68 FIRST COUNTY PAEK SYSTEM 



well known ; a man of public spirit ; a man of intelligence, 

 one who knows the deficiencies of the city of Newark as 

 compared with the improvements in other cities ; and, hav- 

 ing regard to his Judgment and to the interest he has taken 

 in this public park project, and the interest he uniformly 

 exhibits in all public aSairs, I have selected for that place 

 Franklin ilurphy. 



"Giving the subject the most anxious consideration — 

 more than I have given to any duty of this kind since I 

 have been called upon to perform public duties — I think the 

 commission that I have constituted will be as good as any 

 commission that I could possibly select." 



I have never doubted Judge Depue^s sincerity in dealing 

 as he did with the taxation-representation phase of the 

 question, or that it was made to appear to him as desirable 

 that the sectional or local representation principle should 

 then be injected into the enterprise — although tliis very 

 principle of sectionalism, as I have already indicated, occa- 

 sioned the wreckage of the park enter[3rise for Newark in 

 1867-72; was largely responsible for the failure to mater- 

 ialize of the commendable efforts of the committee of the 

 Newark Board of trade in the same direction in 1892 ; has 

 occasioned the failure of many public park enterprises all 

 over the country ; and was the very thing that the first com- 

 mission had made every efiort to prevent, and which, hav- 

 ing been prevented, was in reality one of the essential ele- 

 ments in the immediate indorsement of its plan by the pub- 

 lic and the Legislature. 



EEASONS FOE COUET's ACTIOIsr. 



Nor do I doubt that it had been forcibly represented to 

 the judge that the better plan would be to reverse the divi- 

 sional lines of representation from three from the county at 

 large, as he had endeavored to establish in selecting the first 

 commission, and give the majority in the board to Newark, 

 as the portion of the county paying the larger proportion of 

 the county tax. Nor do I believe there is the slightest reason 



