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that rents that were $2- or $300 were becoming $4 and $600 a month, and people were going absolutely berserk as compared with those who lived in rent controlled premises where rents weren't going up at all, and there hadn't been increases in 20 years in some places.

Well, I quickly recognized that that was the major issue. And so I introduced legislation in the city council to create a new form of rent control -- not the old kind; that would not work for these buildings that had never been under rent control, and it would be stupid to place them under the old kind of rent control -- but I said, “We should have a rent stabilization. I didn't use that term, as I recall, but some limit which would fix the rent but allow annual increases based on cost of living and inflation, because there isn't any reason, if costs go up, that the landlord shouldn't get that in these premises, but would limit it. I suggested that the limitation would be 5% a year. And I made that the issue. I stopped giving out literature on anything else. That was the issue. I was all over this town handing out literature. And he couldn't understand it. “What's that got to do with running for Congress?” said he. “Congress has nothing to do with rent control.” And I said, “I'm a city councilman. I have an obligation here, and I must deal with this problem.” He, after all, was a state Senator in Albany. He had an obligation, too, and I forced him into it. But with him, it was he who had to respond. He wasn't leading anymore. He