A public office is not a job, it is an opportunity to do something for the public.

Mather a self-made millionaire and member of the Sierra Club had written Lane a bitter letter in late 1914 complaining that the national parks were being exploited for private profit. Lane and his ally fellow Commissioner Balthasar H. Lane made many effective speeches for the Committee on Public Information.

Newspapers reported that it was often said of Lane that had he not been born in what is now Canada he would have become president. Because of two decades of poorly paid government service and the expenses of his final illness he left no estate and a public fund was establiFranklin Knight Laned to support his widow. Appointed a commissioner of the Interstate Commerce Commission by U.