Robert Moses Creating An Original Legal Construction Of Public Authority

Summary Of Evidence:
According to the New York State Office of the State Comptroller, “Public Authorities are corporate instruments of the State created by the legislature to further public interests...Some public authorities are completely self-supporting and operate entirely outside the budget process…” This office goes on to explain that copious numbers of public authorities perform beyond the usual oversight and accountability requirements for operations that most state agencies have to follow("Office of the New York State Comptroller - Thomas P. DiNapoli - Home").
Robert Moses is the source of this independent, less regulatable, government extension. When Robert Moses drafted bills to create public authorities to support his public works
plans, his legislation included subtle provisions, clauses, and sleepers. Each individual item seemed harmless but often had unappreciated implications and in combination they vastly extended the power of a public authority with very few limits. For example, public authorities as crafted by Moses could reclaim land from residents and even hire its own policemen and prosecutors to support its decisions. To make way for his projects Moses moved hundred of thousands of citizens. Beyond just creating these powerful legal constructs Robert Moses also increased his personal power and concealed his purposes from both his enemies and his allies.
Caro says “ The public official whose approval was necessary would never give it. … The key body whose approval was necessary - the Legislature that under the State Constitution alone had the power to create new authorities- had been fighting for years to keep Moses from gaining power, from building his own empire within the state government. The Legislature would never approve the bills Moses was drafting if they understood them. So Moses would have to keep them - and all other officials involved - from understanding. He would have to persuade Mayor, City Council, Legislature and Governor to approve his bills before they realized what was in them.” (Caro, 624-635)
Public authorities were the perfect vehicle for raising money to build large projects, paying back those debts and then amassing huge profits from income such as tolls or the sale of hydroeletric power in an entity over which there was almost no government oversight. Originally, revenues from public works could only be used to repay the debts incurred to construct them. Moses changed the laws to allow what became huge profits to be amassed in the public authorities and controlled by him. He used those profits to finance a lavish lifestyle of parties and limousines and people to serve him - all of it in the name of the authorities, not in his personal name. He used money to influence politicians and others to get his way on many issues not directly related to the public works he controlled. He used power to reward those who obeyed him and to ruin those who disagreed with him. He also used his power somewhat arbitrarily to benefit those he wanted and disadvantage those he wanted. For example, he added fanciful touches to projects such as the Central Park Zoo, but made urban housing for the poor deliberately bleak.
Eventually it got to the point where Robert Moses was so powerful that almost no one dared oppose him because their very jobs depended on Robert Moses’ support. A man able to accomplish the types of projects no other person had managed to get done drew those who wanted to learn his secrets. Soon this idea of a public authority spread across the country as engineers came to learn from the master himself. They came not to learn more than the physical engineering of the infrastructure. They learned the legal and financial logistics to get their projects off the ground. This lead to a surge of public works projects as never before seen as men with big dreams now had the big power needed to accomplish their projects. Even the heads of Federal departments came to Moses for help.(Caro, 1974).
Caro says “Moses had discovered a governmental institution that was not only uniquely suited to his purposes but was, in institutional terms, an embodiment of his personality, an extension of himself. ‘An institution’ said Ralph Waldo Emerson, ‘is lengthened shadow of one man.’ The institution named ‘the public authority’ was, in the form it took after Moses’ eyes focused on it in 1937 and 1938, the lengthened shadow of Robert Moses.” (Caro, 633).
With all the power amassing throughout the country Robert Moses brings his dreams into manifestation. Soon New York is covered with parks, expressways, parkways, bridges, tunnels, hydroelectric power plants, and various other large construction projects. In Robert Moses’s book he speaks about several dozen projects he played a direct hand in let alone the numerous projects he acted as a consultant on. Robert Moses was a prolific letter writer sending his thoughts, secrets, and wisdom to many(Moses, 1970). Robert Moses from a young age dreamed of a changed New York. Moses didn’t like the crowded, dirty, confusion that came with cities. This lead to his public works career and his creation of the public authority in a desperate attempt to change the things he disliked so much(Rodgers, 1952).
Evaluation Of Sources: Many authors have written on Robert Moses. Two of the most useful written sources are The Power Broker by Robert A. Caro and Public Works: A Dangerous Trade by Robert Moses himself. As seen in the summary of evidence, these two sources contain the bulk of the most important information that is provided towards answering the thesis. The Power Broker is an over 1200 page monster of a book which is one of Robert A. Caro’s two pulitzer prize winning biographies. It is a secondary source but within it is many either excerpts of primary sources or full primary sources. The Power Broker was also written after years of research including interviews of Robert Moses himself done over many years. Much of this biography focuses on Robert Moses’ accumulation and use of power, which is suggested by its title, and so it is very useful it terms of addressing the thesis of this paper. Although it is quite thorough and is based of of numerous primary sources, it is still a secondary source and thus not a first hand account and not as reliable as a primary source. Public Works: A Dangerous Trade is comprised of close to a thousand pages of work written by Robert Moses himself which makes it a primary source in reference to my thesis. As the title suggests, this book is mainly about all the public works that Robert Moses had a hand in. Robert Moses himself said that this book “...is a record of events in which I had some part, told in my own way but relying primarily on documentary evidence and the testimony of others…” Like Moses said he tries to write based on facts but still a bias exists because he is writing about himself and so as hard as he may try he is still going to portray himself differently than others would. Despite the bias the book does give a first hand look into the life of Robert Moses which is essential in find how he himself gained the power he needed to accomplish the goals he had.

