Part 4 – The Use of Power

Chapter 11 – The Majesty of the Law

Having been elected, Moses set himself up with a big office and an expensive car. He also ensured that his friends were appointed to the Civil Service with all the trappings. Moses then started to use his new-found authority to start acquiring all the government land in Long Island, as well as all the private land he could get his hands on. He used a combination of charm and threat, depending on the circumstance, but would never compromise his plans and was often unwilling to negotiate.

The rich and powerful on the North Shore refused even to discuss the land. However, unknown to them, Moses’s surveyors were already mapping out their land. Moses’s lawyers pointed out the baron’s, that if they would grant land on the borders of their property then an agreement could be made, but if they didn’t, land would be “appropriated” right next to their houses. Only then was appropriation fully understood, but it was too late. These powers were now law.

The baron’s lawyers now had to challenge Moses on his interpretation of the law and they appealed to Smith. Smith was uneasy about appropriation without negotiation, a clear demand of the bill, but also realised the importance that the Parks movement had been to his re-election. At the hearing therefore, Smith signed the enabling form for appropriation.

There were further challenges to the Commission from rich landowners but Moses countered through the New York Times, saying that a small group of rich golfers were trying to protect their playground. Moses had won in the court of public opinion, but the barons had been supported by a judge, and the matter was due to go to trial. In early 1925, the Senate Finance Committee held hearings, which found that Moses had deliberately gone beyond the law by appropriating land without having the funds available to compensate the owners. The decision was handed over to the legislature. Again, Moses appealed to public opinion, re-phrasing the conflict as between common park lovers and rich and powerful park haters. The legislature put forward a bill limiting appropriation which was passed but vetoed by the Governor. The Commission’s attorneys then appealed the decision, using up time until funds became available to make the appropriations legal.

The weather came to Moses and Smith’s aid. The delay of the legal proceedings had run into the summer, and the sweltering heat had the frustrated citizens running for the limited green spaces available. Smith addressed the city on the radio, highlighting the opposition to the parks by the rich barons of Long Island and the Republican legislature. “I cast my lot with the many” he announced. The Republican legislature responded that the matter was about law and property rights, but to the “steaming millions” in the cities of New York, these arguments held little weight, and the press was on the side of the Governor and the Parks Commission, most importantly the bible of New York, the New York Times.

At the hearing, Smith made a significant speech, extolling the non-political nature of the Parks Bill. The Republicans again passed the bill limiting the powers of appropriation. Smith once more vetoed it. While the wrangles went on, land in Long Island was being bought up by property development, and no money was being made available to allow the appropriation of land for parks. Moses needed money desperately. Smith and Moses turned to Mrs. Moskowitz who suggested August Hecksher, a rich philanthropist who when telephoned, agreed immediately only asking that the park be named after him.

Opposition by farmers, barons and bay men in Long Island was increasing through 1925, and a referendum on the parks plan was heavily in favour of rejection. Moses was also due to stand trial on the charge of breaking his own laws. At the end of 1925, it seemed unlikely that any of Moses’s dreams would become reality. Within three years it would all become reality.

Analysis & Key Takeaways

• Charming and threatening  opponents works apparently;
• Work very hard; while everyone else is at the bar you should be working your ass off in joy;
• You need to experience the poverty to help fix the situation! Al Smith knew that experience and was a Catholic without any college education…Power is the ability to get things done: Moses began to be more interested in power rather than principle. He basically became a cunning political actor pretending to be a civil servant…as his power grew he became more arrogant like his mother and grandmother who were authoritarian in approach; getting things done mattered more….Often the rich have more power since they can support political candidates for public office.

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 23 – In the Saddle

Mayor La Guardia was now free to concentrate on the city.  He seemed to be everywhere, dominating the whole of his domain. He slashed all non-essential jobs and reduced overall the city payroll. All eyes however were on the relationship between him and Moses.

