244 FIRST COUNTY PARK SYSTEM 
original plan if the avenues and the money were put in their 
hands to doit. * * * JI think that I have already done 
all that I can do to urge this result.” A. P. Boller said that 
“future generations will call us blessed if we do our duty” 
in respect to the parkways. Archer Brown, Hugh Lamb, 
W. H. Baker and W. E. Kastendike all spoke in a similar 
vein. David Young, of the traction company, was present, 
but said little. It was perfectly evident that there was no 
need for him to urge favorable action for the company. 
I had been requested as chairman of the Joint Committee 
to speak for that organization. There was immediate ob- 
jection by Freeholder Wallace Ougheltree—“because he 
lives in Orange.” Just why a resident of the second city of 
the county should be debarred from the “hearing” did not 
appear. The real reason soon became manifest. Reference 
was then made in my remarks to the fact that “the original 
request of the Park Commission, of November, 1896, for 
the avenues was still before the board unacted upon;” to 
the fact that “the parallelogram of the park system with the 
two avenues for the sides, and Branch Brook Park as the 
Newark terminus, and the mountain parks the other, with a 
railroad on Central avenue, would be forever destroyed ;” 
and to the financial reasons, the munificent prospective pro- 
fits, that impelled the corporations to insist on the franchise 
at the expense of the parkways. The favorable results of 
the development of park systems in other urban communi- 
ties were also explained. 
It was a receptive board on that 12th of June, 1902. All 
the members apparently listened to what was said. And 
then they did just what it was apparently understood they 
would do before they came there—passed the railroad fran- 
chise precisely as it was wanted by the traction company. 
Before the vote was taken, a letter was read from the law 
firm of Lindabury, Depue & Faulks, stating that “two writs 
of certiorari had been taken out in the Supreme Court, one 
of them acting as a stay to prevent the carrying on of the 
work until the action of the East Orange Council had been 
reviewed,” But what were court proceedings or court stays? 
