174 FIRST COUNTY PARK SYSTEM 
assistance later of the commission’s own counsel, to the 
corporations for private uses. 
Then, too, an extended account of the evolution of the 
parkway question into the agitation for limited franchises, 
which has since become such a live State issue, would fill 
much space: How the persistent determination of the trac- 
tion companies’ managers to defeat the parkway plans, 
and, regardless of consequences, secure the long-sought 
franchises, led to an investigation as to the reasons why 
the men responsible, who were accredited with having some 
public spirit in other matters, were on this subject deaf and 
blind to all appeals; how, when the indisputable facts were 
ascertained and recognized by the public as to “the mil- 
lions” literally “in” such franchises, there was at once a 
response and popular uprising that has already found ex- 
pression in the platforms of both the leading political par- 
ties—an uprising followed, as since, by the widespread pop- 
ular demand for improved utility franchise conditions by 
the people: And how the majority of the Legislature of 
1905, under the direction of the “corporation leader” of the 
House, juggled with this franchise legislation. 
These might all be topics worthy of full description, 
and perhaps of interest, to the readers of this history of 
the parks. Space, however, does not permit. Nor is it 
intended that this history of the Essex County parks will 
do more than give a consistent, continuous, and truthful 
account of the more important facts, which record shall 
mirror the events of the past as they have occurred, and 
possibly throw some light on the situation of park affairs 
that may be helpful in the solution of this great problem 
for the present or for the future. 
The general plan for the parkways, as agreed upon by 
the first Park Commission in 1894-5, was outlined with 
three distinct and objective points in view: 
First—Convenience and accessibility to the great ma- 
jority of the people of the county. 
Second—EHconomy in the use of Park and Central ave- 
nues, inasmuch as these were the two parallel and broad 
