USA > New Jersey > Essex County > The first county park system : a complete history of the inception and development of the Essex County parks of New Jersey > Part 16
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The publication of this so-called report brought out a vigorous rejoinder of even greater length from Council- man Stetson, as published in the Call of January 30, 1898. In this reply, after reference to the erroneous "inference that the letter of Mr. Munn was perfectly lucid and clear in its replies to City Counsel Davis' letter of inquiries," Mr. Stetson contended that it "was not deemed so by a majority of the members of the Orange council"; that "it was not until the conference held on the eleventh instant that Mr. Munn gave information which might be deemed adequate"; that "Mr. Munn stated over and over again to the committee that the Park Commission had not the power to levy an assessment; but it did not follow from that that no assessment would be levied. The Park Com- mission can go to the courts and ask for the appointment of a commission to levy assessments. So you see the Park Commission really wouldn't levy assessments, but there is a way, all right, by which the assessments can, and doubt- less would, be collected. Mr. Munn admitted this frankly, and he did not say that the Park Commission would not take that course."
The letter then reiterates the position of objection as from one "who voted to refuse the request" of the com- mission for the transfer of the avenue; adding, "I have not as yet seen any good reason for changing the opinion then held," and proceeds to again score a point unfavor- able to an appointive commission.
Among the City Council members who at that time were
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actively in favor of the avenue's transfer, was the president, Edward H. Snyder. On January 15, 1898, three days after the conference referred to, Mr. Snyder came to my office in New York and confirmed what Councilman Stet- son afterward publicly stated, as above quoted. Mr. Snyder then made quite a full statement of what occurred on January 11, which was written out by my stenographer at the time. In that statement, now before me, is the fol- lowing :
"Colonel Snyder says that Mr. Munn stated in the con- ference at the outset, that the ordinance would not be satisfactory to the Park Commission and that, if it was passed in its present form and thus accepted by the com- mission, he should advise going into court to have the restriction relative to levying assessments nullified. Stated further that assessments could not be levied unless the avenue was widened. Looking toward Mr. Stetson, he remarked that 'you want the trolley on Central avenue,' adding that if the avenues were transferred and not wid- ened there ould be no trolley on Central avenue; but if they were widened, assessments could be levied and ar- rangements made for the trolley. Further stated that there was no hurry about the transfer ; that the commission could not improve the avenues at present, and stated that the ordinance had better remain as it was for two or three months.
"Colonel Snyder says that he was greatly surprised at Munn's statements, and that after the conference Mr. Stet- son said to him (Colonel Snyder) that he did not know what to make of what Munn had said.
"Colonel Snyder also said that he did not know how much I knew about what was going on, but that he was satisfied, and almost knew, that some scheme was going on with the Park Commission to get the trolley on Central avenue.
"He also stated that, at the close of the conference, Mr. Stetson asked him to repeat to Mayor Gill what took place at the conference, which he did, quoting the same state-
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ments as he has to me, and said that the Mayor thereupon appeared greatly surprised at Munn's position.
"Munn inquired how the question as to the avenues came to be brought up at this time-no one could answer."
STATEMENT CONFIRMED.
In attending the City Council meeting two days later, January 17, 1898, I asked Mr. Stetson regarding this con- ference, and told him the substance of Colonel Snyder's statement to me. He replied that the statement was cor- rect ; that Munn said "that, if the avenues were widened, the trolley could be arranged for, and we were given to understand that the commission favored a trolley on Cen- tral avenue," and that he (Stetson) thought "the com- mission wanted the avenue for the franchise." This con- versation was brief, but Colonel Snyder had gone over the subject fully. His bearing was unassuming and carnest ; his manner and conversation straightforward, and evi- dently sincere. The statements troubled me, and I knew meant trouble for the Park Commission; and the more from what had gone before.