La Guardia had the reputation of treating all his public servants like dogs. The turnover of his senior staff was high. However, his relationship with Moses was different. Moses often kept him waiting and would not cower in his presence, usually giving as good as he got. Moses’s threats of resignation as a weapon returned frequently and successfully. La Guardia eventually countered this ruse by treating all the resignations as a joke, which reduced their occurrence without fully eliminating them.

In July 1936, La Guardia decided to recommission the Triborough Ferry, drawing traffic away from the new bridge. He was supported by regular users and further bolstered by a new development nearby which could use the ferry. Moses attempted to use his construction plans to block the ferry by removing one of the piers. The Mayor sent the police to try to keep the pier open, but the construction crew refused to stop the destruction. The police removed the crew by force and the pier was replaced. However, Moses wrested control of the ferry and continued the removal of the pier and the shutting down of the ferry.

Another battle followed. To reduce the payroll, La Guardia ordered Moses to reduce staff. In reply, Moses removed all the playground attendants, effectively shutting them down. After public uproar, funds were restored.

Despite their disagreements, both men were so driven by public works that their hostilities could soon be forgotten. They both seemed to understand that they were kindred spirits; both were dreamers. Apart from that, La Guardia soon realised that the reason New York was getting one sixth of the PWA funds for the entire country was because of Moses’s attention to detail and expertise with bureaucracy. However, Moses paid back by ensuring that La Guardia was kept centre stage in all the major developments and allowed to accept the plaudits in the middle of grand ceremonies. In 1936, Moses opened ten swimming pools in ten weeks, using all the latest developments of lighting and pool chlorination. One of the pools was called the finest pool in the world. It was La Guardia who pulled the switch that turned on the lighting.

Moses continued to cultivate the press, charming the press barons with lavish banquets. He met the owners outside of business hours to plant headlines and editorials. Moses had an especially close relationship of the New York Times whose owner, Iphigene Salzburger, was a particularly vocal supporter of parks. Until the end of her life she was to call Moses the greatest of public servants. Moses cultivated this relationship by involving her at early stages of his plans. Despite some disagreements – she was a conservationist – she was in the end always supportive of Moses’s grand scheme for parks. Moses was becoming too big, and his accomplishments too successful, to fire. Moses’s parks projects began to succeed to the detriment of more important infrastructure vital to the city. Moses’s plans had become separated from the public will.

Analysis & Key Takeaways

• Moses and La Guardia had a very tumultuous relationship. Moses threatened to resign many times which was apparently a trump card since La Guardia needed Moses for support, running the government: could Moses have over played the value of his hand?
• Moses and La Guardia fought over a pier; it is actually the stuff a great movie script;
• Moses pulled the playground attendants in response to La Guardia’s strategy of cutbacks: Moses used the public outcry to control La Guardia;
• Both Dreamers; cannot fire each other as kindred spirits;
• Wining and Dining the Press: obviously a great way to get their attention. In hospitals, the Pharmaceuticals treat Nurses to informational seminars which include free delicious food. Do the Nurses complain? Not all of them, after all the hours are tough. In Moses’ world, the press barons were very powerful and gaining favour with them meant distorting reality.

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 12 – Robert Moses and the Creature of the Machine

The construction of parkways meant potential riches for officials, politicians and landowners. Previously low-value land would become valuable if it was needed for government construction. Foreknowledge of the route of the parkways was thus a valuable asset. Moses started some backstage conversations with important fixers within government and started to reach agreements for his plans. In late 1926, he announced that local people would have access to the plans for Jones’ Beach. The referendum, lost the previous year, was now won. By making these agreements with key influencers, opposition to Moses’s parks plans began to collapse.

Moses began to arrange for land to be bought up in Long Island for the parkways necessary to supply the new parks, which were already being developed by local conservation groups. In the meantime, Governor Smith invited the main Republican opponents to the plan to New York and wined and dined them late into the night. They decided not to interfere with the plans.

