CHAPTER XIII

“There is not a country in the world living under parliamentary government which has not begun to complain of the quality of its legislators. More and more it is said the work of government is falling into the hands of men to whom even small pay is important and who are suspected of adding to their income by corruption.” (Unforeseen Tendencies of Democracy, p. 117.)

The apologists for our present unsatisfactory political system point to this universal democratic tendency to mediocrity as a reason for acquiescing in the present evil condition which they say is an incident of democracy everywhere, deplorable but unavoidable. This is a mistaken attitude. In adopting the democratic régime we have not bargained to perpetuate its errors; it is our business to correct and abolish them. Having observed the democratic tendency to produce inferiority in public life it is for us to be specially careful to adopt measures to avoid that danger. It is plainly due to inferiority in the voting mass and the obvious remedy is to elevate the character of the electorate. The inferior product referred to by Faguet and others is that of a democracy of mere numbers, where there is failure to give proper effect to natural civilizing influences. On the other hand, in the administration for example of the great cities of Europe where property is represented and character and reputation are taken into account, the operation of the democratic system is comparatively satisfactory.

America is not lacking in men competent for public life. The field of choice is large and the material is there. A member of Congress represents a constituency of about 300,000, or say60,000 male voters. The average state legislator may represent a constituency of 50,000 or say ten thousand male voters. The ablest man in the district of 50,000 people or among say ten thousand men is apt to be a superior man; the ablest man of the 60,000 men in a congressional district must be a very superior man indeed. Such are the types of men who ought to be in the legislature and in Congress and who under a proper system would be found there; a type far superior to that which manhood suffrage has actually produced for us after ninety odd progressive years; progressive in everything else except the quality of our government. Comparisons are odious, and it would not be permissible, even if physically possible in a work like this, to discuss severally by name the four hundred actual members of Congress, still less the ten thousand actual members of our State Legislatures, or any part of them. But it must be admitted that those occupying these places are not as a rule first-class men; they do not even measure up to second-class; some of them are very far down on the list indeed. Recently when engaged in the most severe struggle of its history, the nation found that its best and ablest men were in private life; and not only had there been no demand for them to permanently enter public service, but its business had been committed to the care of small, needy politicians, political adventurers, men without political experience or training, who had been sent to the state or national capitol as a reward for cheap political work, or for money contributions, or for subserviency to the political boss or the machine. Such are the fruits of manhood suffrage in the most enlightened country in the world.

M. de Tocqueville, a distinguished Frenchman, who visited this country in 1831, ten years after manhood suffrage had been widely established, was struck by the vulgar aspect of the men whom he found in the House of Representatives at Washington. He said: “They are for the most part village lawyers, dealers or even men belonging to the lowest classes.” No one would have said that of the Continental Congress nor of any Congress before Jackson’s time.

The very latest observers give similar testimony. Mr. Godkin notes the disappearance from Congress and from public life of the class of statesmen and great political leaders of former days, such as Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Silas Wright, Marcy and Seward, and ascribes it to the political bosses who will tolerate no independence. Mr. Bryce says:

“The members of legislatures are not chosen for their ability or experience, but are, five-sixths of them, little above the average citizen. They are not much respected or trusted, and finding no exceptional virtue expected from them, they behave as ordinary men do when subjected to temptations.”

And again:

“It must be confessed that the legislative bodies of the United States have done something to discredit representative government.” (American Commonwealth, Vol. II, pp. 587, 609.)

Writing of Congress in 1907 Professor Commons says:

“Why is it that a legislative assembly which in our country’s infancy summoned to its halls a Madison or a Hamilton to achieve the liberties of the people has now fallen so low that our public-spirited men hesitate to approach it?” (Proportional Representation, p. 8.)

Professor Commons does not further attempt an answer to his own question, but it is not difficult to find one. When an inferior choice is made, the fault is always with the chooser. Congress is inferior because the electorate is inferior, and because the manhood suffrage machine insists on mediocrity and slavishness in Congress and everywhere else and has lowered the political spirit of the nation. Writing about 1899 Professor Hyslop of Columbia University, New York, says:

“Congressmen require considerable omniscience to fulfil their responsibilities, but they possess very little of that qualification, and too often no honesty, public spirit, or devotion to the real interests of the country. Too poor to disregard the salary attached to the office, they must consider their personal interest to secure are-election, which puts them at the mercy of any unscrupulous man or men who may hold the balance of power in their districts; and consequently the man who will follow the ‘boss’ or ‘work’ the proper portion of his constituents can get the place and salary while the intelligent and conscientious man who thinks less of the remuneration than of his duty to the public must remain at home. The time servers, demagogues, and men with an elastic conscience are the successful bidders for the offices and salaries. They know how to use good sentiments and patriotism for votes, the voters all the while running trustfully after the devil, who is sure to draw them into the bottomless pit.” (Democracy, p. 172.)

