54 FIRST COUNTY PARK SYSTEM 
and, outside of a comparatively small official and political 
contingent, evidently received but little support. No further 
active effort in that direction, to my knowledge, was made. 
While the bill was pending in the Senate, two of the com- 
missioners incidentally, and almost accidentally, ascer- 
tained about the same time that the legislation providing for 
an appointive park commission for Hudson County a few 
years previous had been declared unconstitutional by the 
courts. The question at once arose as to how the act, then 
before the Legislature, could be amended so as to avoid a 
similar experience in Essex County. The problem was, at a 
special meeting of the board, immediately given to counsel 
to work out, and on February 18 Messrs. Emery and Coult 
gave three optional remedies for the apparent defect in the 
bill. They were: 
(a) An amendment providing for the appointment of the 
new commission by the Governor—an elective official. 
(b) To have the commission selected by or from the 
board of freeholders—an elective body. 
(c) Apply the referendum principle and submit the 
measure and the question whether it should or should not 
become operative to the electorate of the county to 
determine. 
LEFT TO THE PEOPLE. 
The commissioners promptly decided that they would 
“trust the people on the issue.” An amendment was at 
once prepared providing for a vote throughout the county 
at the next election, which was to occur April 9, (1895), 
with the ballots “For the park act” and “Against the park 
act.” This draft of the amendment was immediately sent 
to Senator Ketcham, at Trenton. It was, without objec- 
tion, added to the bill, and on February 26 the measure was 
passed in the Senate by a vote of 14 to 0. On the following 
day it was passed in the Assembly by a vote of 50 to 0—not 
a single vote having been recorded in either house against it, 
The bill carried with it a direct appropriation, should it 
be approved by the people of the county, of $2,500,000 of 
