done by the soldier himself. The dam or the irrigation project
should be built by him, the canals, the ditches, the breaking of
the land, and the building of the houses, should, under proper
direction, be his occupation. He should be allowed to make his own
home, cared for while he is doing it, and given an interest in the
land for which he can pay through a long period of years, perhaps
thirty or forty years. This same policy can be carried out as to
the other classes of lands. So that the soldier on his return
would have an opportunity to make a home for himself, to build a
home with money which we would advance and which he would repay,
and for the repayment we would have an abundant security. The
farms should not be turned over as the prairies were--unbroken,
unfenced, without accommodations for men and animals. There should
be prepared homes, all of which can be constructed by the men
themselves, and paid for by them, under a system of simple
devising by which modern methods of finance will be applied to
their needs.
As I have indicated, this is not a mere Utopian vision. It is,
with slight variations, a policy which other countries are
pursuing successfully. The plan is simple. I will undertake to
present to the Congress definite projects for the development of
this country through the use of the returned soldier, by which the
United States, lending its credit, may increase its resources and
its population and the happiness of its people, with a cost to
itself of no more than the few hundred thousand dollars that it
will take to study this problem through competent men. This work
should not be postponed. Cordially and faithfully yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
The bill, incorporating this plan, was rejected by a Congress
unwilling to accept any solution of any part of the after-war
problem, if the plan came from the Wilson Administration.
In 1918, Colonel Mears, who had been Chief Engineer and later
Chairman of the Alaskan Commission, in charge of the construction
of the Alaskan railroad, went, with many others, to the front, and
Lane was obliged to find new men to carry on the Alaskan work.
To Allan Pollok
Washington, July 17, 1918
You certainly can have more time, because I want you, and it is
not on my own account altogether, because I feel sure you will
delight in the kind of creative job that it is. I found that
Scotchmen had made Hawaii, and I would like to see some of that
same stuff go into Alaska. You see we have a fine bunch of men
there, practical fellows of experience, but not one of them looms
large as a business man or as a creator. I would personally like
to spend a few years of my life just dreaming dreams about what
could be done in that huge territory, and if I only got by with
one out of five hundred, I would leave a real dent in the history
of the territory.
That coal must be brought out of Alaska for the Navy, if the Navy
is going to use any coal, and we ought to be able to send a great
many thousands of Americans, as stock raisers and farmers, into
Alaska after this war. The climate is just as good as that of
Montana, and in some places much better. Of course it is not a
swivel-chair job. It is a challenge to everything that a fellow
has in him of ambition, courage, imagination, enterprise, and
tact, and if we can possibly get that road completed by the end of
the war, and know that we have another national domain there for
settlement, it would help out mightily on the returning soldier
problem. You and I cannot fight and that is our bad luck. We were
born about thirty years too early but I have a notion that we can
make Alaska do her bit through that railroad. ... If you want a
great mining expert to go in with you I can get one. ... Come on
into the game.
FRANKLIN K. LANE
To E. S. Pillsbury
Washington, July 30, 1918
MY DEAR MR. PILLSBURY,-- ... In these radical times when things
are changing so quickly it does not do to be too conservative or
things will go altogether to the bad. ...
Pragmatic tests must be applied strictly and the way to beat wild-
eyed schemes is to show that they are impracticable, and to
harness our people to the land. Every man in an industry ought to
be tied up in some way by profit-sharing or stock-owning
arrangements, and we should get as large a proportion of our
people on small farms as possible. If this is not done we are
going to have a reign of lawlessness.
When a sense of property goes, it becomes more and more apparent
to me, that all other conserving and conservative tendencies go,
and the man who has something is the man who will save this
country. So it is necessary that just as many have something as
possible. ... The one thing which the Bolsheviki do not understand
is that the economic world is not divided between capital and
labor, but that there is a great class unrepresented in these two
divisions--the managing class which furnishes brains and
direction, tact and vision, and no socialistic scheme provides for
the selection and reward of these men ... Cordially yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
To William Marion Reedy Reedy's Mirror
Washington, September 13, 1918
MY DEAR MR. REEDY,--In the first place ... as to the coal
agreement, when coal was more than six dollars a ton and climbing,
and it was nobody's business to reduce the price, I made an appeal
to the coal operators to fix voluntarily a maximum price of one-
half of what they were then getting. This they did, with the
understanding that it would stand only until the Government fixed
the price, if it chose to do so later. The price was three dollars
in the East, and two dollars and seventy-five cents in the West,
and there is not a coal mine in the country to-day, under
Government operation, that is producing coal for as little as that
price, which the operators themselves upon my appeal, fixed ...
