Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/543

Rh The validity of this objection I am in no wise prepared to admit. It assumes that the mass of the jjeople are indifferent to the matter of good government, and that the voters of any municipality have more regard for an intangible, ineffectual, inoperative political success than they have for the correct and efficient management of city affairs.

I do not believe that this is true. It will seem to be true so long as municipal elections are handed over to professional politicians and "ward-bummers for management. But let the prominent and influential gentlemen in all political parties unite in an effort to elect only the best men to municipal positions; let them present only candidates of recognized ability and character; let the people be made to realize that there is absolutely no political principle involved in the contest, and the voters can not then be controlled by professional political leaders.

We are not without illustrations of the truth of this theory. In New York the good people of all political parties united for the overthrow of the Tweed dynasty, as they did in Philadelphia to depose McManes, and as they have since done in Cincinnati, and as they once did in Chicago. Under proper management these occasional and spasmodic exhibitions of non-political elections may become the rule rather than the exception, as applied to municipal governments. They tend to demonstrate the fact that the public sentiment, when properly aroused, will not tolerate official mismanagement and corruption.

Looking to this end, municipal elections should be made to occur at dates as remote as possible from those fixed for national and State elections, so that there may be the least possible complications with outside issues, and the least temptation to quote these elections as indices of political sentiment.

But more than to anything else, and, in my judgment, more than to all things else, the misgovernment of our great cities is chargeable to our practically unrestricted suffrage. I say unrestricted because the facility with which all regulations as to naturalization and registration are evaded makes it comparativel}' an easy matter for any individual to vote at least once at any election.

Those cities which are constantly receiving a large influx of foreign immigration, which is both ignorant and impoverished, are the greatest sufferers, but all municipalities are placed in jeopardy by this irresponsible and unintelligent suffrage. I do not enter the lists as an opponent of what is termed "manhood suffrage" when applied to State and national elections, that is, when applied to the determination of political questions. But neither the same nor similar conditions can be predicated of municipal corporations.

I restate a proposition which has already been emphasized in this discussion, to wit, that the municipality is a business corporation. It may not be strictly analogous to a corporation operated for private interests, such as a great railway company or a manufacturing