A LEGISLATIVE TRAVESTY 267 
extending its lines on Central avenue. The bill was pigeon- 
holed. It was never heard of again. The Park Board’s 
secretary, Alonzo Church, afterward stated that he did not 
know of the hearing on the bill. His partner, J. L. Munn, 
was, however, present when the matter came up before the 
committee. 
The question as to whether the trolley extension should 
be on Central avenue or by another route, and thus save the 
parkway, was fully covered in the conferences and corre- 
spondence between the Public Service Corporation presi- 
dent and the joint committee, and extended over some 
months. The situation was also quite fully presented to 
Senator John F. Dryden in April, 1904. As one largely 
interested in the Public Service and allied corporations, 
and having advanced more than $300,000 for the organiza- 
tion and early financing of the North Jersey Street Rail- 
way Company, which company had at that time become, 
by exchange of its securities, one of the important con- 
stituent parts of the Public Service Corporation, and hav- 
ing become active also in political and public affairs, it 
was thought that Mr. Dryden’s counsel and advice might 
tend to prevent “the irreparable injury to this great county 
improvement which means so much in cost and future wel- 
fare to all the people of the county, should the past policy 
of the traction company be insisted upon by the present 
management.” The “responsibility and solution are alike 
simplified from the fact that your company can select an- 
other route that will conserve all public requirements and 
thus preserve the integrity of the park system, and thereby 
end this controversy and the consequent antagonisms that 
must continue to grow to larger proportions, now that the 
underlying conditions are becoming better understood.” 
Mr. Dryden declined to exercise his good offices in the 
direction indicated, advising that his “participation in the 
management of the company does not extend to matters 
of that kind.” The practical response, or the result of the 
correspondence with the Public Service Corporation, was, 
on March 14, 1904, a new application from the Consolidated 
