campaign. He had come to know, and be known by, the men most
prominent in California public affairs and he had made, and
confirmed, many friendships with men who had given themselves
whole-heartedly to his advancement. Of these friendships he wrote,
in 1920, to his friend Timothy Spellacy, "Eighteen years I have
known you and never a word or act have I heard of, or seen, that
did not make me feel that the campaign for Governor was worth
while because it gave me your acquaintance, friendship,
affection. ... When I get mad, as I do sometimes, over something
that the Irish do, I always am tempted to a hard generalization
that I am compelled to modify because of you and Mike and Dan
O'Neill, in San Francisco--and a few more of the Great Irish."
Lane's second child, Nancy, was born January 4, 1903.
Early in that year Lane was given the complimentary vote of his
party in the California Legislature for United States Senator.
He was chosen in April to go to Washington to argue the case of
the need of the City of San Francisco for a pure water supply from
the Hetch-Hetchy Valley, an unused part of the Yosemite Park.
A curious opposition to this measure had been worked up in the
East by a small group of well-intentioned nature lovers who did
not, perhaps, realize that this was one of many thousand valleys
in the Sierras, and one not, in any sense, unique in its beauty.
The plan proposed to convert a remote, mosquito-haunted marsh,
dreaded even by hunters because of the "bad-going" into a large
lake-reservoir to feed the city of San Francisco. This was the
first of Lane's fights to assure to man the use of neglected
resources, and at the same time, by great care, to protect natural
beauty for his delight.
While in Washington on this errand, he met President Roosevelt
several times. Their informal talks served to increase Lane's
strong liking for the vigorous man of action, then at the height
of his powers.
To his friend he writes of all this.
To John H. Wigmore San Francisco, May 9,1903
MY DEAR WIGMORE,--My trip East was a great success. After leaving
you I stayed three or four days in Washington, where I found the
Department of the Interior pretty well stacked against me; I,
however, succeeded in having a day fixed upon which an argument
would be listened to, and after this victory went to New York,
where I met many old friends and made some new ones. ...
Upon my return to Washington I had several days of argument before
the Department, saw the President [Roosevelt] twice and lunched
with him, and then went South; was invited by the Legislature of
Texas to speak before them, which I did with much satisfaction,
especially as there were but two Republicans in both houses.
I stopped with my old friend Mezes, in Austin, who is the dean of
the University, ... and easily the most influential man socially,
politically, and educationally in the institution. ...
I am having an extremely disagreeable time. The Democrats here
insist upon my running for Mayor, urging it as a duty which I owe
to the party, because they say I am the only man who can be
elected; and as a duty to the city, because they say that the
scoundrels who are now in office will continue, and worse ones
come in, unless we can elect some clean Democrat. I urge
everything against the thing, that comes to my mind, including my
poverty, the fact that I made four campaigns in five years, my
personal aversion to the office of Mayor, the inability of any one
to please the people of San Francisco as Mayor, the conspiracy of
the newspapers that exists against a government that is not
controlled by them, and the fact that to insist upon my taking
this office would be an act of political murder on the part of my
friends. ... Yours as always,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
Heavy and continued pressure, through the spring and summer, was
brought, by his party, to bear upon Lane to accept the nomination
for Mayor of San Francisco. His letters show his reluctance and
distress. The appeal was made personal, with reminders of
sacrifices made for him. He at last agreed to run. His judgment of
the situation was fully confirmed in the final event. His defeat
was unequivocal. San Francisco had no idea of accepting a
Democratic mayor with a leaning toward reform. Lane analysed the
political situation in this letter:--
To John H. Wigmore
San Francisco, January 26, 1904
MY DEAR WIGMORE,--What the effect of my defeat for Mayor will be,
it is of course impossible to say. Its immediate effect has been
to throw me into the active practice of law, and thus far I have
not starved. It will, of course, not lead to my retirement from
politics, but it will postpone no doubt, the realization of some
ambitions. I think I wrote you just what my state of mind was
previous to the nomination. I did not wish to make the fight, did
everything that was in my power to avoid the nomination, and even
went so far as to hold up the convention in a formal letter which
I addressed to it, telling them that I did not wish to be Mayor of
San Francisco and begging them to get some one else.
The fight was along class lines entirely; the employers on one
side and the wage earners on the other. The Republican nominee
represented the employers, the Union Labor nominee, the wage
earners. I stood for good government, and in the battle my voice
could hardly be heard. It was a splendid old fight in which every
interest that was vicious, violent, or corrupt was solidly against
me. And while I did not win the election, I lost nothing in
prestige by the defeat, save among politicians who are always
looking for availability. It was not, in the nature of things, up
to me to run for Mayor, but my people all believed that I was
assured of election and felt that I was the only man who could
possibly be elected. I acted out of a sense of loyalty to my party
and a desire to do something to rid the city of its present cursed
administration. However, it may in the end be a very fortunate
thing, for I know no career more worthless than that of a
perpetual office-seeker.
