New York state government grew more fragmented from 1915 to 1919

Evidence

The Bureau of Municipal Research, in presenting its report to the 1915 Constitutional Convention, had concluded that the state’s administrative organization “has nothing in common experience or human reason to commend it.” But in the intervening four years, the situation had only worsened. The Bureau’s investigators had counted with shock 169 separate and independent state agencies; in 1919, Moses’ investigators counted 187. The organization chart of the sovereign state of New York still looked like a web spun by a drunken spider, and the man elected to represent all the people of the state was still trapped in the web, unable to exercise power or leadership. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 451

Categorization

• SEED: The ‘drunken spider’ web of state agencies and the powerless trapped governor is a vivid image of administrative fragmentation that could anchor an essay on why reformers keep failing to consolidate government.
• CANDY: New York State had 187 independent agencies by 1919 - an elevator-conversation-worthy number for anyone talking about government efficiency.
• XREF: connects to: New York’s 1915 state government was fragmented across 169 overlapping agencies — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 417; Reform economy and machine patronage both starved New York of public works — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 1460

Broader Connections

• Reform economy and machine patronage both starved New York of public works #corroborates (0.70) — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 1460