Seeing the name “Robert Moses” in the title of Caro’s response immediately struck me with one word: controversy. With that said, however, I didn’t actually know enough about his background to be able to form an opinion about him; his name only came up once or twice in some political discussions as well as Long Island forums which, as I mentioned in my previous response, I read from time to time. I knew he was a builder, and that some people despised the fact that places such as Robert Moses State Park were named after him. I had seen perspectives about racism, particularly him building low bridges so that trucks filled with minorities could not pass through, but I was unable to affirm or disprove those assertions, owing to my lack of knowledge on the subject.

I appreciated the way Caro’s piece was structured; it felt like I was being told an ironic story of how an idealistic man, banished to the rolls of unemployment by one of the most infamous political machines in American history, bounced back and created his own overwhelmingly powerful machine, replacing “graft with benefits that could be derived with legality from a public works project,” and using the “power of money to undermine the democratic processes of the largest city in the world, to plan and build its parks, bridges, highways and housing projects on the basis of his whim alone.” Caro’s comparison of Moses’ quest for power to a drug user’s need to get high reminded me of an excerpt I recently read from my management textbook, written by Kinicki and Williams: “Habitual cheating begins with small infractions… and grows by increments. As success is rewarded, these small infractions can burgeon into an ongoing deliberate strategy of deception and fraud.” Sadly, many people end up taking baby steps and possibly & unwittingly place themselves on a path toward immorality, as opposed to immortality.