After the contest over the parkways had begun in East Orange, in November, 1896, and during the early part of 1897, as described in the preceding chapter, a number of friends in East Orange, some of them neighbors of Coun- sel Munn, had come to me, or in conversation regarding the parkways had warned me to "look out for Munn," stating that they believed, regardless of whatever he might say or do before the Park Commission, that he secretly favored, and would work for, the trolley company "every chance he could get." My answer to these charges was in each in- stance in substance the same, viz. : "While thus far Munn's conduct as counsel had 'not been satisfactory,' I had not yet discovered any evidence that he was not carrying out the instructions of the commission regarding the park- ways."
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A CANCELLED CONSENT.
"Do you expect to catch a weasel asleep?" replied one who had spoken to me on the subject. "Do you think the counsel would go around with a brass band, and a traction placard on his back, if he were really doing this business ?" said another. I admitted that no such expectations could be reasonably entertained; but these were not, under the circumstances, pleasant reflections. I was aware of Coun- sel Munn's action in revoking his former consent to the traction company, during the height of the excitement in East Orange, in January, 1897. His letter, canceling the consent for a railroad he had previously given for more than three hundred feet frontage on Central avenue, was an autograph letter as follows :
"To the Township Committee, Township of East Orange :
"If there is any attempt to use the consent given by me several years ago to the application on behalf of the Rapid Transit Company for a franchise for its street rail- way on Central avenue-as a consent to a new application or to any application for such purpose at this time by any organization, I hereby give notice of my protest against such use.
"And I hereby withdraw, revoke and annul any and all consents heretofore given by me, or by Mary P. Munn, whose sole heir at law I am, for the location or building of any street railway on Central avenue in East Orange. "JOSEPH L. MUNN.
"January 9, 1897."
This revocation was, however, a year prior to the con- ference with the Street Committee in Orange, and to the "inspired prophecy" just quoted, and of the current rumors of Counsel Munn's real purpose in January, 1898. While my term as commissioner had expired in April, 1897, I had known much of what was going on in the Park Board rooms, and was forced to the conviction that the state-
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ments and the constantly recurring reports and insinua- tions against the counsel demanded attention. That the traction people were much encouraged by the "Orange conference" was indicated by the formal ap- plication directly afterward, on January 19, 1898, of the Consolidated Traction Company to the Board of Freehold- ers for a franchise and permission to locate tracks on Park avenue and on Central avenue through Orange and East Orange, and by a statement from Manager David Young before the Ampere Improvement Association of Newark on February 10 following.
A NEW APPLICATION.
After then explaining how "we came here, trying to get Central avenue, but the people kicked us out, and wouldn't have anything to do with us, but we are coming again some of these days," Mr. Young made this prognosticating state- ment: "The way in which residents in this beautiful town- ship are to reach their homes is to have the trolley on the avenues, Park and Central, and then get off at the cross streets and go to their homes. You cannot have a park- way on a one hundred-foot roadway. It is out of all reason, never has been done, and never will be."
When it is remembered that it was on March 15, 1897, less than eleven months previous, that the East Orange authorities had, in response to the emphatic mandate of public opinion, and without a dissenting vote, passed the parkway ordinance and rejected the Consolidated Traction Company's application, and that these statements were made within thirty days after the parkways conference in Orange, and the new application for the avenues above men- tioned, the coincidence was indeed significant.
Whatever may have been the intention of the Park Board's counsel and the opposition to the parkways, or, perhaps, more correctly speaking, the forces working for the trolley interests, the practical result of befuddling the whole question, was, apparently to those favoring that course, most gratifying. Some of the members of the Orange
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Common Council at the time, stated that it had been the intention to pass the transfer ordinance on third and final reading at the meeting, February 7, 1898. Public senti- ment and the press were as unitedly in favor of that action as had been the people in East Orange the year before. Excepting for the objection raised by the commission's own counsel and the local Orange objectors referred to, there was not a discordant note unfavorable to the parkways or to the action. Once the conference controversy became public, the conditions favorable to early and unanimous action by the City Council, as had obtained in January, were changed to those of uncertainty. The Newark papers elaborated on the points. "Abutting property to bear the cost of widening county roads ;" "Orange residents up in arms against the scheme ;" "Little probability that the Orange Common Council will agree to transfer Park and Central avenues," These were some of the heavy type captions of the articles giving an account of the Orange conference in the Newark papers of January 26, 1898.
