Here, in the last chapter, seems to be an appropriate place to anticipate and reply to a few prospective objections.

Objection that the project is undemocratic. This assumes that universal suffrage is a democratic institution; but in practise it operates to the contrary as has already been shown. The prospect practically offered by the property qualification project, is the democratic one of the door of political opportunity opened to that honest ability which is now by the machines and rings excluded from a public career. So much for the practical test. Looking at the project in the abstract, it is satisfying to the democratic mind, whether viewed in the light of high principle, of idealism, of nature’s law, or of democratic policy. It recognizes and rewards merit, it puts a premium on industry and capacity, and thus satisfies a principle. Its ideal is noble; it is that of the creation of a high grade of citizenship, the establishment of a democracy of virtue and talent. It conforms to nature’s law by preferring the fittest; by creating order in the ranks of citizenship; by putting government into the hands of those whom nature herself has selected as competent. It accords with democratic policy because it will give democracy more strength and more wisdom; because it is progressive, and calculated to encourage progress; because it glorifies citizenship by making it a token of distinction; because it at once makes its active citizenship select by excluding the unworthy, and at the same time, open and free to all, by inviting all to qualify to exercise it. It will create a true majority rule; for the new electorate will undoubtedly constitute a great majority in numbers of the men of the country; and will represent practically all its civilization, education, talent, energy and ability. It will give the humble his due which is opportunity to rise; he is entitled to no more. To the poor man of capacity the door to the voting booth will be as wide open as the free high school door is to his son; the entrance in either case is for those who can qualify and the terms are the same for all. To admit the unqualified would not benefit them, while it would harm those who are properly inside. Only the shiftless and worthless poor are permanently excluded. The industrious thrifty poor man is only postponed; and he will know that when he does enter by virtue of achievement, he will possess something worth while, something of value; he will be an active citizen, and his suffrage will not be offset and nullified by the purchased vote of a worthless loafer.

Objection that the proposal is oppressive. It would be oppressive if it were arbitrary, or unreasonable, or personal; but it is none of these. It is a greater hardship to be discharged from a job than to be prevented from voting at a public election; and if a man can properly be discharged for incompetency, he can certainly be deprived of his vote for incapacity, under a rule which applies to all under similar circumstances.

The objection that the project will be barren of results is sure to be made. But good results will surely issue from it unless the whole conception of this volume is a mistake. It was within the purpose of some of the master-minds of the republic’s early days to direct the nation in the paths of true and scientific Federal achievement. The far-reaching plans of Washington and John Quincy Adams for the development of mutually interacting national systems of industrial, transportational and educational development were finally defeated by the ignorant and tiger-like rapacity of the Jacksonian manhood suffrage bands. (Degradation of the Democratic Dogma; Brooks Adams, p. 13-62.) But those noble though aborted schemes at least serve to indicate the great possibilities belonging to pure and scientific government. In Federal affairs we may confidently expect a return to the pure and noble traditions of the old Federal government of the second Adams and his predecessors, when the democratic principle was infused with the aristocratic passion for excellence; and our representatives will then be qualified to consider and deal with national questions with ability and intelligence, and a patriotism such as has not been in political operation in this country for ninety years. Some of the direct benefits of the reform may be expected to appear in the most striking and satisfactory possible manner, in the complete reconstruction of our state legislatures, and our municipal governments. The change will seem almost magical. The creation of the new and purified electorate will at one stroke smash the machines, and dislodge the political oligarchies; the standard of public conscience will be immediately elevated, and bribery at elections will almost disappear. We will then be justified in expecting to elect legislators who can be trusted to legislate, and worthy and competent municipal officials. We will be relieved from the burden of maintaining watch dog societies and they will disappear together with the daily political scandals which brought them into being. In a word, we will be able to do for the body politic that which is done in every decent business corporation in the land; find and employ men, honest and competent, for the work assigned to them. The prospect is alluring; one is tempted to dwell on the fine possibilities were each of our forty-eight state legislatures composed of the first men in each state in probity, experience and political intelligence. There has not in our day been much really good government in the world. One would like to see our first-rate American men, of the type and class who have developed our industrial and transportation systems, get a fair opportunity to show the world what can be done, not only in progressive and enlightened domestic legislation, but also in pure and efficient administration of public affairs. Dignified and purified elections; advanced and just legislation; improved and honest administration; a justified and scientific democracy; such if not fully within the promise of the proposed reform are within the possibilities for which by appeal to the new electorate we will be encouraged to work with a fair hope of success.

