The Letters of Franklin K. Lane, Personal and Political

by Franklin K. Lane

III

LAW PRACTICE AND POLITICAL ACTIVITIES 1894-1906

Law—Drafting New City Charter—Elected as City and County
Attorney—Gubernatorial Campaign—Mayoralty Campaign—Earthquake
—Appointment as Interstate Commerce Commissioner

Late in the fall of 1894 Lane returned to San Francisco and for some months associated himself with Arthur McEwen, on Arthur McEwen's Letter, a lively political weekly which attacked various forms of civic corruption in San Francisco, and made an especial target of the Southern Pacific Railroad, then in practical control of the State.

He also formed a law partnership with his brother, George W. Lane, under the firm name of Lane and Lane. In 1895 a curious case, estimated as involving about sixty million dollars worth of property, was brought to the young attorneys. The Star, of San Francisco, described the issue at stake by saying, "One Jose Noe and four alleged grand-children of Jose Noe appear, who pretend that they can show a clear title to an undivided one-half interest in nearly forty-five hundred acres within the city, on which land reside some five thousand or more owners, mostly men of small means."

Upon investigation Lane and his brother became convinced that the suit had been instituted as a blackmailing scheme, in an attempt to force the owners to pay for quit-claim deeds; they took and energetically fought the case for the defendants, without asking for a retainer. Their clients formed themselves into what they called the San Miguel Defense Association. In a year the title of the householders to their little homes was established beyond peradventure.

With the warmth of Latin gratitude this service was remembered. In 1898 when Lane ran for his first political office, as City and County Attorney, the San Miguel Defense Association revived its energies, formed a Franklin K. Lane Campaign Club and sent out vivid circulars about Franklin K. Lane, "who nobly fought for us. … It is now our turn to stand by him and see that he is elected by a very large majority." Their proclamation ended with the appeal, "Vote for Franklin K. Lane, the Foe to Blackmailers."

As Lane's plurality in this first election was eight hundred and thirty-two votes, there is little doubt that his grateful clients played a real part in that success.

The Tacoma printers had also sent a testimonial, which was widely distributed in the campaign, as to Lane's friendship to labor, saying that they, in gratitude, had made him an honorary member of their Typographical Union. The campaign was made on the rights of the plain people, for its chief issue.

In the letter that follows, Lane, in 1913, tells of his formal entry into politics, in 1898.

To P. T. Spurgcon Herald, McClure Newspaper Syndicate

Washington, December 30, 1913

DEAR MR. SPURGEON,—In reply to your inquiry of December 29, permit me to say that I got into politics in this way:—

One day, while on my way to lunch, I met Mayor Phelan, of San Francisco, who asked me if I would become a member of the committee to draft a charter for the city. I said I would, and was appointed. At that time I was practising law and had no idea whatever that I would at any time run for public office, or take any considerable part in public affairs. I helped to draft the charter, and as it had to be submitted to the people for ratification, I stumped the city for it. Later, when the first election was held under it, my friends on the charter committee insisted that I should accept the Democratic nomination for City Attorney. Under the charter, the City Attorney was the legal adviser of all the city and county officials, and it was his business to define and construe this organic law, and the friends of the charter wished some one who was in sympathy with the instrument to give it initial construction.

I was nominated by the Democratic party by an independent movement 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,—