The couple's poverty and idealism: Mrs. Harold Morse.
Walking with Gove: Gove.
Mocking BMR: Mayers. "Very little doubt": Private source. "Here was this tall, handsome character": Buck.
Tammany waiting: Kaplan. Moses volunteering: Mayers. "Reclassification became Moses": Kaplan. NYT articles, 1915-16, detail the circulating of petitions and the building up of anti-reorganization sentiment.
Moskowitz compromising: Moskowitz, "Old and New Problems of Civil Service," The Annals of the American Academy, 1915, pp. 153-67 (italics added). RM's refusal to consider compromise is related by Kaplan, Mayers and others.
The defeat of RM's plan: NYT, Brooklyn Eagle, Sept. 1915-Oct. 1917; Kaplan, Mayers; RM's paper to the American Political Science Association (this paper, nineteen pages in length, is a step-by-step description of the fight over the plan— and, in its frankness, provides a remarkably clear picture of its author's feelings at the time).
"Nothing . . . more ridiculous": RM's paper, p. 312.
Cleveland's shift: Graham, p. 138; World, Oct. 14, 1917.
"Feet in the trough": Allen and Am-berg, p. 62. The Kingsbury story: Lew-inson, p. 171. Allen and Amberg detail Mitchel's cooperation with ward leaders. "His concern was for the city": Lewin-son, p. 117.
New York Central giveaway: Allen and Amberg, pp. 2off.
Not "dry and dull": RM's paper, pp. 297-98. Still confident: p. 313 Mass meetings: An article describing one is NYT, Jan. 21, 1917.
Hylan quote: Brooklyn Eagle, Jan. 23, 1918. His destruction of civil service: Annual Report of the Executive Committee, 192 1.
"Need for executive support": k1 paper, p. 310. "It is futile": p. 313.
Declining army commission: I he reason he did so is not known. Asked about it by the author, RM replied that he "really wanted" to accept, "but I couldn't afford it—I had a wife and two children . . ." The Hog Island episode and being forced to return to the Bureau are from this interview.
Contemporaries had moved on: Announcement of the Training School for Public Service (1918). RM on line in Cleveland: Moley interview.
Food Commission: Announcement. RM's domestic problems: Mrs. Harold Morse; confidential source. Confused and worried: PEM was struck by the change in his brother's demeanor.
"A typical Tammany politician": Ernest Willvonseder, quoted in Rodgers, p. 23.
6. Curriculum Changes
SOURCES
Chapters 6 through 15 take place during Alfred E. Smith's Governorship. The general background of this Governorship —and the biographies of Smith and Belle Moskowitz—are drawn from:
Books and articles:
Allen, Al Smith's Tammany Hall; Baruch, My Own Story and The Public Years; Bellush, Franklin D. Roosevelt as Governor of New York; Cohen, They Builded Better Than They Knew; Ellis, Frost, Syrett and Carman, A Short History of New York State; Farley, Jim Farley's Story and Behind the Ballots; Frei-del, Franklin D. Roosevelt: The Triumph; Handlin, Al Smith and His America; Hap-good and Moskowitz, Up from the City Streets; Josephson and Josephson, Al Smith; Lynch, Alfred E, Smith; Moley, 27 Masters of Politics; Moses, A Tribute to Governor Smith and Working for the People; Pringle, Alfred E. Smith; Pros-kauer, A Segment of My Times; Warner, The Happy Warrior. Other sources are Rodgers, Robert Moses, and Dahlberg, The New York Bureau of Municipal Research.
Out of innumerable magazine articles, especially informative were Christian Gauss, "How Governor Smith Educated Himself," The Saturday Evening Post, Aug. 30, 1930; Dennis Lynch, "Friends of the Governor," North American Review, Oct. 1928; Ann O'Hagan Shinn,
Notes for pages 91-107
1184
"Alfred E. Smith: A Personal Impression," The New York Times Magazine, Oct. 22, 1922, and "Belle Lindner Mos-kowitz," The Survey, Feb. 1933.
