Even in total political eclipse, Moses’ intelligence remained his most dangerous asset

Evidence

Moses would continue to have the voters’ ears, the Governor knew, because he still had the News and Newsday, the papers with the largest circulation in New York City and on Long Island; in its editorial on the Governor’s proposal, for example, the latter had said: “Essential is the participation of Bob Moses in the new agency. His experience will be invaluable.” Most important of all, Moses still possessed, unimpaired by his seventy-eight years, the instrument that had gotten him power in the first place: his powerful, supple intelligence. Alone now, Robert Moses began doing what he had done when he had been trying to find a way out of the West Side Improvement financial impasse, when he had conceived the possibilities of the public authority—at so many crises during his career: jotting down figures on a yellow legal note pad. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 4601

Categorization

• XREF: Pays off earlier chapters showing that the yellow legal pad and arithmetic underlay Moses’ career innovations, from the public-authority idea onward. — connects to: Being stripped of power freed Moses’s imagination but left it with nowhere to act — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 4666; Moses’ feared public support had long since evaporated without political insiders noticing — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 4397; Moses needed to display superiority more than he wanted power. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 1858

Broader Connections

• Moses needed to display superiority more than he wanted power. #expands (0.82) — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 1858
• Moses’ feared public support had long since evaporated without political insiders noticing #expands (0.80) — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 4397