TO HON. THEODORE ROOSEVELT THE WHITE HOUSE
San Francisco, December 9, [1905]
MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT,—I have not written you before because of my expectation that I would see you soon, but as there now seems some doubt as to immediate confirmation I will not longer delay expressing the deep gratification which the nomination gave me. You gave the one answer I could have wished to the whispered charge that I was bound by obligation of some sort to the railroads—a charge never made in any form here, not even in the hottest of my five campaigns. My honor stood pledged to you—by the very fact of my willingness to accept the post—that I was free, independent, self-owned, capable of unbiased action. And that pledge remains.
As to my confirmation, it has been suggested that it was the customary and expected thing for me to go to Washington and help in the fight. This I feel I should not do and have so written to Senator Perkins and others. I do not wish to appear indifferent in the slightest degree to the honor you have done me, or to the office itself, but I feel that you will appreciate without my setting them forth on paper the many reasons which hold me here. This is no time for an Interstate Commerce Commissioner to be on his knees before a United States Senator or to be thought to be in that position. Very respectfully yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
To Benjamin Ide Wheeler President, University of California
San Francisco, December 15, 1905
MY DEAR MR. WHEELER,—I enclose copy of a letter sent this morning to Mr. Smythe of San Diego, who is temporarily with Senator Newlands in Washington.
I wanted to tell you last night that I had written to the President thanking him for the confidence he had shown in me, and telling him that I did not think it was the right thing for me to go to Washington under present circumstances. He may have a different notion in this respect, and of course I should be guided by his judgment … I have no doubt that many of the Senators would be quite willing to let the President have the law if they could have the Commission …
Personally I should be most pleased to meet these critical gentlemen of the Senate and give them a very full account of my eventful career. But the fact that I am a Democrat could not be disproved by my presence in Washington, and I am not likely to apologize for what one of my kindly Republican critics calls "this error of his boyhood." I am concerned in this matter because I do not wish to cause the President any embarrassment. He is fighting for far larger things than this appointment represents. He knows his own game, and I am quite willing to stand on a side line and see him play it to a finish, or get in and buck the center if I am needed. I must apologize for troubling you with this matter, but I do not wish you to regard me as indifferent or unappreciative. And if you think that I am too far up in the clouds I want you frankly to tell me so. Sincerely yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
To William E. Smythe
San Francisco, December 15,1905
MY DEAR MR. SMYTHE,—I have been out of town for a few days, else I would have acknowledged your kind letter of congratulation sooner. I sent a note the other day to our friend Senator Newlands in recognition of the effort he has been making to secure action upon my appointment, and I certainly regard myself as very fortunate in having one who knows me upon that Committee. [Footnote: The Interstate Commerce Committee.]
According to the press despatches here I am regarded as something of a monster by the more conservative Senators, a sort of cross between Dennis Kearney and Eugene Debs with a little of Herr Most thrown in … I wish for confirmation, but not at the price of having it thought that I in any way compromised myself to obtain the Senate's favorable action. I know that you are not alone in this view as to the wisdom of my going on, for I have received other messages to the same effect. But, as you know, the President made this appointment upon grounds quite superior to those of political expediency and upon recommendations not at all political in their nature … Very truly yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
To John H. Wigmore
San Francisco, December 21, [1905]
MY DEAR WIGMORE,—Your letter bore good fruit … As for confirmation it is not as likely as I could wish. However, I am enjoying the situation hugely, and if the fight is kept up I may enlarge into a national issue.
The Press of California (notice the respectful capital) is practically a unit for me … My information is that the President will stand pat. But the fight with the Senate is growing so large that no one can tell what will happen. I have been urged to go to Washington and meet the Senators, but I have refused. … Am I not right?
Remember me very kindly to your wife, and to you both a Merry
Christmas. As always yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
To Benjamin Ide Wheeler President, University of California
San Francisco, December 22, [1905]
MY DEAR MR. WHEELER,—It was mighty good of you to bring me that message of good cheer last night. I have not told you, and cannot now tell you the very great pleasure and gratification you have given me by the many evidences of your personal friendship. To me it is better to have that kind of friendship than any office.
