GOOD CITIZENSHIP HELPLESS SM 



ers, nothing was heard of it. While the contest between the 

 parkway forces and the trolle}^ syndicate was being actively 

 waged in 1898^ efforts were made by committees of various 

 civic associations to ascertain, if possible, why the free- 

 holders were non-responsive and why snch an important 

 request as that of the Park Board remained pigeonholed all 

 that time. 



A PUBLIC HEARING. 



Finally, on May 20, 1898, the Eoad Committee of the 

 freeholders gave a hearing on the commission's application. 

 The local committees were well represented. Mayor John 

 Gill, of Orange, and other well known officials and citizens, 

 were present. The reasons why the avennes shonld be nsed 

 as parkways were well presented. The petitions, signed by 

 nearly all the property owners on both of the avenues, favor- 

 ing the transfer, were read, as also the resolutions of various 

 civic bodies. The former official and unanimous proceed- 

 ings of the Orange and East Orange authorities, favorable 

 to action being taken, were noted. 



The opposing corporation agents now offered a new line 

 of obstructive tactics. The Park Commission would, by 

 inaugurating new regulations after transfer at once ^^re- 

 strict ordinary traffic.^' The parkways were at best a local 

 question, they said: "The freeholders elected by, and the 

 direct representatives of, the people, should not surrender 

 control of these great highways and thus prevent the free 

 use of them as originally intended." 



Although it was clearly shown that, under the transfer, 

 or eighteenth clause of the park law, the commission would 

 have no such right of restriction, and that the parkways, in 

 extending park treatment through the various municipali- 

 ties by directly connecting the larger parks of the whole 

 county, could no more be considered a local question than 

 could the park system itself, yet the freeholders adopted the 

 opposition views and nothing was done. On October 25 

 following (1898) another "hearing'' was given by the same 



