TO HON.  WOODROW WILSON

THE WHITE HOUSE

Washington, March 13, 1916

My dear Mr. President,—­I shall be pleased to go to the San Diego Exposition, on my way to San Francisco, and say a word as your representative at its opening.

I hope that you may find your way made less difficult than now appears possible, as to entering Mexico, My judgment is that to fail in getting Villa would ruin us in the eyes of all Latin-Americans.  I do not say that they respect only force, but like children they pile insult upon insult if they are not stopped when the first insult is given.  If I can be of any service to you by observation or by carrying any message for you to anybody, while I am West, I trust that you will command me.  I can return by way of Arizona and New Mexico. ...  Faithfully yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

Lane re-opened the California International Exposition at San Diego, where, voicing the President’s regret that he could not himself be present, Lane said,—­“He had intended to make this trip himself; but circumstances, some to the east of him and some to the south of him, made that impossible. ...  Pitted against him are the trained and cunning intellects of the whole world, ... and no one can be more conscious than is he that it is difficult to reconcile pride and patience.  I give you his greeting therefore, not out of a heart that is joyous and buoyant, but out of a heart that is grave and firm in its resolution that the future of our Republic and all republics shall not be put in peril.”

[Illustration with caption:  Franklin K. Lane with Ethan Allen, superintendent of Rainier national park]

From San Diego he went north to San Francisco, to see his brother Frederic J. Lane, who had been ill for some months.  After a few days with him Lane returned to his desk, in Washington.

TO FREDERIC J. LANE

Washington, April 26, 1916

My dear Fritz,—­ ...  I certainly will not despair of your being cured until every possible resource has been exhausted.  The odds, it seems to me, are in your favor.  Whenever Abrams and Vecchi say that they have done all that they can, if you are still in condition to travel, I want you to try the Arkansas Hot Springs and I will go down there to meet you. ...

I wrote you from the train the other day on my way to Harpers Ferry, where I took an auto and went down through the Shenandoah Valley and across the mountains to Charlottesville, where the University of Virginia is.  I went with the Harlans.  Anne joined us at Charlottesville. ...  We visited Monticello, where Jefferson lived, and saw a country quite as beautiful as any valley I know of in California, not even excepting the Santa Clara Valley, in prune blossom time.  Those old fellows who built their houses a hundred years ago knew how to build and build beautifully.  We have no such places in California as some that were built a hundred and fifty years ago in Virginia, and they did not care how far they got away from town, in those days.