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“Yes sir.”

“Have you got the record there?”

“Yes sir.”

“I qualify her as an expert witness,” - and so I qualified as a witness. It was one of the prettiest pieces of work by Smith. I think this man had said, too, “She's a woman. What does she know about these things?” He'd thrown that in for good measure.

We never got through clashing with him. We never got him shut up. Nothing the Astor Estate or Fulton Cutting or any of the big owners or bankers of New York could say would shut him up, because he was a man who made his living by having a grievance and screaming about it. He didn't have it against us alone but against the whole Mitchel administration, the Comptroller, William Prendergast, and so on. Everybody else was a crook. Taxes were always wrong. Taxes were wrong in principle, and the real estate owners shouldn't have to pay taxes. He was a thorough-going reactionary, but perfectly logical within his own pattern.

By virtue of hammering away at these people, they got to have diminishing values. Among the people who'd been appointed on this commission was Robert Dowling. I think he was the father, probably, of the present Robert Dowling,