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the years since than. So I wanted to keep my hand on workmen's compensation. I wanted every referee to feel personally responsible to me, and not to some second-string person whom he had to go through. Thus I wanted a division of some of the responsibility.
So I asked a number of people for recommendations for the job. I couldn't run across anybody who was an engineer by training, a Democrat by political affiliation and association, and who had had some experience in management, not just as a technical engineer. I asked a good many people whom they would recommend. I was given a very free hand on this. There was no Tammany Hall or New York State Democratic Committee breathing their hot breath on my neck about it. I could have anybody I wanted, if I could find them. It was not a civil service post, so I didn't have to go through that technique.
I asked everybody whom I knew for suggestions, whom I could ask confidentially. Some of the people who were turned up I didn't think were so good. Among other people I asked was Robert Moses, who was a friend of mine and who is a very practical man. He knows how to get things done. He understood what I wanted when I said I wanted a man who could get things done, who could understand, go ahead, and get them done. He thought about various people he had known
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