It would be impossible in this volume to give even a summary account of the effects of manhood suffrage upon municipal government in this country. In New York City the ill results of the extension were plainly discernible shortly after its institution in 1826 and increasingly thereafter. (See Myers’ _History of Tammany Hall_; the _Evarts Report_; and Moss’s _American Metropolis_ hereinafter referred to.) The local affairs of the other smaller and newer cities were not of course prominent till later years. There is not space here to treat the subject in detail, and only a few illustrative instances can be given. But this must be said at the outset, that the record of city government in the United States since 1830 has been infamous; that on the whole it is a history of ignorance, incapacity, venality, waste, extravagance, corruption and robbery, carried to such an extent as to demonstrate the utter incapacity of the populace for self-government; and that nothing but the circumstance that in one way or another means have been found to check the power of the people and their municipal representatives put in power by the controllable vote has saved many of these cities from bankruptcy and ruin. Looking into the record of the conditions of our own time in our great cities, we find them thus described by Bryce: “A vast population of ignorant immigrants; the leading men all intensely occupied with business; communities so large that people know little of one another, and that the interest of each individual in good government is comparatively small.” There are, he says, large numbers of ignorant and incompetent immigrants controlled by party managers; a large shifting population, and the political machinery so heavy and complicated as to discourage the individual, who feels himself a drop in the ocean. “The offices are well paid, the patronage is large, the opportunities for jobs, commissions on contracts, pickings, and even stealings, are enormous. Hence, it is well worth the while of unscrupulous men to gain control of the machinery by which these prizes may be won.” He further says: “The best proof of dissatisfaction is to be found in the frequent changes of system and method. What Dante said of his own city may be said of the cities of America: they are like the sick man who finds no rest upon his bed, but seeks to ease his pain by turning from side to side. Every now and then the patient finds some relief in a drastic remedy, such as the enactment of a new charter and the expulsion at an election of a gang of knaves. Presently, however, the weak points of the charter are discovered, the State legislature again begins to interfere by special acts; civic zeal grows cold and allows bad men to creep back into the chief posts.” (_American Commonwealth_, Vol. I, p. 649; Vol. II, 99-100.)