Sublime

He had an alert look and manner; short, graying dark hair; a clear gaze, no hint of guile—an appealing, trusting guy.

to it,

Elmer M. Ellsworth, a special assistant to Governor Winship, was a member of this hand-picked jury.

Incredibly hard-working, incredibly loyal—dedicated, faceless—they were already becoming recognized by public officials as an elite cadre within the ranks of the state’s civil servants and had already been given the name “Moses Men.”

The explanation for Moses’ independence of La Guardia was as complex as the Little Flower’s many-petaled character and as simple—and ineluctable—as the basic realities of the political game at which the Mayor excelled.

Following the trail left by those overlooked documents in Moses’ files, the hard-riding reporters had come at last upon the secret that would destroy the heart of the Moses legend: the fact that this man who supposedly scorned politicians had allowed the top echelon of New York’s politicians to reap fortunes from his Title I program.

After the campaign, Moses himself would say that Lehman “was essentially a cautious, dependable citizen of the old school” who “carried on the work of Smith and Roosevelt without basic innovation” but who was “enormously conscientious and hard-working…. I would classify him as a distinguished Governor.” Herbert Lehman, Robert Moses would say after

“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.