Author's interviews:
With Smith's daughter, Emily Smith Warner, and Mrs. Moskowitz's son, Carlos Israels; with the three surviving high-level members of his administration: RM, Joseph M. Proskauer and Reuben A. Lazarus; with his three surviving secretaries: Mary Carr, Rita Higgins and Ann Hogan; with intimates, associates and/or friends: Dolie McWhinney Adams, Howard S. Cullman, John A. Coleman, Mrs. Eva Garson (Newman) Levy, Aaron Rabinowitz and Lindsay Rogers; with the widows of two associates: Justice Florence Shientag and Mrs. Raymond Ingersoll; with legislators who dealt with Smith: George R. Fearon, Leonard W. Hall, Ellwood M. Rabenold and three who declined to be identified; with reporters who covered Albany: Albert L. Warner, Leo O'Brien and Ernest K. Lindley; with two reformers who observed the Albany scene closely: George Hallett and Robert S. Binkerd; as well as with Reconstruction Commission staffers Arthur E. Buck and John M. Gaus and with RM's daughter Jane Moses Collins and Luther Gulick.
Documents:
Smith, FDR, Gaus and Macy Papers.
Oral History Reminiscences:
William H. Allen; Mrs. Genevieve B. Earle, between 1908 and 1913 a BMR staffer; State Senator Martin Saxe; William Jay Schieffelin; reformer John Lord O'Brien; Frances Perkins; Lewis H. Pink, chairman of the State Housing Board; Lawson Purdy, civic leader and first board chairman of the RPA; Frederick C. Tanner; Laurence A. Tanzer, counsel for the Factory Investigating Commission; Norman Thomas; reformer Leonard M. Wallstein.
NOTES
No one had studied her career: No
one has studied it yet. This remarkable woman has been all but forgotten. An evaluation of the significance of the closing of the dance halls is in NYT, Nov. 23, 1914. For a description of typical halls, NYT, May 28, 1915. "She understood . . . perfectly": Cohen, pp. 246-47. (Cohen was the employers' attorney.)
Dr. Moses said he would; first meeting with Smith: RM; Israels.
"Bob Moses was never to learn why":
RM.
Belle believing Smith best hope; the University Club incident: Israels.
Belle suggesting a "Reconstruction Commission": Smith often told this story to intimates, two of whom, Proskauer and Cullman, repeated it to the author.
1915 BMR study: Best is Dahlberg, pp. 93-122.
Reconstruction Commission: The basic source is the Report of the Reconstruction Commission to Governor Alfred E. Smith on Retrenchment and Reorganization in the State Government, submitted Oct. 10, 1919. Three commission staffers who worked for Moses interviewed in the spring of 1967: Arthur E. Buck, John M. Gaus and one who prefers to remain unidentified. Gaus saved many internal commission memos, including many from RM.
RM and Mrs. Moskowitz: RM. Phrase struck out: In fact, Reconstruction Commission Report, p. 42: "Adjustments will not be made by cutting of salaries or by the wholesale elimination of positions." "The council will remain": Reconstruction Commission Report, p. 23. "A real divergence": Buck. "She was the boss": Gaus. Calling her names: Gaus; confidential source.
RM memos: RM to Channing Schweitzer, May 2, 1919, Gaus Papers; Gaus. Leaving commission in his hands: RM.
Smith's speech: Hapgood and Moskowitz, p. 220. "You had to like him": Buck.
RM's corrections: The report quoted is one of Gaus's on the State Labor Department, Gaus Papers. RM at work: Gaus, Buck, confidential source.
Gaus to Schweitzer: May 13, June 13, 1919, Gaus Papers.
RM to the chart maker: RM to Sedley H. Phinney, Apr. 3, 1919, Gaus Papers.
RM on weekends: Perkins OHR, Vol. Ill, p. 365. Jane Moses Collins (RM's daughter).
BMR report: Quoted in Dahlberg, p. 99.
