All were inclined to accept as a sufficient denial of my
charges Melville's dignified refusal "to notice any attack from a quarter
so discredited."
As my electric whirled into Wall Street, I saw the crowd in front of the
Textile Building, a dozen policemen keeping it in order. I descended amid
cheers, and entered my offices through a mob struggling to shake hands with
me--and, in my ignorance of mob mind, I was delighted and inspired! Just
why a man who knows men, knows how wishy-washy they are as individuals,
should be influenced by a demonstration from a mass of them, is hard to
understand. But the fact is indisputable. They fooled me then; they could
fool me again, in spite of all I have been through. There probably wasn't
one in that mob for whose opinion I would have had the slightest respect
had he come to me alone; yet as I listened to those shallow cheers and
those worthless assurances of "the people are behind you, Blacklock," I
felt that I was a man with a mission!
Our main office was full, literally full, of newspaper men--reporters
from morning papers, from afternoon papers, from out-of-town and foreign
papers. I pushed through them, saying as I went: "My letter speaks for me,
gentlemen, and will continue to speak for me.
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