Moses appropriated private land before completing state-mandated negotiations or funding

Evidence

Section fifty-nine of the Conservation Law gave the commission the power to appropriate land, the attorneys said, but section fifty-nine also said that the power could be used only after negotiations with property owners had failed and no price could be agreed upon. Moses had never negotiated; he had never bothered to mention a price to any representative of Pauchogue; he had never even spoken to any representative after Pauchogue had purchased the Taylor Estate. Moreover, the State Constitution forbade any state agency to buy, condemn or appropriate land unless it had enough money on hand to pay for it. Moses had appropriated the Taylor Estate on December 4, 1924. The referendum had been passed, but under its provisions the 15,000,000 was not available to acquire land until each specific acquisition had been approved by the Legislature, and the Legislature had, of course, given no such approvals. The Legislature hadn't even met since the referendum. Even if Moses contended that the 225,000 allocated to the Long Island Commission by the 1924 Legislature could be used for land acquisition—a contention of extremely doubtful legality—the Taylor Estate was worth more than 225,000. Moses himself had admitted that by offering 250,000 for it. And Moses didn’t have even the 225,000 any more. Out of that sum, before the appropriation, he had spent 63,000 on “overhead expenses,” not to mention the money he owed the owners of the land he had appropriated at Montauk and Lloyd Neck. The Taylor Estate appropriation, the attorneys said, was clearly illegal. They could surely demonstrate this to Governor Smith, they said, and before an appropriation could take effect, Smith had to sign the appropriation form. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 808

Categorization

• QUESTION: Caro later reveals Moses’s pattern of working first and legalizing later — worth tracking how often his illegality was actually stopped.
• XREF: connects to: Moses withheld land-taking powers inside what sponsors assumed were routine park bills — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 787; Moses ordered state troopers to back his unpermitted private surveyors onto a farmer’s land — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 797; Moses could seize private land but needed voter approval for township-owned land — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 897 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Moses reneged on an agreed deferral and seized even unappropriated property #expands (0.90) — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 819
• Moses could seize private land but needed voter approval for township-owned land #qualifies (0.85) — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 897
• Wartime state intervention forced private property to bow to national-interest priorities #qualifies (0.70) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 149