Franklin Knight Lane - Later Life and Legacy

Later Life and Legacy

On December 17, 1919, Lane confirmed rumors that had been circulating in Washington for some months that he would be leaving the Cabinet. Secretary Lane stated that he had not done so earlier because of President Wilson's illness. While he gave no specific reason for his departure, The New York Times reported that Lane had found it difficult to make ends meet on a Cabinet officer's salary of $12,000 and desired to make more money for himself and his family.

As Lane prepared to leave office in January 1920, he reflected on the postwar world:

But the whole world is skew-jee, awry, distorted and altogether perverse. The President is broken in body, and obstinate in spirit. Clemenceau is beaten for an office he did not want. Einstein has declared the law of gravitation outgrown and decadent. ... Oh God, I pray, give me peace and a quiet chop. I do not ask for power, nor for fame, nor yet for wealth.

Lane resigned in February 1920, and left office on March 1. He subsequently accepted employment as Vice President and legal advisor to the Mexican Petroleum Company, which was run by Edward Doheny (who, after Lane's death, would be implicated in the Teapot Dome scandal), as well as a directorship of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.

In a letter to Democratic Presidential candidate and Ohio Governor James M. Cox in July 1920, Lane set forth his vision for America:

We want our unused lands put to use. We want the farm made more attractive through better rural schools, more roads everywhere ... e want more men with garden homes instead of tenement homes. We want our waters, that flow idly to the sea, put to use ... e want fewer boys and girls, men and women, who cannot read or write the language of our laws, newspapers, and literature ... he framing of our policies should not be left to emotional caprice, or the opportunism of any group of men, but should be result of sympathetic and deep studies by the wisest men we have, regardless of their politics ... e want our soldiers and sailors to be more certain of our gratitude ... e are to extend our activities into all parts of the world. Our trade is to grow as never before. Our people are to resume their old place as traders on the seven seas. We are to know other people better and make them all more and more our friends, working with them as mutually dependent factors in the growth of the world's life

By early 1921, Lane's health was failing, and he sought treatment at the Mayo Clinic. He was able to leave the Clinic and spend the remainder of the winter in warmer areas as advised by his physicians, but soon returned. Lane's heart was in such poor condition that the Clinic could not give him general anesthesia during his heart operation. Lane survived the operation, and wrote of the ordeal, but died soon afterward. According to his brother, George Lane, the former Secretary left no will or estate. The vice-president of Lane's company noted that the Californian had worked 21 years for the Government on a "living salary", and the earnings from the one year of substantial wages had been heavily sapped by illness. Lane's body was cremated, and his ashes thrown to the winds from atop El Capitan peak in Yosemite National Park.

According to newspapers reporting Lane's death, it was said that had he been born in the United States he would have been elected President. Following Lane's death, a memorial committee was formed by Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, former Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt and former Lane assistant and member of the Federal Reserve Board Adolph C. Miller. The committee established a Franklin K. Lane Memorial Fund, initially dedicated to the support of Lane's widow, Anne Lane, and upon her death to be used to promote causes in which her husband believed. The two future presidents, Miller, and National Park Service Director Mather were among the major contributors to the fund. In 1939, after Mrs. Lane's death, the corpus of the trust (just over $100,000) was transferred to the former Secretary's alma mater, the University of California, to promote the understanding and improvement of the American system of democratic government. Fifty years later, the entrusted amount, still administered by the University, had grown to almost $1.9 million. In November 1921, Lane Peak in Mount Rainier National Park was named for the former Secretary. Other tributes to Lane included a World War II Liberty ship, a New York City high school, and a California redwood grove. Lane's patriotic essay "Makers of the Flag" adapted from a speech he delivered to Interior Department employees on Flag Day 1914, continues to be reprinted as a speech and in schoolbooks.