This situation should be clearly understood, because there are in this country millions of people so blind, ignorant or innocent as to imagine that the public at large are really participants in the whole business of politics and government when in fact they have no share in it whatever. Let the reader who doubts this statement attempt to interfere as an amateur in politics. He will find it impossible to do so and that he cannot interpose with any, even the slightest effect except by himself joining one of the political gangs or parties, becoming one with them, submitting to their rules and methods and aiding in their schemes to purchase and manage the controllable vote. To the ordinary voter, and to the mass of millions of voters, to that populace which foolishly believes itself the ruler of the nation it is forbidden even to know what politicians intend or are doing. Each voter may meekly attend at the polls and ratify what one machine or the other has already determined on, but there he must stop. If he attempts to do more, to protest or to air his opinions he will be ignored; and if he persist he will be treated with the scorn and contempt due to a meddling fool. The fact of the absolute control of our government by a political oligarchy has been frequently recognized and commented upon. Here, for instance, by a recent writer who favors the principle of a property qualification: “Our ruinously expensive government, shameful system of national taxation, blackmailing of individuals and corporations, and bribery at elections and in the legislatures, show clearly enough that universal suffrage does not eliminate the influence of wealth from politics, or produce the millennium and paradise for any but scoundrels. In fact, our present system only puts wealth, or the power which it represents, into the hands of the unscrupulous who can always use the proletariat for any irresponsible power that is wanted, and for plundering the community in some form, whether by taxation or blackmail. They have become so bold that they do not discuss the problems of government at all, but carry on their business with the audacity of pirates and the immunity of saints. Universal suffrage is simply the useful instrument to this end, and the boasted policy which was to cure poverty and destroy the influence of wealth has only increased its power and handed government over to the anti-social classes, with a struggle between the anti-social rich to plunder everybody else and the anti-social poor to do the same. The proper limitation of the franchise would cut off the sources of the politician’s influence over the proletariat and place the balance of power in the great middle class whose social and moral qualities are superior to those of the rich who buy the plebs with a mess of pottage or false promises in