"Later when he [Hearst] budded as a candidate for President, in 1904, he sought an interview with me and said that he was not to blame for the policy that had been pursued. Our interview closed with this dialogue:—
"'Mr. Lane, if you ever wish anything that I can do, all you will have to do will be to send me a telegram asking, and it will be done.'"
"To which I responded, 'Mr. Hearst, if you ever get a telegram from me asking you to do anything, you can put that telegram down as a forgery.'"
In a State like California, one of whose chief industries was the growing of wine-grapes, and where the Examiner was the farmer's paper, at least one phase of the attack upon Lane bore heavy fruit. Upon election day the count between Lane and Dr. George Pardee, the Republican candidate, was found to be close. In the end several thousand votes, unmistakably intended for Lane, were thrown out upon technicalities. Lane was defeated, and Dr. Pardee took office. It was a bitter blow.
The night when the final bad news was brought to Lane in his home, he called his son, of four, to him, leaning down he put his arm around the boy very gravely and tenderly, and said, "Ned, it isn't my little son, it is Dr. Pardee's little boy that is going to have that white pony."
The boy caught the emotion in his father's voice, and said cheerily, "O, that's all right, Dad. That's all right."
Lane found that in spite of the loss of the Governorship his circle of personal contacts had been greatly widened by his campaign. He had come to know, and be known by, the men most prominent in California public affairs and he had made, and confirmed, many friendships with men who had given themselves whole-heartedly to his advancement. Of these friendships he wrote, in 1920, to his friend Timothy Spellacy, "Eighteen years I have known you and never a word or act have I heard of, or seen, that did not make me feel that the campaign for Governor was worth while because it gave me your acquaintance, friendship, affection. … When I get mad, as I do sometimes, over something that the Irish do, I always am tempted to a hard generalization that I am compelled to modify because of you and Mike and Dan O'Neill, in San Francisco—and a few more of the Great Irish."
Lane's second child, Nancy, was born January 4, 1903.
Early in that year Lane was given the complimentary vote of his party in the California Legislature for United States Senator.
He was chosen in April to go to Washington to argue the case of the need of the City of San Francisco for a pure water supply from the Hetch-Hetchy Valley, an unused part of the Yosemite Park.