This deterioration is observable in our public men generally.

“Sincere men no longer deny that the offices of trust and profit are now filled, in the United States, with much more inferior men than as compared with former periods; indeed, it is admitted that if we want to find political conditions like unto ours, anywhere, we have to search in the records of the worst phases of public administration which history affords.” (Reemelin,American Politics, p. 307.)

As late as the present year, 1919, Brooks Adams, in one of his writings, refers to the undoubtable deterioration of the standard of our public men as compared with the time of his grandfather, John Quincy Adams. Ostrogorski writes that:

“The unreasoning discipline of party and the innumerable concessions and humiliations through which it drags every aspirant to a public post have enfeebled the will of men in politics, have destroyed their courage and independence of mind, and almost obliterated their dignity as human beings.” (Democracy, p. 389.)

Professor Reinsch alludes to this moral degradation in striking language. Referring to the bosses, he says:

“Their servants are indeed paid liberally in money and preferment, but they are reduced to a position of dependence in which the soul is burnt to ashes. The cynicism of the political boss and his satellites and the temptations which they hold out, are the greatest corruptors of youth in our age.... It is not surprising that politicsdoes not in general offer a satisfying career. Able men of high character are disgusted with the usual demands made upon politicians. While youth is corrupted, manhood is tyrannized; and wherever the commercial system has been most successful, property, honor, and even life have been rendered unsafe.” (American Legislatures and Legislative Methods, pp. 239, 240.)

Next, John Stuart Mill, a champion of democracy:

“It is an admitted fact that in the American democracy, which is constructed on this faulty model, the highly-cultivated members of the community, except such of them as are willing to sacrifice their own opinions and modes of judgment, and become the servile mouthpieces of their inferiors in knowledge, do not even offer themselves for Congress or the State Legislatures, so certain is it that they would have no chance of being returned.” (Representative Government, p. 160.)

J. Bleecker Miller of New York writes:

“Our rights as individuals are not properly protected by our so-called representatives because they as a rule are not up to the general moral and intellectual standard of the average citizen.” (Trade Organizations in Politics, p. 38.)

Let us give a moment’s special attention to our state legislatures. There manhood suffrage has a chance to do its best. Both houses are elected usually by manhood or universal suffrage. What do we find? It is notorious that the reputation of the membership in most of them is so bad that reputable and able men absolutely refuse to serve. It is also notorious that every meeting of a state legislature is anticipated with alarm and anxiety by the industrial and business classes. Their well founded fear is of some piece of narrow or blundering legislation in the interest of some class, or which will be inimical to some industry or business, either in the way of restriction, taxation or other unfairness. The chronic degradation of these bodies is evidenced by the ever increasing limitations upon them in the state constitutions. It is a matter of public belief that three-quarters of our state legislationis useless, and that a considerable proportion of it is injurious; that many of the members spend a large part of their time planning for the promotion of their personal interests, or for procuring places for themselves or their supporters. And yet in this case the facts probably surpass the rumors. The public hardly realizes the infamous character of much of our state legislation. It is a frequent practice of legislators to introduce bills injuriously affecting corporations for the mere purpose of blackmail. The corporation is expected to pay tribute in the shape of cash bribes to the members of the committee having the bill in charge; and sometimes to other members or to the boss to prevent this legislation. On such payment being made the proposed measure is in one way or another defeated or allowed to lapse. Such extortions are variously called “hold-ups,” “strikes,” “sandbaggers,” “fetchers,” or “old friends,” “bell-ringers” and “regulators.” During a legislative investigation into insurance scandals in 1906 a president of one of the insurance companies declared that eighty-five per cent of all legislative bills were hold-up measures. A great part of the session is sometimes occupied in manoeuvring these scandalous bills. Enormous sums of money must be obtained either by legislators or bosses by such means; and all sorts of methods, including that of a friendly game of poker are used in these transactions in the transfer of the cash, some of which no doubt is ultimately used to influence elections, thus completing the vicious circle.

