FRANKLIN K. LANE

To R. M. Fitzgerald American-Mexican Commission

Atlantic City, November 12, 1916

Dear Bob,—­I am very glad to get your telegram.  I know that it took work, judgment, and finesse to bring about the result that was obtained in California.  What a splendid thing it is to have our state the pivotal state!  The eastern papers are attempting to make it appear that the state turned toward Wilson because of the slight put upon Johnson by Hughes.  These people in the East are not large enough to understand that the people think for themselves out West, and are not governed by little personalities, that we don’t play “Follow the leader,” as they do here.  The real fact is that Roosevelt undertook to deliver the progressives and could not do it in the West.  Now we must hold all these forward-looking people in line with us and make the Democratic party realize the dream that you and I had of it when we were boys, thirty years ago, and took part in our first campaign.  There is room for only two parties in the United States, the liberal and the conservative, and ours must be the liberal party.  Cordially yours,

Franklin K. Lane

To James K. Moffitt

Atlantic City, November 12, 1916

My dear Jim,—­It was fine of you to send me that telegram, and I am not too modest to “allow” as Artemus Ward used to say, as how the Interior Department is rather stuck up over the result.  The Department certainly had not been very popular in the West. ...  All of us will be taken a bit more seriously now, I guess.  I wired Cushing and the others who led in the fight and I am going to write a note to Benjamin Ide Wheeler, who from the first, be it said to his credit, claimed California for Wilson.  Wheeler is certainly a thoroughbred.  I wish I could get your way soon and see you all, and rejoice with you.

I have just received a telegram from Bryan, reading:—­

“Shake.  Many thanks.  It was great.  The West, a stone which the builders rejected, has become the head of the corner.”  Cordially yours,

Franklin K. Lane

To Benjamin Ide Wheeler

Atlantic City, November 14,1916

Dear Mr. Wheeler,—­I know that you rejoice with all of us.  You were the first man to tell me that Wilson would carry California, and I never believed it as truly as you did, but I have taken many occasions lately to say that you were a true prophet.  And speaking of prophets, what a lot have been unmade!  Did you see that I wanted to bet a hat with George Harvey that he could not name four states west of the Alleghenies that would go for Hughes?  The truth about the thing, as I see it, is that you can’t deliver the Western man and you can’t deliver the true progressive, anyhow.  The people of the