Baldwin did not vapor about ideals or force them
upon unwilling ears. There never was in him a taint
of the "holier-than-thou" attitude, yet he was an
idealist in its strict and proper sense -- a mind
moved by ideas. What haunts him and even drives
him is a moral imagery of something better. The
propelling idea in his case is moral because it con-
sciously includes the good of other people. If the
mental picture is that of his railroad, he conceives of
it in relation to public welfare. The railroad must be
more and more efficient in a service that includes
everybody. He does not think of it merely as a
machine out of which a few private pockets are to be
filled. Its one justification is that it helps toward a
development in which all men share.

He idealizes the function of the railroad in that he
insists upon an ever higher use of transportation in
the general interest. I heard a railroad president once
describe the famous head of another road in these
terms: "He has no policy or idea except to manipu-
late the values, so that he can gut the property and
then get rid of it. He has as little thought of pro-
ducing anything or helping the public as a common
sharper in a gambling game. Whether he leaves the
road better or worse, does not enter his head so long
as he can coin money out of it." By this illustration
we may gauge Baldwin.

At the lowest range of business is the despoiler,
the man willing to wreck and to destroy if he may

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