The following is from a recognized authority:

“The integrity of State Legislatures is at a low ebb. Their action is looked upon as largely controlled by the business interests and by political bosses.... Charges of direct bribery are frequent.... It has been well recognized that the Legislatures of certain States, notably New Hampshire, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and California, have been controlled through a long series of years by great railway corporations.... A number of the members of Legislatures are ‘owned,’ that is, controlled by some outside interest. Usually there is a political leader, or boss, to whom themember is indebted for his seat. In other cases a member is serving some particular interest to which he is bound by the fact that his campaign expenses have been paid or other substantial favors given him.” (Appleton’sCyclopedia of American Government, 1914, Corruption, Legislative.)

In an article on “Phases of State Legislation,” Theodore Roosevelt stated that about one-third of the members of the New York Legislature wherein he sat were corrupt or open to corrupt influences. He had been a member of that legislature three times and in hisAmerican Ideals(1897) he gives some account of his experiences there. While careful not to attack manhood suffrage, he pictures these legislative bodies as very inferior and corrupt assemblies whose best men were commonplace and narrow-minded; whose worst men were venal, ignorant and semi-barbarous. The best he could say was that among its one hundred and fifty members, “there were many very good men”; but he added “that there is much viciousness and political dishonesty, much moral cowardice and a good deal of actual bribe taking in Albany, no one who has had any practical experience in legislation can doubt.” After a careful examination, he and some fellow members learned “that about one-third of the members were open to corrupt influences in some form or other.” (Pp. 64-68.) He mentions four other states which are equally as badly off in the character of their legislators, if not worse. Mr. Godkin writing on the subject says:

“If I said, for instance, that the legislature at Albany was a school of vice, a fountain of political debauchery, and that few of the younger men came back from it without having learned to mock at political purity or public spirit, I should seem to be using unduly strong language, and yet I could fill nearly a volume with illustrations in support of my charges. The temptation to use their great power for the extortion of money from rich men and rich corporations, to which the legislatures in the richer and more prosperous Northern States are exposed, is great; and the legislatures are mainly composed of very poor men, with no reputation to maintain, or political future to look after. The result is that the country is filled with stories of scandals after every adjournment, and the press teems with abuse, which legislators have learned to treat with silent contempt or ridicule, so that there is no longer any restraint upon them.” (Unforeseen Tendencies of Democracy, p. 140.)

The same writer states that the more intelligent class have withdrawn from legislative duties; that it is increasingly difficult to get able men to go to Congress, and almost impossible to get them to consent to go to the state legislature. He might have added that it would be impossible for them to get the favor of the parties or the machines so as to be elected. He describes a great part of the actual legislation as absolutely absurd. He tells of the vicious practice of log-rolling, that is, the exchange between individual members of Congress and of the legislature of support of one bad measure in return for the support of another equally bad. He tells how inferior and shiftless men are sent to the legislature in order that they may get the salary to help them through the winter. He complains of the immense legislative output which in these days is about twenty thousand new laws each year. He describes how corporations are at the mercy of state bosses who manipulate the legislature, and therefore have it in their power to raise their taxes, or in the case of gas or railroad companies to lower their charges or to cause annoying and harassing investigations of their affairs. To avoid this oppression the corporations are, of course, ready to pay blackmail in the shape of campaign contributions to the bosses, some part of which probably remains in the pockets of the boss, but a large part of which goes into a fund to purchase and control the lower classes of voters. As a result large corporations are in the habit of employing an agent to remain at the state capitol during the session, so as to be on hand to forestall these schemes by paying in advance. From another writer:

“The majority of our legislatures are either constituted or controlled by men who either cannot or dare not discuss the measuresproposed by them. They maintain silence against all reason and vote submissively in obedience to a ‘boss’ or they open their mouths only to obstruct legislation and to make a ‘strike.’”(Democracy, Hyslop, p. 127.)

This is from Professor Lecky:

“A distrust of the servants and representatives of the people is everywhere manifest. A long and bitter experience has convinced the people that legislators will roll up the State debt unless positively forbidden to go beyond a certain figure; that they will suffer railroads to parallel each other, corporations to consolidate, common carriers to discriminate, city councils to sell valuable franchises to street-car companies and telephone companies, unless the State constitution expressly declares that such things shall not be. So far has this system of prohibition been carried, that many legislatures are not allowed to enact any private or special legislation; are not allowed to relieve individuals or corporations from obligations to the State; are not allowed to pass a bill in which any member is interested, or to loan the credit of the State, or to consider money bills in the last hours of the session.” (Democracy and Liberty, Vol. I., p. 103.)