Some day or another we will meet, ... and I am inclined to believe
that you will think me less of a reactionary than a radical. I am
against a standardized world, an ordered, Prussianized world. I am
for a world in which personal initiative is kept alive and at
work. There are a lot of people here who believe that you can do
things by orders, which I know from my knowledge of the human and
the American spirit can much more effectively be done by appeal.
Everything goes happily here these days, because we are winning
the war, and the future of the world will soon be in the hands of
a man who not so long ago was a school teacher. A great world
this, isn't it? And the greatest romance is not even the fact that
Woodrow Wilson is its master, but the advance of the Czecho-Slavs
across five thousand miles of Russian Asia,--an army on foreign
territory, without a government, holding not a foot of land, who
are recognized as a nation! This stirs my imagination as I think
nothing in the war has, since Albert of Belgium stood fast at
Liege. Cordially yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
Notes on Cabinet Meetings Found in Lane's Files
October 23, 1918
Yesterday we had a Cabinet Meeting. All were present. The
President was manifestly disturbed. For some weeks we have spent
our time at Cabinet meetings largely in telling stories. Even at
the meeting of a week ago, the day on which the President sent his
reply to Germany--his second Note of the Peace Series--we were
given no view of the Note which was already in Lansing's hands and
was emitted at four o'clock; and had no talk upon it, other than
some outline given offhand by the President to one of the Cabinet
who referred to it before the meeting; and for three-quarters of
an hour told stories on the war, and took up small departmental
affairs.
This was the Note which gave greatest joy to the people of any yet
written, because it was virile and vibrant with determination to
put militarism out of the world. As he sat down at the table the
President said that Senator Ashurst had been to see him to
represent the bewildered state of mind existing in the Senate.
They were afraid that he would take Germany's words at their face
value.
"I said to the Senator," said the President, "do they think I am a
damned fool?" ... Yet Senator Kellogg says that Ashurst told the
Senators that the President talked most pacifically, as if
inclined to peace, and that Ashurst was "afraid that he would
commit the country to peace," so afraid that he wanted all the
pressure possible brought to bear on the President by other
Senators. At any rate, the Note when it came had no pacificism in
it, and the President gained the unanimous approval of the country
and the Allies.
But all this was a week ago. Germany came back with an acceptance
of the President's terms--a superficial acceptance at least--hence
the appeal to the Cabinet yesterday. This was his opening, "I do
not know what to do. I must ask your advice. I may have made a
mistake in not properly safe-guarding what I said before. What do
you think should be done?"
This general query was followed by a long silence, which I broke
by saying that Germany would do anything he said.
"What should I say?" he asked.
"That we would not treat until Germany was across the Rhine."
This he thought impossible.
Then others took a hand. Wilson said the Allies should be
consulted. Houston thought there was no real reform inside
Germany. McAdoo made a long talk favoring an armistice on terms
fixed by the military authorities. Strangely enough, Burleson, who
had voted against all our stiff action over the Lusitania and has
pleaded for the Germans steadily, was most belligerent in his
talk. He was ferocious--so much so that I thought he was trying to
make the President react against any stiff Note--for he knows the
President well, and knows that any kind of strong blood-thirsty
talk drives him into the cellar of pacifism. ...
