The First County Park System in America—VI 
were^ found to be those obtained for the Rapid 
Transit Company several years before; and, owing 
to the favorable sentiment for the parkways, new 
consents were unobtainable—owners of two-thirds 
of the feet frontage, and of three-fourths of the 
propert) value on the avenue, having petitioned 
for the parkway. 
1 he morning after one of the public meetings. 
Counsel J. B. Dill stated that “a resolution would 
be passed by the Park Board granting the trolley 
people, whom he represented, a franchise for 
Central Avenue, as soon as the avenue came in 
possession of that board.” 
Not long afterward Rev. H. P. Fleming, of St. 
John’s parish. Orange, informed me that a well- 
known lawyer, living in East Orange, had come 
to talk with him about the parkways, and had 
said, during the conversation, that, should the 
Park Commissioners be given control of Central 
and Park Avenues, they would “have gates put 
up so as to keep the poor people out,” when they 
thought it advisable or desired to do so. 
These specious and misleading statements were 
quite in keeping with methods which were rapidly 
arousing an adverse public sentiment. New con¬ 
sents were finally secured and filed by the traction 
company, February 7, 1897. 
But, as the town was awakened, the franchise¬ 
acquiring forces were also active, and the trolley 
ordinance made steady progress. At the regular 
January meeting of the Township Committee in 
1897, with David Young and Counsel Dill represent¬ 
ing the traction company, various amendments 
to the ordinance were agreed to. As the popular 
tide for the parkways was rapidly rising, Mr. Dill 
stated to the committee that “the company was 
willing to agree that the avenue should be con¬ 
sidered first as a parkway, and secondly as a trolley 
route, and, in the event of the avenue’s being widened 
the traction company to be considered as a tenant, 
to pay one-third the cost, and one-third the cost 
of any other necessary improvements.” 
The Power of Public Op inion. The leverage 
which, in this country and under our form of govern¬ 
ment, will invariably call to an accounting and 
reverse tbe action of any legislative body—the power 
of public opinion—was now being actively focal¬ 
ized. At the very time the traction company’s 
counsel and the members of the Township Com¬ 
mittee were “fixing up” the trolley ordinance so 
as to make it satisfactory to all parties, a call was 
being sent out for a mass-meeting in Commonwealth 
Hall for the evening of February 7. That call 
was signed by more than one hundred and twenty 
of the most representative citizens of East Orange, 
regardless of party or other local affiliations. The 
object of the meeting, the call stated, was to secure 
“intimate co-operation with the Essex County 
Park Commission, to the end that Park and Central 
Avenues be placed in their charge as parkways, 
and the construction of the projected north and 
south boulevard be insured.” Henry H. Hall 
acted as chairman, with a list of thirty or more 
vice-presidents. 
Enthusiastic Mass-Meeting. "1 he hall was filled. 
Enthusiasm prevailed. The effect of the meeting 
was instantaneous. The members of the Town¬ 
ship Committee who had so readily declined the 
Park Commission’s application, but three or four 
weeks before, and were seemingly so willing to pass 
the traction company’s ordinance for one of the 
avenues, soon saw new light. The proceedings 
of the meeting, with quotations from the Park Com¬ 
mission’s reports, and the official map showing the 
avenue parkways for connecting the mountain and 
Newark parks, was printed in pamphlet form and 
generally distributed. 
The Stanley letter, so-called, was received by the 
commission December 24, 1896. It was a long 
official letter from Edward O. Stanley, then chairman 
of the Committee on Parks of the East Orange Town¬ 
ship Committee. The letter asked many questions, 
but bore the imprint of sincerity and desire on the 
part of the writer, to have brushed aside the cobwebs 
of misapprehension which then existed in the minds 
of the committee and throughout East Orange as the 
outgrowth of the seeds of prejudice poison that had 
been scattered by the traction company’s represen¬ 
tatives there against the parkways and the Park Com¬ 
mission, since the latter had openly favored the ave¬ 
nues for another purpose than their surrender for 
private uses. 
The committee wished to know how the commis¬ 
sion proposed to improve the avenues; whether, 
should the transfer be made, a trolley line should be 
run there; whether openings could be made by the 
township authorities for repairing gas mains, water 
pipes, etc., and made the request for a section plan of 
the avenues as they would appear when beautified 
and completed by the commission. 
289 
