easy and delightful task to pull down the Pope and the king, but the setting up of a substitute was less easy and altogether troublesome. The task, therefore, which the people failed to perform was taken in hand by the few enterprising men who in every community know how to take advantage of the rest. The people did not awake, and has not yet awaked, to the responsibility it assumed in undertaking to govern itself. It seems a simple thing to cut out a cancerous growth; but the scar that is left behind is likely to give place to a hundred cancers in its place. The growth can be extracted, but not the disease. So the king who abuses power can be dethroned; but this dethronement of a king does not suppress the abuse of power for all time. The government has to be run, and governing involves the exercise of power. Somebody must exercise this power. The perpetual question for the people to decide is, Who shall exercise it? The difference between monarchical and popular government is not that in one case the monarch and in the other case the people rule. The difference is that in one case who the ruler shall be is determined by circumstances beyond the control of the people, and in the latter it is determined by circumstances within the control of the people. The privilege of the people, therefore, is not to govern themselves, but periodically to select those who are to govern them, either by making their laws or by executing them.

In order that popular government should work prosperously two things are above all requisite:

First, the people must be free to express their will at the polls; and, second, the people must be sufficiently enlightened to express a will that is wise and honest, and not one that is foolish or corrupt.

Now, if we take the second of these two first, it will not take long for us to decide that the people are not and could not be reasonably expected to be sufficiently enlightened to express a will that is wise on many of the subjects that are presented for their votes. How is it possible, for example, to expect that the mass of the people have sufficient information to come to a conclusion upon such a question as that of bimetallism, when experts cannot agree upon the subject themselves? How much more is the subject complicated when consideration is taken. of the fact that a large part of the people is debtor to the other part, and the debtor part is told, however wrongly, that silver legislation will facilitate the payment of debts! or when the whole commercial class is told, however wrongly, that stagnation in business is due to insufficiency of coin in circulation! The same is true as to the question of free trade, or the purchase of railroads by the state, or the referendum, or single tax, or, indeed, all the other complicated questions of social and political economy that are periodically presented for their decision.

That the people are not sufficiently informed on these subjects no one can doubt. But, strange to say, it is not upon the decision of these questions that popular government has proved most disap

pointing. It is a matter not only of astonishment, but of great encouragement, that the popular decision has, on the whole, so far corrected itself where it has made a mistake that no great harm has resulted from it. The point where popular government has most notably and grievously failed is in the administration of municipal government, and this is due mainly to the fact that the people are not free to express their will; and here we are brought back to the first of the two requisites for prosperous popular government above referred to.

Consideration of this subject leads us to the study of municipal misgovernment, as to the exact cause of which too careful attention cannot be given.

CHAPTER IX.

MUNICIPAL MISGOVERNMENT.

PRACTICALLY all citizens of the United States are members of the Republican or the Democratic party. There occasionally arise groups independent of both these parties in various parts of the country; but for many years these groups have hardly reached the proportions of a national party, and for the purpose of this discussion, therefore, we may divide all citizens into Democrats and Republicans. These national parties cannot exercise their functions without an extensive and elaborate organisation. They have to hold national conventions for the purpose of nominating candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency of the United States; they have to hold State conventions-that is to say, a convention in each State-in order to nominate candidates for election to Congress and State offices; and they also hold conventions in every city for the purpose of nominating candidates for the municipal offices therein. These conventions are attended by delegates duly elected at primaries or meetings to which all voters belonging to the party are admitted; and for the purpose of securing a sys

tem for holding such elections each party has an organisation in every electoral unit. The number of these electoral units may be measured by the fact that in New York city alone there are no less than eleven hundred and forty-one election districts, each election district polling between two hundred and fifty and three hundred votes. There is in every election district some one person, called the captain of the district, whose business it is throughout the entire year to keep in touch with the members of his party in that district and to bring them to the polls on election day. This means the employment of a vast number of men and the expenditure of vast sums of money and time. The fact that the population of the United States is more and more forsaking the country to congregate in cities makes the cities more and more important in the game of national politics; and not only do the cities represent a large voting population, but city offices and city employment furnish a large amount of the patronage or spoils upon the hope and distribution of which party success to a great extent depends.

Now, it is not reasonable to suppose that the mass of citizens who are absorbed in the occupations of daily life can afford the time to do the hard work necessary in order to play a rôle in party organisation. The party cannot afford to deal with amateurs-that is to say, with men upon whose perseverance and punctual attendance to their duties it is impossible to count. The result of this is that the party machinery has necessarily fallen into the hands