I have just received a letter from the President [Roosevelt] that is so fine I want you to know of it at once—but the original I keep for home use. Here it is:—
"… I thank you for your frank and manly letter. It is just the kind of a letter I should have expected from you. You are absolutely right in refraining from coming here. I shall make and am making as stiff a fight as I know how for you. I think I shall carry you through; but of course nothing of this kind is ever certain. …"
Please remember me most kindly to Mrs. Wheeler and believe me always, faithfully yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
The California earthquake, of April 18, 1906, occurred at about five o'clock in the morning. Lane was living in North Berkeley, across the bay from San Francisco. His house built of light wood and shingles, rocked, and his chimneys flung down bricks, in the successive shocks, but with no serious damage. Meanwhile San Francisco sprang into flames from hundreds of broken gas mains. Lane reached the city early in the morning, and was at once put, by the Mayor, upon the Committee of Fifty to look to the safety of the City.
Will Irwin wrote this picturesque story of the episode after having heard his friend describe this adventure:—
"Lane has said since that, although he was brought up in the old West, his was a city life after all. He had never tested himself against primitive physical force, tried himself out in an emergency, and he had always longed for such a test before he died. When the test came it was a supreme one: the San Francisco disaster. …
"On the last day but one of this visitation the fire, smoldering slowly in the redwood houses, had taken virtually all the district east of Van Ness Avenue, a broad street which bisects the residence quarter. … By this time the authorities had given up dynamiting. Chief Sullivan, the one man among them who understood the use of explosives in fire fighting, was dead. The work had been done by soldiers from the Presidio, who blew up buildings too close to the flames and so only scattered them. Lane stood on the slope of Russian Hill, watching the fire approach Van Ness Avenue, when a contractor named Anderson came along. 'That fire always catches at the eaves, not the foundations,' said Lane. 'It could be stopped right here if some one would dynamite all the block beyond Van Ness Avenue. It could never jump across a strip so broad.' 'But they've forbidden any more dynamiting,' said Anderson. 'Never mind; I'd take the chance myself if we could get any explosive,' replied Lane. 'Well, there's a launch full of dynamite from Contra Costa County lying right now at Meigs's Wharf,' said Anderson. Just then Mr. and Mrs. Tom Magee arrived, driving an automobile on the wheel rims. Lane despatched them to Meigs's Wharf for the dynamite. He and Anderson found an electric battery, and cut some dangling wires from a telephone pole. By this time the Magees were back, the machine loaded with dynamite; Mrs. Magee carrying a box of detonators on her lap. Lane, Anderson, and a corps of volunteers laid the battery and strung the wires. 'How do you want this house to fall?' asked Anderson, who understands explosives. 'Send her straight up,' replied Lane.
"'And I've never forgotten the picture which followed,' Lane has told me since. 'Anderson disappeared inside, came out, and said: "All ready." I joined the two ends of wire which I held in my hands. The house rose twenty feet in the air—intact, mind you! It looked like a scene in a fairy book. At that point I rolled over on my back, and when I got up the house was nothing but dust and splinters.'
"They went down the line, blowing up houses, schools, churches. Then came bad news. To the south sparks were catching on the eaves of the houses. Down there was a little water in cisterns. Volunteers under Lane's direction made the householders stretch wet blankets over the roofs and eaves. Then again bad news from the north. There the fire had really crossed the avenue. It threatened the Western Addition, the best residence district. The cause seemed lost. Lane ran up and looked over the situation. Only a few houses were afire, and the slow-burning redwood was smoldering but feebly. 'Just a little water would stop this!' he thought. The whole water system of San Francisco was gone, or supposedly so, through the breaking of the mains. 'But I had a hunch, just a hunch,' said Lane, 'that there was water somewhere in the pipes.' He had learned that a fire company which had given up the fight was asleep on a haystack somewhere in the Western Addition. He went out and found them. They had been working for thirty-six hours; they lay like dead men. Lane kicked the soles of the nearest fireman. He returned only a grunt. The next fireman, however, woke up; Lane managed to get him enthusiastic. He found a wrench, and together he and Lane went from hydrant to hydrant, turning on the cocks. The first five or six gave only a faint spurt and ceased to flow. Then, and just when the fireman was getting ready to go on strike, they turned a cock no more promising than the others, and out spurted a full head of water. No one knows to this day where that water came from, but it was there! They shut off the stream. 'It will take three engines to pump it to that blaze,' said the fireman. He, Lane, and Anderson scattered in opposite directions looking for engines. When twenty minutes later, Lane returned with an engine and company two others had already arrived. But they had not yet coupled the hose up. The companies were quarreling as to which, under the rules of the department, should have the position of honor close to the hydrant! Lane settled that question of etiquette with speed and force. They got a stream on the incipient fire, and the water held out. The other side of Van Ness Avenue gradually burned out and settled down into red coals. The Western Addition was saved, and the San Francisco disaster was over."