In 1910 in a speech in Chicago Roosevelt said of the Illinois Legislature, referring to recent disclosures, that it “was guilty of the foulest and basest corruption.” (New Nationalism, p. 111.)

Referring to the Gas Ring misgovernment in Philadelphia in and prior to 1870, Bryce says:

“The Pennsylvania House of Representatives was notoriously a tainted body, and the Senate no better, or perhaps worse. The Philadelphia politicians, partly by their command of the Philadelphia members, partly by the other inducements at their command, were able to stop all proceedings in the legislature hostile to themselves, and did in fact, as will appear presently, frequently balk the efforts which the reformers made in that quarter.” (American Commonwealth, Vol. II, p. 412.)

Bryce describes the condition of the California state government in 1877:

“Both in the country and in the city there was disgust with politics and politicians. The legislature was composed almost wholly either of office-seekers from the city or of petty country lawyers, needy and narrow-minded men. Those who had virtue enough not to be ‘got at’ by the great corporations, had not intelligence enough to know how to resist their devices. It was a common saying in the State that each successive legislature was worse than its predecessor. The meeting of the representatives of the people was seen with anxiety, their departure with relief. Some opprobrious epithet was bestowed upon each. One was, ‘the legislature of a thousand drinks’; another, ‘the legislature of a thousand steals.’ County government was little better; city government was even worse.”

And later, writing in 1894, he says there is no improvement in that State. (American Commonwealth, Vol. II, pp. 430 and 441.) No wonder that by its state constitution California has felt itself obliged to disable its legislature by prohibiting to it thirty-three different classes of state legislation.

Professor John R. Commons of the University of Wisconsin, writing in 1907, quotes the San Francisco Bulletin as saying:

“It is not possible to speak in measured terms of the thing that goes by the name of legislature in this State. It has of late years been the vilest deliberative body in the world. The assemblage has become one of bandits instead of law-makers. Everything within its grasp for years has been for sale. The commissions to high office which it confers are the outward and visible signs of felony rather than of careful and wise selection.” (Proportional Representation, p. 1.)

The author himself says:

“Every State in the Union can furnish examples more or less approaching to this. Statements almost as extreme are made regarding Congress. Great corporations and syndicates seeking legislative favors are known to control the acts of both branches. The patriotic ability and even the personal character of members are widely distrusted and denounced. These outcries are not made only in a spirit of partisanship, but respectable party papers denounce unsparingly legislatures and councils whose majorities are of theirown political complexion. The people at large join in the attack. When statements so extreme as that given above are made by reputable papers and citizens, it is not surprising that the people at large have come thoroughly to distrust their law-makers. Charges of corruption and bribery are so abundant as to be taken as a matter of course. The honored historical name of alderman has frequently become a stigma of suspicion and disgrace.” (Idem, p. 2.)

The same malign control by bosses and rings heretofore so often referred to is directly responsible for this sad condition of affairs.

“Thus it would happen not infrequently that a state legislature almost equally divided between the two parties would not have one member in twenty or one in fifty whose nomination and election had not been agreeable to forces behind the two machines, and whose legislative action could not be counted upon by those who held the party reins.... It is probably within the bounds of truth to say that there is not one of our states which has not to a very considerable extent come under the baneful influence of this system, by means of which the political life of the people is dominated and exploited for private ends by rich working corporations in alliance with professional party politicians.” (Shaw,Political Problems, pp. 148, 149.)

Professor Reinsch in his work hereinbefore referred to (American Legislatures) gives an extended account of the means and methods of legislative bribery through the lobby, resulting in “commercial governments” and a situation where “any business man can get what he wants at a reasonable price.” He describes the “boss” as the fruit and flower of the system, his absolute authority, his endless tenure of power, and the degrading influence of the machine. The reader will find in this work much of interest on the subject of corrupt state legislation which cannot be reproduced here.

The legislative evil record still continues to be made. The tree and the fruit are the same year after year. In the session of 1919 forty-six bills affecting New York City which passed both houses of the New York Legislature were so flagrantlybad as to require and receive vetoes. The Citizens Union of New York reported that twenty-eight additional noxious city bills actually became laws. Allowing an equal grist for the rest of the state and we have a total of one hundred and forty-eight mischievous measures which passed both houses in one session. Of the work of this very recent session of the New York Legislature, the New YorkEvening Post, a very respectable paper, says (August 11, 1919),

“Despite the influence of the Governor and the efforts of the legislative leaders, log-rolling, trading, and dickering continued as usual. Carelessness and sloppiness were characteristic of the session. In his veto messages the Governor called attention of the members to this matter. Again and again bills slipped through one house or the other in such shape that they had to be recalled and repassed.”