"The only serious argument": Reconstruction Commission Report, p. 12. "No other way": pp. 7, 8 (italics added). "One of the possible benefits": pp. 34-35. Various recommendations: pp. 3-12, 36-
37, 316-19.
"I wrote the report": RM. Rough-drafts comparison: Gaus Papers. Beard episode:
Gulick, Buck, confidential source; Dahlberg says (p. 105), in an overstatement
Notes for pages 107-142
of her own that reveals the bitterness BMR alumni feel over RM's attitude: "Dr. Beard contributed in large part to the writing of the Commission's final report." "He was s
o angry": Gulick.
Stimson: Henry L. Stimson to George Wharton Pepper, Nov. 26, 1919, Stimson Papers.
Smith's speeches: Hapgood and Mosko-witz, pp. 224-25.
RM's letter To Stimson, Mar. 7, 1920. "He thought fast": Gaus.
Smith inviting RM home: Emily Smith Warner.
"Al Smith listens to me": Ernest Will-vonseder, quoted in Rodgers, p. 23.
7. Change in Major
SOURCES
For Al Smith's biography, see "Sources" for Chapter 6. Biographical details about Richard Spencer Childs are from East, Council-Manager Government.
Author's interviews:
Robert S. Binkerd. Richard S. Childs, John A. Coleman, Howard S. Cullman. PEM, Emily Smith Warner.
NOTES
Friendship between Smith and RM; barbershopping: Coleman, Cullman, Emily Smith Warner. "They were opposites":
Coleman.
Change in RM: The author's interviews with Childs, PEM and Binkerd; Perkins OHR. RM's growing pro-Smith partisanship is, of course, documented in newspaper articles. But the basic source is the author's examination of the nineteen issues of the State Bulletin of the New York State Association, which RM wrote and edited in 1921, 1922 and 1923-These issues were kindly given to the author by Childs.
Childs biography: East, passim. Childs offering job to RM: Childs, RM. "The embodiment": Childs, confidential source. Davenport: State Bulletin. Mar. 30, 1922. "The principle is the important thing": State Bulletin, Aug. 1921. Seemed the very model: Perkins OHR. "Cheap political trick": Confidential source.
RM's attacks on Miller: State Bulletin, Jan. 4, 1922. p. 5; July 22, 1922, p. 5; Miller replies: NYT. Feb. 15. 1922; New York Herald, July 27. 1922: Herald editorial, July 28, 1922. Laughing at reformers: Childs, Binkerd, confidential source.
1185 8. The Taste of Pom* r
SOURCES
See "Sources" Chapter 6. Some material on Jimmy Walker is from Fowler, Beau Janus.
NOTES
Jimmy Walker in Albany: Fowler, passim: RM interviews with author; Rabe-nold; RM, "Cinderella Man in City Hair (review of Beau James), AT 7, Apr. 10, 1949. Al Smith in Albany: See "Sources." Chapter 6.
Prisons: RM. Best summary of Smith's prison reforms: Hapgood and Mos-kowitz. p. 300.
Grade crossings: RM; RM to Smith. Feb. 20, 1924, Smith Papers. RM's forms: RM to Smith, Jan. 30, 1924, Smith Papers.
He liked the taste: Lazarus, Israels; even the secretaries in Smith's office, while charmed by the Governor's handsome young aide, noticed it: Carr, Hig-gins and Hogan.
"The best bill drafter": Proskauer, Israels.
"What do you want?": RM; Proskauer and Lazarus heard the Governor pressing RM to accept various jobs, and RM refusing.
