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PAST FAILURE AND FUTURE DANGERS OF UNLIMITED SUFFRAGE 1

THE OLDEST AND THE BEST AMERICAN TRADITIONS FAVOR A RESTRICTED SUFFRAGE 28

THE SUFFRAGE IS NOT A NATURAL RIGHT BUT A FUNCTION OF GOVERNMENT AND MAY THEREFORE PROPERLY BE RESTRICTED TO THOSE COMPETENT TO EXERCISE IT 40

THE STATE AS THE DEPUTY OF SOCIETY POSSESSES THE JUST POWER OF ORDAINING FRANCHISE QUALIFICATIONS 50

THE CAPACITY TO CREATE AND PRESERVE PRIVATE PROPERTY IS THE PROPER TEST AND PROOF OF QUALIFICATION FOR ACTIVE CITIZENSHIP IN AN ADVANCED DEMOCRACY 59

ORIGIN AND FIRST APPEARANCE OF MANHOOD SUFFRAGE AS PART OF THE FRENCH TERRORIST MACHINERY 78

IMPORTANT INFLUENCE OF FRENCH RED RADICALISM IN PROPAGATING THE MANHOOD SUFFRAGE DOCTRINE IN THE UNITED STATES 83

THE SAFEGUARD OF A PROPERTY QUALIFICATION FOR VOTERS WAS DISCARDED BY A GENERATION OF AMERICANS WHO DID NOT REALIZE ITS VALUE OR THE DANGERS ATTENDANT UPON UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE 88

FIRST EFFECTS AND SUBSEQUENT RESULTS OF MANHOOD SUFFRAGE; SPOILS SYSTEM; TRAFFIC IN VOTES; ORGANIZED CORRUPTION; THE BOSS; THE MACHINE; RULE OF POLITICAL OLIGARCHY 109

SHORT SKETCHES OF MANHOOD SUFFRAGE PROGENY; THE POLITICIAN AND THE BOSS; THEIR CREATIONS, THE RING AND THE MACHINE; AND THEIR BY-PRODUCT, THE LOBBY 135

THE EFFECT OF MANHOOD SUFFRAGE IS TO FASTEN ON THE COUNTRY AND MAKE PERMANENT THE RULE OF THE POLITICIANS 158

INJURIOUS EFFECT OF MANHOOD SUFFRAGE UPON AMERICAN LEGISLATIVE BODIES 174

MANHOOD SUFFRAGE AS APPLIED TO THE GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES HAS NOT ONLY BEEN A FAILURE BUT A DISASTER AND A SCANDAL 190

BRIEF REFERENCE TO MANY NOTED DISCLOSURES OF GOVERNMENTAL CORRUPTION MOSTLY IN STATE AND FEDERAL AFFAIRS SINCE THE INSTITUTION OF MANHOOD SUFFRAGE EN THE UNITED STATES 218

THE FOUR YEARS CIVIL WAR IN THE UNITED STATES IS DIRECTLY CHARGEABLE TO MANHOOD SUFFRAGE 244

FAILURE AND CONDEMNATION OF MANHOOD SUFFRAGE AFTER A TEN YEARS' EXPERIMENT IN THE SOUTHERN STATES 253

THE EFFECT OF MANHOOD SUFFRAGE IS TO ENSURE INEFFICIENCY IN DOMESTIC LEGISLATION AND ADMINISTRATION 267

WEAKNESS AND INEFFICIENCY OF OUR MANHOOD SUFFRAGE GOVERNMENT IN ITS FOREIGN RELATIONS 293

ROTATION IN OFFICE; A MISCHIEVOUS BY-PRODUCT OF THE MANHOOD SUFFRAGE DOCTRINE AND ANOTHER FACTOR IN POPULAR MISGOVERNMENT AND HEREIN OF CIRCUMLOCUTION OFFICE REFORM 305

THE EFFECT OF THE OPERATION OF MANHOOD SUFFRAGE HAS BEEN TO GIVE A LOWER TONE TO AMERICAN PUBLIC LIFE 315

GENERAL PRIVATE AND PUBLIC CONDEMNATION BY THE INTELLIGENT CLASSES OF MANHOOD SUFFRAGE POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT IN THE UNITED STATES; AND HEREIN OF WATCH DOGS AND YELLOW DOGS 320