A few days later Lane started to Washington in an attempt to raise money for the rebuilding of San Francisco. When he found that Congress would not act in this matter, he, with Senator Newlands, of Nevada, and some others, went to the President and the Secretary of the Treasury to see if Federal help could be secured for the ruined city.
To William R. Wheeler
New York, June 23, [1906]
MY DEAR WILL,—I have just returned from Washington, where I hope we have accomplished some good for San Francisco, although it was mighty hard to move anyone except the President and the Secretary of the Treasury. But I did not intend to write of anything but your personal affairs. Yesterday, on the train, I discovered that you had met with another fire. This is rubbing it in, hitting a man when he is down. The Gods don't fight fair. The decent rules of the Marquis of Queensberry seem to have no recognition on Olympus, or wherever the Gods live. I can quite appreciate the strain you are under and the monumental difficulties of your situation, dealing as you are with dispirited old men and indifferent young ones, I hope this last blow will have some benefit which I cannot now perceive, else it must come like almost a knock-out to the concern. Brave, strong, bully old boy, no one knows better than I do what a fight you have been making these last few years and how many unkindnesses fortune has done you. There is not much use either in preaching to one's self or to another, the advantages of adversity. I don't believe that men are made by fighting relentless Fate, the stuff they have is sometimes proved by struggle,—that is the best that can be said for such philosophy.
More power to you my dear fellow! I took occasion to give M … a warm dose of Bill Wheeler. He is an old sour-ball who thinks he is alive but evidently has been in the cemetery a long time. He talked all right about you, but all wrong about San Francisco …
Give my regards to the dear wife whose heart is stout enough to meet any calamity, and remember me most warmly to the Boy. Sincerely and affectionately yours, FRANKLIN K. LANE
The Hepburn Bill provided for seven men on the Interstate Commerce Commission, instead of five. Roosevelt intimated that he would appoint two Republicans. All opposition to Lane was then withdrawn.
To John H. Wigmore
New York, June 27, [1906]
MY DEAR WIGMORE,—Thanks, and again thanks, for your letter to Senator Cullom and yours to me. It looks now as if with a seven man Commission the objection to my Democracy would cease. Senator Cullom's letter is very reassuring, and I wish that I had met him when in Washington. …
Before another week this business of mine will have come to a head, and I hope soon after to start West, via Chicago.
If the report to-day is true that Harlan of Chicago is to go on the Commission, you will have two friends on the body. I personally think most highly of Harlan and would be mighty proud to sit beside him. His political fortune seems to have been akin to mine, and we have one dear and cherished enemy in common.
Remember me most kindly to your wife and believe me, faithfully yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
Telegram. To John H. Wigmore
New York, June 30, [1906]
Confirmation has to-day arrived thanks to a friend or two like
Wigmore.
LANE
To William R. Wheeler
Washington, July 2, [1906]
MY DEAR BILL,—I have waited until this minute to write you, that I might send you the first greeting from the new office. I have just been sworn in and signed the oath, and to you I turn first to express gratitude, appreciation, and affection.
My hope is to leave here tomorrow and go to Chicago at once on your affair, and then West.
Remember me most affectionately to your wife, and believe me always most faithfully yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
At the same time an affectionate letter of appreciation went to
Benjamin Ide Wheeler.