Chapter 7 – Change in Major

The backgrounds of Robert Moses and Al Smith could not have been more different. Moses has a wealthy, sheltered upbringing, Smith was brought up in the tenements of New York lined by flop-houses and saloons. Smith’s father died when he was in his teens, and he had to help support his mother and his sister, starting work at 13. Eventually he ended up at Fulton Fish Market where he stayed for four years. He spent the rest of his youth labouring. He got his first political job at the age of 22 where his relationship with Tammany Hall began.

He involved himself in the local drama group and his acting improved his public speaking. He ran political errands, making himself well known and popular in his local district. He got his first government job and was married in 1896. In 1903 he won his first election as a Tammany assemblyman.

He was self-taught, reading legislative bills by night while others were in the saloon. In his second term he was elected to two committees. He was offered the post of New York City Superintendent of Buildings but chose to pursue his political career. In 1906, having been elected to Albany District for the fifth time, he began to use his voice. In 1911, the Democrats won both houses of the Assembly, and Smith was elected Majority Leader.

After a fire disaster in a sweatshop – the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, killing 141 workers, Smith had himself put on the Commission to investigate factory conditions. He began to impress Reformers with his concern for ordinary working people.

In 1913, the Democrats won the Assembly again, and Smith was elected Speaker and became a commanding figure, not only supporting Tammany bills, but Reformer bills as well. In 1915 he fought for the Reformer Commission’s proposal to reorganise the state’s government, but the Tammany hierarchy were fighting against it and eventually Smith succumbed to the Party. He continued, however, to persuade his party to champion social welfare legislation. By changing the Tammany image, he would open up his own route to Governor. By 1918, he was given the nomination for Democratic Governor and when he won, he was paraded through Albany.

Smith appointed Reformers to his administration and was himself progressive in his first term. However, he despised most Reformers because their idealism prevented practical measures that could help the poor and struggling cope with hardship. He called them “crackpots”. But Moses was different. He was treated as one of the family by Smith. Smith admired Moses’s education, his dedication and in-depth knowledge of the administration. But Moses had himself changed. His new-found pragmatism he had widened his circle of contacts and was more politically astute under Belle Moskowitz’s tutelage, curbing his idealism and practising the art of the possible. He now talked of Smith with admiration, especially with regard to Smith’s political manoeuvres. Moses, as Secretary of the Reformer Association, a seemingly independent body promoting good government for New York, became a partisan voice in the 1922 race for Governor, attacking the Republican incumbent Nathan L. Miller. Although this was bad for the Association, forcing many members to resign over its lack if independence, it brought Moses even closer to Al Smith.

In 1923, as newly elected Governor of New York, Al Smith went back to Albany, and took Robert Moses with him.

Analysis & Key Takeaways

• Tammany hall was a bit of an actors studio. A good politician in variably takes up acting at to some point: it’s a job requiring an ability to emotionally appeal to your audience. Al Smith was a thespian;
• Al Smith was not an idealist and despises impractical reformer goals because he knows that to get things done is pretty gross/practical sometimes;
• Al Smith was a business man who worked in a trucking company; he was from Oliver street ie poor. Al smith chatted with everyone in his neighbourhood. “Let me know if you need help.”Al Smith was a business man who worked in a trucking company; he was from Oliver street ie poor. Al smith chatted with everyone in his neighbourhood. “Let me know if you need help.”
• Having ones ideas be realized into reality is obviously essential to creating more money but value is still created regardless of whether the idea materializes, you never know when an idea could be most useful so keep track of them;
• He was a reader; people who read are > then people who don’t. Sad but true. You could go to Harvard where by definition you are forced to read, but the people who make the most impact usually read (in the public sphere).

Chapter 1	Chapter 2	Chapter 3
Chapter 4	Chapter 5	Chapter 6
Chapter 7	Chapter 8	Chapter 9
Chapter 10	Chapter 11	Chapter 12
Chapter 13	Chapter 14	Chapter 15
Chapter 16	Chapter 17	Chapter 18
Chapter 19	Chapter 20	Chapter 21
Chapter 22	Chapter 23	Chapter 24
Chapter 25	Chapter 26	Chapter 27
Chapter 28	Chapter 29	Chapter 30
Chapter 31	Chapter 32	Chapter 33
Chapter 35	Chapter 36	Chapter 37
Chapter 38	Chapter 39	Chapter 40
Chapter 41	Chapter 42	Chapter 43
Chapter 44	Chapter 45	Chapter 46
Chapter 47	Chapter 48	Chapter 49
Chapter 50

PART 3 – The Rise to Power

Chapter 6 – Curriculum Changes

Belle Moskowitz, Mrs. M to her admirers or Mosky to her detractors, as advisor to Mayor Al Smith became one of the most powerful political voices in New York. She was not so powerful when she phoned Robert Moses. Reformers regarded Belle as one of their inner circle. She was a powerful voice supporting young working women and her recommendations for regulations to govern working conditions were accepted.

