Political Science Of The State

565 POLITICAL SCIENCE.
read a qualification for the exercise of the privileges of the
voter.
The problems of a party kind are so mixed up with the
social problems in the large towns that there is danger of un-
fair treatment of the former. Thus much, however, all will
admit, that nowhere are party ties drawn tighter than in the '
cities, nowhere is the organization more complete, nowhere
is there so close an approach to the arts and ways of the
ancient demagogy, and nowhere is there worse management
in regard to all general interests. The constituencies which
elect embezzlers and peculators to office, such as we have all
known of in late, years, are incapable of judging of qualifica-
tions for office ; it is the fault of those who take advantage of
the system, and not their fault that bad men are chosen—any
more than it is the fault of the horses when a drunken driver
turns the carriage over into a ditch. And how this great evil,
which, by exorbitant taxation, will ruin great cities, can be
stopped, I do not see, except by legislation which will allow
the tax-payers, and them only, to have a vote in the assess-
ments. (Comp. <§> 239.)
An evil, especially in the towns, growing out of the extent
of suffrage, is the apathy of persons of intelligence and stand-
ing in regard to public affairs. Their minds are absorbed in
business. Their profits are considerable, and they pay taxes
without complaint, believing all the while that the system of
municipal affairs is deplorably mismanaged. If this great dis-
regard of political duties could be unlearned, and if municipal
affairs could be kept apart from state and national politics,
there would be good hope that this slough of despond could
be drained off.
But suppose all the better part of society, those who have
intelligence and those who have character, to be faithful in
discharging their political duties—suppose them to be neither
-discouraged nor overawed, how are they to act in the purifi-
cation of parties ? Can they do good by forming a new or
third party, intended to serve as a check on the two others ?
If successful, this would draw to it bad materials from the