MY DEAR MR. HARLEY,—… There are many hopeful signs, as you say, not the least of which is that the Supreme Court has at last been moved to amend its equity rules. The whole agitation for judicial recall will do good because it will not lead to judicial recall but to the securing of a superior order of men on the bench and to simplified procedure. I find that it is better to decide matters promptly and sometimes wrongly than to have long delays. The people have very little confidence in our courts, and this is because of one reason: Our judges are not self-owned; either they are dominated by a political machine or by associations of an even worse character. Few men on the bench are corrupt; many of them are lazy, and others are chosen from the class who feel with property interests exclusively. I am heartily in sympathy with a movement such as that you are promoting. It is in my opinion a very practical way—perhaps the only practical way—of heading off universal judicial recall. This is a Democracy and the people are going to have men and methods adopted that will give them the kind of judicial procedure that they want. They are not going to be unfair unless driven to be radical by intolerable conditions. …
Sincerely yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
Immediately after Woodrow Wilson's election in November, telegrams and letters from different parts of the country, and especially from his many friends in California, began to reach Lane asking that he should consider himself available for a Cabinet position, offering support and requesting his permission for them to make a strong effort in his behalf. This he emphatically refused, saying that he was not a candidate, but in spite of his refusals, editorials began to appear in many Western papers.
To Charles K. McClatchy Sacramento Bee
Washington, November 25, 1912
MY DEAR CHARLES,—I received your note and this morning have a copy of the paper containing the cartoon on "Unfinished Business," the original of which, by the way, I should like to have for my library. …
I know absolutely nothing about the suggestion made by the Call as to my being appointed to the Cabinet. I rather think that it was Ernest Simpson's friendly act, though I have not heard from him at all. Three men have been to me from the Coast who wanted to be in the Cabinet, and I have told each one the same thing:—That I was not a candidate; that no one would speak to the President for me with my consent; but that I would not say that I would not accept an appointment, because I would do almost anything to make Wilson's administration a success, for I believe that he has faced the right way and the only difficulty that he will have will be in securing strong enough support to carry out his own policies. I think he lacks somewhat in adroitness and that his campaign was much less radical than he would voluntarily have made it. I do not know him and shall not go near him unless he sends for me. If he does send for me I shall tell him the truth regarding anybody of whom he speaks to me. I shall advocate nobody. I am not going to be a job peddler or solicitor. My present position makes all the demand upon my imagination, initiative, and capacity that my abilities justify. I could not work any harder or do any better work for the people in any position that the Government has to give. I am not at all enamored of the honor of a Cabinet place.
Now, I am talking to you in the utmost frankness as if you were sitting just across the table from me. Of course what I am saying to you is absolutely private and personal. …
We will just let this matter rest "on the knees of the gods," and I shall try to serve with as little personal ambition moving me as is possible with a man who has some temperament.