1913II "The Prussian Voting System 



cially with the three-class system of voting. ^ Accord- siUnt 

 ingly, although a member of the second class he never "'"'^'"*'? 

 voted, for decisions in all municipal affairs were pre- 

 determined by a small but affluent minority. In 

 Neustadt, Silesia, one wealthy manufacturer alone 

 composed the first class; the second contained two, 

 one a partner of the first, and the third, plain citizens 

 to the number of some twenty thousand. Wiesbaden 

 not being a manufacturing town, the local discrepancy 

 was there much less, but control by the first class was 

 absolute and unshaken, and the voice of even a well- 

 to-do democrat like Weddegen could never be heard. 



The Imperial Parliament or Reichstag was elected ff««o/ 

 on the broader principle of "one man, one vote." " °" 

 But little was thereby gained, as the Reichstag was so 

 tied up that it had no real power. In consequence, it 

 was derisively spoken of as "the Hall of Echoes," 

 or "the Imperial Debating Society." 



My experiences in Frankfort were especially ^^ 

 pleasant and instructive, and I lectured in the re- s/w« 

 ception hall of the old Schwann Inn, the identical 

 room where Bismarck in 1871 forced Thiers to sign 

 the fatal Treaty of Frankfort which tore Alsace and 

 Lorraine from France. The five o'clock address was 

 followed by a dinner of Frankfort pacifists, presided 

 over by Edouard de Neufville, whom I had met at 



'This system, to put it briefly, divides voters into three classes, each holding 

 one third of the total wealth of the community and each choosing one third of the 

 electors — WaVLmanner — who in turn select the civic officers and the members 

 of the Prussian Landtag. The first class is, of course, composed of a few of the 

 very rich, the second of a larger number of the wealthy, the third of the body 

 of the people. A numerical composition of the three groups might be stated as 

 ten, forty, one hundred thousand. Moreover, as the first and second class usually 

 stand together, the people at large can never secure more than one third of the 

 dectors and are therefore represented only by sufferance. 



n 537 1 



