SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR 1913-1915

Appointment as Secretary of the Interior—Reorganization of the
Department—Home Club—Bills on Public Lands

His appointment, as Secretary of the Interior, came to Lane in a letter from President-elect Wilson, stating that he was being "drafted" by the President for public service in his Cabinet. The letter was written about the middle of February, 1913. The urgent manner of the appointment was caused by Lane's frankly-expressed reluctance to leave his work on the Interstate Commerce Commission, where opportunity for yet fuller accomplishment had been assured by his recent appointment as Chairman of the Commission. Seven years of application to the intricate problems of adjustment between the conflicting claims of the public, the shippers, and the railroads, did not solve all the issues involved in new and profoundly interesting cases coming up for adjudication. In addition to this natural desire to expand and perfect the technique of administration of his Commission, Lane dreaded the great increase in social and financial demands involved in a Cabinet position. In addition to these reasons, the change in service would mean work with men that he knew only slightly, if at all, and under a President whom he had never met. Perhaps the consideration that weighed more heavily than any of these, in his feeling of reluctance, was that the portfolio of the Department of the Interior, with its congeries of ill-assorted bureaus was in itself unattractive to a man with Lane's love of logical order. His liking for strong team-work and for the building of morale among a force of mutually helpful workers seemed to have no possible promise of gratification among bureau chiefs as unrelated as those of the General Land Office, the Indian Office, the Bureau of Pensions, Patent Office, Bureau of Education, Geological Survey, Reclamation Service, and Bureau of Mines.

It was, therefore, with something of the spirit of a drafted man that Lane set his face toward his new work. Members of his immediate family recall days of depression after the appointment first came, but the cordial response of the press of the country to his appointment, the flooding in of many hundreds of letters and telegrams of congratulation, and President Wilson's own cordiality—lifted Lane's mood to its normal hopefulness.

In relating the history of the appointment itself, Arthur W. Page, of the World's Work, writes, after talking with E. M. House of the matter, "House recommended Lane, as perhaps the one man available, adapted to any Cabinet position from Secretary of State down. At one time Lane was slated for the War Department, at another time another department and finally placed as Secretary of the Interior because being a good conservationist, as a Western man he could promote conservation with more tact and less criticism than an Eastern man."

Confronted by a complex and definite task, Lane's mind quickened to the attack. The situation of the Indian seized his sympathy. In his first official report he wrote, "That the Indian is confused in mind as to his status and very much at sea as to our ultimate purpose toward him is not surprising. For a hundred years he has been spun round like a blindfolded child in a game of blindman's buff. Treated as an enemy at first, overcome, driven from his lands, negotiated with most formally as an independent nation, given by treaty a distinct boundary which was never to be changed while water runs and grass grows,' he later found himself pushed beyond that boundary line, negotiated with again, and then set down upon a reservation, half captive, half protege."

With this at heart Lane wrote a letter of vigorous appeal to John
H. Wigmore to become his First Assistant.

To John H. Wigmore

Washington, March 9,1913

MY DEAR JOHN,—I want you as my First Assistant. It is absolutely essential that I should have you!! I am aiming to gather around me the largest men whom I can secure and to form a cabinet of equals. Four years of this life here would bring a great deal of satisfaction to you. You would meet the distinguished men of the world. It is the center of all the great law movements of the world,—for peace, international arbitration, reform in procedure, and such matters. Beside that, we have two or three of the greatest problems to meet and solve that have ever been presented to the American people. First in the public mind is the land problem. How can we develop our lands and yet save the interest of the Nation in them? Second, and I think perhaps this should be first, is the Indian problem. Here we have thousands of Indians, as large a population as composes some of the States, owning hundreds of millions of dollars worth of property which is rapidly rising in value. I am their guardian. I must see that they are protected. They have schools over which we have absolute control— the question of teachers that they are to have, the question of the kind of education that they are to be given, the question of industry that they are to pursue. Their morals, I understand, are in a frightful state, largely owing to our negligence and the lack of enforcement of our laws. We can save a great people; and the First Assistant has this matter as his special care. I do not know of any place in the United States which calls for as much wisdom and for as great a soul as this particular job. I will give you men under you over whom you will have entire control and who will be to your liking. I will give you men to sit beside you at the table who will be of your own class. You can do more good in four years in this place than you can possibly do in forty where you are now. There are a lot of men who can teach law, and lots of men who can write the philosophy of the law, but there are few men who can put the spirit of righteousness into the business, social, and educational affairs of an entire race. Think of that work! Beside that you have the constructive work in framing and helping to frame a line of policy as to the disposition of our national lands—the opening of Alaska.