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During the course of the meetings an incident happened that was just awful. They had redistricting for the district leadership race, and they cut the Village into two parts. I went up to county headquarters -- J. Raymond Jones was then the county leader -- and I looked at the lines, and I said, “These are had lines,” and those lines were drawn by the county leader. I said, “I don't want the Village separated.” What they had done was: they had two districts, everything west of Sixth Avenue, everything east of Sixth Avenue. And I didn't want to lose the West Village. I wanted it all to be one Village. And what they had done also was add 2500 Italians by moving the lines down to Spring Street as opposed to stopping it at Houston where they had always stopped. I said, “I want these western areas.” Actually, it was MacDougal Street that was involved that had been cut out of my district. I said. “I want them back.” And Jones said, “You'll just be adding Italians to your district. What do you need it for?” And I said, ‘I don't care. I want the district kept as one district.” And that was the way it was left. But that's not what he did. Jones was not interested in me, in keeping the Village together. What did that have to do with politics? And the other thing was: he wanted to help’ DeSapio.
So when they held public hearings on the lines up in Albany I went up there to testify against the lines and said that they'd been drawn in the county leader's headquarters --
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