Efficient-government ideals yield to patronage realities when a governor needs legislative support

Evidence

The lessons started almost immediately. When Moses submitted a preliminary outline of suggested commission goals, he included a phrase straight out of the reform textbooks and his Municipal Civil Service Commission days: “Elimination of unnecessary…personnel.” Mrs. Moskowitz struck the phrase out. Personnel, she said, were voters. You didn’t antagonize voters. When Moses, copying a 1915 Bureau recommendation, suggested that the unwieldy ten-member “council” which ran the Department of Agriculture be scrapped in favor of a single, professional commissioner, she pointed out that the council memberships were distributed by the Legislature and were among the choicest patronage posts it possessed. The Governor, she said, would need the support of the Legislature if his program were to be approved. The council, she said, would remain. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 423

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Caro’s broader arc: Moses begins as an idealistic reformer and learns the patronage game — foreshadows his later mastery of exactly these political mechanics. — connects to: Even a governor’s formal power is limited against recalcitrant agencies — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 431
• SEED: Angle on how technocratic efficiency reformers first learn that personnel are voters — the origin story of ends-justifying-means governance.