204 FIRST COUNTY PARK SYSTEM 
ments as he has to me, and said that the Mayor thereupon 
appeared greatly surprised at Munn’s position. 
“Munn inquired how the question as to the avenues 
came to be brought up at this time—no one could answer.” 
STATEMENT CONFIRMED. 
In attending the City Council meeting two days later, 
January 17, 1898, I asked Mr. Stetson regarding this con- 
ference, and told him the substance of Colonel Snyder’s 
statement to me. He replied that the statement was cor- 
rect; that Munn said “that, if the avenues were widened, 
the trolley could be arranged for, and we were given to 
understand that the commission favored a trolley on Cen- 
tral avenue,” and that he (Stetson) thought “the com- 
mission wanted the avenue for the franchise.” This con- 
versation was brief, but Colonel Snyder had gone over the 
subject fully. His bearing was unassuming and earnest; 
his manner and conversation straightforward, and evi- 
dently sincere. The statements troubled me, and I knew 
meant trouble for the Park Commission; and the more 
from what had gone before. 
After the contest over the parkways had begun in East 
Orange, in November, 1896, and during the early part 
of 1897, as described in the preceding chapter, a number 
of friends in Hast Orange, some of them neighbors of Coun- 
sel Munn, had come to me, or in conversation regarding the 
parkways had warned me to “look out for Munn,” stating 
that they believed, regardless of whatever he might say or 
do before the Park Commission, that he secretly favored, 
and would work for, the trolley company “every chance he 
could get.” My answer to these charges was in each in- 
stance in substance the same, viz.: “While thus far Munn’s 
conduct as counsel had ‘not been satisfactory,’ I had not 
yet discovered any evidence that he was not carrying out 
the instructions of the commission regarding the park- 
ways.” 
