Franklin K. Lane

“ Must we confess that revolution is still necessary? Are we no further ahead for all that Pym and Hampden and Sam Adams and Washington and all the rest of the glorified ones have done? This land is truly a land of promise because it may be a land of fulfilment. It shows the way by which without murder and robbery and class hatred and the burning up of what has been, men may go right on making experiments, and failing, making others and failing, and learning something all the time. ”

“ We resign ourselves to a life that knows no part of man but his nerves. We study "reactions," in human beings and in chemistry— recognizing no difference between the two—and to my great amazement, the war has made the whole thing worse than ever. John, if you have a religion that can get hold of people, grip them and lift them—for God's sake come over and help us. I know you can understand how people become Bolsheviks just out of a desire for definiteness and leadership. The world will not move forward by floating on a sea of experimentation. ”

“ The work that a Cabinet officer chiefly does is to sign his name to letters or papers that other people write. There is very little constructive work done in any Cabinet office. While the glamour of intimate association with the President—the honor that comes from such a position—appeals to me, for I still have all my old-time vanity and love of dignity and appreciation; yet the position that I occupy is one of so much power, and I am conscious so thoroughly of its usefulness, that I do not want to change it. ”

“ Not that I have any particular word to say, for my mind is heavy, nor that you will find in what I may say anything that will illumine the way, but why should we not talk? What! may a friend not call upon a friend in time of vacancy to listen to his idle babble? O these pestiferous dealers in facts and these prosy philosophers, the world must have surcease from them and wander in the great spaces. To idle together in the sweet fields of the mind—this is companionship, when thoughts come not by bidding, and argument is taboo ”

“ We are for what is, not because it is the absolute best but because it has worked well. It is sacred only because it has been useful. Until a system of government, or of economics, or of home life, can be demonstrated to be an improvement on what we have, we shall not hysterically and fancifully forsake those which have served us thus far.
Our Government is not our master but our tool, adaptable to the uses for which it was designed; our servant, responsive to our call. This makes revolution an absurdity. But it also makes a sense of responsibility a necessity. ”

“ You are a delight and joy to a thirsty man, a true water carrier, you give of the water of life. For you know that men shall not live by bread alone. Not only words of wisdom, sage counsel, come from you, but there is a heart behind which does not wane with the years, but on the contrary grows stronger and more generous. I look forward to returning to New York to be able once again to feel with you the pleasure of an intellectual companionship, wherein the mind is so refined as to be emotionally sympathetic. ”

“ But it has been a splendid fight, hasn't it? A glorious fight against odds. There has been no justice in it. No justice, and our souls do so want justice, an even chance, something in front of us that we can see and know and fight. God knows why such tortures come to some, while others sail on such smooth seas. Can it be that there is no soul excepting the one we make for ourselves by fighting? Are those really blest who have such challenges given to their spirits? ”

“ When I think of how much less in money and in trouble make a place far more magnificent in California, I wonder our people have not lovelier places. Of course, the difference is that in Virginia there were just three classes of people—the aristocrat, the middle class, and the negroes. The aristocracy had the land, the middle class were the artisans, and the negroes the slaves. The only ones who had fine houses were the aristocracy, whereas with us the great mass of our people are business and professional men of comparatively small means and we have few men who build palaces. ”

“ There was a great empire of a hundred and eighty million people. They mobilized twenty-five million men. Six million of them are dead. The Czar was overthrown, a new government was set up, one of conservative socialism, and that was swept aside and a group of impractical socialists put in its stead, and where is Russia now? Broken to bits, its population dying of hunger, its industries unworked, its soil untilled, and Germany coming on with her great feet, stamping down the few who are brave enough to interpose themselves between Germany and her end. ”

“ Nancy went to her second party last night—a joyous thing in a new evening cloak of old rose, which made her feel that Cleopatra and the Queen of Sheba and Mrs. Galt and all other exalted ladies had nothing on her. What a glorious thing life would be if we could remain children, with all the simple joys and none of the horrors that age brings on. There is certainly a good fifty per cent chance that this fine spirit will marry some damn brute who will worry and harass the soul out of her. ”

“ But rising, they set to work again, and one day comes the reward, the planks fit together, and feeling the purpose of the builder, clasp each other in firm and beautiful lines; the unwilling metal at last melts into form and place and becomes the harmonious heart of the whole —and so a ship is born that masters the cruel sea, that cuts the fierce waves with a knife of courage. ”

“ It is an economic government by force, while our Democracy is a government by persuasion.
I find that no good comes from calling names. The men who are to be reached are the men who are not committed against us, but are disposed to be with American institutions. We must show them that we have a system that it is worth while betting on, and that if they have another way of doing things economical, machinery by which it can be instituted is in the people's hands. Our policy is to look before we leap, and to submit our methods to the judicial judgment of the people. ”

“ The true philosophy of Democracy teaches that the stable boy shall have, through school and the step-ladder of free institutions, the chance to rise to the management of industry or the leadership of the Senate. That is why the foundation of Democracy is political. For out of political freedom will come social and economic freedom. That is why I favor woman suffrage, it gives women a chance to grow, to think along new lines and grow into new capacities. ”