Objection that the new system will not accomplish this or that desirable thing. Of course, no one will claim that it will bring about everything humanly possible in the way of political improvement. No one can doubt that even after a purification of the electorate there will remain many evils in politics and much still to be done to improve our governmental system. There will remain, for instance, the problem of furnishing the electorate with the facts concerning public measures, or the means of getting them; a problem heretofore generally ignored. Walter Lippman in a very able article in a recent number of the Atlantic Monthly has pointed out the great importance of providing the public with real political information, to take the place of the mess of misinformation now daily served up to us by the daily press. There is an entirely new field to be covered lying in that direction. Then there is the question of how, in great cities especially, the voter is to be made acquainted with the personality and qualifications of the respective candidates. But why attempt to specify, when the fact is that the whole region of scientific domestic legislation remains almost unexplored and uncultivated. Under our machine system of politics, the science of legislation has been absolutely neglected for generations, and the whole administrative and judicial system in every state in the Union needs revision. But the primary, the essential reform is that of the electorate. We must begin there, because by so doing we cleanse and put in good working order the machinery which will itself undertake what else remains to be done. We cannot expect wise measures to be furthered or even understood by an ignorant and corrupt electorate; nor can we expect a sordid political oligarchy to enforce them, even though enacted. The electorate is the Alpha and Omega; the key to everything in politics and government.

For example, the proposed elevation of the franchise would have the effect of making practicable municipal home rule. We are all familiar with the evils of state control of our large cities; and yet the mischiefs of civic home rule under manhood suffrage are even greater. At present, the voters of the great cities are necessarily deprived of all share in many departments of municipal management; which are put in the hands of state boards and commissions because the voters cannot be trusted. The establishment of a competent and conservative electorate in cities, would at once prepare the way for the granting to cities of local self-government; thus advancing the cause of practical democracy, and effecting a result for which civic reformers have labored ineffectually for years.

Another good effect will be the elevation of the political tone of the country. This can never be done while the electorate remains degraded. It is inspiring to think of the healthful stimulus which the politics of the nation will receive when our men come to realize more and more the honor and responsibility attached to the office of active citizen of the republic. To be enrolled on the list of voters will be a distinction which will be valued by those who possess it, and coveted by those who do not; by the youth just entering his career; by the man born poor who is saving to establish a home; by the reformed spendthrift; by every American who turns from a career of folly to the path of wisdom and prudence. Men of substance, education and judgment, who have not visited the polls for years will find it worth their while to vote. And every voter will attend with a feeling that his vote is intended to be effective for good; and will act with a sense of responsibility entirely inappropriate now, when the only real responsibility for an election rests with the boss and the machine.

And yet, beneficial as the above specified effects of the proposed measure seem likely to be, still in the mind of the writer its greatest, its transcendent value lies not in any of them nor in their totality so much as in the expectation that it will be a decided step towards the solution of the world’s problem of the creation of a wise, politic and progressive democracy. The elevation of the electorate; the purification of elections; the destruction of the machines and the rings; the abolition of the political oligarchies; the better government of cities; the heightening of the political tone; an increased efficiency in public affairs; all these are of immense consequence; but beyond and over all is the importance to America and to the world of putting the democratic movement firm on its feet; on the right road; facing the better day and prepared to do its part in carrying on the world’s politics. This it is at present quite unable to do because it has failed to widen its conceptions with the enlargement of its power and opportunities. The ultimate, the supreme power in the state, should possess capacity and understanding. Democracy has undertaken to make of the electorate that supreme power. To do this successfully it had to see to it that the electorate is suffused with intelligence, and it has failed so to do. Its duty in that regard was partially admitted and attempted by means of school education of the young, but the recognition of the principle has not been full or satisfying; nor have the means adopted been adequate. The world is unable to give its full confidence to the democracy of to-day, because of its failure to fulfil its implied undertaking to produce a competent electorate. The great objection to democracy in the minds of modern thinkers is, that originally created and idealized as the champion of individual rights, it has gone no further; it has failed to provide for capacity and efficiency, or to recognize its duty in that direction. On the contrary, its declared policy for the last century has been in the direction of degrading the quality of the voting mass by the process of increasing its volume from below. If democracy is to be the future governing force, it must absolutely and unreservedly commit itself to the principle of a thoroughly competent electorate; to be established not merely by preparation of the fit, but by rigorous exclusion of the unfit. The chief value therefore of the proposed electoral reform consists in its inaugurating a complete change of policy in this vital matter; and in the fact that it will signify that the American democracy has awakened to the understanding of this necessity, and has in good faith undertaken the duty of carrying out the task of making its foundation sure and eternal.