Moses’s trial was still looming, his main opponent being the Republican Governor of Suffolk County, W. Kingsland Macy. Moses continued to delay this through appeals while parks began to open. When his final appeal was lost in the summer of 1926, the trial went ahead and the judgement went against Moses. Moses appealed the decision and won, resulting in a retrial date to be set. This time Governor Smith appeared for the defence and lunched with the judge. The judge’s summing up was heavily weighted in favour of Moses and the case was thrown out. Despite appeals by opponents, the greater spending power of Moses’s government backers was to delay a final decision for four years. In the meantime, development of the parks and parkways continued, powered by contracts given to influential politicians and contractors and supported by a public eager for the new green spaces. The lessons Moses had learned is that first, once a project had started, and costs had begun to be sunk into it, it was increasingly difficult to stop it, and second, justice delayed is justice denied. But the key lesson was that his previous efforts as a reformer and opponent of the establishment was not the way to achieve things. His success had come from using the levers of power as an insider and this is how he would continue.

Given $1M through the Parks Commission, throughout 1926 Moses began buying up land across the state and started sinking money into opening up the spaces to the public. In August construction of the Southern State Parkway, connecting all the parks on the south of Long Island, started. Moses himself began to design the bath-houses, park amenities and parking facilities that would serve the thousands of people who would flock to the parks via the new parkways. Moses’s preferred designs were ambitious. His design for the bath-houses would mean that each would use the entire budget for the whole of Long Island. Despite opposition, Governor Smith was able to use money from other departments to finance the construction.

Analysis & Key Takeaways

• Foreknowledge is always a problem in cases where you abuse that knowledge for personal financial gain;
• Being a reformer is not the way to change things evidently. Changing the rule to the game is 10x more difficult then playing the game as it is currently played;
• Parkways = Highways under a different name: it was a stroke of brilliance to call them different to a highway in order to gain special powers rather then be subject to the highway act;
• Opening up the park spaces to the public was a brilliant idea: it appealed to the middle and upper class sensibilities.

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 13 – Driving

Moses was now working towards a deadline. Governor Smith would only be in office until 1929 as he was planning to run for President, and even if another Democrat was elected, they would never have been as supportive as Smith. Moses’s only hope was to complete enough of the parks to allow the public to see them and support them. Construction work was therefore carried out at breakneck speed.

Moses spent his time rushing between New York City, Albany and Long Island, working long hours at a relentless pace. His energy was transmitted to the workers who found the projects exciting and enjoyable. People were inspired to work long hours and with great imagination. Tremendous efforts were put into the engineering and design of all the elements of the plans, with Jones Beach providing the focus. Work carried on through the winter months, despite inclement weather.

In early 1927, the contractor building the causeway ran out of money. Moses borrowed the $20,000 required from his mother, and the work proceeded. However, the east of Jones Beach was still not his (it was owned by Babylon County) and without it, his grand plan, linking Jones Beach to Fire Island, would be unfulfilled. Researchers found that Babylon County did not actually own the fishing rights to the bay, the main source of the locals’ income and so Moses swapped the fishing rights for the right to buy the east of Jones Beach. In a referendum, with every trick in the book pursued by Moses, the approval of the sale of the whole of Jones Beach passed by seven votes. By the end of 1928, all the land required for the causeway and the Southern Parkway was secured and the Water Board and Jones Beach parks were fully developed.

The New York press were making Robert Moses a hero. This had the practical benefit of securing the Long Island dream, although this was only a part of the state park system. There were upstate parks to be considered such as on the shore of Lake George, north of Albany. This land was owned by a group of wealthy men, who Moses persuaded to either donate, or sell at a reduced price, to the state. Once he had the parks, he built the roads to join them to the highways. The parks were becoming a great success. The upstate press lauded the upstate parks, and the New York City press praised the Long Island parks. However, none of the press expressed in full the magnitude of the parks and highways development that Moses had achieved, almost fully completing the plans first put forward in 1922.

