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the future of the Center as we saw it -- we saw it as a cooperative thing, a thing where people worked together to help these children -- he saw it as an agency in which he would be a dictator, a authoriatian. And my wife and I said, “No.”

We brought it to the board, and Marian Ascoli said, “Yes.” She said if she did not have her way, she would withdraw her contributions. Her contributions were pretty significant at that time, about $100,000. And we had to make up our minds.

Well, you know, the interesting thing is that Mamie and I did not have any doubts. Before Marian gave us that ultimatum, we knew what our answer was. Our only concern was the future of the Center, and how were we going to continue it.

Well, we told her and the board, you know. And we had to -- and she withdrew. Again, she was true to her word.

One of our problems is that we apparently don't know how to be grateful, aside from also not knowing how to be realistic -- how to be grateful. And I guess Marian would have interpreted bar agreeing with her as an expression of gratitude, and our not agreeing with her as an expression of lack of gratitude. But we had to take that risk.

What did I do after that? Well, I talked to some of my friends In politics. I went to the deputy mayor, at that time John Theobold, and John and I had been friends from the time he was at City College. I told him of our predicament. If this woman prevailed and this man were kept there, it would be the end of the Center anyway, and our defiance of her meant she withdrew the money, and