“There can be no reason or justice in permitting people who do not pay taxes to vote away the property of those who do. In the European cities, however wide the suffrage may be in national matters, probably not one-half the men vote for city offices. In Great Britain, the Low Countries, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy such an absurdity as universal suffrage for city officers is unknown (except in the very rare cases where a non-taxpayer’s educational qualifications prevent his voting being absurd); and it is in these countries that cities are best and most fully developed, and do most for the health and happiness of the very people who are not permitted to vote.” (Holt, _Civic Relations_, 1907.) Limit of space forbids going into the details of the municipal governments of the foreign countries just referred to; for that the reader is recommended to Munro’s _Government of European Cities_ and Albert Shaw’s two works, _Municipal Government in Great Britain_ and _Municipal Government in Continental Europe_. The important thing in city politics is to get the right men in office, and the inferiority of American public officials as a class as compared with European office holders is well known. In the New York _Times_ of October 19, 1919, this inferiority is stated as a cause for a certain contempt of foreigners for American institutions for which you can scarcely blame them. We quote: “The very poor types of public officials in our large cities, particularly in New York, make a decided impression on our foreign element. In their native countries public officials are held in great respect, nearly all of them being men of standing in their communities and generally men of education and culture. Socialist agitators take great delight in holding up to ridicule the grade of men appointed and elected to public office in this country. Most of these agitators being foreign born realize that the high ideals of the foreign born have been shattered after they have learned that ignorant and uncouth men can reach high public position.” The complete failure of municipal government in the United States has caused great disappointment not only to our city taxpayers, but to the friends of democracy throughout the world. Those who can not or will not see the fatal defects in manhood suffrage are quite at a loss to explain the situation. One of these is Lord Bryce, who says: “The phenomena of municipal democracy in the United States are the most remarkable and least laudable which the modern world has witnessed; and they present some evils which no political philosopher, however unfriendly to popular government, appears to have foreseen, evils which have scarcely showed themselves in the cities of Europe, and unlike those which were thought characteristic of the rule of the masses in ancient times.” (_American Commonwealth_, Vol. II, p. 377.)