For all his good-humor and poise, the steady fire of
hostile criticism fretted him intensely. He did not like to run through
his exchanges and find his esteemed contemporaries combatting his
positions, sometimes bitterly or contemptuously, and always, so it
seemed to him, unreasonably and unfairly. He did not like to have
friends stop him on the street to ask why in the name of so-and-so he
had said such-and-such; or, more trying still, have them pass him with
an icy nod, simply because he, in some defense of truth and exploitation
of the uplift, had fearlessly trod upon their precious little toes. He
did not like to have his telephone ring with an angry protest, or to get
a curt letter from a railroad president (supposedly a good friend of the
paper's) desiring to know by return mail whether the clipping therewith
inclosed represented the _Post's_ attitude toward the railroads. A
steady procession of things like these wears on the nerves of a
sensitive man, and West, for all his confident exterior, was a sensitive
man. A heavy offset in the form of large and constant public eulogies
was needed to balance these annoyances, and such an offset was not
forthcoming.
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