THE ELECTORATE FUNCTIONS NOT BY ITS INDIVIDUALS BUT BY GROUPS WHEREBY THE ENFRANCHISEMENT OF THE SHIFTLESS AND IGNORANT GROUP NECESSARILY TENDS TO CREATE A VICIOUS POWER IN POLITICS 334

ANSWER TO THE PLEA THAT THE BALLOT SHOULD BE GRANTED TO THE UNPROPERTIED CLASSES AS A PROTECTIVE WEAPON 341

ANSWER TO THE PLEA THAT THE PRIVILEGE OF SUFFRAGE BE GRANTED TO ALL AS A MEANS OF POLITICAL EDUCATION; AND HEREIN OF SILK PURSES MADE FROM SOW'S EARS AND OF AMATEUR HARPING 347

ANSWER TO SUGGESTION THAT UNLIMITED SUFFRAGE IS A PART OF AMERICAN LIBERTY 354

AN UNQUALIFIED NUMERICAL MAJORITY RULE IS NOT IN ACCORD WITH GOOD STATESMANSHIP 367

OF EDUCATIONAL AND AGE SUFFRAGE QUALIFICATIONS FOR VOTERS 373

WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN THEORY 378

WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN PRACTICE 408

A PROPERLY QUALIFIED ELECTORATE WILL REMOVE THE CAUSES OF THE PRESENT POPULAR DISSATISFACTION AND SERVE AS A DEFENSE AGAINST THE PRESENT MENACE OF BOLSHEVISM 421

THE CASE IS URGENT; THERE SHOULD BE NO DELAY WHATEVER IN ESTABLISHING THIS GOVERNMENT UPON A PROPERTY BASIS 434

CONCLUSION 439

BRIEF SKETCH OF WRITERS REFERRED TO 449

POPULAR MISGOVERNMENT IN THE UNITED STATES

PAST FAILURE AND FUTURE DANGERS OF UNLIMITED SUFFRAGE

Great numbers of discerning Americans must by this time have been brought to realize that something practical must shortly be done in this country by the believers in private property and private property rights to safeguard the nation from its threatened invasion by Bolshevism, Socialism and other various forms of anti-individualism, or else we are in for a hard and possibly a bloody struggle to maintain the very fundamentals of our social and political systems. From time to time in this country as in every other there occur periods of extraordinary danger to the political structure. In the past we have had several such episodes, the most noted being that of the secession movement culminating in 1860 and 1861. The seriousness of the present menace of communism in its various forms is due not so much to the strength of the communist faction, considerable though it be, as to the weakness of our civic structure consequent upon the long continued and increasing general distrust and suspicion of our actual political agencies and the confirmed popular dissatisfaction with their operations. Meantime, nothing adequately effective either in the way of strengthening our institutions or of disarming opposition thereto is being done or has even been proposed. A lot of vigorous denunciation has been directed against native and foreign Bolshevism, all thoroughly deserved and not without effect on the public mind, but falling far short of positive acts of defense or protection. Bolshevism is in the field not merely as an abstract doctrine, to be answered with words, but as an active and aggressive force which must be met by measures of active resistance. Such measures to be effective must take the shape of the creation of practical means and methods of offense and defense. The case is not one which admits of trifling; the attack is fundamental, the danger is vital, and cannot be effectually met by superficial expedients.

Now there is happily one available measure of protection and defense against Bolshevism and all its assaults, one which is manifestly appropriate and will be absolutely efficacious. It is one which has long been highly desirable for other reasons hereinafter set forth, but which in view of the menace of radicalism is now imperatively demanded. It consists in such a reform of the electorate itself as will make it impassible and impervious to every influence subversive of our basic institutions. An electorate of male private property owners of twenty-five years of age and upwards would constitute an absolute barrier against all attacks on private property from any quarter; its establishment would summarily and forever terminate all hopes of Bolshevistic revolution in this country and ensure the American people freedom to enjoy the noble future which Providence has made possible to them.

