Following is an excerpt from "The Power Broker," Robert A. Caro's magnificent biography of Robert Moses. It isn't an especially important passage, but it *is definitive concerning one meaning of "public." ;)

"Underlying Moses' strikingly strict policing for cleanliness in his parks was...a deep distaste for the public that was using them. [Frances Perkins said,] 'He doesn't love the people. It used to shock me because he was doing all these things for the welfare of the people...He'd denounce the common peopl terribly. To him they were lousy, dirty people, throwing bottles all over Jones Beach. 'I'll get them! I'll teach them!'...He loves the public, but not as people. The public is just *the public. It's a great amorphous mass to him; it needs to be bathed, it needs to be aired, it needs recreation, but not for personal reasons--just to make it a better public.'"