A LEGISLATIVE TEAVESTY ^75 



traction company. It was expected that he would sign the 

 ordinance. It was currently reported that he had agreed 

 to do so weeks before its passage. His signature was soon 

 attached to that document. 



The goal of the traction company for Central avenue 

 in East Orange was now reached, save for the approval of 

 the franchise grant from the freeholders. The pro-corpora- 

 tion proclivities of a majority of that board were well 

 known. So well, indeed, was this condition understood, 

 that none of the civic organizations which had been deeply 

 interested in the parkway-trolley question deemed it worth 

 while to attend the August meeting, when the matter was 

 to come up before the freeholders for action. This under- 

 standing of the board's position grew out of its previous 

 adverse action at various meetings, as already described, in 

 acting on the parkways in the interest of the traction com- 

 pany ; and the indifference or contempt with which Director 

 Thomas McGowan and a majority of the board had treated 

 the citizens at the previous "hearing," as though present- 

 ments favoring the parkways and protesting against the en- 

 croachment of the corporations on the parkway reservations 

 were not worthy of the slightest consideration. 



TRACTION men's BOAST. 



The traction company's officials had also boasted of their 

 power over the county and local governing boards. When 

 the attention of one of the head officials of the Public Ser- 

 vice Corporation was called to the possibility of trouble 

 growing out of the agitation over the parkway-trolley con- 

 test in the Oranges, his reply, in referring to the franchise, 

 in language more forcible than polite, was : "We've already 

 got it; it's all set to music to go through." This view 

 was evidently shared by the corporation managers generally, 

 for early in August, 1904, before the application for Cen- 

 tral avenue in Orange had even been considered by the City 

 'Council, and before any action had been taken by the free- 

 ^nirlrrs th© East Orange ordinancej the Gompany dis« 