I received a letter from a friend in New York yesterday telling me
that Senator Hill [Footnote: In campaigning New York for
Cleveland, Lane had met David B. Hill.] had told him that the New
York delegation would cast its vote for me for Vice-President at
the Democratic National Convention, and that he regarded me as the
most available man to nominate; but, of course, I sent back word
that that was not to be considered.
I should judge from the EXAMINER here, that Hearst was making a
very strong fight for a delegation from Illinois. His boom seems
to me to be increasing. That it is possible for such a man to
receive the nomination, is too humiliating to be thought of. ...
Very sincerely yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
The day after his defeat Lane had written to thank a generous
friend:--
TO WILLIAM R. WHEELER
San Francisco, Wednesday [November, 1908]
MY DEAR WILL,--I can't go to the country without saying to you
once more that your self-sacrifice and manliness throughout this
campaign have endeared you to me to a degree that words cannot
convey.
I had hoped the last day or two that I would be able to make your
critics ashamed to look you in the face, and that they would in
time come pleading to you for recognition. But now you must be
content with knowing that you did a man's part, and set a standard
in friendship and loyalty which my boy shall be taught to strive
for.
I earnestly hope that your business relations will not be
disturbed by this trouble into which I got you. Had I been out of
it Crocker couldn't have won. My vote would largely have gone for
Schmitz.
Give my love to Mrs. Wheeler and believe me, always your friend,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
Wheeler, himself a Republican, belonged, at the time, to a firm of
irreconcilable Republicans, who had expressed sharp disapproval of
his activity in Lane's behalf.
Out of office and back to the practise of the law, Lane soon built
his private practise on a firmer basis than before. His close
identification with the Democratic Party was not impaired, but the
frequent demands for attendance at public conventions and meetings
he could not leave his practise to accept. In declining one of
these invitations he replied:--
TO ORVA G. WILLIAMS IROQUOIS CLUB, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
San Francisco, April 7, 1904
... Permit me to say that we of the West look to you who are
closer to the center of things for leadership. ... This means only
that we must be true to the principles that make us Democrats. ...
The law must not be severe or lenient with any man simply because
he is rich nor because he is poor. It must not become the tool of
class antagonism for either the persecution of the well-to-do or
for the repression of the masses of the people.
... We must resist the base opportunism which would abandon our
strong position of devotion to these fundamental principles of
good government for the sake of gaining temporary strength from
some passing passion of the hour. To identify our party with an
idea which springs from class distrust or class hatred is to gain
temporary stimulation at the expense of permanent weakness. If we
are to heed the voice which bids us cease to be Democrats in order
that we may win, we shall find that we have lost not only the
victory of being true, but also the victory at the polls, which
can be ours only in case we are true.
... Our creed is simple and clear, but it cannot be recited by
those who would make our organization an annex to the Republican
party by catering to that conservatism which seeks only to bring
greater benefit to the already wealthy, nor by those who would
make it an annex to the Socialist party by joining in every
attack, no matter how unjust, upon the wealthy. Sincerely yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
To the Iroquois Club of Los Angeles on the same day he wrote,--"It
becomes us to consider well the meaning of the signs of the times.
Miracles may not be worked with these waves of prosperity. It is
in no man's power to say 'Peace, be still' and quiet the troubled
sea of panic. But we may make sure that men of steady nerve, of
clear head and highest purpose are at the helm. I expect to see
the time when the Democratic party will, by fixed adherence to a
well-defined course, gain and hold the approval and support of the
majority of our people, not for a single election but for a long
series of elections, and if we begin now with this end in view we
certainly will be prepared for whatever may happen--victory or
defeat; and in both alike we will be proud of our party and give a
guarantee for the future."
While campaigning California for Governor, in 1902, Isadore B.
Dockweiler ran on Lane's ticket, for the office of Lieutenant
Governor, and Dockweiler still looked to him for counsel.
TO ISADORE B. DOCKWEILER
San Francisco, April 16, 1904
MY DEAR DOCKWEILER,--You ask in your favor of the 14th whether
California will send a delegation to St. Louis pledged to Mr.
Hearst and if this program has been agreed upon, as is the report
in Los Angeles.
I cannot tell what the Democrats of California will do, but I know
what they should do. A delegation should go from this state that
is free, unowned, unpledged, made up of men whose prime interest
is that of their party and whom the party does not need to bind
with pledges. To pledge the delegation is to make the delegates
mere pawns, puppets, counters, coins to trade with,--so much
political wampum.