Sublime

When Moses had become president of the Long Island State Park Commission on April 18, 1924, there had been one state park on Long Island, the almost worthless 200-acre tract on Fire Island. By the end of the summer of 1928, there were fourteen parks totaling 9,700 acres.

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.

Lehman was bitterly hurt by Moses’ charges, but he would not allow personal feelings to interfere with his duty. “We have differed in the past and probably will in the future, but in the planning and administration of parks, parkways and recreational facilities, Bob Moses has no superior on the face of the world,” the Governor announced. Moses coul

Robert Moses was a pioneer in the fields of parks and highways, he was also a pioneer in McCarthyism, twenty years before McCarthy.

“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.

During Moses’ long reign as State Parks Council chairman, the plaques previously placed in Niagara State Park by Wilcox’s friends to commemorate the contributions to the park made by him and the other old Niagara commissioners were systematically removed—to be replaced with plaques bearing Moses’ name. When the parkway along the Niagara gorge was b

Moses’ normal technique with other commissioners was to bully them. Often this approach worked, for they were well aware that if they attempted to challenge him, he would be backed by the press—and by their mutual boss, the Mayor.

It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that Moses had determined to hound from the state park organization a group of elderly men whose only crime was their refusal to allow him to exercise unbridled power in that organization and to remove them from control of the park they loved, the park that one of them had created, the park to which they had