44 FIRST COUNTY PARK SYSTEM 
interests as in Essex County, would, if undertaken. to the 
best advantage, require men especially qualified, from 
tastes, training and experience; and that, as the plan of 
having men selected because of fitness had been so well re- 
ceived, the continuation of a similar provision in the new 
charter might be equally favored by the public. It had been 
shown that, in many instances where the elective plan of 
selecting commissioners had been in vogue, the practical 
results had not been acceptable to the municipalities or to 
the other local officials, and that “practical politics” was not 
a desirable factor in park making, whatever , might be 
claimed for its contributory influences in other public 
activities. 
It was solely and only for these reasons that the commis- 
sion decided for the appointive system, and not with any 
desire to extend the scope of a method of creating a public 
board, which, at least theoretically, may be criticized as con- 
trary to the principles and prerogatives of our whole system 
of government. Not only were results found to have been 
unsatisfactory in numerous instances of elective park com- 
missioners, but conversely in other instances—notahly such 
examples as that of the South Park system of Chicago, 
where the entire control of all park matters from the incep- 
tion has been vested in a commission appointed by the 
courts—the practical workings were found to have been 
satisfactory. 
HOW SHOULD PARK COMMISSIONERS BE SELECTED. 
To those who believe that any other than the elective plan 
of creating public boards for the expenditure of public 
funds is objectionable and un-American, it is due to say 
that such a plan would have been adopted in drawing up 
the Essex County Park act of 1895, had not the investiga- 
tions then made compelled the conviction concurred in by 
Messrs. Emery and Coult, the able counsel of the first com- 
mission, that the appointive system was preferable here. 
Having determined that point, the question arose as to 
where the authority for making the appointments should 