The cause of private property rights is in the truest sense the American cause and that to which all other national causes political and social are subordinate. Those rights involve almost everything which is dear to the American heart. Even our governmental institutions are of secondary importance, they are the instruments merely; the means whereby we seek to obtain among other aids and aims the protection of private property, the absolute assurance to each American of the use and enjoyment of the fruits of his toil, of his self denial and of his foresight. This view is not novel in our politics. It was thoroughly familiar to our Eighteenth Century statesmen, it was part of the political faith of some of the most prominent among them, including a majority of the political leaders of the Revolutionary epoch. They endeavored to secure these ends and to ensure the future of the new nation by requiring wherever possible a property qualification for voters. Had this practise and its underlying principle been adhered to and had the government been continued on the basis on which the wise and prudent men of that time endeavored to establish it, it would at this moment represent a satisfactory approximation of a true and scientific democracy able to hold in safe derision its critics and enemies. But the principle of a properly qualified electorate, so vitally essential to an efficient democracy has been repudiated and abandoned; the practise of unlimited white suffrage has been general amongst us for about ninety years, and today there can be no doubt that there is a prospect of danger to our country, not because of lack of courage and loyalty in her sons, but because of the unhealthy organism of our body politic, whose modern basic principle, unlimited suffrage, ignores property rights, and looks to control by the representatives of the inefficient and the proletariat whenever they can secure a numerical majority at the polls, thus incidentally accomplishing what Bolshevism directly aims at.

And now that private property rights heretofore considered as unquestionable are openly attacked, we must prepare for their defense, for the defense of the family, of the American social system and the free individual life, all three of which depend on private property for their existence. The time has come when the institution of private property must be formally recognized and defended as fundamental to our existence as a nation, and such recognition requires and involves the allotment to that institution of a place and influence in our electoral system. Private property cannot safely rely for its defense upon officials who are dependent upon the votes of the non-property holding populace. There is no way of final avoidance of the issue, or even of long postponing it. This nation must either declare itself definitely as adhering to the principle of private property rights or it must expect disaster. And first, the cause of private property rights needs organization and self consciousness. Property holders cannot properly defend a cause which has never declared itself and which has neither standard nor leaders, while its enemies have both, and are not only proclaiming their convictions with courage, but have enacted them into living statutes wherever they have power. If the institution of private property is to endure in this country it must be formally recognized as representing a sacred cause, to be carefully committed into the hands of its friends; the electorate must be made over into a property qualified body, and all temptation to Bolshevism must be removed from the American politician. Let this be done, let the constitution of every State be amended so that our voting mass shall be virile and substantial, and freed from the element of effeminacy and inefficiency now so controlling; give the conservative good sense of the nation a rallying point, an official standard, an authoritative creed, and it will speedily make short work of the enemies of social order and of sound political institutions.

But there is a great deal more to be said in favor of a property qualification for voters than that it will be a wall against Bolshevism. It will act on our political internal system as a tonic and a purifier. It sometimes occurs in politics and statesmanship that two mischiefs are so bound together that they can be destroyed at one blow. Such was the case in 1861-1865, when the causes of the perpetuation of the Federal Union and the emancipation of the black race became by the logic of events so involved as to be practically united, and when by the triumph of the northern armies the mischiefs of chattel slavery and disunion politics were made to perish together. And in like manner we now find not only that unqualified or manhood suffrage is the chief source of our weakness in dealing with Bolshevism, but that it has been in the past and still is the principal cause of our political corruption and governmental inefficiency. And therefore it has come about that the cause of private property and property rights is so bound up with the cause of administrative purity and efficiency in our government that by the one measure of the establishment of a property qualification for voters the perils of the menace of Bolshevism and the mischiefs of political corruption and inefficiency may be dispatched together.

"There was at one period an enthusiastic belief that in the Constitution of the United States reflection and choice had at last superseded accident and force, and that a model of free government was now provided by which all countries and peoples might benefit. The effect upon governmental arrangements was once very marked, but complete examination of the documents shows that this influence soon spent itself, and a decided change of disposition took place. If, for instance, one shall attentively consider the constitutional documents of all the Americas, one will observe, that although in their early forms the Constitution of the United States was the model, this is no longer the case. The Constitution of the French republic now excels it in influence. The United States has lost its lead, despite the fact that never has our country bulked larger in the world than now. The present situation is indeed a striking confirmation of Hamilton's opinion that error in our republic becomes the general misfortune of mankind, for it is a fact well known to every student of politics that a belief that our system of government is a failure on the essential point of justice is now a potent influence on the side of social revolution throughout the world....

Needless to say that the writers referred to by Ford and others hereinafter referred to fully sustain his statements above quoted. Our government has not only been a failure on the essential point of justice as President Ford points out, but a still greater failure on the equally essential points of purity and efficiency. The democratic system in actual operation among us has been productive of corruption and mismanagement to such an extent as to cause and justify the almost universal verdict that popular misgovernment rather than popular government has been the outcome. Hence general dissatisfaction and unrest; hence the danger of revolutionary movements, with which we are openly threatened.

