INJURIOUS EFFECT OF MANHOOD SUFFRAGE UPON AMERICAN LEGISLATIVE
BODIES
The political machine, the political ring, and the political boss crush
out all independence, and bury all talent which will not lend itself to
their purpose; discourage all statesmanship, wither all genuine
political ambition and debauch the political conscience of the nation.
One result is plainly shown in a distinct lowering of the quality of our
public officials, including the membership of our legislative bodies,
state and federal. The establishment of machine or party organization
political rule by means of the controllable vote has replaced the former
free play of individual talents and opinions; has discouraged our best
men from entering political life and has degraded those who take part in
it. Our Congressmen are of mediocre ability and deficient in strength
and honesty; our state legislators are of a still lower type; our
legislatures both federal and state and their members are more often the
subject of public ridicule than of praise; the political opinions of
their members fail to command public respect; with the public at large
they do not stand nearly so high as during the first forty years of the
republic, when they were chosen by qualified constituencies. At that
time the mass of the American voters were uneducated men, yet they sent
first rate men to Congress; now the mass is far better instructed and
send third rate men to Congress. This is because the national political
spirit has been lowered; it no longer seeks to express itself by its
best. All the above is so generally asserted and commented on in books,
magazines, newspapers and in daily conversation as to be notorious. It
is likely that every intelligent reader of this book is fully aware of
it.
In explanation of America’s failure to put the best men in high places,
it is sometimes said that it is the result of a certain weakness
everywhere attendant upon democracy. A similar tendency has been
observed by John Stuart Mill, to accompany the widening of the suffrage
in England. He says:
“The natural tendency of representative government, as of modern
civilization, is toward collective mediocrity; and this tendency is
increased by all reductions and extensions of the franchise, their
effect being to place the principal power in the hands of classes
more and more below the highest level of instruction in the
community.” (_Representative Government_, p. 159.)
In France the deputies to the Chambers are elected on a manhood basis.
The result is typical of the system. Prof. Garner says:
“The rôle of the French Deputy is today largely that of a sort of
_chargé d’affaires_ sent to Paris to see that its constituency
obtains its share of the favors which the government has for
distribution. Instead, therefore, of occupying himself with
questions of legislation of interest to the country as a whole, he
is engaged in playing the rôle of a mendicant for his petty
district. He spends his time in the ante-rooms of the ministers
soliciting favors for his political supporters and grants for his
arrondissement.”
Sometimes the constituents ask the deputy to procure nurses for their
families, or to do shopping. Some want appointments as vendors of
tobacco; the ministers, to purchase their support, agree to appoint
their friends to office, give them decorations and advance them
politically. The deputy must look for appropriations for local
railroads, repairs for churches, pictures for the exhibition, public
fountains, monuments. All the school teachers, tobacconists, road
overseers and letter carriers are expected to work for him. (_American
Political Science Review_, Vol. 7, p. 617.) An interesting book has
recently been published by a member of the French Academy, in which he
accuses democracy of having an inevitable tendency to produce
inefficiency in government. He testifies that such has been the
experience in France. It is in the very spirit of democracy, he says, to
favor incompetence in all public officials. (_Cult of Incompetence_,
Faguet.)
This lowering of the official standards has been observed elsewhere,
wherever manhood suffrage obtains. Mr. E. L. Godkin, a distinguished New
York publicist, writing some years ago said:
“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 say 60,000 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 a re-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 politics does 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 legislation
is 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
the member 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’s _Cyclopedia 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 his _American 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
measures proposed 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 their own 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 flagrantly bad 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
York _Evening 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 legislatures sitting 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 York _Evening Post_;
Appleton’s _Cyclopedia_; San Francisco _Bulletin_; _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 the tendency 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.