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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 20, 1962)
Q THURSDAY. DECEMBER 20, 1862 MEDFORD MAIL TRIBUNE. MEDFORD, OREGON Robert Moses Gives Up Five State Jobs in Tiff With Governor By FREDERICK H. TREESH United Preii International New York (UPD- To Robert Moses, harnessing the power of Niagara talis was oniy partime job. . Hp was simultaneously park builder, architect and operator ol a multiplicity of hiehwavs. bridges and tun nels. a slum clearer and huildine creator and chief planner of a world's fair. Moses, a one-man bureau cracv. at one time held 14 dif ferent titles. To enter New York across any border is to be surround ed by Moses" works in con crete. steel and greenery. In an amazing four-decade narnnr nf nilhlic Service. MO- ses has amassed an infinite group of admirers. His list ol enemies is formidable, too, mri hp has been at swords. point with officialdom at all levels, up to the late rresi. rtr.nl Franklin D. Roosevelt In his latest and perhaps most spectacular blowup, Moses shucked five state jobs two weeks ago In a tiff with New York Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller. Knows No Leisure Timiiffh solllniz aside more responsibility and authority than most men unacriaiic in b lifptlme. Moses, two days away from his 74th birthday, is not considering a inc oi ease. He knows no leisure in the conventional sense his jobs are hobbies and he re mains as president of the 1964-65 World's fair and in two important New York jobs. Last month, Rockefeller asked Moses to step out as chairman of the State Council of Parks, an unsalaried job Moses created in 1924 when Al Smith was governor. An gered, Moses quit the post through which he built a magnificent park system for New York State. He also resigned as: Chairman of the Stale Power authority. In this, his only paid $(10,000) state job, Moses oversaw construction of huge power projects on the St. Lawrence and niagura rivers. The Niagara project, when fully operative, Is the biggest hydroelectric power facility in the western world and It added measur ably to the beautlfication of NiaRara Falls. Both it and the St. Lawrence project incor porated vast pork and high way improvements. Chairman of the Long Island Park commission. Here Moses created a system of 15 major parks on the 110-mlle island. Most Impres sive was the transformation of Jones beach from a nearly Inaccessable sandbar to an 18-mile long "riviera" en joyed by 10 million persons a year. Chairman of the Beth page park and Jones Beach t. ' ROBERT MOSES Harnessing Falls Minor Job Parkway authorities. He built and presided over the 1,400 acre, four-golf course Beth page park on Long Island and the intricate system of park- ways attendant to Jones Beach State park. Hide Ii Undented Moses claims his "rhinoce ros hide" is undented. Poli tical observers say Rockefel ler, who reportedly planned to put his brother Laurance in the Stale Park Job, may have committed the biggest political blunder of his ca reer. Moses was and is busy In New York City affairs, too. Until 19110, when he took on the presidency of the 1964 World's fair, he had been city commissioner of pinks for 26 years. As $25,000-a-y e a r parks man (his only paid city job), Moses Increased from 14,000 to 28,500 acres the city's park areas, multiplied lis playgrounds from 119 to 660, its beaches from one mile to 18 and corresponding ly increased golfing, tennis and other recreational facili ties. Because of Moses, the city is dotted with tiny park lets that otherwise might have been gasoline stations. As unsalaried head of a long list of other authorities, commissions and agencies, Moses built and supervises the Tnboro Bridge complex con necting Queens, Manhattan and the Bronx, the Brooklyn Battery tunnel between Brooklyn and Manhattan and the Quccns-Mldtown tunnel between Queens and Manhat tan. Moscs-b u 1 1 1 parkways circle and criss-cross all five New York boroughs and link them with Long Island and Westchester and Connecticut. Builds Coliseum He built the New York Coliseum, a $35-milllon expo sition hall, and one of his slum clearance projects made Sports Champion Deliglil boy or girl with this sweater - so luimlMimc, warm for school, outdoors. Champion sweater for a rliampinn. Knitted in 2 colors in knitting worsted. Pattern 74(IH: charts; directions sizes 4-S: 8 111: 12 14 included. THIRTY - FIVE CF.NTS (i-oinsl for this pattern - add 111 cents for rarh pattern for Istclass mailing. Send to Aide Brooks, care tit Medlord Mail Tribune. 