Such are the fruits of manhood suffrage in the most enlightened country in the world. M. de Tocqueville, a distinguished Frenchman, who visited this country in 1831, ten years after manhood suffrage had been widely established, was struck by the vulgar aspect of the men whom he found in the House of Representatives at Washington. He said: “They are for the most part village lawyers, dealers or even men belonging to the lowest classes.” No one would have said that of the Continental Congress nor of any Congress before Jackson’s time. The very latest observers give similar testimony. Mr. Godkin notes the disappearance from Congress and from public life of the class of statesmen and great political leaders of former days, such as Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Silas Wright, Marcy and Seward, and ascribes it to the political bosses who will tolerate no independence. Mr. Bryce says: “The members of legislatures are not chosen for their ability or experience, but are, five-sixths of them, little above the average citizen. They are not much respected or trusted, and finding no exceptional virtue expected from them, they behave as ordinary men do when subjected to temptations.” And again: “It must be confessed that the legislative bodies of the United States have done something to discredit representative government.” (_American Commonwealth_, Vol. II, pp. 587, 609.) Writing of Congress in 1907 Professor Commons says: “Why is it that a legislative assembly which in our country’s infancy summoned to its halls a Madison or a Hamilton to achieve the liberties of the people has now fallen so low that our public-spirited men hesitate to approach it?” (_Proportional Representation_, p. 8.) Professor Commons does not further attempt an answer to his own question, but it is not difficult to find one. When an inferior choice is made, the fault is always with the chooser. Congress is inferior because the electorate is inferior, and because the manhood suffrage machine insists on mediocrity and slavishness in Congress and everywhere else and has lowered the political spirit of the nation. Writing about 1899 Professor Hyslop of Columbia University, New York, says: