262 FIRST COUNTY PARK SYSTEM 
1903. The eleven necessary votes were pledged. On roll call 
Councilman F. C. Read, who had each time voted for the 
ordinance on its passage, and had agreed to again vote for 
it, voted no. Two of his colleagues, Councilmen Frank 
Coughtry and E. 8. Perry. stated that he had repledged 
each of them again after the council meeting was in session 
that same evening, to vote aye. Alderman Ira Williams, 
who had also previously voted for the ordinance, and had 
promised to vote for it on final passage, as suddenly 
“flopped,” and voted with the minority of six to support 
the Mayor. No public reasons were ever given why those 
two votes were so suddenly changed. This action broke 
the requisite two-thirds line by one vote, and killed the 
parkway ordinance. 
UNFAVORABLE TO THE PARK COMMISSION. 
Thus, for the fourth time, the evil influences of cor- 
porate aggrandizement, following the courses and methods 
that morally irresponsible corporations know so well how, 
in legislative bodies, to use to best accomplish their pur- 
poses had prevailed, and again was the revolving wheel of 
parkway progress clogged. Both the Park Commission and 
the corporation representatives were publicly and privately 
severely criticized. The former was openly charged with 
“half-hearted” action, “and the impression has gained 
ground that the commission repents of its early stand and 
wishes to get rid of the problem lately grown out of the 
parkway business. Can the commission tell why it is that 
it does not want Central avenue now?” On every side 
were heard adverse comments over the traction company’s 
proceedings. There were the usual castigations, where, as 
in many an American city, good citizenship finds, that, for 
the time being, it is bound hand and foot by an insidious 
lurking power, which robs the community of its birthright 
and good name at the same time that it sequestrates and 
appropriates to itself, as with perpetual utility franchises, 
the property of the citizens unto the farthest generations 
of those who shall come after. 