Charges against congressmen and state legislators of accepting bribes have been frequently made, and instances are given in this book of public exposures in consequence. Some years ago the writer was informed by a leading politician that the truth far exceeded public rumor, and his information elsewhere obtained leads him to believe that this offense has been common. Bryce says in substance that bribery in Congress is confined to say five per cent of the whole number; that it is more common in the legislatures of a few states; that it is rare among the chief state officials and state judges; that the influence of other considerations than money prevails among legislators to a somewhat larger extent; that one may roughly conjecture that from fifteen to twenty per cent of the members of Congress, or of an average state legislature, could thus be reached, and that the jobbery or misuse of a public position for the benefit of individuals is common in large cities. That is to say, about twenty members of each Congress are for sale for cash, and from sixty to eighty can be bought for “other considerations.” According to Bryce, and he is probably very conservative, one can calculate that about one thousand, all told, members of Congress and the various state legislaturessitting at one time are absolutely corrupt. (American Commonwealth, Vol. II, p. 164.) Looking through the pages of Bryce’s great work, one meets casual references to noted instances of such improprieties; as for instance, secret influences brought to bear upon legislatures in reference to the Granger laws; improper relations between railroads and legislators, amounting to secret control of the legislatures by the railroads, and to blackmailing of the railroads by the legislatures; thus requiring the presence of adroit railway agents at the state capitals, well supplied with money, to defeat legislative attacks made by blackmailers, or the tools of rival roads. (American Commonwealth, Chap. CIII.)

“A large number of congressmen were treated to a very profitable investment in connection with the building of the Union Pacific Railway. If this was not technical bribery, it was accounted its moral equivalent.” (Cyclopedia American Government, Bribery.)

And in the same article it is stated that “State Legislatures are less subject to bribery than are City Councils, but here also the cases of proven or confessed bribery are numerous.”

It is difficult to imagine what can be said by the defenders of manhood suffrage in reply to these charges and proofs. The witnesses are mostly Americans, friends of democracy, men of trained minds and high standing, speaking from observation and common report. Look again at the array of names: James Bryce; Theodore Roosevelt; John Stuart Mill; Professor Garner; M. Faguet; E. L. Godkin; Professor Commons; Professor Hyslop; Ostrogorski; Lecky; Professor Reinsch; Albert Shaw; J. Bleecker Miller; M. de Tocqueville; Reemelin; Brooks Adams; New YorkEvening Post; Appleton’sCyclopedia; San FranciscoBulletin;American Political Science Review; no one can impeach such testimony. It covers the whole period under survey. These witnesses charge that the present system of election of legislators by manhood suffrage in the two most enlightened countries where practised, namely, France and the United States, has produced inferior legislators; that thetendency to widen the suffrage has everywhere brought about like results; that the quality of the membership of the United States Congress has strikingly deteriorated under the manhood suffrage régime, while the state legislatures composed of still inferior men have actually become infested by blackmailers and the like; that the legislature of New York is like a school of vice, while that of California is vile, an assemblage of bandits; that the others are similarly corrupt; their members being the tools of political machines, and that highly cultivated men therefore refuse to accept seats in these bodies. A great part of what they thus assert is within the knowledge or reach of knowledge of most of us. Is the American reader of these lines willing to continue to tolerate longer this atrocious system? Whether he believes in a property qualification for voters or not, the writer calls upon him to resolve that this present foul system be forever destroyed, and be replaced by something which an American can think of without rage and shame.

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

Theworst ravages of pestilence do not appear in thinly settled countries, but in the dense populations of cities. In like manner the worst records of our manhood suffrage misgovernment are to be found in American cities rather than in country districts. In the United States all elective municipal officers are chosen by manhood suffrage. In Europe this is not the case. In England, France and Germany it has not been considered safe to trust the populace with the power to squander away the city taxes; the municipal purse is by one device or another kept within the control of the local property owners and business men. The result is that the city governments in all these three countries are far superior to ours. A prominent American writer says:

“There can be no reason or justice in permitting people who do not pay taxes to vote away the property of those who do. In the European cities, however wide the suffrage may be in national matters, probably not one-half the men vote for city offices. In Great Britain, the Low Countries, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy such an absurdity as universal suffrage for city officers is unknown (except in the very rare cases where a non-taxpayer’s educational qualifications prevent his voting being absurd); and it is in these countries that cities are best and most fully developed, and do most for the health and happiness of the very people who are not permitted to vote.” (Holt,Civic Relations, 1907.)

