could periodically arrange the wage-scale and other
conditions under which work was carried on. He
felt with Commissioner Wright that the joint-
agreement was the logic, not merely of labor organi-
zation, but of industrial organization. Capital is
organized, labor is organized, not temporarily but
permanently. That both are compelled to work
together raises the simplest of questions: how can
the two organizations manage their common inter-
ests? Shall the relation in which they stand be unde-
fined? Shall they ignore each other, or fight each
other in every dispute? Baldwin thought this both
a folly and an injustice. If both are there, he said,
and must work together, let the fact be recognized
in some rational form. The world over, this has come
more and more to be through the joint-agreement;
capital and labor having each its representatives to
decide (with provision for arbitration) on wages,
hours, and conditions. In a published article --
"The Interest of Labor in the Economics of Rail-
road Consolidation" -- he wrote: "The function
performed by railroads has become too important to
the body politic to permit of any solution of these
serious labor and wage questions, except by intelli-
gent consideration on the part of the representatives
both of the management and of the employees."

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