MY DEAR ADOLPH,--I have postponed until the last minute writing you regarding my proposed visit in California. I see now clearly that it is impossible for me to get out there this fall. The Express Case ... is still on my hands, and with all of my energy I shall not be able to get rid of it until the first of the year at least ... Moreover (and this is a personal matter that I wish you would not say anything about) ... I am doing my work in a great deal of pain, and have been for the last three or four weeks ... I cannot work as hard as I did some time ago ... I rebel at sickness as much as I do at death. The scheme of existence does not appeal to me, at the moment, as the most perfect which a highly imaginative Creator could have invented. My transcendental philosophy seems a pretty good working article when things are going smoothly, but it is not quite equal to hard practical strain, I fear. Politically things look like Wilson, though I suppose T. R. will get California and a lot of other states. I think he will beat Taft badly. The new party has come to stay, and it will be a tremendous influence for good. I don't take any stock in the talk about T. R's personal ambition being his controlling motive. I think that he has found a religious purpose in life to which he can devote himself the rest of his days, not to get himself into office but to keep things moving along right lines. Remember me most kindly to your wife and President Wheeler. As always yours, FRANKLIN K. LANE To William F. McCombs Chairman, Democratic National Committee Washington, October 19,1912 Dear Mr. McCombs,--I cannot go to California and make speeches for Governor Wilson without resigning from the Commission. Four years ago two Republican members of the Commission were strongly urged at a critical time in the campaign to get into Mr. Taft's fight so as to help with the labor vote. I insisted that they should not do it, and the matter was brought before the Commission, and we then decided that no member of the Commission should take part in politics. So you see when the telegrams began to come in this year, urging that I go out to California and the other Pacific Coast states, I was compelled to say that I was stopped by my position of four years ago.