Washington, May 5, 1917
MY DEAR COBB,—I had a long talk with Hoover yesterday. He tells me that the U-boat situation is really worse than I stated it. There is no question but that the actual sinkings amounted to more than 300,000 tons in a week, and if we add those put out of business by mines, they will exceed 400,000 tons. The French are absolutely desperate. One of the French ministers told Hoover that they had fixed on the first of November as their last day, if the United States had not come in. Admiral Chocheprat told me, with tears in his eyes, three nights ago, that they felt themselves helpless. They were absolutely at the mercy of the submarines because of their lack of destroyers, and they had feared we were preparing to defend our own shores rather than fight across the water. I know that the latter has been the policy of the heads of the Navy Department.
Do not, I beg of you, minimize the immediate danger. This is the time to defend the United States; and the United States is woefully indifferent to its dangers and to the needs of the situation. We have been carrying on a ship-building program with reference to conditions after the war. It is only within ten days that we have realized that the end of the war will be one of defeat unless we build twice as fast as we proposed to build. You know that I am not pessimistic. It is not my habit to look upon the gloomy side of things. It is no kindness to the American people or to France or England to give them words of good cheer now. This war is right at this minute a challenge to every particle of brains and inventive skill that we have got.
Please treat this as entirely confidential. Cordially yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
May 8
The only dissension in the Council is over the use that will be made of Hoover. Houston, I think, is rather making a mistake, though it may work out all right. I hope it will.
Don't "bat" us; we are a nervous lot right now. …
"Lane was among the first to grasp the bigness of the danger to the allied cause," James S. Harlan says, "in Germany's underwater attack on the merchant marine of the world. He also realized the magnitude of the task of frustrating the new peril and the need of prompt measures to save the situation. Lane had no anxieties or hesitations in his personal contact with big men; but he had a genuine fear of small men when big things were doing. And so in this great emergency he naturally thought of Schwab. How well I recall the fine force and vigor in his expression when, rising from his chair and standing with clenched fist pointed at me, he said in substance:—'The President ought to send for Schwab and hand him a treasury warrant for a billion dollars and set him to work building ships, with no government inspectors or supervisors or accountants or auditors or other red tape to bother him. Let the President just put it up to Schwab's patriotism and put Schwab on his honor. Nothing more is needed. Schwab will do the job.'
"This was a full year before Schwab was called down to Washington to talk over the question of building ships."