Most of us have from time to time in the course of our lives, heard a good deal of indignation expressed by worthy citizens over the politicians’ organization and use of the controllable vote. But if we give a little thought to the manner in which the electoral representative system actually and necessarily operates, we will see that the organization of the non-propertied voters was a perfectly natural, and one might say an inevitable result of their enfranchisement. It was a step to which they were and are practically invited by the situation itself, and for taking which neither they nor their leaders are logically blamable. The only people to be criticised are those who opened the door to this class of voters. The unpropertied vote became an organized group, because it could not otherwise function in our political system, which operates entirely though groups or classes and ignores the individual. A few of the astute public men of a century ago understood this; the mass did not; they imagined that in extending the suffrage to the unpropertied, the incapables, they were conferring a harmless compliment upon scattered individuals whose votes would be distributed among those of the other classes, and absorbed in the general mass without perceptible effect. Had this been the only result, the gift of the vote would have been a barren one, costing the givers nothing and of no benefit to the recipients. But far from being empty, it was costly, it was real, and the newly enfranchised immediately made use of it, as we have seen, forming themselves into effective groups for the accomplishment of their own small and sordid desires. And so the generation of Americans who saw manhood suffrage established, were astonished to find shortly after, that the voting power was almost suddenly taken out of their hands by a new force in politics. They have never been able to get it back, and most people do not yet understand the theory of what has occurred. They do not comprehend, their ancestors of the last century did not comprehend that the enfranchisement of the unpropertied voters meant that they were invited not merely as individuals, but as a class, and through their own local groups or subdivisions to take such part in forming the government as they were able. It was not merely that they were enfranchised as a body, but that our political system is such that only by groups, classes and factions can any share in the government be obtained. This fact is so important, and though patent to every one its significance has been so generally overlooked, that it deserves the entire chapter allotted to it in this volume.

In our scheme of government the individual voter as such counts for absolutely nothing. Our elective system is not, as so many believe, at all intended or contrived as a medium of individual political expression, but as a means for measuring the force of groups, factions and parties and of creating majorities. The gift of the ballot is intended for collective and not for individual employment and advantage. It does not imply as is commonly supposed the right of a man “to govern himself” nor to have his individual opinions and wishes considered and acted upon. It necessarily implies joint and not individual action; the individual voter is only remotely a factor in the process of government making; the direct factors whereof are groups, factions and parties. The separate voter’s influence is no more than that of a component atom in a large moving body, and just as the snowflake cannot move the steam engine till it ceases to be a snowflake and becomes part of a volume of steam, so the individual cannot become any part of the moving power in politics till he merges his individuality into some of the political groups or factions of the community.

Although these plain facts are never mentioned by the politicians, the newspapers or the twaddlers who write text-books on American democracy, yet every sensible man realizes that when he votes to any effect he is really obeying orders. If he should write his true and individual choice for governor or alderman, it would probably be some worthy man of his acquaintance whose name does not appear on any official ballot or designation whatever, and his vote thus cast would be a nullity; scorned and thrown aside by the inspectors; not counted; returned as “scattering.” Knowing that a vote for his individual choice will be disregarded, he feels practically compelled to accept the candidate of some group, faction or party; one with whom he has no personal acquaintance whatever; and who if elected will represent not the voter at all, nor his views, but the combination which put him forward, and which has an existence, a history, leaders and motives of its own. Therefore, in the act of voting, your would-be independent citizen, willy nilly, surrenders his individuality just as completely, and is practically just as subservient to the group or party managers as any political heeler of the local boss. Nor does the citizen by the contribution of his vote become entitled to the slightest share of control over the group which he has thus strengthened; that group may have some political weight, while he has none that is appreciable. If he wants to talk politics he may of course do so if he can get a listener; it will usually be as effective a performance as the child blowing on the mainsail of a ship at sea.

The ordinary plain citizen in a democratic community of ten thousand votes may suppose that he has the privilege of exercising one ten thousandth part of the governing power of that community. He flatters himself. If he belongs either to no group or to the minority group or faction, he has and exercises absolutely no part whatever in, or influence upon, the community’s policy or government. If he affiliates with the majority party, his part in government is very far from being represented by his fractional share of its numbers. His faction or party has a life and will of its own, and unless he has a place in its directing mind, he has no influence upon its movements or operations. His importance is comparable with that of a member of a volunteer military body or procession marching in obedience to orders from headquarters. The individual member may remain on the sidewalk or go home, in either of which cases he will have no part in the function; but even should he join in the procession he will be entirely without say or influence concerning its movements. His only effect will be as one of the constituent atoms of a body which has an existence, mind and direction of its own apart from and superior to and controlling that of each of its members.

