TOY OFFICIALS 263 
But the agitation had been productive of good. It had 
stripped off the mask of more of those who had officially 
or personally masqueraded as standing for what they al- 
leged was for the public good. It had aroused the public 
conscience. It formed the incubator, and later became the 
mainspring of the movement for limited franchises—which 
issue, each of the leading political parties have since ar- 
dently and assiduously claimed as their own. The irresist- 
ible power of public opinion, growing out of the parkways’ 
discussion, had forced the corporations to abandon the 
scheme for appropriating also Park avenue. And while 
the Park Commission remained in silent inactivity, as 
though stricken with official paralysis, or put to sleep by 
corporate hypnotism, or led by the pernicious imp of pro- 
crastination, the causes that were to create an awakening 
of the people were, by the parkways’ contest, well grounded, 
and have since been rapidly extending. And if the apathy 
of the good citizens of Essex County, and of the State— 
the great lodestone of the present political and legislative 
situation—can, through this or other agitations, be changed 
to an active participation in public affairs, a repe- 
tition of the perpetual franchise-acquiring evils and the 
corrupting, boss-ridden, and demoralizing conditions wit- 
nessed in the eight years’ contest over the parkways, will 
be impossible, and ample reward will have been made for 
all the time, money, and effort thus expended. 
PARK AVENUE SURRENDERED. 
The surrender of Park avenue by the trolley interests 
was decided upon early in June, 1903. No sooner had the 
decision to allow the county and local governing boards to 
transfer that avenue for a parkway been made, than those in 
authority, apparently most anxious to do the corporation’s 
bidding, with alacrity responded. Although, as before 
stated, the special request of the Park Commission for Park 
avenue alone, when that board “recognized the need of at 
least one parkway,” after contending for nearly seven years 
that two were necessary, was made June 19, 1902, that re- 
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