Managing With Power

5

Resources, Allies, and the New Golden Rule

Some years ago Life magazine ran a pictorial series on the hundred most influential people of the twentieth century. Included were Roosevelt, Churchill, Gandhi, Einstein, and other major figures of politics, science, and the arts—along with a parks and bridges commissioner, Robert Moses. I suspect that if I asked you to choose a position in which you could wield enormous power, you would probably not pick the job of parks commissioner. But Robert Moses was arguably the most powerful public official in the United States during the twentieth century. During his 44-year career, he built 12 bridges, 35 highways, 751 playgrounds, 13 golf courses, 18 swimming pools, and more than two million acres of parks ...