Popular misgovernment in the United States

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

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 pr...

Many of us have been accustomed to regard the principle of manhood suffrage as a part of the original American ideal. The contrary is the fact. The doctrine that voters should b...

Those citizens who think that they have or anybody has or can have a natural right to vote are absolutely mistaken. There is a general impression that such a right exists, creat...

_Yes, for it was not Zeus who gave them forth,_ _Nor Justice, dwelling with the gods below,_ _Who traced these laws for all the sons of men;_ _The unwritten laws of God that kno...

There are two principal arguments in favor of a property qualification for voters; one the argument of fitness, that the propertied class are the most capable of passing upon af...

The first national legislature to be elected by manhood suffrage without distinctions or qualifications was the notorious red radical French Convention which met at Paris, Septe...

The doctrine of manhood suffrage was imported to America from France in the latter part of the eighteenth century, and began to infect American politics some twenty years after...

The circumstances of the adoption of the system of manhood suffrage by state after state a century ago are not such as to justify us of today in according much authority to thei...

On March 4th, 1829, the old Federal régime died with the departure of John Quincy Adams from the White House. The year 1828 is generally taken as the last full year of the old h...

No account of manhood suffrage would be complete without proper mention of the politicians and their work, for they are the essential product of the system, its distinctive feat...

The political oligarchies rule, have ruled and will continue to rule this country through the medium of the controllable vote. This is plainly inferable from what has already be...

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 sta...

The worst 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 misgo...

It is an unpleasant task, that of dragging to light past records of malversation in office, and it is nearly equally unpleasant to inspect them after production; and though it b...

The American Civil War, which lasted four years, was both morally and politically absolutely unnecessary and therefore absolutely unjustifiable. It is difficult for an American...

Perhaps the most noted instance of a complete test of the principles upon which manhood suffrage claims to be founded was that made in the Southern States during the so-called r...

It is expressing oneself very mildly to say that manhood suffrage produces inefficiency; rather one may say that inefficiency is of its very essence. Preparedness is a major ess...

The qualities which render a government popular or successful at home do not always work for efficiency in foreign relations. In home matters the nation discusses, divides, and...

One of the incidents of manhood suffrage is the practice of rotation in office, which may be called a by-product of manhood suffrage and represents a doctrine which is only appl...

There is a quality in an individual, an association of individuals, a community or a public institution, which though difficult to describe in exact terms is everywhere well rec...

A good test of the character of a man or an institution is public reputation; let us apply that test in this case. Manhood suffrage, its methods, its politics, and its officiald...

Most of us have from time to time in the course of our lives, heard a good deal of indignation expressed by worthy citizens over the politicians’ organization and use of the con...

The argument is frequently used in certain quarters that the vote in the hands of the unpropertied classes is a weapon of defense needed to protect their weakness against govern...

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 SOWS’ EARS AND OF AMATEUR HARPING

“_In all these scenes that I have mentioned I learn one thing that I never knew before and that is that the key to Liberty is not in the hands of License, but Convention holds i...

_For wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat; because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth...

An educational qualification for voters would be incompatible with the theory of this volume, which viewing government as preeminently a business institution, prescribes as a pr...

_Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection, but I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence._ (I Timothy, ii; 13, 14.)

In the year 1918 women were first granted complete suffrage by the great State of New York. The result has not been such as to surprise any thinking man, but it must have astoni...

The institution of unlimited suffrage is favorable to the various radical, anti-social movements which for convenience sake may here be conjointly designated as Bolshevism. It i...

Any demand for a qualified suffrage is certain to be met by a plea for delay. The temptation to postpone action is natural and springs at once to the heart of almost every man w...

_Objection that the project is undemocratic._ This assumes that universal suffrage is a democratic institution; but in practise it operates to the contrary as has already been s...