One of the things McAdoo said was that we could not financially
sustain the war for two years. He was for an armistice that would
compel Germany to keep the peace, military superiority recognized
by Germany, with Foch, Haig, and Pershing right on top of them all
the time. Secretary Wilson came back with his suggestion that the
Allies be consulted. Then Baker wrote a couple of pages outlining
the form of such a Note suggesting an armistice. I said that this
should be sent to our "partners" in the war, without giving it to
the world, that we were in a confidential relation to France and
England, that they were in danger of troubles at home, possible
revolution, and if the President, with his prestige, were to ask
publicly an armistice which they would not think wise to grant, or
which couldn't be granted, the sending of such a message into the
world would be coercing them. The President said that they needed
to be coerced, that they were getting to a point where they were
reaching out for more than they should have in justice. I pointed
out the position in which the President would be if he proposed an
armistice which they (the Allies) would not grant. He said that
this would be left to their military men, and they would
practically decide the outcome of the war by the terms of the
armistice, which might include leaving all heavy guns behind, and
putting, Metz, Strasburg, etc., in the hands of the Allies, until
peace was declared.
I suggested that Germany might not know what the President's terms
were as to Courland, etc., that this was not "invaded territory."
He replied that they evidently did, as they now were considering
methods of getting out of the Brest-Litovsk treaty. He said he was
afraid of Bolshevism in Europe, and the Kaiser was needed to keep
it down--to keep some order. He really seemed alarmed that the
time would come soon when there would be no possibility of saving
Germany from the Germans. This was a new note to me.
He asked Secretary Wilson if the press really represented the
sentiment of the country as to unconditional surrender. Wilson
said it did. He said that the press was brutal in demanding all
kinds of punishment for the Germans, including the hanging of the
Kaiser. At the end of the meeting, which lasted nearly two hours,
he asked to be relieved of Departmental matters as he was unable
to think longer. I wrote a summary of the position he took, and
read it after Cabinet meeting to Houston and Wilson, who agreed.
It follows:--
If they (the Allies) ask you (the President), "Are you satisfied
that we can get terms that will be satisfactory to us without
unconditional surrender?"
You will answer, "Yes--through the terms of the Armistice."
"By an armistice can you make sure that all the fourteen
propositions will be effectively sustained, so that militarism and
imperialism will end?"
"Yes, because we will be masters of the situation and will remain
in a position of supremacy until Germany puts into effect the
fourteen propositions."
"Will that be a lasting peace?"
"It will do everything that can be done without crushing Germany
and wiping her out--everything except to gratify revenge."
November 1, 1918
At last week's Cabinet we talked of Austria--again we talked like
a Cabinet. The President said that he did not know to whom to
reply, as things were breaking up so completely. There was no
Austria-Hungary. Secretary Wilson suggested that, of course, their
army was still under control of the Empire, and that the answer
would have to go to it.
Theoretically, the President said, German-Austria should go to
Germany, as all were of one language and one race, but this would
mean the establishment of a great central Roman-Catholic nation
which would be under control of the Papacy, and would be
particularly objectionable to Italy. I said that such an
arrangement would mean a Germany on two seas, and would leave the
Germans victors after all. The President read despatches from
Europe on the situation in Germany--the first received in many
months.
Nothing was said of politics--although things are at a white heat
over the President's appeal to the country to elect a Democratic
Congress. He made a mistake. ... My notion was, and I told him so
at a meeting three or four weeks ago, that the country would give
him a vote of confidence because it wanted to strengthen his hand.
But Burleson said that the party wanted a leader with GUTS--this
was his word and it was a challenge to his (the President's)
virility, that was at once manifest.
The country thinks that the President lowered himself by his
letter, calling for a partisan victory at this time. ... But he
likes the idea of personal party-leadership--Cabinet
responsibility is still in his mind. Colonel House's book, Philip
Dru, favors it, and all that book has said should be, comes about
slowly, even woman suffrage. The President comes to Philip Dru in
the end. And yet they say that House has no power. ...
Election Day. November 5, [1918]
At Cabinet some one asked if Germany would accept armistice terms.
The President said he thought so. ...
