TOY OFFICIALS 



263 



But the agitation had been productive of good. It had 

 stripped off the mask of more of those who had officially 

 or personally masqueraded as standing for what they al- 

 leged was for the public good. It had aroused the public 

 conscience. It formed the incubator, and later became the 

 mainspring of the movement for limited franchises — ^which 

 issue, each of the leading political parties have since ar- 

 dently and a^iduously claimed as their own. The irresist- 

 ible power of public opinion, growing out of the parkways' 

 discussion, had forced the corporations to abandon the 

 scheme for appropriating also Park avenue. And while 

 the Park Commission remained in silent inactivity, as 

 though stricken with official paralysis, or put to sleep by 

 corporate hypnotism, or led by the pernicious imp of pro- 

 crastination, the causes that were to create an awakening 

 of the people were, by the parkways^ contest, well grounded, 

 and have since been rapidly extending. And if the apathy 

 of the good citizens of Essex County, and of the State — 

 the great lodestone of the present political and legislative 

 situation — can, through this or other agitations, be changed 

 to an active participation in public affairs, a repe- 

 tition of the perpetual franchise-acquiring evils and the 

 corrupting, boss-ridden, and demoralizing conditions wit- 

 nessed in the eight years' contest over the parkways, will 

 be impossible, and ample reward will have been made for 

 all the time, money, and effort thus expended. 



PARK AVENUE SURRENDERED. 



The surrender of Park avenue by the trolley interests 

 was decided upon early in June, 1903. No sooner had the 

 decision to allow the county and local governing boards to 

 transfer that avenue for a parkway been made, than those in 

 authority, apparently most anxious to do the corporation's 

 bidding, with alacrity responded. Although, as before 

 stated, the special request of the Park Commission for Park 

 avenue alone, when that board '^recognized the need of at 

 least one parkway," after contending for nearly seven years 

 that two were necessary, was made June 19, 1902, that re- 