PARK INTERESTS ENDANGERED.
Having an appreciation of these conditions, and not then being a member of the Park Board, I wrote the commission February 10, 1898: "The situation here is assuming such proportions in the undercurrents of public opinion that I feel it a duty I owe to the park enterprise, and to you as the present responsible representatives, to call your attention to the matter. The statements made by Counsel Munn to the Street Committee of the Common Council here at the con- ference on the eleventh ultimo, are likely to give rise to com- plications that may seriously endanger park interests ;" and "the vital difficulty is the vantage ground given the oppo- nents of the commission and of the park undertaking, from the alleged statements made by Mr. Munn at the conference. The presentment, coming as it did directly from him, as counsel to your board, is accepted by many as official and representing the majority of the commission.
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"I believe the conviction is almost universally shared in by the public that it is not only the province, but quite within the limits of duty, for the counsel of a public board, to defend the charter creating it-not to attack or assail it, either as to what it contains or what it was clearly intended it should not contain.
"If the alleged statements are correct, the counsel of the commission came before the official representatives of the second city of the county, and gave those gentlemen, to un- derstand confidentially-'not for the reporters'-that if the conditions (against widening the avenues and of assess- ment for benefits) are left in the ordinance in entire accord with the acknowledged limitations of the charter, and like- wise in strict accord with what has repeatedly been an- nounced as the definite plan and purpose of the commission, that such restriction might be deemed as 'against public policy and void,' and perhaps hereafter a court asked to nullify a condition which it was never intended should be other than restrictive, in so far as it applied to existing avenues or streets that might be transferred under the 18th section of the present park law ;" that "this has placed the friends of the commission in all this portion of the county on the defensive, to explain, and, if not officially corrected, will be likely to unfavorably affect the additional park ap- propriation bill at the polls when the question is submitted to the electorate at the coming spring election."
Similar views were expressed personally and officially to the commissioners by others. On March 2, 1898, John D. Everett wrote Commissioner F. M. Shepard, and, after ex- pressing the doubts in his own mind, referred to the park- way situation in these words: "There were, and are, no doubts in the minds of the good people of Orange since the conference of the Street Committee of the Orange Common Council with Mr. Munn and some one else representing the Park Commission on January 11 last.
"It is publicly reported and generally believed in Orange, by both Republicans and Democrats, that Mr. Munn stated to the Street Committee that the ordinance, which had
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passed one reading, was unsatisfactory to the Park Commis- sion, and that if passed and accepted in its present form, he would advise the commission to go into court to have certain restrictions relative to assessment and widening nullified as contrary to public policy. That he turned to Mr. Stetson and said: 'You want a trolley on Central ave- nue, well, there can't be a trolley there without widening the avenue, and we cannot widen the avenue without an
Although under the resolution of the Park Commission of assessment.' "
November 12, 1896, requesting the transfer of the avenues, for parkways, it was specifically made the duty of "the counsel to obtain, if possible," such transfer from the free- holders and local governing bodies, no action on these and similar communications was taken by the commission. In- quiries and appeals were being continuously sent to ascer- tain just what the attitude of that board would be in view of the conflicting statements then current. Finally, at the Park Board meeting of March 4, 1898, a letter was received from Colonel E. H. Snyder, as president of the Orange City Council, asking the direct question as to the intention of the commission regarding the avenues. The following reply and authorized statement was the same day made public :
PARK COMMISSION'S REPLY.
