The Letters of Franklin K. Lane, Personal and PoliticalLane, Franklin K.
History
The Letters of Franklin K. Lane, Personal and Political
Lane, Franklin K.
United States -- Politics and government -- 1913-1921; World War, 1914-1918 -- United States
(2) George White will be eaten up first thing he knows, unless he
moves. Your friend McAdoo is here declining the next nomination
daily, speaking much, and, I understand, well. ... Why doesn't G.
W. get Frank Cobb and Hooker, of the Springfield Republican, and
Van-Lear Black, and Senator Walsh, and Phelan, and Congressman
Walton Moore together, or any other group, and put up his plan and
ask them what they think of it tentatively,--just a quiet chat,
but start.
He doesn't need to resign, if he can get someone as a quiet
organizer "who will give all his time" to take up that job under
him, with sub-organizers. Who is this genius who can organize
inorganic matter, and give it life? Thought He was dead sometime!
"Wanted--A Miracle Man who can overcome a majority of seven
million votes with a hearty handshake and a warm brown eye. Need
have no program, no money. Must be a hypnotist who can make the
people forget a few things and believe a few things that are not
true. Must be able by reciting poetry to make the cunning
capitalist see that he is safer in the hands of the Democrats than
elsewhere, and at the same time educate the worker by a pass of
the hand to know that it is decent to stay bought. Must have
received the Gift of Tongues on the Day of Pentecost, so as to
talk Yiddish, in New York; Portuguese and Gaelic, in
Massachusetts; Russian and German, in Chicago; Scandinavian, in
the Northwest; Cotton and Calhoun, in the South; John Brown and
wheat, in Kansas; gold and Murphy, on 14th Street; and translate
Jesus Christ into Bolshevism, Individualism, Capitalism, Lodgeism,
Wilsonism! Must be as honest as old Cleveland and as clear of
purpose as Abraham Lincoln."
Put this want ad. in the papers and send me, by freight car, the
replies. With my warmest,
F. K. L.
To Adolph C. Miller
Los Angeles, January 26, [1921]
DEAR ADOLPH,--I see that Harding [Footnote: Governor Harding of
the Federal Reserve Board--a rumor of resignation.] is to leave
you, and this is a note of sympathy. What will you do? Poor chap!
I know the satisfaction you have had out of working with him and
now he follows Warburg, Delano, and Strauss. By Jove, that's why
we can't make things go as other countries do--because we can't
give our people enough to live on. This is at once the meanest and
most generous of Republics. Mean collectively, generous
individually.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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