The President spoke of the Bolsheviki having decided upon a
revolution in Germany, Hungary, and Switzerland, and that they had
ten million dollars ready in Switzerland, besides more money in
Swedish banks held by the Jews from Russia, ready for the campaign
of propaganda. He read a despatch from the French minister in
Berne, to Jusserand, telling of this conspiracy. Houston suggested
the advisability of stopping it by seizing the money and interning
the agitators. After some discussion, the President directed
Lansing to ask the Governments in Switzerland and Sweden to get
the men and money, and hold them, and then to notify the Allies of
what we had done and suggest that they do likewise. Lansing
suggested a joint Note, but the President vetoed this idea,
wanting us to take the initiative. He spoke of always having been
sympathetic with Japan in her war with Russia, and thought that
the latter would have to work out her own salvation. But he was in
favor of sending food to France, Belgium, Italy, Serbia, Roumania,
and Bulgaria just as soon as possible; and the need was great,
also in Austria.
He said that the terms had been agreed upon, but he did not say
what they were--further than to say that the Council at Versailles
had agreed to his fourteen points, with two reservations:--(1) as
to the meaning of the freedom of the seas, (2) as to the meaning
of the restoration of Belgium and France. This word he had
directed Lansing to give to the Swiss minister for Germany--and to
notify Germany also that Foch would talk the terms of armistice.
... He is certainly in splendid humor and in good trim--not
worried a bit. And why should he be, for the world is at his feet,
eating out of his hand! No Caesar ever had such a triumph! ...
November 6, 1918
Yesterday we had an election. I had expected we would win because
the President had made a personal appeal for a vote of confidence,
and all other members of the Cabinet had followed suit, except
Baker who said he wanted to keep the Army out of politics. The
President thought it was necessary to make such an appeal. He
liked the idea of personal leadership, and he has received a slap
in the face--for both Houses are in the balance. This is the
culmination of the policy Burleson urged when he got the President
to sign a telegram which he (Burleson) had written opposing
Representative Slayden, his personal enemy, from San Antonio, and,
in effect, nominating Burleson's brother-in-law for Congress. We
heard of it by the President bringing it up at Cabinet. Burleson
worked it through Tumulty. The President said that he did not know
whether to write other letters of a similar nature as to Vardaman,
Hardwick, ET AL. I advised against it, saying that the voters had
sense enough to take care of these people. Burleson said, "The
people like a leader with guts." The word struck the President's
fancy and although Lansing, Houston, and Wilson also protested, in
as strong a manner as any one ever does protest, the letters were
issued. ... Even before the Slayden letter was one endorsing
Davies, in Wisconsin, as against Lenroot. ... Then came the letter
to the people of the whole country, reflecting upon the
Republicans, saying that they were in great part pro-war but not
pro-administration.
November 11, 1918
On Sunday I heard that Germany was flying the red flag, and
postponed my promised visit to the Governors of the South, to be
held at Savannah. At eleven yesterday word came that the President
would speak to Congress at one, and that he would have no
objection if the Departments closed to give opportunity for
rejoicings. I went to a meeting of the Council of National Defence
and spoke, welcoming the members. It was a meeting called by
Baruch to plan reconstruction--but the President had notified him
on Saturday that he could not talk or have talking on that
subject. So all I could do was to give a word of greeting to men
who are bound to be disappointed at being called for nothing.
The President's speech was, as always, a splendidly done bit of
work. He rose to the occasion fully and it was the greatest
possible occasion. ... Lansing says that they (he and the
President) had the terms of Armistice before election--terms quite
as drastic as unconditional surrender.
TO DANIEL WILLARD PRESIDENT, BALTIMORE AND OHIO RAILROAD
Washington, November 7, 1918
DEAR MR. WILLARD,--I am extremely sorry to receive word that you
are leaving us, but of course you are going into a sphere of
action much larger than the one you are in here, and we must yield
you with every grace, no matter how unwillingly. You will be gone
from us only a short time, I trust, and then I shall have the
opportunity of seeing more of you and continuing a friendship
which has been of very real value to me.
All that you say about the Advisory Commission is true, and more.
If the history of the Council of National Defence and of the
Advisory Commission is ever written it will be seen that you
gentlemen, who gave your time and experience freely, gave the
first real impulse to war preparation, and we missed out only
because we did not have more authority to vest in you. I am very
proud of the first six months of the Council's work and of the
Commission's work.