Limit of space forbids going into the details of the municipal governments of the foreign countries just referred to; for that the reader is recommended to Munro’sGovernment of European Citiesand Albert Shaw’s two works,Municipal Government in Great BritainandMunicipal Government in Continental Europe. The important thing in city politics is to get the right men in office, and the inferiority of American public officials as a class as compared with European office holders is well known. In the New YorkTimesof October 19, 1919, this inferiority is stated as a cause for a certain contempt of foreigners for American institutions for which you can scarcely blame them. We quote:

“The very poor types of public officials in our large cities, particularly in New York, make a decided impression on our foreign element. In their native countries public officials are held in great respect, nearly all of them being men of standing in their communities and generally men of education and culture. Socialist agitators take great delight in holding up to ridicule the grade of men appointed and elected to public office in this country. Most of these agitators being foreign born realize that the high ideals of the foreign born have been shattered after they have learned that ignorant and uncouth men can reach high public position.”

The complete failure of municipal government in the United States has caused great disappointment not only to our city taxpayers, but to the friends of democracy throughout the world. Those who can not or will not see the fatal defects in manhood suffrage are quite at a loss to explain the situation. One of these is Lord Bryce, who says:

“The phenomena of municipal democracy in the United States are the most remarkable and least laudable which the modern world has witnessed; and they present some evils which no political philosopher, however unfriendly to popular government, appears to have foreseen, evils which have scarcely showed themselves in the cities of Europe, and unlike those which were thought characteristic of the rule of the masses in ancient times.” (American Commonwealth, Vol. II, p. 377.)

It would be impossible in this volume to give even a summary account of the effects of manhood suffrage upon municipal government in this country. In New York City the ill results of the extension were plainly discernible shortly after its institution in 1826 and increasingly thereafter. (See Myers’History of Tammany Hall; theEvarts Report; and Moss’sAmerican Metropolishereinafter referred to.) The local affairs of the other smaller and newer cities were not of course prominent till later years. There is not space here to treat the subject in detail, and only a few illustrative instances can be given. But this must be said at the outset, that the record of city government in the United States since 1830 has been infamous; that on the whole it is a history of ignorance, incapacity, venality, waste, extravagance, corruption and robbery, carried to such an extent as to demonstrate the utter incapacity of the populace for self-government; and that nothing but the circumstance that in one way or another means have been found to check the power of the people and their municipal representatives put in power by the controllable vote has saved many of these cities from bankruptcy and ruin. Looking into the record of the conditions of our own time in our great cities, we find them thus described by Bryce:

“A vast population of ignorant immigrants; the leading men all intensely occupied with business; communities so large that people know little of one another, and that the interest of each individual in good government is comparatively small.” There are, he says, large numbers of ignorant and incompetent immigrants controlled by party managers; a large shifting population, and the political machinery so heavy and complicated as to discourage the individual, who feels himself a drop in the ocean. “The offices are well paid, the patronage is large, the opportunities for jobs, commissions on contracts, pickings, and even stealings, are enormous. Hence, it is well worth the while of unscrupulous men to gain control of the machinery by which these prizes may be won.”

He further says:

“The best proof of dissatisfaction is to be found in the frequent changes of system and method. What Dante said of his own citymay be said of the cities of America: they are like the sick man who finds no rest upon his bed, but seeks to ease his pain by turning from side to side. Every now and then the patient finds some relief in a drastic remedy, such as the enactment of a new charter and the expulsion at an election of a gang of knaves. Presently, however, the weak points of the charter are discovered, the State legislature again begins to interfere by special acts; civic zeal grows cold and allows bad men to creep back into the chief posts.” (American Commonwealth, Vol. I, p. 649; Vol. II, 99-100.)

