F. K. L.

With this letter he sent a copy of a verse written by his daughter, not yet seven.

    “On through the night as the willows go weeping
    The daffodils sigh,
    As the wind sweeps by
    Right through the sky.”

TO CHARLES K. MCCLATCHY SACRAMENTO BEE

Washington, March 20, 1909

My Dear McClatchy,—­I am just in receipt of your letter of March 15th, with reference to my running for Governor next year.

There is nothing in this rumor whatever.  I have been approached by a good many people on this matter, and perhaps I have not said as definitely as I should that I had no expectation of re-entering California politics.  When I was last in California some of my friends pointed out to me the great opening there would be for me if I would become a Republican and lead the Lincoln-Roosevelt people.  There does not seem to be any line of demarcation between a Democrat and a Republican these days, so that such a change would not in itself be an act of suicide.  My own personal belief is that the organization in California on the Republican side could be rather easily beaten, and we could do with California what La Follette did with Wisconsin.  But I am trying not to think of politics, and I told those people who came to me that I thought my line of work for the next few years was fixed.

...  No one yet knows from Mr. Taft’s line of policy what kind of a President he will make.  Everybody is giving him the benefit of the doubt.  The thing, I find, that hangs over all Presidents and other public men here to terrify them is the fear of bad times.  The greatness of Roosevelt lay, in a sense, in his recklessness.  These people undoubtedly have the power to bring on panics whenever they want to and to depress business, and they will exercise that power as against any administration that does not play their game, and the “money power,” as we used to call it, allows the President and Congress a certain scope—­a field within which it may move but if it goes outside that field and follows policies or demands measures which interfere with the game as played by the high financiers, they do not hesitate to use their “big stick,” which is the threat of business depression. ...

There are a lot of things to be done in our State yet before we both pass out. ...  As always, very truly yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

TO LAWRENCE F. ABBOTT OUTLOOK

Washington, September 22, 1909