In her phone call, she told Moses that Governor Smith had decided to set up a commission to implement vast public service and infrastructure changes to the City of New York, and that Governor Smith was looking for a Chief of Staff. Would Dr. Moses be interested in the job? Moses said he would. On Belle’s recommendation, Moses got the position. Moses had his own office, at last, at the Hall of Records.

The election of 1918 was the first in which women were involved. Belle’s influence with the Governor came mainly from the advice she gave him about how to win over this new electorate. Smith was an underdog in this election and Smith began to rely more and more on Belle’s advice. Belle persuaded Smith to reform the state’s administrative machinery, even in the face of the Governor’s Tammany supporting backers, by forming a Commission that included in its title “Retrenchment” which appealed to native Tammany conservatism and served to split the Republican vote.

The existing administrative machinery was in a corrupt mess, with budgets and strategy run not by the governor but by the heads of many committees and the legislature, all serving their individual interests. The bureau argued that power, as well as responsibility should be in the hands of the Governor and his representatives with the legislature reduced to a reviewing role.

When Moses began his work as Chief of Staff, it was Belle who taught him how to get things done. She taught him the statecraft of dealing with the various factions, the art of the possible. There was no doubt that she was the boss, but Moses, despite his exasperation with some of her decisions, was learning fast. By the spring of 1919, the Commission was almost entirely in Moses’s hands.

Smith, emboldened by his success with the more progressive elements, persuaded to members of the Commission to raise a budget themselves. Once they had done this, Smith supported the Commission fully. Moses was an inspiring leader because of his frankness and hard work as well as his devotion to the public interest.

The Commission began running out of money and the staff had to be let go. Moses finished the report himself. Its success was based on its clarion call and its clarity. Although the Governor held the powers, he was answerable to the electors and an independent watchdog. This democratic element won all sides over. However, other contributors, including the original work of the Bureau, were not mentioned. Moses claimed full credit. The report was published in October 1919. Al Smith agreed to fight for its implementation.

Moses directed the project to build support for Smith’s position, tempered by Belle Moskowitz’s advice. Moses took charge of answering all questions regarding the report. He was confidant of passing the necessary bills during the Governor’s next term. However, Governor Smith lost the next election and the Commission was disbanded.

By 1922, Moses was working for the New York State Association. He continued to talk with Al Smith who was now working for a transport company. He continued to tell Smith about his plans and dreams, and Al Smith listened.

Analysis & Key Takeaways

• State-Crafts and Politics involve appealing to desperate clusters of voters without the other clusters realizing you are talking to people other than yourself. Splitting the retrenchment conservative voters;
• Devotion to the public interest is a central theme for Moses: however, it is also a good cover for all kinds of prejudiced decision-making Naturally, we gravitate to the most egregious examples: because hey are easy to remember; but he will always have the defense that he was acting in the public interest. How do you measure what the public interest is? In a Venn diagram, Moses’ self-interest appears to be significantly tied to the public interest;
• Moses seems to have taken full credit for the report since he was the last man standing ad still working on it;
• Fait Accompli strategy is to start a project that cannot be fully paid for due to the agreed budget but then embarrass the government into paying for the remaining.

Chapter 1	Chapter 2	Chapter 3
Chapter 4	Chapter 5	Chapter 6
Chapter 7	Chapter 8	Chapter 9
Chapter 10	Chapter 11	Chapter 12
Chapter 13	Chapter 14	Chapter 15
Chapter 16	Chapter 17	Chapter 18
Chapter 19	Chapter 20	Chapter 21
Chapter 22	Chapter 23	Chapter 24
Chapter 25	Chapter 26	Chapter 27
Chapter 28	Chapter 29	Chapter 30
Chapter 31	Chapter 32	Chapter 33
Chapter 35	Chapter 36	Chapter 37
Chapter 38	Chapter 39	Chapter 40
Chapter 41	Chapter 42	Chapter 43
Chapter 44	Chapter 45	Chapter 46
Chapter 47	Chapter 48	Chapter 49
Chapter 50

Chapter 5 – Age of Optimism

Moses’s first task was to challenge the dominance for Tammany Hall, and for that he had to control the city’s jobs – 50,000 City employees. Patronage was the lever of power in New York City, and by taking control of this lever, Moses sought to gain the power he needed to change the city.