Bryce condemns the giving the suffrage to the immigrants. “Such a sacrifice of common sense to abstract principles has seldom been made by any country.” But it is manifestly absurd to charge all our municipal corruption upon the immigrants. Our native crop of controllable voters far exceeds the imported one. Bryce is compelled to recognize the situation in Philadelphia, where the Gas Ring ruled politics for a generation by controlling the native American vote under American managers. He says that “most of the corrupt leaders in Philadelphia are not Irishmen, but Americans born and bred, and that in none of the larger cities is the percentage of recent immigrants so small.” (American Commonwealth, Vol. II, p. 421.) Though nothing will induce Bryce, or any other British or American politician, to see the deformities of manhood suffrage, yet he is willing to testify to the facts. He says:

“There is no denying that the government of cities is the one conspicuous failure of the United States.... In New York extravagance, corruption and mismanagement have revealed themselves on the largest scale.... But there is not a city with a population exceeding 200,000 where the poison germs have not sprung into a vigorous life; and in some of the smaller ones down to 70,000 it needs no microscope to note the results of their growth. Even in cities of the third rank similar phenomena may occasionally be discerned.” (American Commonwealth, Vol. I, p. 608—quoted approvingly by Rhodes, Vol. III, p. 62.)

It is impossible to give here even an outline of the mass of evidence in the case or to make an approach to a picture of theenormous pillage that has been in progress in our municipal affairs. Steffens inThe Shame of Citiesgives a summary of part of the facts relating to six American cities, namely: New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Chicago, Minneapolis and Pittsburgh; and it makes a book of 300 pages. In each of the governments of those cities Steffens discovered organized graft, bribery and corruption. In St. Louis he reports a number of the members of the municipal assembly as “utterly illiterate and lacking in ordinary intelligence ... in some no trace of mentality or morality could be found; in others a low order of training appeared, united with base cunning, groveling instincts and sordid desires. Unqualified to respond to the ordinary requirements of life they are truly incapable of comprehending the significance of an ordinance and are incapacitated, both by nature and training, to be the makers of laws.” Franchises, etc., worth $50,000,000 had been granted in the past ten years and scarcely one without bribery. As much as $50,000 was paid for a vote in the municipal assembly. Companies were driven out by blackmail. Boodling was the real business of the city officials. In Minneapolis in 1901 and thereafter the city authorities were in a regular partnership with the underworld and a large and steady revenue was collected for the ring by corrupt methods. In Pittsburgh Steffens found a boss in control and the usual systematic corruption. He noticed that the Pittsburgh method was to put into all places of power dependents of the boss, men without visible means of support; in fact the manhood suffrage idea was carried out to its logical results. There was an agreement in writing between the city boss and the state boss (Quay) for the control of politics. Space will not permit the insertion here even of Steffens’ summary of Pittsburgh graft and corruption; it dealt with franchises, public contracts, profits of vice, public funds and miscellaneous sources of revenue. Philadelphia is described as the most corrupt city in the land. Good citizens there ask “What is the use of voting?” The city machine is a mere dependent of the state machine. The system there is toapply to the public service by way of compromise with the public a handsome percentage of the collected taxes. Steffens recognized in Philadelphia the complete and permanent overthrow of popular and honest government. In Chicago he found a persistent struggle going on against the ever active and ever powerful poison of corruption. He claims that some headway has been made in the direction of reform by the efforts of a powerful Chicago organization known as “The Municipal Voter’s League,” a watchdog affair, reaching after control, and whose existence is a proof and a confession of the absolute breakdown of manhood suffrage. Steffens was compelled to say that he saw no remedy for the sad state of affairs which he described as existing in these six different cities.

The testimony from all sources and periods since 1840 goes to establish the prevalence of municipal corruption and misgovernment. Here is Ostrogorski, referring to the year 1872 and succeeding years:

“Almost all the cities whose population exceeded one hundred thousand, or even a lesser figure, had their Rings. In the course of these last years, many great cities, such as St. Louis, Minneapolis, San Francisco, added new pages of disgrace to the history of municipal corruption carried on under the flag of political parties.” (Democracy and Political Parties in the United States, pp. 84, 85.)

Another writer (J. B. Miller) states that the debts of the cities of the Union rose in the twenty years from 1860 to 1880 from about $100,000,000 to $682,000,000; from 1860 to 1875 the increase of debt in our eighteen largest cities was 270 per cent; the increase of taxation was 362 per cent; whereas the increase in taxable valuation was but 157 per cent and in population but 70 per cent. In 1883 the late Andrew D. White wrote as follows:

“I wish to deliberately state a fact easy of verification—the fact that whereas, as a rule, in other civilized countries municipal Governments have been steadily improving until they have been made generally honest and serviceable, our own, as a rule, are the worstin the world, and they are steadily growing worse every day.” (Message of Nineteenth Century to Twentieth.)

