Part 2, Chapter 4 Burning Summary

As Moses begins his career, Progressivism is the fad in politics. Progressivism is a movement of reform, something easily embraced by the then-idealistic Moses. The Bureau of Municipal Research is where the interest in reform is centered. The Bureau, created by William H. Allen, Henry Bruere and Frederick A. Cleveland (known as ABC) in 1907, set its goal to clean up government by doing away with the procedures that make graft possible. Budget requests and expenditure records are not detailed enough to provide an accurate accounting. They begin to uncover corruption in government contracts that costs taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Bureau of Municipal Research brings on investigations and institutes reforms, mostly by implementing accounting procedures and establishing a training school. This is the situation that Robert Moses steps into.

Initially, Moses enjoys the training school but eventually...