9. A Dream
SOURCES
Books, pamphlets, articles and documents:
Moses, Dangerous Trade, pp. 75-153; Rodgers. Robert Moses, pp. 31-57. The increased public need for parks and roads, and the lack of them, is detailed in newspapers and magazines during the 1920's (particularly valuable are an article in the SYT, Dec. 19, 1926. by Raymond Torrev, and "A Plea for Parks and Park Trails," a speech he delivered to the American Institute cf Park Executives, Oct. 31. 1926); in reports and minutes of one of the leading reform organizations struggling with the problem, collected in Annual Reports and Minutes of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, Jan. 7. 1921-Feb. 14, 192 7; in Progress Report of the Highway Bureau of the Long Island Chamber of Commerce, Feb. 2, 1928. By far the most detailed and vivid de-
Notes for pages 143-161
1186
scriptions are by RM himself: A State Park Plan for New York, Dec. 1922; The State Park Plan for New York — Revised to Show Progress to Date, Jan. 1924; "State Regulation of Private Forests in the Adirondack Park," State Bulletin, Mar. 5, 1932; "State Lands for Municipal Parks and Playgrounds," State Bulletin, Sept. 15, 1932; and Annual Reports of the Long Island State Park Commission to the Governor and Legislature of the State of New York, 1924-1930.
Other sources consulted:
Allen, The Big Change; Amory, The Last Resorts; Birmingham, Our Crowd; Blakelock, History of the Long Island State Parks; Eberlein, Manor Houses; Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby; Jones, The Jones Family; Josephson, The Robber Barons; Lundberg, America's Sixty Families; Manley, Long Island Discovery; Matz, The Many Lives of Otto Kahn; Moger, Roslyn; Sayre and Kaufman, Governing New York City; Sobin, Dynamics of Community Change; Thompson, History of Long Island; and Weeks, Isle of Shells.
Smith Papers.
Author's interviews:
As noted under specific topics.
NOTES
Population: Sayre and Kaufman, p. 18. Westchester and Palisades situation:
RM, A State Park Plan for New York, esp. pp. 18-26.
Long Island: The population of Nassau County was 126,120 according to the 1920 federal census, of Suffolk County 110,246. Geological history: Manley, pp. 15-27; Weeks, pp. 1-14; Some of Town of I slip's Early History (Bay Shore, N.Y.); RM, Annual Report of the LISPC, 1926, pp. 9-10; Fitzgerald, p. 301.
The baymen: Manley, pp. 1-14. Cholera episode: Manley, p. 202; author's interviews with bay families. Ku Klux Klan: Author's interviews with RM; his aide Sidney M. Shapiro; Islip Town Historian George L. Weeks, Jr.; old LI newspaperman Lloyd Record; and Gladys Vunck, W. Kingsland Macy's private secretary.
The robber barons: Books by Joseph-son and Lundberg.
Life on the Gold Coast: Books by Eberlein, Sobin, Moger and Amory (mainly for Mrs. Belmont, pp. 203-12); "Long Island in the Year of Our Lord 1932,"
Fortune, June 1932; Harvey Aronson, "Once upon a Gold Coast," Newsday, Apr. 6, 1968; author's interviews with Mrs. Etienne Phipps Boegner, Leonard W. Hall, F. Trubee Davison, LI newspaperman C. H. MacLachlan, Oyster Bay Democratic leader Richard Mayes; 1920's Oyster Bay Town Clerk Charles Ransom, long-time LI restaurateur Paul Reinhardt, Winthrop heir Robert Payne. The best picture of the day-to-day life on the Gold Coast is found in The North Shore Almanack, the area's weekly newspaper. Phipps Estate: "Old Westbury Gardens" (tour brochure); interviews with Mrs. Boegner. Kahn Estate: Josephson, p. 333 (for information about the creation of the mountain). Other descriptions of Kahn estate are found in Matz, pp. 20, 150, 233-34; Birmingham, p. 320. The barons' selfishness; allowing public roads to fall into disuse: Sobin, p. 98. Pratt and LIRR: Sobin, p. 99. Sands Point: Harold M. Morse to RM, Apr. 16, 1923; Smith to Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, Apr. 23, 1923; George Gordon Battle to Smith, May 1, 1923; Hoover to Smith, May 8, 1923; Graves to RM, June 20, 1923; RM to Smith, Morse to Smith, Aug. 30, 1923. All in Smith Papers. Interview with Mrs. Morse. Glen Cove: Ransom, Reinhardt. Cold Spring Harbor: Sobin, p. 99; MacLachlan. Lloyd Neck and Eatons Neck: Hall. Huntington: MacLachlan, who obtained the precise figures during a survey he did for a local newspaper of which he was editor. The barons' political power; 49 members: Hall. No state roads: Hall.