In a work published in 1899 by Dorman B. Eaton on theGovernment of Municipalities, he summarizes in Chapter II the well known and undeniable evils connected with our municipal affairs. He condemns our municipal governments generally as needlessly expensive and inefficient institutions, wherein bribery, blackmail and corruption are characteristic features. He calls “the management of municipal politics and elections a degrading business by which a class of useless and vicious politicians prosper,” and speaks of the system as discreditable and scandalous. “It is not,” he says (p. 22), “the gifted, the noble or the honored men who generally hold the highest municipal offices, but scheming politicians, selfish, adroit party managers, or men of very moderate capacity and even of not very enviable reputation, who would not be desired at the head of a large private business.” In December, 1890, in an article in theForumMr. White wrote that he had sojourned in every one of the great European municipalities; and that in every respect for which a city exists they were all superior to our own except Constantinople, where Turkish despotism produced the same haphazard, careless, dirty, corrupt system which we in America know so well as the result of mob despotism. We quote: “Without the slightest exaggeration we may assert that, with very few exceptions, the city governments of the United States are the worst in Christendom—the most expensive, the most inefficient, and the most corrupt.” Bryce, writing in 1894, found political rings in existence in New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Cincinnati, San Francisco, Baltimore and New Orleans. He might easily have found similar, though smaller and less conspicuous contrivances in a thousand other cities, towns and villages in the United States. Writing about 1898, Professor Hyslop recites a statement of some of the various well known forms of municipal robbery prevalent in our city administrations:

“Sales of monopolies in the use of public thoroughfares; systematic jobbing of contracts; enormous abuses of patronage; enormous overcharges for necessary public works. Cities have been compelled to buy land for parks and places because the owners wished to sell them; to grade, pave and sewer streets without inhabitants in order to award corrupt contracts for the works; to purchase worthless properties at extravagant prices; to abolish one office and create another with the same duties, or to vary the functions of offices for the sole purpose of redistributing official emoluments; to make or keep the salary of an office unduly high in order that its tenant may pay largely to the party funds; to lengthen the term of office in order to secure the tenure of corrupt or incompetent men. When increasing taxation begins to arouse resistance, loans are launched under false pretences and often with the assistance of falsified accounts. In all the chief towns municipal debts have risen to colossal dimensions and increased with portentous rapidity.” (Hyslop,Democracy, pp. 14, 15.)

This from another writer:

“No candid man can wonder at it. It is the plain, inevitable consequence of the application of the method of extreme democracy to municipal government. The elections are by manhood suffrage. Only a small proportion of the electors have any appreciable interest in moderate taxation and economical administration, and a proportion of votes, which is usually quite sufficient to hold the balance of power, is in the hands of recent and most ignorant immigrants. Is it possible to conceive of conditions more fitted to subserve the purposes of cunning and dishonest men, whose object is personal gain, whose method is the organization of the vicious and ignorant elements of the community into combinations that can turn elections, levy taxes, and appoint administrators? The rings are so skillfully constructed that they can nearly always exclude from office a citizen who is known to be hostile; though a ‘good, easy man, who will not fight, and will make a reputable figurehead, may be an excellent investment.’ Sometimes, no doubt, the bosses quarrel among themselves, and the cause of honest government may gain something by the dispute. But in general, as long as government is not absolutely intolerable, the more industrious and respectable classes keep aloof from the nauseous atmosphere ofmunicipal politics, and decline the long, difficult, doubtful task of entering into conflict with the dominant rings.”. . . . . . . . . . .“The problem,” says Mr. Sterne, “is becoming a very serious one, how, with the growth of a pauper element, property rights in cities can be protected from confiscation at the hands of the non-producing classes. That the suffrage is a spear as well as a shield is a fact which many writers on suffrage leave out of sight; that it not only protects the holder of the vote from aggression, but also enables him to aggress upon the rights of others by means of the taxing power, is a fact to which more and more weight must be given as population increases and the suffrage is extended.” (Lecky,Democracy and Liberty, Vol. I, pp. 99-101.)

. . . . . . . . . . .

“The problem,” says Mr. Sterne, “is becoming a very serious one, how, with the growth of a pauper element, property rights in cities can be protected from confiscation at the hands of the non-producing classes. That the suffrage is a spear as well as a shield is a fact which many writers on suffrage leave out of sight; that it not only protects the holder of the vote from aggression, but also enables him to aggress upon the rights of others by means of the taxing power, is a fact to which more and more weight must be given as population increases and the suffrage is extended.” (Lecky,Democracy and Liberty, Vol. I, pp. 99-101.)

This from a high and recent authority:

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