This system went into operation in Brooklyn in January, 1882, and seems to have given general satisfaction.  Since then changes in a similar direction, though with variations in detail, have been made in other cities, and notably in Philadelphia.

[Sidenote:  Notion that the suffrage ought to be restricted.] In speaking of the difficulties which beset city government in the United States, mention is often (and perhaps too exclusively) made of the great mass of ignorant voters, chiefly foreigners without experience in self-government, with no comprehension of American principles and traditions, and with little or no property to suffer from excessive taxation.  Such people will naturally have slight compunctions about voting away other people’s money; indeed, they are apt to think that “the Government” has got Aladdin’s lamp hidden away somewhere in a burglar-proof safe, and could do pretty much everything that is wanted, if it only would.  In the hands of demagogues such people may be dangerous, they are supposed to be especially accessible to humbug and bribes, and their votes have no doubt been used to sustain and perpetuate most flagrant abuses.  We often hear it said that the only way to get good government is to deprive such people of their votes and limit the suffrage to persons who have some property at stake.  Such a measure has been seriously recommended in New York, but it is generally felt to be impossible without a revolution.

[Sidenote:  Testimony of Pennsylvania Municipal Commission.] Perhaps, after all, it may not be so desirable as it seems.  The ignorant vote has done a great deal of harm, but not all the harm.  In 1878 it was reported by the Pennsylvania Municipal Commission, as a remarkable but notorious fact, that the accumulations of debt in Philadelphia and other cities of the state have been due, not to a non-property-holding, irresponsible element among the electors, but to the desire for speculation among the property-owners themselves.  Large tracts of land outside the built-up portion of the city have been purchased, combinations made among men of wealth, and councils besieged until they have been driven into making appropriations to open and improve streets and avenues, largely in advance of the real necessities of the city.  Extraordinary as the statement may seem at first, the experience of the past shows clearly that frequently property-owners need more protection against themselves than against the non-property-holding class.[16] This is a statement of profound significance, and should be duly pondered by advocates of a restricted suffrage.

[Footnote 16:  Allinson and Penrose, Philadelphia, 1681-1887; a History of Municipal Development, p. 278.]