so in july 2021, my life absolutely fell the fuck apart, and to perk myself up a little bit, I decided to order a copy of The Power Broker by Robert Caro, a book I had been wanting to read some for some time. (yes, the egregious use of commas was intentional.) it is now march 2022, and I have made it a whopping 184 pages into it. that means I've read approximately 1/3 of a page every day since.
lmaoooooooooo.
I really want to be the kind of person who reads every day, but between work, perpetual sleepiness, and an unquenchable thirst to lay in my bed and scroll mindlessly on tiktok, I've been doing a pretty shit job of that.
the other thing is that I really do love this book so far. Caro's prose is beautifully sharp. his jabs at Moses read like sharp blades on fresh ice; smooth and seamless, allowing the cunningness and political manipulations of The Power Broker himself to slowly dawn on you. it's brilliant.
I hope to keep taking notes on here so I can remember the things that Caro writes and to keep some sort of accountability for myself to read regularly. maybe not daily, because let's be fucking real, but you know, a few times a week. we'll see.
right now, I'm at the park where Moses has become parks commissioner and snuck in unchecked power in the bill that established the parks committee. he wants to build a park on long island, but there are two issues: rich ass robber barons who have huge ass mansions and salt of the earth farmers who would rather die than give up their land. and Moses is intent on strong arming both parties to give the middle class residents of new york city the park they deserve.
I mean, I'm all about stealing from the rich, but dude. leave the farmers out of it.
"The barons dispatched their lawyers to Moses, and Moses did not treat those lawyers with the deference to which they were accustomed....to all the barons lawyers, he spelled it out bluntly: If their clients were willing to donate land for the parkways, its location could be shifted away from their houses....but if they weren't cooperative the commission had the power to appropriate the land right next to their houses---and it was going to do so." (Caro 185)
After this, the lawyers storm over to Trubee Davison's office to ask how the hell does Moses have the power to do this. Davison basically admits that he didn't read the bill that Moses proposed, and now he can just seize anyone's land to make a park as long as the Governor gives his signature of approval. welp.
so then there's this whole drawn-out legal fight between Moses/the park commission and the robber barons. in terms of legality, the barons have a clear advantage because Moses basically strong armed them into giving them their land, which was very illegal and an abuse of his powers. however, in the court of public opinion, Moses had a significant advantage because he framed the legal battle as a few rich golfers vs. the interest of the public good.
the other advantage he had? governer al smith.
al smith came from an irish family who lived in a working class neighborhood in the LES. he genuinely pullled himself up by his bootstraps to work in politics, and he was very proud of his humble background. so when the robber baron lawyers came to his hearing and said they were opposed to the park because "[they] feared the town would be 'overrun with rabble from the city,'" smith replies by saying "'rabble? that's me you're talking about.'" (Caro 187)
so the barons pissed off smith, which effectively got smith to support moses throughout the whole ordeal. (he also told one of the barons to check himself into an insane asylum; he was that pissed off). the ordeal, by the way, would consist of a drawn out legal fight that would last two years. caro writes, "it would fill the front pages of newspapers across the state for two years, delay for almost that long all expenditures for any of the parks of which robert moses had dreamed, and bring to the brink of ruin not only those dreams, but moses' reputation and career....his reputation...would be burnished instead so that he gleaned in the public consciousness with the aura he would bear for the next thirty years: the aura of a fearless, fiercely independent public servant who loved parks above all else and was willing to fight for parks against politicians, bureaucrats, and the hated forces of wealth and influence." (caro 188)
okay, I know that was a long ass paragraph. but i do really like the last sentence. the words just sound good together, and it's interesting that that's what his reputation becomes given how classist he is in reality. i don't know that moses actually cared that much about parks. I just think it was an easy power grab.
okay so then caro introduces this guy named W. Kingsland Macy, who was a stockholder and antique enthusiast. in all honesty, i had no idea that people in the 1920s were into antiques. like....they are the antiques to us now. anyways tries to seize his property, and macy takes him to court because he realizes that if moses can take land away from the robber barons, he could take it away from anyone (which is so fucking unconstitutional). "The principles, [macy] said, were too important to be surrendered without a fight."
thing is, macy was super naive and not prepared at all to handle a male manipulator like robert moses, who was ready to do any and everything to get public opinion on his side: "once, moses had been the amateur. but he wasn't any longer. and he knew how to take advantage of someone." (caro 190).
that someone was an unnamed new york times journalist, who published an article in the paper about the fight for long island called "A FEW RICH GOLFERS ACCUSED OF BLOCKING PLANS FOR STATE PARK"
the article does not mention that more than 170,000 residents of Suffolk and Islip township opposed the park, nor does it mention that a judge had found moses' shenanigans to be illegal. I love the way caro describes moses in this moment: "moses's press release, a press release written by a man who had once been the master of 'scrupulous, reliable' research, but who had become a master propagandist---one who did not let facts stand in the way of his aims." (caro 190).
it's actually kind of sad to see moses go from optimistic reformer to hardened power grabber. i suppose that the quest for power corrupts all.
so while the public is on moses' side, the government is very much not. the legislature at the time was dominated by republicans who were all under the influence of the barons. they also hated governer al smith, who was a democrat, and would do anything to embarrass him.
so court time comes, and shockingly [/s], the new york state chief legal officer declares moses' actions to be illegal. "to realize a dream of unprecedented scope, robert moses, by use of the law, had harmed himself with unprecedented powers---and then, finding that these powers were still inadequate, he had deliberately gone beyond them, beyond the law." (caro 192)
caro also writes that "moses stood stripped of all defenses," which is another sentence with imagery I quite like.
he then goes on to talk about the battle in the court of public opinion; basically, moses' actions had a lot of mass appeal because a. everyone likes parks and being opposed to parks was Wrong b. moses could easily paint the fight as being rich people vs the masses of the city and c. governer al smith was on his side.
so when the new york state legislature tried to pass a bill that would squash the long island park project by requiring the republican legislature (who hates parks) to approve everything the commission does, smith vetoed it. the legislature was, suffice to say, not very happy; they called moses an "expert and abusive propagandist" and "habitual defamer of the legislature" (caro 193) they got his ass fr.
okay, one last bit of this section: there's another court date on the horizon. moses really needs to get money signed off to snag the baron properties on L.I. smith said he would try to force the legislature to do it in april. in the meantime, moses' legal team put in as many petty appeals as possible to delay the court date until smith worked his governor magic. but april turned to may, and smith still hadn't done shit, and moses was getting antsy. but then smith did something kind of brilliant to be honest:
"wait, smith said. he had thought of something his advisors hadn't. new york city wasn't hot in april. it wasn't hot in may.....in april and may, [new yorkers] hadn't yet reached the point at which they didn't care at all about the legal technicalities of park acquisition," caro writes. "on june 1, a monday, the first of the inevitable summer heat waves settled over the city like a hot, soggy blanket. by the weekend, temperatures were in the nineties. the city's people fled it. traffic jams on long island were worse than ever. so great was the frustration that when motorists reached a town park in huntington and found police barring the gates, they assaulted the police in such force that more than forty were arrested." (caro 194)
smith goes on to deliver the first speech ever carried on a statewide radio hookup and details his side of the park battle, framing it as a rich barons vs masses of new york and blames the republicans for not wanting allowing parks for their constituents. he ends the speech by saying "let us not permit the impression to go abroad that wealth and the power that wealth can command can palsy the arm of the state" (caro 196)
damn, right?
anyways, that's where I'm leaving it today. my carpal tunnel is flaring up from all that typing. good night.
