Caro signals that this minor leak foreshadows larger Machine battles ahead.

Evidence

The story could be taken as a “first” of another type, too, a first hint of what was to come, a gentle intimation that politics, in its own way, was rougher than water polo, that the race Bob Moses was entering was not a swimming relay in which judges watched the touch-offs to insure that everything was fair. It could be taken as a reminder of how important patronage was to Tammany—far too important to let anyone take it away. Disposing of a young man’s hopes for a minor city appointment was so simple it was hardly worth mentioning; a little newspaper leak, done offhand by some politician who had more important things on his mind, could take care of that. Were the threat to grow more serious, however, there were other methods. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 314

Categorization

• XREF: Caro’s signature technique of telling the reader the significance of a small event before it pays off — same move used throughout the book to build Moses’s trajectory.