TO HON. WOODROW WILSON
THE WHITE HOUSE
Washington, March 13, 1916
MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT,—I shall be pleased to go to the San Diego Exposition, on my way to San Francisco, and say a word as your representative at its opening.
I hope that you may find your way made less difficult than now appears possible, as to entering Mexico, My judgment is that to fail in getting Villa would ruin us in the eyes of all Latin- Americans. I do not say that they respect only force, but like children they pile insult upon insult if they are not stopped when the first insult is given. If I can be of any service to you by observation or by carrying any message for you to anybody, while I am West, I trust that you will command me. I can return by way of Arizona and New Mexico. … Faithfully yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
Lane re-opened the California International Exposition at San Diego, where, voicing the President's regret that he could not himself be present, Lane said,—"He had intended to make this trip himself; but circumstances, some to the east of him and some to the south of him, made that impossible. … Pitted against him are the trained and cunning intellects of the whole world, … and no one can be more conscious than is he that it is difficult to reconcile pride and patience. I give you his greeting therefore, not out of a heart that is joyous and buoyant, but out of a heart that is grave and firm in its resolution that the future of our Republic and all republics shall not be put in peril."
[Illustration with caption: FRANKLIN K. LANE WITH ETHAN ALLEN,
SUPERINTENDENT OF RAINIER NATIONAL PARK]
From San Diego he went north to San Francisco, to see his brother Frederic J. Lane, who had been ill for some months. After a few days with him Lane returned to his desk, in Washington.