ies of the country was that
of the speculator; it was not that of the practical industrialist,
and he knew it.

He surrounded himself with the best men he could find. He trusted
them implicitly, his habit being not to distrust men until he finds
that they can be trusted but to trust them unless he finds that
they cannot be trusted--also a modest and naive trait. He was never
tired of praising Legg, Replogle, Summers, and the other business
men whom he brought to Washington, praising himself, of course, for
his skill in choosing them--he never achieves self-forgetfulness--but
giving them full credit for the work of the War Industries Board.
And he inspired an extraordinary loyalty among his associates, big
and little. He treated the Republicans as he treated big business
as if all had only one interest, above politics and personalities,
and that was to win the war. And when President Wilson, in response
to Republican criticism of the war organization, gave him real power
to mobilize American industry, the Republicans applauded the bestowal
of authority as constructive and took credit to themselves for
accomplishing it.

Baruch and Hoover, alone of the business men who came to Washington
during the war achieved real successes in the higher positions, and
he showed vastly the greater capacity of the two to operate in a
political atmosphere. A man who was nothing but a Wall Street
speculator, not an industrial organizer, organized successfully the
biggest industrial combination the world has ever seen; a man who
was suspect of American business got on admirably with American
business, and a man who had not been in politics accomplished the
impossible task of adjusting himself to work under political
conditions. It is another chapter in the romance of Baruch.

He cannot explain it, so why should not he wonder about it quite
openly and quite delightedly, with all his engaging naivete? That
inability to explain anything is one of the characteristics of Mr.
Baruch. When you begin to apprehend it you begin to see why he is a
romance to himself. He cannot explain himself to himself, nor to
anyone else, no matter how much he tries. And even more, he cannot
explain his opinions, his conclusions, his decisions to anyone in
the world with all the words at his command. He can never give
reasons. Mentally nature has left him, after a manner, incommunicado.
His mind does not proceed as other men's minds do.

The author of the "Mir