It is often said that governments reflect the character of the people. If that were so in this country, as our people are conceded to be one of the most intelligent in the world, we would have one of its best working governments; instead of which we have one of the most wasteful, corrupt and inefficient. Our inferiority in this respect has been universally recognized both in this country and abroad for the last fifty years or more; it is a common-place of conversation; and has caused numberless Americans to feel rage and indignation at home and to suffer shame and humiliation abroad. It has been the subject of innumerable books, pamphlets, sermons and lectures; it has inspired denunciation, satire and invective in pulpit, and on platform; the press has reeked with the disgusting details of the corruption, ignorance and incompetence of our office holders. Everywhere in the United States is to be found great popular dissatisfaction with the operations of our government, profound distrust of its methods and spirit, and conviction that there has been a failure to reach the standards and to realize the hopes of the Fathers of the Republic. This dissatisfaction and distrust, this conviction of failure is not confined to any class; it pervades all classes; it is widespread; it is to be heard freely expressed day by day and hour by hour alike in the business office and in the bar-room, in the private dwelling and on the street; by the mechanic, banker, tradesman, laborer and lawyer. In short it is a matter of common knowledge that for about eighty years past the United States and each of them has been in many important respects badly, corruptly and inefficiently governed. Read for instance this statement recently published by an able American student and writer, and say whether it does not indicate a state of things fruitful with danger to the Republic, in two principal ways; one, that of its decay by corruption, the other by furnishing material for scandal and propaganda to its enemies.

In a general way we may say then that manhood suffrage is everywhere in the United States the legally recognized method of choosing all our lawmakers and many of our administrative officials; that white manhood suffrage actually obtains in the Southern States; and that in the other States constituting about three fourths of the whole, every resident male citizen, native or naturalized, and in some of them residents not naturalized, may vote. In sixteen of the forty-eight States the suffrage has within recent years been extended to women. So that at present the basis of government in the United States is manhood or male suffrage in all the States with the addition in some of them of female suffrage; or in other words, ignoring the negro situation, we have manhood suffrage in thirty-two and universal suffrage in sixteen States. In all of these States elections are frequent, in most annual, in others biennial, in a few quadrennial.

The controlling political importance of these elections is evident when we consider that thereby are chosen all the members of both houses of the various State Legislatures, of both houses of Congress, the governors of the states and the President and Vice-President of the United States, that is to say the entire body of lawmakers of the country. Also in many of the States are thus selected the Judges of the Courts higher and lower, and numerous administrative state officials, such as State Attorneys, Auditors, State Engineers, Financial Officers, etc. Besides these there are elections of almost equal practical importance of minor or local officers, such as Sheriffs, County Attorneys and Supervisors, Mayors and Aldermen of Cities, and miscellaneous officials. Beyond all this, the electorate is required from time to time, and in some States at nearly every election, to pass upon constitutions, or amendments or provisions of constitutions, state and federal, referenda and propositions of various kinds involving sometimes vast expenditures. For none of these elections is any voting qualification practically required of the resident citizen, except that of color, and that only in the South.

It is interesting and curious to note how under our system of popular elections, government as legally constituted is merely a product of a process of aggregation of numbers. In practise, this numerical system is modified by the low despotism of Boss rule, but in theory it rests on an arithmetical count of heads, many of them cracked, others of various degrees of emptiness, without taking note of merit, capacity or fitness. And right here in order to fully realize the force and sweep of the numerical system of government we should remember that the effect of the vote of the electorate is not confined to the directly elective offices; it extends to the appointive offices as well; for the appointing power, whether President, Governor, Senate or Legislature being chosen by election, is under the necessity of selecting his or its appointees from those of its supporters who control the most votes. It is not therefore surprising that the politician whom the votes of the populace have made President or Governor sometimes appoints a knave or demagogue to public office. Such appointment, however offensive to some of us, may have been in strict accordance with our political system. Under that system the ultimate appeal is never to experience, ability, capacity or character, but always to numbers; and therefore the official indebted to the power of numbers for his own high office may possibly be quite justified in continuing the process, and in bestowing his appointments on the representative or controller of numbers, no matter what his quality or theirs. To use the language of practical politics "the man with a following is entitled to recognition" be he demagogue, rogue or humbug; and the President, Governor or Boss who fails to give it to him is false to the modern American principle of "numbers win"; in a word he is un-American; and is likely to suffer politically in consequence. In fact we may say generally that government in this country is authorized by numbers, rests on numbers, and is backed and sanctified by numbers and naught else; while our governing class count numbers, live by numbers and need respect nothing but numbers if of numbers they can obtain sufficient support. The President is selected and appointed as the result of a numerical reckoning; and so with all other officials and the men who choose the officials; the laws are made either by men chosen by the addition of figures, or more directly by a similar count of voters; nearly all of whom are absolutely ignorant of the merits and scope of the projected legislation and each of them lacking other qualification than that he exists and can be counted. The candidate with the largest total gets the office; the project approved by the greatest number becomes law.

