Tag Archives: Robert Caro

Power Broker by Robert Caro – Summary & Analysis of Chapter 12

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

Power Broker by Robert Caro – Summary & Analysis of Chapter 13

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

Power Broker by Robert Caro – Summary & Analysis of Chapter 14

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

Robert Moses | The Power Broker | Notes On An Epic Pulitzer Prize Winning Book

The Power Broker is a Pulitzer Prize Winner
Robert Caro, 1990

  • Robert A. Caro’s The Power Broker is a Pulitzer Prize winning epic that was widely read by the politicians and civil servants in the US and abroad;
  • The keypoints are my interpretation of the events in the corresponding chapter; take with a grain of salt;
  • My opinions are subject to change at any future date as an intellectually free person; so if new information shows Moses to be even more “impure” I am free to change my opinion without judgement, thanks!;
  • Writing about Moses does not equal endorsing Moses obviously;
  • This article is my attempt to provide a chapter-ized summary so that you don’t have to read this 1255 pager. The physical book weighs a lot, too, as is Robert Caro’s way. Enjoy; 

Hero, Villain or Mixture of the Two? Probably a Mixture. He is both repugnant and visionary. Hate-able and laudable for “getting things done.” Moses famously responded to this Caro book by saying a) he wasn’t responsible for public transport (read: probably not of interest fee-wise), b) he wasn’t that powerful, c) Moses never addresses the racism he is accused of peddling…can we separate the progress from the possibly very repugnant man?

Part One – The Idealist

Chapter 1 – Line of succession

Robert Moses was born on December 18th, 1888. His mother Bella was the strong willed, daughter of Bernard and Rosalie Cohen. Bernard was among many German Jews who longed to escape repression and emigrate to the USA. Eventually he settled with his brother in New York and marrying his cousin, Rosalie Silverman. Bernard became interested in civic affairs. And became known as a decisive and visionary analyst of social problems. Rosalie Silverman bullied her husband. She was intellectual rather than maternal and as Granny Cohen was imperious, treating other people as underlings.

Bernard died in 1897 of pneumonia. Rosalie carried on energetically, marching around New York and dismissive of the soft life. In 1919 she calmly finished her crossword puzzle, got out of bed and rang the bell to summon her maid before calmly announcing “Martha, summon Doctor –, I’m dying”.

Bella, quiet and unassuming but thoughtful, spoke French and German fluently and retained the sharpness of her mother. In 1886 she married Emanuel Moses, a Jew from Cologne. Although he built a successful business, Bella was thought to have “married beneath her.” They settled in Dwight Street, New Haven, Connecticut, an elm lined street with substantial houses.

Bella disliked the lack of cultural activity in New Haven so eventually they moved to New York in 1897.

By 1907, 1 million Jews had fled to the USA to escape persecution. By 1917 this was 1.5 million. In the Lower East Side, settlement houses sprang up to cope with the influx, and Bella became involved. There was a certain snobbery exercised by the settled Jewish community towards new Jewish immigrants, many from Russia. They called them “Kikes” because of the endings of many Russian surnames. German Jews had a patronising attitude to the new influx of Jews from Eastern Europe. Bella’s attitude towards those under her wing were thought to be “You’re my children, I know best.”

Bella however, was more interested in urban planning than integration. Her proposals were well mannered but steely. She was known for getting her way. Once she became involved in a project, she became obsessed with the detail. Bella could always count on Emmanuel’s support, at work and in the home, an obvious parallel with her own parents. Bella was not religious, and although Emanuel was attached to the synagogue, her views prevailed.

In New York the family lived just off 5th Avenue; a large oak panelled brownstone at the centre of a rich Jewish sector. With assets of $1.2M and walls covered with Rembrandt and Durer prints, they were among the elite.

Bella was strict with children, organising their lives in minute detail. She was particularly interested in their education. All the children were sent to expensive schools, Robert eventually ending up at Yale.

Bella’s sons, Paul and Robert, were often mistaken as twins. Both were considered “stunningly” handsome but haughty, even arrogant. They were popular with both girls and boys. Although both were considered athletes, Robert was more of a loner, attracted to sports, but not team sports.

Both brothers were dismissive of their father but Robert and his mother formed an inner circle. Bella catered to Robert’s every whim, “doting” on him. Robert flattered his mother by praising her work in the community and mimicking her movements and deportment. The line of personality was clear: from Robert’s grandmother, to his mother, to him.

Analysis & Key Takeaways:
  • Robert Moses’ personality was shaped by the powerful women in his early life, women who had steely determination past down generation to generation;
  • Forming alliances can start at the Family level between siblings. Healthy competition is important, parents are people too and so they can and sometimes outwardly express their preferred child;
  • The instinct to know better than others is not without merit. However, it is difficult to evaluate the merit of ones ideas in isolation especially if the idea is based on a track-record, pattern recognition etc. Ironically, we are the worst evaluators of our own instincts (Dunning Kruger effect) which creates arrogance in some cases and brilliance in others. A way to check your instincts is to evaluate your predictions against the reality, however prediction is very luck based;
  • Loners seem to operate and run things; it’s lonely at the top therefore loners are predisposed to move to the top;
  • Everyone has a personal religious perspective, sometimes religion defines ones identity, other times it’s a footnote and other times a hindrance.
The Power Broker is a Pulitzer Prize Winner
Chapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3
Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6
Chapter 7Chapter 8Chapter 9
Chapter 10Chapter 11Chapter 12
Chapter 13Chapter 14Chapter 15
Chapter 16Chapter 17Chapter 18
Chapter 19Chapter 20Chapter 21
Chapter 22Chapter 23Chapter 24
Chapter 25Chapter 26Chapter 27
Chapter 28Chapter 29Chapter 30
Chapter 31Chapter 32Chapter 33
Chapter 35Chapter 36Chapter 37
Chapter 38Chapter 39Chapter 40
Chapter 41Chapter 42Chapter 43
Chapter 44Chapter 45Chapter 46
Chapter 47Chapter 48Chapter 49
Chapter 50