"The Park Commission does not intend to widen Park or Central avenue in the city of Orange, and is advised that the transfer of the care, custody, and control of those ave- nues does not confer upon the commission the power to widen them. It follows, therefore, that the Park Commis- sion cannot make assessment on abutting property."
To many of the active supporters of the park movement and those having confidence in the commissioners rather than in the confusing and contradictory statements to the contrary accredited their own counsel, this concise promise of intention was accepted as made in good faith and ap- peared to settle the question on the points indicated. To
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the opposition and all those under corporation influences favoring a railroad on one or both of the avenues, the state- ment had just the reverse effect. The experience in East Orange the year before was in many respects repeated. The method of Manager David Young and the tactics of Coun- sel James B. Dill there, in sowing the seed of doubt and suspicion as to the commission's intention, were again ac- tively though quietly promulgated. The contention that Central avenue at least "would never be made a parkway" was continuously and with increasing aggressiveness re- peated, notwithstanding the promises held out in the second annual report of the commission for 1897, issued early in 1898, and as quoted in Chapter IX. This report confirmed the official map made public early in 1897, indi- cating both avenues as parkways, by the statement that "a system of parkways has been determined upon which forms the final feature of park development." This was also ac- ceptable to many as conclusive that the commission could be relied upon to defend its own plans, especially as in this same report, in asking for another appropriation of $1,500,- 000, this statement (page 18 of the report) was made : "But for the more perfect development of the parks, for the ac- quirement of some further lands to improve the outlines of these parks, and especially for the expense of parkways, the need of which becomes more obvious as the system is de- veloped and appreciated, the commission estimates that a further sum of $1,500,000 is needed. And this sum is, in the estimation of the commission, all that ought to be ex- pended for acquirement and development of the system as laid out and designated."
1
NEW APPROPRIATION FAVORED.
These implied promises, following those theretofore made regarding the parkways, were considered a definite pledge of the commission, and the bill authorizing the additional ap- propriation having been passed by the Legislature and approved February 21, 1898, was favorably voted on by the
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electorate of the county at the spring election, April 21 following.
The same report, of 1897, in referring to the parkways (page 15), also contained a clause which was at once con- strued by many as a sop to the traction interests. It was thus treated by the opposition as another evidence that the Park Commission was not, after all, averse to a "trolley on the avenue," when it officially there stated: "The location of the county parks will induce, no doubt, the rapid transit company to seek ways of approach thereto, and the commis- sion will aid this endeavor so far as, in its judgment, is con- sistent with park treatment and use. Parks must be made accessible to the people, and any reasonable plan for rapid transit will be favored by the commission. In fact, almost all the parks are now accessible and by different routes."
This feature of the commission's report in inserting a "but," an "and" or an "if," became a marked characteristic of its later utterances on the parkway question; and, in- deed, to an extent that was as bewildering to its most loyal friends and supporters as it was encouraging to the opposi- tion, which was steadily and unceasingly making the most of every opportunity to take advantage, either of dissension or uncertainty, to advance the scheme of appropriation of the avenues for railroad uses. This was distinctly the effect in Orange. Councilman Stetson had, at the spring election - in 1898, been chosen Mayor. It was currently reported, and not to my knowledge ever denied, that the traction company made an exceedingly liberal contribution then, as afterward, to his "campaign expenses." His prestige as Mayor in op- posing the avenues' transfer was proportionately increased, for now he had the veto power, which, under the system of government in this country, whether with the President, the Governor of a State, or the Mayor of a city, is a powerful leverage.
The transfer ordinance continued to slumber in posses- sion of the Street Committee. The pleadings by press and public urging further action by the Park Commission con- tinued. On July 27, 1898, Mayor Stetson sent a special
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message to the City Council beginning: "At this time, when you have before you for consideration the ordinances in relation to the transfer of Park and Central avenues to the Essex County Park . Commission, I would respectfully call your attention to the following :
"Now that the courts have decided legal the proposed issue of park bonds by the Park Commission, and the same are about to be sold, and the work suspended by the com- mission on account of the lack of funds will no doubt be pushed, it would seem to be an opportune time to direct the attention of the Park Commission to the desirability of the establishment of a park, centrally located, within the limits of the city of Orange. There are at the present time several desirable sites which could be purchased at moderate cost, upon which there are few, if any, buildings."
