ISO 



FIEST COUXTY PAEK SYSTE:M 



The Park Commission had the law and public opinion in 

 its faTor. The traction company, grown greedy and arro- 

 gant from foiTiier franchise spoil, had the power of con- 

 centrated wealth, and the party machine, with the resource 

 and influence of a domineering party boss to do its bidding. 

 For years the corporate interest, then demanding the sacri- 

 fice of the parkway for the coveted franchise, had had fnll 

 sway. The old Essex Connty Eoad Board, before it was 

 abolished years previous by a reform Eepublican Legisla- 

 ture, was their willing tool. The succeeding Board of Free- 

 holders, in control of the county roads, although riding 

 into power on the popular wave which in 1893 and 1891 

 engulfed the race-track, coal-combine, corporation-ridden 

 State-and-Count}^-Democracy was equally subservient. 

 From those unsavory legislative days of 1890, '92 

 and ^93, the street railway companies had readily 

 passed their own bills, both at Trenton and in 

 Essex County, as they desired, and in their own 

 way. The law permitting a traction company to prac- 

 tically pre-empt a street or avenue by merely filing a map 

 and certificate of intention with the Secretary of State, and 

 the payment of a small fee, had, prior to 1896, been availed 

 of, and both Park and Central avenues were "on the map'"' 

 of the traction company's routes as prescribed. 



The Storrs bill of 1894 was intended to curb this hydra- 

 headed giant of financial and political power by requiring 

 the filing of consents of the owners of a majority of the 

 street frontage before any road could be constructed under 

 this ■•pre-emption law,'' As introduced, the bill exempted 

 all non-taxable property from consideration in the matter 

 of these consents. But, under this clause, the Cemetery of 

 the Holy Sepulchre property, with its 966 feet of front- 

 age in East Orange, would have prevented the company 

 from procuring the necessary ^"consents'" for appropriating 

 Central avenue there, so the "reform'' Legislature followed 

 the example of its predecessors by amending the bill and 

 striking out the objectionable clause as the corporations 

 desired. 