“ We still keep up a semblance of social life by going to dinners every night. It is the one relief I have, and yet each time I go I feel ashamed at what appears like a waste of time, and yet I know is not, and the waste of good food which is needed by others so much more than by us. Still the people have come down to a strict and modest diet with surprising firmness. There is little evidence of what you would call luxury or extravagance, excepting in the way a few people live. ”

“ But don't pay the price to Bryan or Wilson or Hearst or Murphy or any one else, of being untrue to your own belief as to the wise and practicable national policy, that you may gain their support.
There couldn't be a better year in which to lose, for something real. You can not win as a Wilson man, nor as a Murphy man, nor as a Hearst man. The nation is crying out for leadership, not pussy- footing nor pandering. Be wrong strongly if you must be wrong, rather than be right weakly. ”

“ Farm horses drawing sleds make their heavy way. And in these sleds, families sitting on the heaped straw in the bed of the wooden box, smiling mothers and happy babies, lined up together, warm, protected from the wind. Trees outlined against the sky, looking like dark coral rising out of a sea of snow into the dull light. An old man, gaunt, bewhiskered, trudges along confidently although he looks over eighty. A younger man, evidently a stranger, feels his cautious way over the slippery walk, covered with furs, hands, head, and body. ”

“ I do not ask for power, nor for fame, nor yet for wealth. Lift me on the magic carpet of the Infinite Wish and lay me down on a grassy slope, looking out on a quiet sunny sea, and make me to dream that men are gentle and women reasonable. ”

“ True, our feet may lag, our eyes may not see far ahead, but who should say that for this reason man should throw aside all the firmness and strength and solidity of order, forget all that he has passed through, and start afresh from the bottom rung of the ladder—from the muck of the primitive brute?
There are things that we would not hold, that we think unworthy of our philosophy, that must be changed or else our sympathies and abiding hopes will be forever offended. ”

“ It is well to have had money. No Bolshevism comes out of such a place as this. It makes no challenge to the envy of the submerged tenth. It has not ostentation. It gives off no glare, and it is all used. For men who can put money to such use, who do not over- indulge their own love for things of beauty, nor build for luxurious living, but mould a bit of seashore, some trees and a rambling house into an expression of their own dignified and balanced natures, for such men I am quite sure there is or will be, no social peril from the Red. ”

“ To Fremont Older, when he took charge of the SAN FRANCISCO CALL, Lane telegraphed:—
"There is no other agency that can serve our national purpose that is one-half as powerful as a free press, and no other that has one-half the responsibility. We need a press that will stand for the right, no matter whether its circulating or advertising is increased or not by such a position, and that means a press that includes in its understandings and sympathies the whole of society and serves no purpose other than the promotion of a happier and nobler people. ”

“ I hope you have some good staunch faith, which I have never been able to get, that would enable me to look upon these things in humility, in the confidence that this thing we call a body is only a temporary envelope for a permanent thing—a lasting, growing thing called a spirit, the only thing that counts. If we can get that sense we can have a new world. ”

“ I have been reading William James' Letters—and real literature they are—far better than all your novels. What a great Man—a mind, plus a man. Not to have known James in the last generation is to have missed its greatest intellect; Roosevelt and James and Henry George were the three greatest forces of the last thirty years. Sometime when you come across a good photo or engraving or wood-cut, or something, of James, will you buy it and send it to me? I want a human one—not a professional one. ”

“ We are coming to recognize spiritual forces, and I put my hope for the future, not in a reduction in the high cost of living, nor in any scheme of government, but in a recognition by the people that after all there is a God in the world. Mind you, I have no religion, I attend no church, and I deal all day long with hard questions of economics, so that I am nothing of a preacher; but I know that there never will come anything like peace or serenity by a mere redistribution of wealth, although that redistribution is necessary and must come. ”

“ So he is urging and urging, telling you, with your imagination and sensitiveness, that all is so bad that it is best to take the great risk, telling the poor sightless ones that their very primitive feelings and powers are the only safe guides, their last ultimate reliance and hope. And out of despair comes the bitter fruit we find in Russia, where they have wrought what they call an economic revolution, but have in fact produced nothing, for chaos is nothing. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Go with a heart that is full of rejoicing that peace has come, through our sacrifice as well as that of other of the nobler peoples of earth, and with a heart that is proud that you were able to help with your strength and sane judgment and great gentleness of speech and manner, in carrying on this nation's affairs in the day of its greatest adventure. ”

“ I do not believe we will change this world much for the good out of any materialistic philosophy or by any shifting of economic affairs. We need a revival—a belief in something bigger than ourselves, and more lasting than the world. ”

“ Sacrifice for one's country is splendid, but sacrifice for one's party is foolish. You must feel assured before acceding to the call, which I believe will certainly come, that it is more than party-wide, and that it is sufficiently strong to overcome the trend toward Democratic success. If I were asked I would say that I think both of these conditions are present—that the desire to have you again is much broader than any party, and so large that it would insure your victory;—but no man is as wise a judge of these things as the man himself whose fortunes are at stake. ”