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because it was so feckless - this long session. I've never forgotten it because the pattern has been repeated over and over again in my public life. Here were four grown men and me sitting at this table unable to make any progress at all and for the most part saying nothing. Literally, near silence prevailed a great deal of the time as we were facing the question of what to do about this doctor who had been found by the Moreland Act Commission to have taken some gratuities - either money, benefits, automobiles, or something - from insurance companies with whom the Commission did business. One person would make a little statement about what a good man Dr. Blank had been. Then they would all say yes. One by one they would say yes. Then old Mr. Lyon from Brooklyn would say, “I always thought him a man of estimable character, with highest morals. I learned so much from him.” Then there would be silence. Then somebody else would say something along the same line.

Then I, who had no obligations to him because I was new and a stranger to him, would say, “I'm sure that's all true, but after all this is the kind of behavior that can't be tolerated in public servants, isn't it? We can't really temporize with it. We do probably have to find a way to at least dismiss him rather promptly.”