CONTEST FOR PARKWAYS CONTINUED 207 



Common Council at the time, stated that it had been the 

 intention to pass the transfer ordinance on third and final 

 reading at the meeting, February 1, 1898. Public senti- 

 ment and the press were as unitedly in favor of that action 

 as had been the people in East Orange the year before. 

 Excepting for the objection raised by the commission's own 

 counsel and the local Orange objectors referred to, there 

 was not a discordant note unfavorable to the parkways or to 

 the action. Once the conference controversy became public, 

 the conditions favorable to early and unanimous action by 

 the City Council, as had obtained in J anuary, were changed 

 to those of uncertainty. The Newark papers elaborated on 

 the points. ^^Abutting property to bear the cost of widening 

 county roads;'' ^^Orange residents up in arms against the 

 scheme;" "Little probability that the Orange Common 

 Council will agree to transfer Park and Central avenues," 

 These were some of the heavy type captions of the articles 

 giving an account of the Orange conference in the Newark 

 papers of January 26, 1898. 



PARK INTERESTS ENDANGERED. 



Having an appreciation of these conditions, and not then 

 being a member of the Park Board, I wrote the commission 

 February 10, 1898 : "The situation here is assuming such 

 proportions in the undercurrents of public opinion that I 

 feel it a duty I owe to the park enterprise, and to you as the 

 present responsible representatives, to call your attention to 

 the matter. The statements made by Counsel Munn to the 

 Street Committee of the Common Council here at the con- 

 ference on the eleventh ultimo, are likely to give rise to com- 

 plications that may seriously endanger park interests f and 

 "the vital difficulty is the vantage ground given the oppo- 

 nents of the commission and of the park undertaking, from 

 the alleged statements made by Mr. Munn at the conference. 

 The presentment, coming as it did directly from him, as 

 counsel to your board, is accepted by many as official and 

 representing the majority of the commission. 



