CONTEST FOR PARKWAYS CONTINUED 207 
Common Council at the time, stated that it had been the 
intention to pass the transfer ordinance on third and final 
reading at the meeting, February 7, 1898. Public senti- 
ment and the press were as unitedly in favor of that action 
as had been the people in East Orange the year before. 
Excepting for the objection raised by the commission’s own 
counsel and the local Orange objectors referred to, there 
was not a discordant note unfavorable to the parkways or to 
the action. Once the conference controversy became public, 
the conditions favorable to early and unanimous action by 
the City Council, as had obtained in January, were changed 
to those of uncertainty. The Newark papers elaborated on 
the points. “Abutting property to bear the cost of widening 
county roads;” “Orange residents up in arms against the 
scheme ;” “Little probability that the Orange Common 
Council will agree to transfer Park and Central avenues,” 
These were some of the heavy type captions of the articles 
giving an account of the Orange conference in the Newark 
papers of January 26, 1898. 
PARK INTERESTS ENDANGERED. 
Having an appreciation of these conditions, and not then 
being a member of the Park Board, I wrote the commission 
February 10, 1898: “The situation here is assuming such 
proportions in the undercurrents of public opinion that I 
feel it a duty I owe to the park enterprise, and to you as the 
present responsible representatives, to call your attention to 
the matter. The statements made by Counsel Munn to the 
Street Committee of the Common Council here at the con- 
ference on the eleventh ultimo, are likely to give rise to com- 
plications that may seriously endanger park interests ;” and 
“the vital difficulty is the vantage ground given the oppo- 
nents of the commission and of the park undertaking, from 
the alleged statements made by Mr. Munn at the conference. 
The presentment, coming as it did directly from him, as 
counsel to your board, is accepted by many as official and 
representing the majority of the commission, 
