262 



FIRST COUXTY PARK SYSTEM 



1903. The eleven necessary votes were pledged. On roll call 

 Councilman F. C. Read, who had each time voted for the 

 ordinance on its passage, and had agreed to again vote for 

 it, voted no. Two of his colleagues, Conncilmen Frank 

 Conghtry and E. S. Perr}^ stated that he had repledged 

 each of them again after the council meeting was in session 

 that same evening, to vote aye. Alderman Ira Williams, 

 who had also previously voted for the ordinance, and had 

 promised to vote for it on final passage, as suddenly 

 "flopped,'^ and voted with the minority of six to support 

 the Mayor. No public reasons were ever given why those 

 two votes were so suddenly changed. This action broke 

 the requisite two-thirds line by one vote, and killed the 

 parkway ordinance. 



Ui^FAVOEABLE TO THE PARK COMMISSIOI^. 



Thus, for the fourth time, the evil influences of cor- 

 porate aggrandizement, following the courses and methods 

 that morally irresponsible corporations know so well how, 

 in legislative bodies, to use to best accomplish their pur- 

 poses had prevailed, and again was the revolving wheel of 

 parkway progress clogged. Both the Park Commission and 

 the corporation representatives were publicly and privately 

 severely criticized. The former was openly charged with 

 ^T.ialf-hearted^^ action, "and the impression has gained 

 ground that the commission repents of its early stand and 

 wishes to get rid of the problem lately grown out of the 

 parkway business. Can the commission tell why it is that 

 it does not want Central avenue now?'' On every side 

 were heard adverse comments over the traction company's 

 proceedings. There were the usual castigations, where, as 

 in many an American city, good citizenship finds, that, for 

 the time being, it is bound hand and foot by an insidious 

 lurking power, which robs the community of its birthright 

 and good name at the same time that it sequestrates and 

 appropriates to itself, as with perpetual utility franchises, 

 the property of the citizens unto the farthest generations 

 of those who shall come after. 