Tammany resisted changes to the Civil service. Employment was currently managed by patronage and bribery and a maze of technicalities had been historically put in place to prevent change. The Mayor turned to Moses to handle these technicalities.  However, Moses’s thesis was published, and his support of only educated gentlemen for positions in the Civil Service caused a scandal, and the offer was withdrawn.

Moses continued at the Bureau with more assistants. Moses’s first step was the measure of efficiency ratings for employees. In order to do this, each role had to be broken down into measurable parts. By 1915, Moses was ready to write his efficiency report. He was given a desk in the Municipal Building, his first foot in the City Hall door.

Robert married Mary in 1915 with a child in 1916. Although Moses’s mother pushed him to take a salary, Moses did not seem interested in money. He was more driven by his ideas for change and attaining the power to make them real.

Moses wrote that pay grades should be consistent across departments. The Civil Service should be structured into sixteen categories and promotion should be given purely on documented, mathematically verifiable merit. Moses was accused of downplaying the human element in this calculation but Moses had an almost religious belief in his mathematical models.

The first reactions to Moses’s ideas were positive. Mitchell announced that he would push for adoption. However, Tammany Hall was girding itself for a fight. Many of New York’s municipal employees would lose money due to Moses’s changes. At meetings, Moses would suffer a hail of abuse as he outlined his plans. Some of his supporters began to have doubts, especially those whose salary would be reduced. At the height of these doubts, Tammany Hall held a commission to consider the proposals. The decision was to modify the proposal, to consider individual cases and to slow down implementation. Different Civil Service levels were added by the City Alderman. By these methods, Tammany Hall successfully delayed the reforms.

Moses’s loss of optimism was mirrored by the country’s anxiety as it moved towards war. Mayor Mitchell popularity was also waning, not only with the public but with Moses as well as Mitchell had turned down Moses’s plans for Riverside Drive.

In 1917 Moses redoubled his efforts to push through his changes. Mitchell was up for re-election and was being contested heavily by Tammany Hall and their candidate, “Red” Mike Hyland, won. Progressivism was dead, as were Moses’s reforms.  Science and logic were not enough. Moses needed power.

In 1918, Moses was looking for a job. He tried the shipbuilding industry, where he again proposed reforms which were rejected. He had to go back to the Bureau for a job with a diminished status.

His second daughter was born. Money was short and debts were rising. The apartment was too small and a larger one was out of the question. The war was over. Woodrow Wilson was fading. Tammany’s Mayor Al Smith was in charge in New York. Moses’s contacts were gone. He seemed to have nowhere to go. And then he received a phone call from Belle Moskowitz, Al Smith’s political advisor.

Analysis & Key Takeaways:

• Robert Moses was not motivated by money for the most part to Caro. This notion ends up being critical for evaluating what kind of lust for power, questionable ethics, vindictiveness and racism is exhibited by Moses’ practices.
• Money is an approximation of value for Moses; People who are motivated by material value (goods, money) are doomed to chase short-cuts to get more money (easy to see corruption). People who are motivated by abstract goods are more likely to achieve great amounts of influence through hard work (of course); so having cheap tastes and be impactful will ward off claims of corruption even if you’re value are to undermine the prospects of the poor to advance the interests of the wealthy as Caro makes clear in this book;
• Another example of the power of networks: Tammany Hall seems to have relied on a cultural group, Irish Catholics, to power a political block that gained disproportionate influence on the general public. These networks of influence aren’t explicit but show the underlying structure to be game-able by interest groups that aren’t explicit. As long as decisions are being made to advance the interest of the public, then there is no problem, right?
• Measuring the efficiency of employees is very subjective and yet also necessary: you do not want to be making hiring and firing decisions based on a gut feeling; you also do not want to be ‘building a case’ for people you just don’t like. Instead, you ought to try to establish key performance indicators so that the employee and the manager can determine whether they are heading in the right direction or if there is not a good fit; the data collected needs to be independent of any single person otherwise it is all about relationships which is the world that Robert Moses thrived in.

Chapter 1	Chapter 2	Chapter 3
Chapter 4	Chapter 5	Chapter 6
Chapter 7	Chapter 8	Chapter 9
Chapter 10	Chapter 11	Chapter 12
Chapter 13	Chapter 14	Chapter 15
Chapter 16	Chapter 17	Chapter 18
Chapter 19	Chapter 20	Chapter 21
Chapter 22	Chapter 23	Chapter 24
Chapter 25	Chapter 26	Chapter 27
Chapter 28	Chapter 29	Chapter 30
Chapter 31	Chapter 32	Chapter 33
Chapter 35	Chapter 36	Chapter 37
Chapter 38	Chapter 39	Chapter 40
Chapter 41	Chapter 42	Chapter 43
Chapter 44	Chapter 45	Chapter 46
Chapter 47	Chapter 48	Chapter 49
Chapter 50