Notwithstanding this obvious situation, impossible to deny, most people fail to realize it, and many cannot see or will not admit even to themselves the futility of individual voting. The illusion of the value of an independent vote, the product of self-conceit and political superstition exists in the minds of numbers of intelligent men, and daily manifests itself in the cant and rubbish of every-day speech. A very large proportion of American men like to believe or pretend that they believe, that an effective vote can really be cast by the individual citizen expressive of his own individual will and spontaneous desire, and that thereby such will and desire will be manifested and reflected in the policy and acts of the government. The privilege of casting this impossible vote is by such a man imagined as one of the inestimable privileges of American citizenship. He is, he proudly thinks, an independent voter, free from party trammels; and he fondly supposes that by so much as he holds himself aloof from party organization is his voted opinion the more valuable and effective. We frequently hear a man threaten to vote against this and that candidate; sometimes, filled with self-importance, he notifies his newspaper of his dire intention; others who have not even membership in any party gravely tell you that you should always vote for somebody, that it is your duty to do so, and having themselves voted for men of whose policies they have not the slightest knowledge or control, try to fancy that they have employed their time and shoe leather to great advantage. The fact is that these self-styled independent voters are in all this the happy victims of pleasant delusions. Each of them is either a party voter or a mere trifler. When he pretends to revolt from political control, he usually does nothing of the kind; he simply changes his vote from the candidate of one set of politicians to the candidate of the other set. In other words, instead of being independent, he joins, for the time at least, the other party or group and finds himself compelled to surrender his individual preferences and to vote the name they give him. If he really selects his own independent candidate and votes for him, his vote is practically lost; his act is futile; it is a vote “in the air”; he might as well vote for a dead man. So that the elective franchise merely gives the voter the privilege of joining with others in the formation of a political group or body capable of aspiring to influence or power. But in order to do this, the individual at the very outset is compelled to surrender his individual wishes, preferences and ambitions to be transmuted into the collective wish, preference and power of his group. He has usually no more control over the movements of the group or party which contains him than a drop of blood in the veins of a bull has over the movements of the animal.

When therefore about ninety years ago the unpropertied citizens were admitted into the political arena it was perfectly natural that they should speedily form themselves into new and distinctive groups. The electorate has always grouped and divided itself according to its interests and passions; witness the old division between Eastern and Western Virginia already referred to; the tariff and slavery divisions, etc. The unpropertied non-voters had already been distinguishable from the propertied voters by their different traits, characteristics and desires. When they obtained the vote the difference between the two classes widened; the attitude toward the offices and the spoils of office being that of unscrupulous and hungry greed on one side, and on the other that comparative disinterestedness which comes from physical comfort and well being. The core of the membership of the new group of voters was in penury; it needed the spoils of office, to which the older voters were comparatively indifferent. Stimulated by this need the non-propertied groups at once sought and obtained a greater cohesive power than any possible rivals; enabling them to overcome and survive them all. They became united and predatory political bands; easily manageable by their leaders; willing to waive aside as comparatively impertinent, the various abstract questions on which the propertied voters were hopelessly divided. In short, they became a unified power, and often the only unified power in practical politics.

The strength and discipline of the controllable groups of voters, have always given them an immense advantage in the final and supreme governmental process, that of the formation, management and maintenance of governing majorities. The creation of such a majority, or the ability to become a part thereof is the final test of political capacity. Occasionally majorities create themselves; as in great popular agitations when the people “rise in their might” and overwhelm the controlled voter. But such irregular movements last at most but a few weeks or months, whereupon the before established oligarchy resumes control and continues its steady business of majority formation and maintenance. It is a job requiring constant and compelling discipline; and one in which the controllable and always reliable vote is the chief element of a uniformly successful management.

It comes then to this, that in a democracy no man should be admitted to vote, unless his class or group will be of service in government. In considering proposed legislation for extension of the franchise, the first question should always be, what will be the character of the group or faction with which the new voters will identify themselves? And if the result is going to be the introduction of a new faction or party into our political system, or the dominance of one at present in the minority, the effect thereof should be seriously considered before the change is authorized. This being a government not of individuals but of groups, the right of any individual to vote can be conceded to him only as one belonging to a class or group entitled and competent to take part in the government. And if his group is of the ignorant, the worthless, the non-contributors to the commonwealth, where is its claim to govern? Those therefore who believe in unlimited suffrage, that is in the right of the ignorant and worthless to vote, must believe either that such vote will be unorganized, in which case it is an empty gift of a valueless privilege, or they must believe in the natural right of organized worthlessness to do what it has actually done and is still doing, namely to rule the country, or to take effective part in such rule, and incidentally to degrade the standards of government to a point as near the low level of its own intelligence and conscience as possible.

Prior to manhood suffrage the political groups were all transient, shifting and undisciplined bodies representing debatable theories and principles; this continued from Washington’s time to Jackson’s. Manhood suffrage furnished the material everywhere for new groups founded on need and appetite and organized by professional politicians; these have become drilled and disciplined, have learned to live off the country and to obey leaders. They have won the usual adherence of success; drawing from every direction the indifferent, the lukewarm, the careless, the unprincipled, the weak, the foolish, the men of small ambitions, the business failures, and the odds and ends, in total the material for a great predatory political army. The leaders of that army constitute the power which governs the United States to-day.