and prejudiced ways. He was called to one of his
most difficult posts because he was "too young to
have hard-and-fast ideas."

He began work, moreover, at an auspicious time for
his own enlightenment on the momentous economic
and social issues. The last years of the nineteenth
century were aflame with new interest and shaken by
changes in the basis of social and economic opinion.
It was in his own field of the railroad that this shift-
ing of thought reached its climax. It was in the whirl
of these new currents that Baldwin received his dis-
cipline and learned his lessons.

From the first he was proud of being a railroad
man. There was no misgiving that he had chosen
wisely and well. So tenacious was he to stand by
the railroad that repeated calls into other fields did
not even seriously tempt him, although two of these
offers, with much larger salary, would have given
him far greater security and much lighter work.

He was unmoved, because "railroad development,"
he says, "opens up more chances than any man can
meet, and nothing shall induce me to switch off."

In this chosen sphere, he was to try out his ideals.
He writes home from Kansas precisely what his new
duties are: He has to get "freight and passenger busi-
ness; to superintend building and repairs of bridges
and trucks" over several hundred miles of road. He
is responsible for the engines and cars, and has to
hire and discharge men. In a later letter he says that

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