28 
PARK AND CEME-TE^RY 
been promised to the people, in its system of public 
parks, that made him an objectionable member of the 
board, and which resulted in his failure to be reap- 
pointed for the third time, and Mr. George W. Bram- 
hall was selected in his place. 
Growing out of the conditions existing at the time 
of Mr. Kelsey’s retirement from the hoard arose this 
question ; “Whether the plan of parkways for con- 
necting the larger parks as then established, into a 
park system, and as repeatedly promised the people, 
should or should not he carried out. 
As expressed in Mr. Kelsey’s hook, volumes might 
be written on this subject. There were so many in- 
terests to bring into harmony to secure these valuable 
park adjuncts, and which was the aim in creating a 
THE STREAM THAT FEEDS HEMLOCK FALLS, 
ESSEX COUNTY, N. J. 
complete county park system ; and, moreover, there 
were so many powerful interests to overcome in order 
to obtain them under such conditions as would leave 
the people’s rights inviolate. Whenever the question 
reached a phase dangerous to the graft of the inter- 
ested commissioners, with the aid of a majority the 
commission was silent. 
When matters got into such shape as permitted an 
intelligible representation of the situation to be given 
to a public mass meeting, the park project in its true 
aspect was unanimously indorsed, and the traction 
forces as strongly condemned. But still the value of 
the franchises on parkways leading to and connecting 
such a comprehensive system of parks, and subject to 
such large centers 6f population, were too valuable to 
forego without a keen fight, and the use of all the 
so effective in many of the larger American corpora- 
tion exploits. 
The first part of this fight resulted in the Township 
committee on March 15, 1897, passing an ordinance 
transferring both Park and Central Avenues in East 
Orange to the Park Commission for parkways, and by 
the same vote at the same meeting, killing the trolley 
ordinance for Central Avenue. 
But the “interests” still kept at work and taking 
advantage of an honest desire on the part of many 
people in Orange to obtain better transportation serv- 
ice, sought a franchise for a trolley line on Central 
Avenue from the Orange City Council, while a deci- 
sion on transferring the avenue to the park commis- 
sion had been postponed. County press and public 
immediately took up the matter and assailed the coun- 
cil ; then came legal discussions and technical quibbles, 
propositions and counter propositions ; the park com- 
mission was accused of apathy, its counsel in being 
friendly to the trolley company, with much truth in 
the assumptions, and finally when the transfer ordi- 
nance was passed by the council the mayor vetoed it, 
and the veto was sustained on November 21, 1895, 
and this in spite of the fact that nine-tenths of the 
people favored it. The corrupting forces were again 
triumphant. 
The following opening extract of Chapter 14 is ex- 
jfianatory : “East Orange having completed the park- 
ways transfer, the Park Commission having formally 
accepted both avenues there, and the City of Orange 
having twice failed to complete the transfer ordinance, 
the parkway situation, early in 1899, flight be com- 
pared to a well-equipped, safely-ballasted, strong coach 
with a balking team. Every facility was at hand for 
the commission to mount the driver’s seat of that 
coach, to quietly and firmly take the reins, and without 
resort to force, not even to the last, to guide the load 
of obligations and pledges, which the board had al- 
ready made to the public regarding the avenue park- 
ways, to a safe and successful destination.” 
Everything was in the Board’s favor, but the canker 
within its membership led to an inactive when not an 
evasive course, and at the critical juncture of parkway 
affairs, it continued to sit in executive session month 
after month for several years, taking no initial action, 
while the traction company left no stone unturned to 
secure its object. It was manifest that the inactivity 
of the Board was influenced hy corporation activity. 
The Board of Freeholders would not complete the 
East Orange transfer of the desired avenues, on the 
plea that “there was nothing to show that the park 
commissioners were not willing for a trolley line to 
be constructed, should they take the avenue for a 
parkway.” 
r 
4 
1 
(To Be Concluded.) 
