It is impossible to give here even an outline of the mass of evidence in the case or to make an approach to a picture of the enormous pillage that has been in progress in our municipal affairs. Steffens in _The Shame of Cities_ gives a summary of part of the facts relating to six American cities, namely: New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Chicago, Minneapolis and Pittsburgh; and it makes a book of 300 pages. In each of the governments of those cities Steffens discovered organized graft, bribery and corruption. In St. Louis he reports a number of the members of the municipal assembly as “utterly illiterate and lacking in ordinary intelligence ... in some no trace of mentality or morality could be found; in others a low order of training appeared, united with base cunning, groveling instincts and sordid desires. Unqualified to respond to the ordinary requirements of life they are truly incapable of comprehending the significance of an ordinance and are incapacitated, both by nature and training, to be the makers of laws.” Franchises, etc., worth $50,000,000 had been granted in the past ten years and scarcely one without bribery. As much as $50,000 was paid for a vote in the municipal assembly. Companies were driven out by blackmail. Boodling was the real business of the city officials. In Minneapolis in 1901 and thereafter the city authorities were in a regular partnership with the underworld and a large and steady revenue was collected for the ring by corrupt methods. In Pittsburgh Steffens found a boss in control and the usual systematic corruption. He noticed that the Pittsburgh method was to put into all places of power dependents of the boss, men without visible means of support; in fact the manhood suffrage idea was carried out to its logical results. There was an agreement in writing between the city boss and the state boss (Quay) for the control of politics. Space will not permit the insertion here even of Steffens’ summary of Pittsburgh graft and corruption; it dealt with franchises, public contracts, profits of vice, public funds and miscellaneous sources of revenue. Philadelphia is described as the most corrupt city in the land. Good citizens there ask “What is the use of voting?” The city machine is a mere dependent of the state machine. The system there is to apply to the public service by way of compromise with the public a handsome percentage of the collected taxes. Steffens recognized in Philadelphia the complete and permanent overthrow of popular and honest government. In Chicago he found a persistent struggle going on against the ever active and ever powerful poison of corruption. He claims that some headway has been made in the direction of reform by the efforts of a powerful Chicago organization known as “The Municipal Voter’s League,” a watchdog affair, reaching after control, and whose existence is a proof and a confession of the absolute breakdown of manhood suffrage. Steffens