Politics is a progressive science and it may be that the doctrine of a qualified, that is to say, a competent electorate once accepted for general purposes, will receive hereafter extended application. We cannot put a limit to the possibilities of democratic efficiency to be attained through the further selection and elevation of the voters. While the plan of property qualification is apparently the only one at present practicable and efficacious, it would be foolish to suppose that our successors may not extend the application of the principle in directions now unthought of. For instance, in addition to the establishment of means for furnishing the electorate with reliable information as Mr. Lippman has so sagaciously suggested, measures may in time be adopted for recourse to an instructed opinion on proposals for official action, by submitting them to that part of the electorate whose tastes and occupations have given them special light on the subject to be passed upon. Just as there is an instructed minority in musical matters, so there are always minorities with special knowledge of educational affairs, charities, sanitation, public schools, transportation, finances, etc. In the great cities these groups may each amount to tens of thousands of individuals, each group constituting a true and enlightened democracy of opinion on the special subjects in which its members have interested themselves. In a great city like New York, for instance: one can imagine a set of voters qualified on banking and currency; another on constitutional questions; another on public health, and so on; each of them containing perhaps ten thousand highly qualified persons, experts on the subject referred to; whose opinions or decisions might be given as called for, and each carry with it a certain weight, or have a certain political or merely informative effect, as might be provided; and so as new circumstances or situations arise, as changes occur, as experiences accumulate, the principle of qualified voting, of an appeal to a competent and responsible array of selected public opinion may be applied in many new ways, to the advantage of the community.

Objection that the requirement of a qualification may be evaded. One of the criticisms of the property qualification rule when it was the law of the land, was that it was frequently evaded by sham property transfers. Every statute or regulation is likely to be the subject of schemes of evasion which have to be encountered as they develop. It is hardly worth while at this point to discuss imaginary difficulties which may occur in exceptional cases in carrying out the reform. It will certainly never be adopted until it has conquered public opinion; in which case means will readily be found to enforce it. Sham transfers are not unknown in the business world; but though sometimes troublesome, they do not practically interfere with the volume of business transactions.

Objections founded on certain standards of qualification. The writer has omitted to discuss the exact amount, character or measure of property to be named in the qualification standard. It is said that the enforcement of a rate-paying qualification in the City of London, by excluding from the polls paupers, dependents on others, idle and inefficient working men, and the semi-criminal and criminal classes, effects a reduction of about twenty-five per cent from a full manhood suffrage poll list. An equivalent purging here, would completely purify our voting system. But here in this country, the standard would have to vary according to local conditions, and to the judgment of the different legislative bodies having jurisdiction.

As to the possibility of the success of a movement to obtain the enactment of a proper qualification for voters, there can be no doubt. The proposition is new and it will have to be carefully explained and earnestly advocated; but it will be adopted and put in force just as soon as the people become convinced of its justice and expediency; and not before. This means a lot of preparatory and educational work, and therein lies perhaps a chief value of the project. Before it can be adopted, it will have to be thoroughly understood and believed in; the electorate will have to be made to know its own present weakness and corruption, and its own great possibilities, in future power and purity. In short, the proper consideration of a proposal for an elevation of the electorate, will of itself involve such self-examination and bracing up of standards, as will purify the political atmosphere even before its acceptance by the legislatures and the people.

There is no legal difficulty to be overcome, no Federal constitutional provision in the way; and the reform can go into effect in any state, upon a vote of its people changing its constitution. This vote can be obtained. The majority of the voters in every state are property holders; it is in their power to assume control at their pleasure. If this project is right, it will be possible to convince them of that fact. There is no reason why the working classes should oppose it; it is in their interest; most of them are family men, property owners and intelligent. It is they who have suffered most by the depredations of politicians. They would be dull and stupid beyond all that has ever been supposed, to fail to see that misgovernment and want of efficiency are their greatest enemies; that excessive taxation eats up year by year a large part of their surplus product; and when convinced of the justice and expediency of the measure, these serious workers will find means to silence the senseless clamor for the vote, should there be such on the part of the inferior and worthless in the ranks of labor. Among the politicians themselves, no doubt there are men who will break away from machine tyranny and favor the reform; men of real ability, who realize that working in a purer atmosphere they would achieve more real distinction than they now obtain; men who inwardly despise the things they are compelled to countenance and perform. Much formless prejudice there will be also to be overcome no doubt; but that will yield to explanation and to reason.

Thoughtful men everywhere are beginning to realize the humbug and menace of manhood suffrage. Writing in the North American Review for March, 1920, Hanford Henderson says of universal suffrage that “it harms even those whom it is supposed to benefit. To give every man and woman a vote and to declare these votes equally important and significant is both unsound and mischievous.... Universal suffrage is a characteristic example of the democratic failure in discrimination.... An electorate not properly qualified is an ever present public danger.” There is such a prevalent disgust for present political methods that any well-planned scheme of relief will be welcomed. We need only consider whether the measure is right; that once made clear it can be carried. To doubt that is to doubt the possibility of a reasonable democracy.

Just how far the American public is mentally prepared to seriously consider the dominant theories of this work; just how soon, if ever, these theories will become familiar and popular among us, it is impossible to judge. It may be that some proofs of their acceptance will speedily follow the publication of this volume; it may be that years or even generations will pass before the principles herein advocated will get a hearing. But to those of his readers be they ever so few, who believe that the things here written down are true, the author would say in the words with which this volume is begun, written by Washington on the eve of a great and doubtful enterprise: “Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair; the event is in the hand of God.”