Lane — To John W. Hallowell
Los Angeles, February 21, 1921 MY DEAR JACK,—It is Sunday morning, very early; the sun is trying to get out of bed, a mocking bird is hailing its effort with great gurgling. I am sitting near an open window looking down into orange trees, which are a very dark shadow, and I am just as happy in my heart as I can be with a bum heart, and no home, and a scattered family. But —! Bad word that “but.”
Roots we all have and we must not be torn up from them and flung about as if we were young things that could take hold in any soil. I have been, all America has been, too indifferent to roots—home roots, school roots, work roots. … We should love stability and tradition as well as love adventure and advancement.
Your new job interests me, but I wonder if you will go with the Secretary of Commerce [Hoover], … I guess he did right. But unless he gets to be the leading adviser he’ll have to get out. For I’m afraid we are to see too much politics—Republican Burlesonism in the saddle. Government by unanimous consent is not practicable, and it looked as if this were Harding’s motto until Hoover’s appointment. Hoover will be the man to whom the country will look for some guidance along progressive lines, and the country will expect too much, more than any man can deliver.
Please tell your dear Mother that I have her book, and last night read two chapters. I know Bok and did not think him capable of such a literary work, or that he had such character as his book reveals. … My love to the Troop, and write just as often as you can.
F. K. L.