I received your letter telling me of the death of your son and
daughter-in-law, and I did not have the heart to write you another
line. The mystery and the ordering of this world grow altogether
inexplicable when the affections are wrenched. It requires far
more religion or philosophy than I have, to say a real word that
might console one who has lost those who are dear to him. Ten
years ago my mother died, and I have never become reconciled to
her loss. This is a wrong state of mind, and I hope that you are
sustained by that unfaltering trust of which Bryant spoke.
Sincerely yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
To James H. Hawley
Washington, November 9, 1918
MY DEAR GOVERNOR,--... To my great surprise we have lost both
Houses. We felt sure that we would carry both, and did not
appreciate the extent to which the Republicans would be
consolidated by the President's letter, which, from what I hear
was one of the inducing causes of the result; although not by any
means the only one, for the feeling in the North and West was
strong that the South in some way was being preferred. I am fresh
from a talk with Senator Phelan who, to my surprise, tells me that
these were the factors in the New England States from which he has
just come. ...
The Wilson administration may be judged by the great things that
it has done--the unparallelled things--and the election of last
Tuesday will get but a line in the history of this period, while
the Versailles conference and the Fourteen Points of Wilson's
message will have books written about them for a century to come.
Cordially yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
To Samuel G. Blythe London, England
Washington, November 13, 1918
MY DEAR SAM,--I had not seen the review of my little book of
speeches [Footnote: The American Spirit.] made by the Daily Mail
until you sent it to me. I guess we are a nation of idealists and
it won't do any harm to have a little of this leaven thrown into
the European lump. I am amused when I read the reviews on this
book to see myself regarded as the rather imaginative interpreter
of the national attitude, after these twenty years of quiet, stiff
legal opinions on municipal law and rail-road problems.
Glad to hear of the boy! He is a poor correspondent, as most two-
fisted young chaps are apt to be. I envy you your opportunity now
to see the revolution in Germany, and it? possible spreading
elsewhere. I think you might write an I article on how revolution
comes to a country; a picture of just how the thing happens; what
the first step was; what kind of organization there was and how
they went about their business and got hold of the Government.
There is I a whole book in this, but immediately there is a chance
for a couple of mighty interesting articles.
Here we have gone wild over the victory and peace, and the fact
that the election went against us means nothing, so far as
international questions are concerned. We had not fixed the price
on cotton while we had fixed the price on wheat, and that made the
North feel that this is a Southern Administration. The Republicans
were united for the first time in ten years. These are the big
reasons for the shift. You see we have no idea here of Cabinet
responsibility or votes of confidence or lack of confidence. I
expect there will be some fun in Congress for the next two years.
As always, cordially yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
TO GEORGE W. LANE
Washington, December 16, 1918
MY DEAR GEORGE,--I have your long letter, telling me of all your
sad experiences with red tape and how you have settled down at
last to do your bit at home. You have gone through the bitterness
that most fellows have experienced in trying to do anything with
the Government. I really am very sorry that you had to make such a
financial sacrifice and break up your home and then be fooled, but
probably it is all for the best. The war is over, the boys are
coming home soon and this brings me to the main point.
Ned got home this morning. Nancy, Anne, and I went to Norfolk to
meet him. He had no expectation of seeing us there and at eight
o'clock on a very rainy foggy morning, we came up along side of
his transport and he was taken by surprise. He had a fine lot of
boys with him, but since May he had been at the Naval Aviation
Headquarters as one of the General Staff.
He had many narrow escapes; had men killed standing beside him,
torn to pieces by shrapnel; was knocked over by the concussion of
shells; was over the lines in the battle of Chateau-Thierry in an
aeroplane, flew across the Austrian-Italian lines and chased the
German on his retreat through Belgium.
He seems to be in good health, though rather nervous. He very much
admires the men who were his comrades and his superiors, but is
glad to be out of it all. I think he would like to get on a big
farm. My plan for getting farms for the soldier is making slow
progress. I have got to put in all my effort now to get some
decisive answer out of Congress--either yes or no. ...