Our government is not one of talent, nor cunning, nor of money, nor birth, nor military force, but of numeral computation; our rulers are not hereditary nor called to rule for their merits nor by the grace of God; they are counted in; it is a government by calculation, an arithmetical government. Our ruling classes are not aristocrats, nor militarists, nor statesmen, nor capitalists, nor landowners; they are handshakers, mixers, they have "followings," and their political weight in council does not depend on their wisdom, but on the numbers of the mob running at their heels. We are taught politically to think in numbers, to believe in numbers; in fact, politically we believe in nothing else.

Now it is clear that the effect of this r?gime is to disregard much that statesmanship should take into account in framing a nation's polity. There are many other considerations besides mere numbers which affect men politically; other forces which far more than mere numbers operate towards the development of mankind, the shaping of human destiny, the establishment and fall of political institutions; all of which forces are by our political system completely ignored. In a free play of political life we would expect for instance to reckon with intellect, capacity, energy, industry, wisdom, knowledge, judgment, prudence, physical strength, wealth, experience, training, efficiency, and perhaps other qualities, but in our political scheme none of them is considered; everything is ascertained and decided upon and all doubts resolved by an arithmetical process; you take a count and the thing is done. Be the question, for instance, who is the properest man to fill an administrative office of trust and importance; on the one hand is A who has a good physique, is of a fine family, habits good, long training and experience, excellent education, bright past record for efficiency and honor; and on the other B who has none of these valuable qualities, is a little shady in fact; but a glib platform speaker. The number of votes is counted and B has the more and is thus positively ascertained to be the man for the place. Is not this wonderful? Tried by any other test he would have been declared unfit for the position; but the numeral system conclusively demonstrated his fitness. And indeed the writer is compelled to admit that the number system is deservedly popular with those able to profit by it, and has given promotion to thousands of nonentities who would otherwise have remained in obscurity. So of a project of law involving difficult questions of justice and expediency; students of civics and even great statesmen may be in doubt as to whether it ought not to be amended or modified; but with our system in operation there is no need for study or hesitation; you just invite every one to say "Yes" or "No." Possibly the majority will not understand the project at all or will misunderstand it, but that makes no difference: understanding is not necessary to voting; it is numbers that count, not understanding. Possibly a conscientious or indolent third of the voters will decline to vote; that makes no difference either; possibly every one of the few who realty understand the proposition is opposed to it, but that is of little practical consequence as the knowledge or ignorance of the voters is immaterial and is never made the subject of inquiry; possibly the scheme is imperfect and to the knowledge of the well informed plainly needs amendment; it matters not, there is no provision for amendment of details in the numerical system; possibly the project has never been properly presented to the electorate and most of the votes pro or con are the result of ignorance, whim or prejudice; but this fact will not be considered in the result, for an ignorant or prejudiced vote is just as valid as a just and wise one. The system is unfailing; it will solve every difficulty; the doubts of able statesmen are answered in a moment by the vote of the female mill hands of Factoryville. You are sure to get some decision, and any decision will serve; for no matter how foolish or unreasonable it may be, no one is responsible; there is no appeal and practically no redress.

This electoral scheme would seem to imply a general belief in the capacity of the electorate. It would at first blush appear to be founded upon a theory of the superior wisdom and almost superhuman knowledge and virtue of the masses, whereby every voter is presumed to know who are best fitted to fill the offices of Mayor, Alderman, Sheriff, County and State Attorney, Judge of Courts small or large, State Assemblyman, State Senator, Congressman, State Engineer and Surveyor, Governor of the State, and President of the United States; and it would seem, besides, that every voter, male or female, is presumed to cast his or her vote with the good of the community and nation at heart. The verdict so taken would thus have something of the effect of an infallible decree; and indeed we note that people and newspapers often speak of the results of an election with a species of awe; and that in the somewhat too common event of a doubtful character or even of a noted scamp being elected to a public office the result is often spoken of as his "vindication." These "vindications" in fact are frequently needed and demanded by political gentlemen under a cloud, and have been accorded by the electorate in a surprisingly large number of cases. Nor does the mere capacity to select the best officials measure the full quota of the wisdom and accuracy apparently required by the populace under our political system. They, every man jack, and in the "advanced" States, every woman jenny of them all is from time to time required to vote upon questions which presuppose them to be perfectly familiar with the Constitution of the United States and of his and her own State; to understand all its provisions and to be able to determine the meaning and effect of any and all amendments thereto, which are or may possibly be proposed.