The appointment of a committee is then recommended "to confer with the Park Commission with this end in view," and the message closes with a commendation of the Street Committee "for the good work the street department is doing on the streets."
EFFECT OF THE MAYOR'S MESSAGE.
Excepting the opening paragraph quoted, not a word was mentioned regarding the real question then before the coun- cil-the disposition of the avenues transfer ordinance, which was then "put over." The Orange park was at that time well under improvement, and the Mayor knew, when he wrote that message, the difficulty and objection in the com- mission to locating even that favorable site for an Orange park. The practical effect of the message was to show the intention of the opposition to still further create discussion and issue over the main question. It had this effect on some of the members of the City Council. The document had, however, with the other influences referred to, the effect on the Park Commission of inducing that board to give out an- other statement. This was presented by Commissioner Bramhall at the meeting of the Orange Common Council July 8, 1898. There were also present Commissioners Shep-
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ard and Peck, and Counsel Munn of the park department. George Lethbridge, president of the council, presided.
The statement was conciliatory and explanatory, and be- gan: "If there are any differences between the boards in conference here to-night, I am sure they are due to a mis- understanding and not to cross purposes. Both are public bodies seeking public good, and the action we desire the council to take is, we think, decidedly for the welfare of the city, as much as for the welfare of the county. Indeed, our request seems so little for you to grant that we are sur- prised that the necessity for it should arise.'
Assurances were then given that the commission "does not desire you to lessen one particle the municipal control you now exercise" or "to abridge in the slightest the rights of the property holders. We merely wish to be substituted for the Board of Chosen Freeholders, because the Park Commission is the only county board that has authority to beautify these thoroughfares and raise them above the level of ordinary streets. We ask you simply the privilege of adorning the streets of your city at county expense, and therefore I say it is surprising that any reluctance on your part should exist."
Then the commission's previous official statement, as to the non-intention to widen the avenues or attempt to assess benefits, was reiterated. Answer was also made to the claims of the traction company's representatives that the transfer would give the commission the right to at once permit trol- leys on the avenues, in these words: "It has been asserted that we could turn over the parkways to the trolley. On the contrary, the consent of the council and of the property owners would be necessary as now, and our action is final only in matters relating entirely to decorative development."
An informal exchange of views followed. Commissioner Shepard said that "small parks were more in the nature of play-grounds than they were of parks, and that, as such, they came under the control of the municipalities and could not be included in a general scheme of the entire county."
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PARK BOARD'S CHARTER.
After Counsel Munn had given a somewhat confusing reply to the widening and assessment question, the transfer ordinance was taken up. The commission then peremptor- ily declined to accept the ordinance as it stood, particularly the section binding its successors never to apply "to any court or other power" for the right to levy assessments for the improvement of the avenues. This, notwithstanding the first section of the charter, in creating "such Board of Park Commissioners and their successors a body politic," then, as now, gives the commissioners ample authority to act for their successors, as, indeed, in most practical affairs, they had theretofore always done, and, from the necessities of the case, must continue to do, so long as the commission, under its present charter, exists. This right and prerogative has been, from the first transaction, unequivocally estab- lished, and is constantly exercised in the acquirement of land for parks and parkways; in the unquestioned right to make rules and regulations governing the parks, and in many other ways; and why the line should have been thus drawn on the advice of the board's counsel, on this particu- lar occasion, I must leave to the reader to determine; for, unless it was for the purpose of continuing to confuse and befog the transfer question, I have never been able to ac- count for it. The fair purport and clear logic of the state- ment of the commission's intention was, however, favorably received. To that extent it had an excellent effect.
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