Analysis: Robert Moses’ desire for urban change began as a child with his dislike of the disorder that was prevalent throughout the city.
Starting in an environment in which most people who tried to accomplish large projects were finding it difficult to find funding and gain the physical space needed, Robert Moses became a sign of hope. Creating a original legal construct that allowed for a powerful mixture between a government and private Robert Moses paved the way not only for himself, but countless others also. Public authorities were also ways for Robert Moses to write himself more power. With each new layer and extra clause written into the public authorities legal construct more and more power was added. Robert Moses was intuitive in the way he made every clause seem innocent when considered separately but created a sum of power that made those projects that seemed impossible seem very plausible. Public Authorities had the power to make rules and structures, enforce their efforts with a police power, and keep the profit they received from its plans. The perfect mixture of government and private powers, public authorities became the ultimate tool in any public works coordinator’s tool belt. Moses was one of the largest users of this tool which is fitting because he created it. Robert Moses had all he need to make the changes he always wanted. Robert Moses’ long term dreams of a better New York began to take shape but to make room for these changes people were displaced and communities upsetted. Bridges were raised, tunnels were dug, power was harnessed, parks were developed and decorated, and parkways and expressways made transportation, for those who had a car, faster and simpler the ever. As more and more changes began to take place and more and more people begin to look to Moses for his expertise Moses’ political and personal power begins to rise. Moses became more powerful than mayors and governors and if Moses wanted he could have a major impact on decisions.
Moses became an icon of power with his name beside those of the highest offices of power. Moses’ name was strewn throughout New York marking each of his conquests.

Conclusion: In the new legal construct of public authorities, Robert Moses found a way to build much needed public works projects like bridges, roads, parks and hydroelectric facilities. He was someone who found a way to get beneficial things done when no one else could. However, public authorities were also crafted as a vehicle for him to amass personal power and avoid the oversight and limitations of public oversight. He used this power in questionable ways to punish those who challenged him and reward those who agreed with him. He hid his aims from not only his enemies but also from his allies - subtily hiding clauses in the laws he drafted that would never have been approved if they had been understood. Many people came from all over the country and the world to learn his methods. His approach to urban development became the model by which large urban projects are constructed - a legacy of personal power, limited recourse for those unfortunate to be directly in the path of the development, limited oversight by the public and a legal entity with both the powers of a government and the lack of restrictions of a private corporation. As Caro said, the public authority was the embodiment, the lengthened shadow of one man, Robert Moses.