MISGOVERNMENT OF GREAT CITIES. 523 



The validity of this objection I am in no wise prepared to admit. 

 It assumes that the mass of the people 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 influen- 

 tial 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 over- 

 throw 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 spas- 

 modic 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 regis- 

 tration are evaded makes it comparatively an easy matter for any indi- 

 vidual 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 great- 

 est sufferers, but all municipalities are placed in jeopardy by this irre- 

 sponsible 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 estab- 



