ple. It is because the railroad was the one key to the
great speculative chances which our natural resources
offered. Every glittering value of the mine, all the
treasures of the forest and reservoirs of oil, together
with countless schemes to appropriate the unmeas-;
ured increment of land, depended, one and all, upon
railway facilities.

All these dizzying revenues fall to those who can so
control access to them as to shut others out. This has
been the real struggle, -- not in the least for "exist-;
ence," but for multi-millionaire existence. In the
hand-to-hand contests over the great prizes, that
man came to the front who seized the weapon surest
to cripple his rival. This was his "fitness" in the
struggle. It was a part of his skill to select men who
possessed the qualities which this policy required.
The darkest pages in our industrial history are those
that record the results of these extremer contests.
Here is the first and by far the most threatening
source of our political depravity. Here is the origin
of many a corrupted judge and fixed jury, as it is the
origin of purchased city councils and state legisla-;
tures. It is the pith of Baldwin's conclusion that
the time had arrived for public ascendancy over
this business of transportation, as well as over every
other organized industry which carries with it mo-;
nopoly privilege.

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