Page:The Wizard of Wall Street and his Wealth.djvu/312

 after an almost breathless silence, 'now we will see if the charge be true.'

"Well, the vote was taken. Before it was half over I knew that most of the forty-three had taken to the woods. Blaine, Matthews and Hill, of Georgia, I remember, stood their ground and voted for Gould; but when the clerk footed up the vote it was found that Gould had, instead of forty-three, only fifteen votes. His face was black with rage, and so was Huntington's. It was a hard day for them, but it was a glorious one for Thurman, and to him the country owes a debt of gratitude."

No man in the country had a wider audience than Gould. Whatever he had to say was sure of publication in every newspaper in the land. Journals that continually denounced him would print everything he had to say as a matter of news. Gould was always an interesting figure. The public never tired of reading about him, his operations, his yacht, his home, his daily life. Every word he uttered was eagerly reported and his movements were watched as closely as the President's. In his later years he was quite accessible to newspaper men, and they found him not averse to the process of interviewing if he had anything to say. The Tribune and Sun were his favorite mediums of communication with the public, because they seldom attacked and often defended Gould. Indeed, they were looked upon as his personal organs during a part of his life. But Gould would frequently give interviews to other papers. He recognized the fact that the papers which opposed