Moses falsely accused a collaborator of plagiarizing work he himself had written

Evidence

Moses’ attitude led to one particularly bitter episode. Parts of the “Summary of Recommendations,” the second half of the introduction, were written, at Moses’ request, by Charles A. Beard, then director of the Bureau’s Training School and already a noted historian. In particular, Beard wrote the summary of reorganization advances in other states. Whether Moses did any rewriting at all of Beard’s work cannot be determined, but Bureau staffers who saw the historian’s original copy feel it was included in the final report substantially as written. They were astounded, therefore, to hear that after Beard had written a magazine article on reorganization advances, Moses had accused the author of An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of plagiarism. … A bunch of us walked into Beard’s office one day and there he was, just ready to spit he was so outraged, waving this letter from Moses,” recalls one staffer. “The letter said Beard had, in effect, plagiarized from the commission’s report. We were astounded; in the academic world, there are few sins as bad as stealing another fellow’s work and that was what Moses was accusing Beard of—and we all knew Beard had written that section, not Moses. And as we were reading the letter, Beard kept muttering, ‘Well, what do you think of this? What do you think of this?’ He was so angry he didn’t know what else to say.” — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 469

Categorization

• XREF: Foreshadows Moses’ pattern of owning and claiming credit for everything produced under his aegis, seen throughout Caro’s biography. — connects to: Moses claimed sole authorship of the 1915 state reorganization report — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 467; A plagiarist is unmasked by beginning a work only he can complete — Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks, 333

Broader Connections

• A plagiarist is unmasked by beginning a work only he can complete #corroborates (0.85) — Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks, 333