The Power Broker

While the number of commuters was up 19 percent, the number of automobile commuters was up 321 percent. And, the RPA statistics showed, the trend was continuing—and accelerating. The gap between use of rail and road was widening month by month.

This side was frequently to be on display when Roosevelt dealt with people he had needed once but needed no longer. “Roosevelt was never at his best in getting rid of people no longer useful to him,” Oscar Handlin was to write. “The lack of directness and candor in his actions left a bitter impression of shiftiness, of disloyalty, and of ingratitud

It was the proposal of a fanatic.

Moses’ proposal was a fiscal codification of his philosophy and his lust for personal power. Since a greater proportion of the poorer classes rather than upper rode the subways, doubling the fare was a financial burden that would fall heaviest on those of the city’s people least able to bear it. Moses’ taxing proposals left real estate taxes unrais

“Without his loyalty to me,” Moses was to say about Al Smith, “I could have done nothing.” He had had Al Smith—and his loyalty—for ten years. But now he was to have Al Smith no more. And the man who was to follow Moses’ greatest friend into the Governor’s chair was Moses’ deadliest enemy.

He had written on the statute books of New York such a sweep of social welfare statutes that Oscar Handlin could say that they “made the most difficult state the best-governed one in the Union…[and] awakened the conscience of the nation to the needs of the urban working people.” Franklin D. Roosevelt, as President, was to say that “practically all

Moses was fond of repeating at this time a quote often used in Albany. “You can get an awful lot of good done in the world if you’re willing to let someone else take the credit for it.” Certainly Moses was willing at least to share the credit for the work he had done with the man he needed if he was to get more done.

The weight of the rheumy-eyed drunks who served as lifeguards at Jacob Riis Park, Rockaway Beach and Coney Island was as excessive for their job as were their ages. “The first time I saw those guys lined up in their swimming costumes, I could hardly believe it,” recalls Samuel M. White, who was later put in charge of them. “Some of them ran 225 or

When Moses submitted a preliminary outline of suggested commission goals, he included a phrase straight out of the reform textbooks and his Municipal Civil Service Commission days: “Elimination of unnecessary…personnel.” Mrs. Moskowitz struck the phrase out. Personnel, she said, were voters. You didn’t antagonize voters.

And the Chase Manhattan Bank was selected by Moses as the trustee of Triborough’s bonds and hence was the single largest recipient of the lucrative service fees connected with them.