The Glasgow courier. [volume] (Glasgow, Mont.) 1913-current, 1921-06-03
PHILOSOPHERS
VIEW OF DEATH
Frankly X. Lane Gives Eleventh Hour
Impressions of His Great
Mind.

San Francisco, May 18.-Franklin
X. Lane, viewed death philosophically
and during the period of his apparent
convalescence he embodied his
thoughts on the subject in a letter he
wrote to a few personal friends, "a
mong them being Isadore Dockweiler
of Los Angeles, Democratic national
committeeman.
Before going or the operating table
at Rochester May g., Mr.. Lane said in
his letter he had "come to the con-
%clusion that perhaps the best state
ment of my creed could be fitted into
the words: 4 accept which to me
meant that if in the law of nature my
individual spirit was to go back into
the great ocean of spirits, my one
duty was to conform. Lead Kindly
Light was all the gospel l had. l ac-
cepted. | made p%retense to pull out
my hand in submission and lay there"
Managed With Eclat."
81 need not tell you that the whole
performance was managed with con-
siderable %eclat," his letter continued,
"and DR.. Will Mayo was to use the
knife. x y s. On the whole it was what
cliC guilty iCpolSSI "oulu al q
recherche affair. * * Il
81 have seen death come to men in
various ways, some rather novel and
western. l once saw a mar hanged
and | have seen several men shot and
came very near going out that way
myself two or three times, but always
to the other fellow l aimed poorly. l
was being shot at because | was a
newspaper mar and | should have been
shot at. There must be public concern
in what is printed as we'll as it's truth
to justify it. That is something that
newspapers should get to know in this
country. After the earthquake in San
Francisco, | say walls topple out up
on a man. And l have had more in
innate glimpses still of the picturesque
and of the prosaic ways by which men
come to their taking off.
valley of the Shadow"
"But never before have l been call
ed upon to deliberately walk into the
valley of the shadow, and, say what
you will, it is a great act y y but
here was a path the end of which I
could not see. l was not compelled
to take it. l am very late, doctor adj
vised me against taking it. l could
live some time without taking it. 1t
was a bet on the high card with a
chance to win, and | took it. IS y *
"There was a long ray of light lead
ing from my bed to my door. had
opened my eyes. l had not died, l had
come through the valley. In the broad
part of the ray was my wife smiling
and stretching out to that u~nreachable
door where others whom l recognized,
all smiling. Things were dim, but the
mind seemed definite. u
"PrOcession of Doctors"
81 am doing we'll; cared for well, as
happy as can be; have none of my
angina pains from the operation. And
as l lie here l contemplate a frieze,
a professions of doctors and nurses and
%internes, of diagnosticians and experts
and mechanics and cooks-all the
great and the small-in profit. They
are to look like those who have made
their pretenses before me during the
past year; the solemn and the stupid;
the kindly, the reckless, the off-hand,
the erudite, the practical, the many
men with tubes and the many men
with electrical machines. Old Aescu-
lapius must begin the procession, but
the man with the knife regnant, heroic
size, must end it,"