Robert Moses weaponized personal dossiers to coerce city officials

Evidence

The wealth of the empire enabled Moses to keep many city officials in fear. With it, he hired skilled investigators he called “bloodhounds” who were kept busy filling dossiers. Every city official knew about those dossiers, and they knew what use Moses was capable of making of them—since the empire’s wealth allowed him to create an awesomely efficient public relations machinery. They had seen him dredge up the dark secrets of men’s pasts and turn them into blaring headlines. On the occasion of Paul Screvane’s appointment as city representative to Moses’ 1964–65 World’s Fair, Mayor Wagner said to him: “Paul, my experience with Moses has taught me one lesson, and I’ll tell it to you. I would never let him do anything for me in any way, shape or form. I’d never ask him—or permit him—to do anything of a personal nature for me because—and I’ve seen it time and time again—a day will come when Bob will reach back in his file and throw this in your face, quietly if that will make you go along with him, publicly otherwise. And if he has to, he will destroy you with it.” — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 76

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to how entrenched power uses surveillance and private knowledge as control. — connects to: Moses maintained secret dossiers documenting legislative payoffs — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 4773; Moses retaliated using scandals from opponents’ fathers’ pasts — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 77
• SEED: An essay angle on how institutional wealth converts information-gathering into a coercion machine versus transparent governance.

Broader Connections

• Moses maintained secret dossiers documenting legislative payoffs #expands (0.85) — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 4773
• Moses retaliated using scandals from opponents’ fathers’ pasts #exemplifies (0.75) — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 77