Governor Al Smith demanded concrete action rather than a report from the commission

Evidence

Moses had been quite prepared to be disappointed by the Governor he had called “a typical Tammany politician.” But Al Smith’s speech to the prominent liberal Democrats, independents and “federal” Republicans on the commission at its first meeting had certainly not been pro forma. Mangled cigar stub stabbing out from his wet lips at the vested, watch-fobbed civic leaders before him, he had rasped, “Is this commission going to do something or is it just going to offer a report? Are you going to have something definite that can be put into effect to benefit the state? Because if you are not, the sooner you report and go out of existence the better.” — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 436

Categorization

• SEED: Smith’s blunt “do something or die” governance line is a quotable hook for a piece on results-driven political leadership.
• XREF: connects to: Belle Moskowitz conceived the administrative reform commission that launched Al Smith’s governorship — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 412