Robert Moses on the wane, his power gone. From Robert Caro’s The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (1974):
And as they walked down the steps of the cottage to the author’s car, Moses did something that made him feel for an instant that the man walking behind him was not Robert Moses but Paul. The author had, unknown to Robert Moses, spent time with his dead brother. Paul Moses had managed to keep his chin up even in discussing the misfortunes of his life, but sometimes, drifting into reveries during lulls in the conversation, he had — unconsciously, it seemed — uttered a phrase, a sigh, almost a moan, that hinted at the depths of the melancholy within him: a painful, reflective sighing: “Oh ho ho ho. Oh ho ho ho.” The author had speculated that so unusual an expression might be inherited from their father. But in all the times he had previously talked with Robert Moses, the author had never heard him make that sound of discouragement and something close to despair.This post is my last from The Power Broker.
But he made it now.
Related reading
All OCA Robert Caro posts (Pinboard)
comments: 4
I include this URL merely for the post’s last paragraph:
http://slpssm.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-power-broker-robert-moses-and-fall.html?m=1
In 2010, President Barack Obama, after awarding Mr. Caro a National Humanities Medal, said "I think about Robert Caro and reading The Power Broker back when I was 22 years old and just being mesmerized, and I'm sure it helped to shape how I think about politics."
My takeaway: Obama learned that, in the hands of the power hungry, unchecked power can be a dangerous thing.
Yep — The Power Broker can be read as a giant warning sign to those who would enter into political life, or it can be read as a how-to manual.
I’ll add a caution: the post at the link gives away the book’s final sentence, which some readers might not want to know in advance if they plan to read.
Michael, thanks for catching that. It slipped past me that the post contains a spoiler.
It might matter more to me than to most readers — I'm pretty fanatical about not wanting to know in advance.
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