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Moses' slum clearing made possible public housing proj ects covering thousands of acres in all of New York's boroughs. As remarkable as all the hats Moses wears, is the way he can wear them all at once. If he builds a park, it usually results in a highway being built, too. If he cleared slums, it also meant a park and some public housing, if not an ex pressway or an important building. Worth $5 Billion The various enterprises Moses planned, built and su pervised were estimated con servatively to be worth $5 billion. How, an aide once asked Moses, was he able to do all these things at once? "I work at it," he said. To Moses, working at It means keeping his active mind operating like a well oiled machine every waking hour. When he reads, drives in his automobile or fishes from his boat on one of the bays off Long Island, he keeps a yellow scratch pad handy, jotting memos to him self and others as the thoughts occur to him. "He's always functioning," an associate said. A contractor on one of the Moses-supervised jobs recent ly walked out of his office with the report: "This guy, I never saw any thing like him, I was one of 17 contractors In there and he laid down the law on whose work was on time, who was late and how far each of us had progressed. "It was astonishing. He didn't have a note on his desk." It was an example of how Moses keeps in touch with minute detail while always thinking of the big picture far in advance. Any public official who thinks only 10 years ahead is a fool, he once said. Bob Moses is a stubborn, tough-minded man who al most never can be deterred once he makes up his mind about something. He pushes, promotes, stampedes his proj ects, sometimes running roughshod over those who get in his way. Prolific Letter Writer Moses is a prolific letter writer and his letters are among the tools he uses to get the job done. If an opponent there are many seems unsure in his position, Moses may bombard with him biting, multiple-carbon letters until he gives way to Moses' point of view. However, a close associate observed, "He rarely does that to a little guy." Moses' biting approach is exemplified in one note he dashed off to a public official, starting: "Dear . . .: "Thank you very much for your letter of September 15. As much as I like you personally, I don't know what the hell you are talking about . . ." Symbol of Controversy That Moses was successful hardly can be argued, but his way of cutting down opposi tion like ripe wheat make him a symbol of controversy as well as accomplishment. He's battled and usually won over opponents ranging from baby carriage-pushing mothers to FDR, several gov ernors, and "old curmudg eon" Harold L. Ickes. Moses started swinging when an undergraduate edi tor at Yale, winning an edi torial page fight with foot ball great Walter Camp about whether football gate receipts should help pay for less prosperous varsity sports. Born in New Haven, Conn., Dec. 18, 1888, the son of a millionaire merchants, Moses went from Yale, where he was a Phi Beta Kappa, to Ox ford for his master's and to Columbia university for his Ph.D. His intimates say he was set even in college on a ca reer in public service and since has spent some of his inherited fortune pursuing it. Brought Into Public Life He was brought into public life in 1942 by then Gov. Al Smith and one of his trade marks fierce loyalty to those for whom he works and those who work for him was a well-known. Smith trait. Moses met his wife, the former Mary Louise Sims, when both were working for an endowed mun.cipal re search organization. They have two married daughters and five grandchildren. The Moses live unpretentiously in babylon, a Long Island South Shore community. Moses took a big step out of public life in his tiff with Rockefeller in the same man ner he worked in the public realm swiftly, bluntly and absolutely. But the evidence of Moses' work is everywhere in New York and the World's fair to open in 1964 and the $325 million Verrazano - Narrow bridge (the world's largest suspension bridge) scheduled for 1965 completion make the point loudly: You don't speak of Robert Moses in the past tense, not yet. 14 N. CENTRAL 215 E. MAIN 773-7484 SANTA SAYS ... YOU CAN SAVE UP TO Vi ON QUALITY TOYS! 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