308 FIRST COUNTY PARK SYSTEM 
“I believe the conviction is almost universally shared in 
by the public that it is not only the province, but quite 
within the limits of duty, for the counsel of a public board, 
to defend the charter creating it—not to attack or assail it, 
either as to what it contains or what it was clearly intended 
it should not contain. 
“If the alleged statements are correct, the counsel of the 
commission came before the official representatives of the 
second city of the county, and gave those gentlemen,to un- 
derstand confidentially—‘not for the reporters-—that if the 
copditions (against widening the avenues and of assess- 
ment for benefits) are left in the ordinance in entire accord 
with the acknowledged limitations of the charter, and like- 
wise in strict accord with what has repeatedly been an- 
nounced as the definite plan and purpose of the commission, 
that such restriction might be deemed as ‘against public 
policy and void,’ and perhaps hereafter a court asked to 
nullify a condition which it was never intended should be 
other than restrictive, in so far as it applied to existing 
avenues or streets that might be transferred under the 18th 
section of the present park law ;” that “this has placed the 
friends of the commission in all this portion of the county 
on the defensive, to explain, and, if not officially corrected, 
will be likely to unfavorably affect the additional park ap- 
propriation bill at the polls when the question is submitted 
to the electorate at the coming spring election.” 
Similar views were expressed personally and officially to 
the commissioners by others. On March 2, 1898, John D. 
Everett wrote Commissioner F. M. Shepard, and, after ex- 
pressing the doubts in his own mind, referred to the park- 
way situation in these words: “There were, and are, no 
doubts in the minds of the good people of Orange since the 
conference of the Street Committee of the Orange Common 
Council with Mr. Munn and some one else representing the 
Park Commission on January 11 last. 
“Tt is publicly reported and generally believed in Orange, 
by both Republicans and Democrats, that Mr. Munn stated 
to the Street Committee that the ordinance, which had 
