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THE TRUTH ABOUTH THE RAILROADS

magnified and much distorted by politicians and doctrinaires. The people have been led to believe that the railroad business is very different from other forms of business and that it can be successfully conducted under many severe legislative handicaps and according to rigid mathematical formulas. That it has sustained itself to the present time is due to the great growth of the country and to the patient, able, and courageous work of men who have devoted their lives to the business. It has achieved moderate success, not because of legislative interference and tinkering, but in spite of them.

What is business? Professor James Mark Baldwin, in his volume “The Individual and Society,” says that “business has to do with the production and distribution of valuable things; money, utensils, anything for which there is a demand in society, or on which society or some individuals of it set value”; and again, “to produce such things in response to the demand and to distribute them to those from whom the demand comes, is the under-

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