DATES
1864. July 15. Born near Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. 1871-76. Taken to California. Went to Grammar School at Napa, California. 1876. Went to Oakland, California. Oakland High School. 1884-86. University of California, Berkeley, California. Special student. 1885. Reporting on Alta California in San Francisco for John P. Irish. 1887. Studied Hastings Law School. 1888. Admitted to the Bar. 1889. Special Newspaper Correspondent in New York for San Francisco Chronicle. 1891. Bought interest in Tacoma News and edited that paper. 1892. Campaigned in New York for Cleveland. 1893. Married. 1895. Returned to California. Practiced law. 1897-98. On Committee of One Hundred to draft new Charter for San Francisco. 1898. Elected City and County Attorney to interpret new Charter. 1899. Reelected City and County Attorney. 1901. Reelected City and County Attorney. 1902. Nominated for Governor of California on Democratic and Non-Partisan Tickets. 1903. Democratic vote in Legislature for United States Senator. 1903. Nominated for Mayor of San Francisco. 1905. December. Nominated by President Roosevelt as Interstate Commerce Commissioner. 1906. June 29. Confirmed by Senate as Interstate Commerce Commissioner. 1909. Reappointed by President Taft as Interstate Commerce Commissioner. 1913. Appointed Secretary of the Interior under President Wilson. 1916. Chairman American-Mexican Joint Commission. 1918. Chairman Railroad Wage Commission. 1919. Chairman Industrial Conference. 1920. March 1. Resigned from the Cabinet. 1920. Vice-President of Pan-American Petroleum Company. 1921. May 18. Died at Rochester, Minnesota.
FAMILY NAMES
Franklin K. Lane was the eldest of four children.
Father: Christopher S. Lane.
Mother: Caroline Burns.
Brothers: George W. Lane.
Frederic J. Lane.
Sister: Maude (Mrs. M. A. Andersen).
He was married to Anne Wintermute, and had two children:
Franklin K. Lane, Jr. ("Ned").
Nancy Lane (Mrs. Philip C. Kauffmann).
THE LETTERS OF FRANKLIN K. LANE
I
INTRODUCTION
Youth—Education—Characteristics
Although Franklin Knight Lane was only fifty-seven years old when he died, May 18, 1921, he had outlived, by many years, the men and women who had most influenced the shaping of his early life. Of his mother he wrote, in trying to comfort a friend, "The mystery and the ordering of this world grows altogether inexplicable. … It requires far more religion or philosophy than I have, to say a real word that might console one who has lost those who are dear to him. Ten years ago my mother died, and I have never been reconciled to her loss." Again he wrote of her, to his sister, when their brother Frederic—the joyous, outdoor comrade of his youth—was in his last illness, "Dear Fritz, dear, dear boy, how I wish I could be there with him, though I could do no good. … Each night I pray for him, and I am so much of a Catholic, that I pray to the only Saint I know, or ever knew, and ask her to help. If she lives, her mind can reach the minds of the doctors. … I don't need her to intercede with God, but I would like her to intercede with men. Why, Oh! why, do we not know whether she is or not? Then all the Universe would be explained to me."
From those who knew him best from childhood, no word of him is left, and none from the two men whose strength and ideality colored his morning at the University of California—Dr. George H. Howison, the "darling Howison" of the William James' Letters, and Dr. Joseph H. Le Conte, the wise and gentle geologist. "Names that were Sierras along my skyline," Lane said of such men. To Dr. Howison he wrote in 1913, when entering President Wilson's Cabinet, "No letter that I have ever received has given me more real pleasure than yours, and no man has been more of an inspiration than you."