Baruch is genuinely humble in the matter of
enmity. After watching him during the war, in an administration
which was enemy mad, I fancy he counts his genuine foes on the
fingers of one hand. Moreover he was quite impersonal about his
task. He did not do everything himself on the theory that no one
else was quite big enough to do it. There is no practical snobbism
about him. His knowledge of the industries 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.
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