A CHAXGE OF COMMISSIOXERS 



165 



or leave the service of the commission. The traction com- 

 panies np to that time had had quite smooth sailing in their 

 successful efforts to secure coveted francliises, and the more 

 valuable the public franchises were^ the more successful the 

 managers of the companies appeared to be in their efforts 

 to secure them. Any individual aggressively opposing this 

 "gift enterprise'' business was soon made to feel that his 

 future, politically or otherwise, would be far more agreeable, 

 or, perchance, successful, if he should not "stand in the 

 way"' of what the "organization" — or in other words, what 

 the corporations, then, as afterward, so closely allied with 

 the party bosses — wanted. A park commissioner who would 

 • insist that the people should have what had been promised 

 them, provided the execution of the promise interfered with 

 the corporation plans for a valuable public franchise — not- 

 ■nithstanding the promise may have been for a park system 

 that was being paid for from the tax budget — was not the 

 kind of man the corporations wanted. The pressure brought 

 to bear upon Judge Depue as the appointing power to leave 

 me off of the commission, was, now that the die for the 

 parkways had been cast and my outspoken position well 

 understood, materially increased. 



Commissioner Franklin Murph3^'s political craft had also 

 up to that time had smooth sailing, and if he could unify 

 the various elements in both the corporate and political 

 fields, there was a fair prospect of his reaching his ambition 

 in the climb for the Gubernatorial chair. Counsel Joseph 

 L. Munn was regarded as one of his active political workers 

 for furthering that object. 



Commissioner Frederick ^I. Shepard, as the principal 

 owner of a valuable water plant, which, with the assistance 

 of "Counsel" Munn, it might be during the next few 3^ears 

 desirable to sell at a good price to the municipalities of 

 East Orange and Bloomfield — (as was accomplished in 

 1903) — was in full sympathy with, and extremely friendly 

 to, these corporation influences and interests. 



There were, perhaps, not many men in Essex County who 

 then had a keener appreciation of these underlying condi- 