Now, all this is of course absurd; no such belief in the wisdom of the electorate is entertained by the masses or by anybody, for no one in the world is such a fool as not to be aware that at every election large numbers of the voters are absolutely incapable of passing upon the merits of candidates far above them in education, station in life, and capacity to fill offices whose high duties they could not be made to understand by any amount of explanation. Few even of the most ignorant are unaware that only trained minds are capable of construing and understanding constitutional provisions and forecasting their probable effects. There must therefore exist within the manhood suffrage scheme, some principle or theory more sane than a belief in the omniscience of the rabble of ignorance, stupidity and indifference which it proudly marshals to the polls; and though this principle or theory has never been precisely or authoritatively defined, yet on examining the numerous written or spoken expressions in support of universal suffrage found in books, speeches and newspaper articles, we discover that the postulate at the bottom of the manhood suffrage proposition is this: not that the mass of voters are competent judges of conditions or policies, but that they are the natural, necessary and proper arbiters thereof; not that ignorance, stupidity and vice do not go to the polls, but that in the nature of the case they are there and have a right to be there; that it is intended and expected that they shall be actually represented and expressed in the vote; that in politics all have equal right to be heard; that government and law should be an expression of the will of all the people or at least of all of the men of this country; not merely of those having patriotism, experience, virtue, judgment, and wisdom, or any one of these qualities; but of the whole populace; including the ignorant, stupid, worthless and depraved; and that each of these latter should have an equal voice with the wise and worthy. Such is and must be the underlying theory of manhood suffrage; and as women are notoriously still more ignorant of political affairs than men, the adoption of woman suffrage is evidently a mere extension of this same theory of equality of political value to the female sex; so that under a system of universal suffrage the law and the government include the expression of the ignorance, stupidity and depravity of both sexes of the community, state or nation as well as of its education, wisdom and goodness. And this principle is in effect generally carried out at our elections; so that practically the only disfranchised classes are those of the publicly supported paupers and the negroes in the South, and the whole immense national mass of ignorance, incapacity and hostility to social wellbeing is included in our voting lists and finds expression at the polls.

From an electorate so constituted, from a system of government founded on such a perverse theory no good results are or ever were to be expected. Accordingly, we are not surprised to note that the first plain signs of a general political deterioration in American politics were about coincident with the establishment of manhood suffrage in the early part of the nineteenth century. For the first forty years of the republic politics were comparatively pure; the United States was a model among nations; then we note a fatal declension, a swift lowering of standards; we observe the close connection between the establishment of manhood suffrage and the entrance into high places of low politicians; how upon the widening of the franchise the management and control of politics in the United States began gradually to pass from the hands of the principal men of the country, the ablest, the most wealthy, the best educated, the most influential, the members of the oldest and best families, and to fall under the control of the professional politicians. This latter class originating at about that period developed into well organized bands who under the leadership of chiefs, since known as bosses, have seized, occupied and still hold and occupy the offices, the machinery of public elections, appointments, and almost the entire control of public affairs. Their management and control have been selfish, corrupt and inefficient. Their legislation has been excessive and poor in quality; their administration of governmental affairs ignorant, weak, capricious, oppressive, wasteful, careless and dishonest. During all this time the system of manhood suffrage has remained unassailed and unquestioned, and the people have listened more or less complacently to fulsome praises of their government system by a venal and superficial press and by ignorant and insincere political platform orators. These, in their speeches and platforms have been easily able to escape imputation of the mischiefs of manhood suffrage and of their own class by charging them upon the opposite party, or upon such of their political opponents as happened for the time being to hold public office. And so elections have come and gone, parties have risen and fallen, officials have been selected as popular one year and thrown aside as unsatisfactory the next, but through it all corruption and inefficiency remain constant and acknowledged features of American political life.

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