Analysis & Key Takeaways

• Moses rented a boat and traveled around the New York area looking for something to carve out a major beach for New Yorkers, standing in the weeds on the side of his boat, he looked at a stretch of white sand beach and concluded this would be the beach;
• Having the ear of the leader is only valuable as long as that leader stays in power. You also need to build relationships with the future leadership: unfortunately those folks aren’t as easy to identify in advance therefore influence will waver according to your ability to predict who will be the next leader, decision-making with the powers;
• Moses lied about the cost of Jones Beach and then go back to the legislature for more money;
• Robert Moses also targeted the legislators who had a mortgage with the 1st National Bank to turn him to support Jones Beach
• Moses was worried that poor people (typically Black and Latino people) would come to Jones Beach by bus so he made the bridge clearances under 10 feet which would prevent buses from travelling to Jones Beach; legislation is easy to change, a bridge structure is not so much; such an elitist jerk!
• Moses was anti-democratic because what he saw at Tammany hall suggests that democracy has never really occurred yet (true democracy that is).

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 14 – Changing

Bob Moses had changed from an idealist to a pragmatist, one whose interest was primarily in power. Many people became to suspect that Moses was interested in power as an end in itself. However, even they had only scratched the surface of his ambition, driven by the character of his mother and grandmother. He was Bella Moses’s son, with his own version of her arrogance and sense of infallibility. Now he had power this flowered into full bloom.

His contempt spread from the general public to state legislators.

Moses began to conflict with the more elderly parks commissioners whose idea of parks were more inclined towards conservation rather than recreation. Moses had needed their backing during the last few years, but now they had become surplus to requirements. Moses now ensured that all requests for funds now had to go through the States Parks Council, previously seen as merely an advisory body and in effect, through Moses as its chairman. Moses has taken their promised control of local parks away from them. The old park men tried to replace Moses as chairman, but they discovered that the council had a majority of Smith placemen, and so Moses stayed.

Moses’s arguments with the old park men became less and less about parks philosophy and more about Moses’s desire for power and control. An example of this was the fight over the Niagara State Park and its commission’s representatives, Judge Clearwater and Ansley Wilcox. Both parties were in agreement on the need to increase the speed of development and enlargement. The only disagreement was over who should be in charge of this development. Moses saw this as a threat to his overall control.

Moses attempted to appoint an executive director of the Niagara Parks Commission. The Commission refused. Moses then called a meeting of the Parks Council to investigate a deal for land that the Niagara Commission had made with the local power company. Moses tried to imply that the deal was in favour of the power company. Despite assurances of the Niagara Commission’s innocence during the meeting and the subsequent report which exonerated them, Moses continued to hound the old men on the Commission, charging Wilcox with discourtesy by falsifying the tone of an exchange of letters and trying to remove his opponents from the Commission with charges that they were dysfunctional. By a strategy of wearing the old men down, Moses eventually gained the control he desired. With the help of Governor Smith, to whom the development of parks was a vote winner, Moses had turned parks into a lever for power.

Analysis & Key Takeaways

Robert Moses Titles with 4 year overlapping terms from 1924 to 1975:

1. Long Island State Park Commission (President, 1924–1963);
2. New York State Council of Parks (Chairman, 1924–1963);
3. New York Secretary of State (1927–1928);
4. Bethpage State Park Authority (President, 1933–1963);
5. Emergency Public Works Commission (Chairman, 1933–1934);
6. Jones Beach Parkway Authority (President, 1933–1963);
7. New York City Department of Parks (Commissioner, 1934–1960);
8. Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (Chairman, 1934–1981);
9. New York City Planning Commission (Commissioner, 1942–1960);
10. New York State Power Authority (Chairman, 1954–1962);
11. New York’s World Fair (President, 1960–1966);
12. Office of the Governor of New York (Special Advisor on Housing, 1974–1975).

• Moses seemed to love power as an end in and of itself. However, it was really his grandma talking.

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