CHAPTER XIII. 
CONTEST FOR PARKWAYS CONTINUED. 
As an army, in taking every possible advantage of its 
opponent, uses pickets, scouts and spies in its preliminary 
operations; so a great and opulent corporation, bent upon 
securing from the public valuable franchises, not infre- 
quently uses cunning attorneys and not over-scrupulous 
politicians, both in and out of office; and, by liberal con- 
tributions to both political parties, secures the service of 
the party boss; who, prior to the public awakening for better 
civic conditions in November, 1905, and through the apathy 
of good citizens generally, had become such a legislative fac- 
tor in State, county and local affairs. 
While this kind of self-interest, masquerading under the 
name of any party, constitutes a condition which is neither 
Republican, Democratic, Populistic nor Socialistic, but is 
essentially oligarchic—the poison germ, which soon forms 
the rotten core in any free government; yet this is, never- 
theless, a situation that must continue to be recognized and 
appreciated by the people, if an adequate remedy is to be 
applied. 
At the time the incidents related in the preceding chap- 
ter were formulating, in December, 1896, the traction com- 
pany made application also for a Central avenue franchise 
in Orange. In the southern part of the city, as in East 
Orange, there was a contingent of the population which 
needed, and honestly favored, better east and west transit 
facilities to and from Newark. The large majority of the 
people earnestly and heartily favored the parkways and 
the locations of the lines of trolley extension in streets 
south of, and parallel with, Central avenue, where the 
facilities were needed. The corporate interests and in- 
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