I suppose if you were a few years younger you would be over in the trenches, or up in England getting ready. From all we hear, the Scotchmen are the only fellows that the Germans really are afraid of or entirely respect. The position of a neutral is a hard one. We are being generously damned by the Germans and the aggressive Irish for being pro-British, and the English press people and sympathizers in this country are generously damning us as the grossest of commercialists who are willing to sell them into the eternal slavery of Germany for the sake of selling a few bushels of wheat. Neither side being pleased, the inference is reasonable that we are being loyal to our central position. ... I went out recently and opened the San Francisco Fair, parading at the head of a procession of a hundred thousand people. The Fair is truly most exquisitely beautiful. There are many buildings that would even, no doubt, please your most fastidious eye. We have tried to get a Shipping Bill through which would allow us to get into South American and other trade, but the Republicans have blocked us, not because they feared we would get mixed up with the war but because they don't want us to do a thing that would further Government ownership of anything. The Administration is weak, east of the Alleghanies; and strong, west of the Alleghanies. Bryan is a very much larger man and more competent than the papers credit him with being. The President is growing daily in the admiration of the people. He has little of the quality that develops affection, but this, I think, comes from his long life of isolation. We regard ourselves as very lucky in the men we have in the foreign posts, notwithstanding the attacks made upon us by your press. ... I wish you would convey my hearty respects to His Excellency, the Ambassador, and to your wife, of whose return to health I am delighted to hear. Cordially yours, LANE TO EDWARD J. WHEELER CURRENT OPINION Washington, March 4, 1915 DEAR MR. WHEELER,--I am extremely obliged to you for your appreciative letter regarding my speech, [Footnote: On the American Pioneer.] but don't publish it in the Poetry Department or you will absolutely ruin my reputation as a hard working official. No man in American politics can survive the reputation of being a poet. It is as bad as having a fine tenor voice, or knowing the difference between a Murillo and a Turner. The only reason I am forgiven for being occasionally flowery of speech is that I have been put down as having been one of those literary fellows in the past. Cordially yours, FRANKLIN K. LANE TO JOHN CRAWFORD BURNS ROME, ITALY Washington, March 13, 1915