Four hours: Transcript of joint hearing before Senate Finance and Assembly Ways and Means Committee, at Albany, Feb. 11, 1925; testimony by Assemblyman John Boyle, Jr. Cemetery acreage: A private survey prepared for W. Kingsland Macy by his secretary, Gladys Vunck, Dec. 19, 1925.
The South Shore: Allen, pp. 29-30; "Idle Hour," tour brochure of Vanderbilt Estate in Islip. Timber Point Club: "The Timber Point Club," club introductory brochure; author's interviews with Gladys Vunck, and with TPC members Horace Havemeyer, Jr., Robert Livingston Hol-lins and Buell Hollister, Jr. Population: New York Telephone Co. estimate, 1922.
RM's inspiration: RM. Exploring the parks: Also Israels. Getting lost on the bay: Also Mrs. Lorraine Fishel. Tramping the barrier beach with him: Also Mrs. Harold Morse, confidential sources. Major Jones: Jones, passim; Blakelock, p. 39.
Notes for pages 163-184
1187
Statewide situation: Moses, A State Park Plan; ASHPS, minutes of various meetings. The Forest Preserve, not a park in the true sense of the word, and Palisades Interstate Park, an interstate park and privately funded, are n
ot included in this tabulation.
Revolutionary: The largest previous bond issue for parks floated anywhere had probably been $10,000,000, and that had been, in New York, for the Forest Preserve, not a true park. "To provide for permanent improvements" and for ''parkways": Moses, A State Park Plan, pp. 6-7. "Hailed by park planners": See, for instance, "Summary, Third National Conference on State Parks, Turkey Run State Park, Indiana, 1923," printed by the conference.
Smith: "lacked TR's zest," "red flannel underwear": Rodgers, p. 33. Responded to graphic presentations: Perkins OHR. Sinking in chair and "Bob, you win": Rodgers, pp. 33-34; Childs.
Mail pouring in: His secretaries, Carr, Higgins, Hogan; Ingersoll and Hunt letters and scores of others, Smith Papers. If there was an editorial opposing the message, it is not in Smith's files. Chairman of the National Conference: John Barton Payne to Smith, Jan. 18, 1924, Smith Papers. Albany reporter: Warner.
RM tramping around LI again: RM. The friend was Israels. Townsend Scud-der, Jr., heard about the walks from his father, a great walker who could keep up with RM—for a couple of hours. Whitman: "Paumanok." RM on Mon-tauk: Annual Report of the LISPC, 1926, pp. 9-10. Knew his plans too small: Moses, The State Park Plan for New York — Revised to Show Progress to Date.
Smith offer of commission presidency: RM.
10. The Best Bill Drafter in Albany
SOURCES
This chapter is based on the author's interviews with F. Trubee Davison and on detailed analyses by W. Kingsland Macy's lawyers of the bills Davison introduced for RM (see Chapter 11) and by Marvin Shiebler, secretary of the Suffolk County Taxpayers Association, in a memo to Macy found in Macy Papers and in Committee of Citizens of Suffolk County, "State Parks," undated but apparently Feb.
1925. The authoi /uterviews with RM were helpful on 1 1 1 mits.
NOTES
"The more spigots": Reconstruction Commission Report (see "Notes," Chapter 6), p. 8.
Parks no exception: Reconstruction Commission Report, pp. 8-9, 21.
"Appropriation" method had never been used: Shiebler, 'The Long Island Park Program," Jan. 30, 1926, p. 2; "Important Notice," Apr. 12, 1926 (two broadsides put out by the Committee of Citizens of Suffolk County).
The power broker : Robert Moses and the fall of New York Page 183