“The problem,” says Mr. Sterne, “is becoming a very serious one, how, with the growth of a pauper element, property rights in cities can be protected from confiscation at the hands of the non-producing classes. That the suffrage is a spear as well as a shield is a fact which many writers on suffrage leave out of sight; that it not only protects the holder of the vote from aggression, but also enables him to aggress upon the rights of others by means of the taxing power, is a fact to which more and more weight must be given as population increases and the suffrage is extended.” (Lecky, _Democracy and Liberty_, Vol. I, pp. 99-101.) This from a high and recent authority: “The standard of integrity in City Councils is far lower even than in State Legislatures. The calibre of membership has so far deteriorated that in a large proportion of the cities of the country these bodies are held in public contempt.” (Appleton’s _Cyclopedia of American Government_, 1914; Corruption, Legislative.) In the same work it is stated, in the article on “Bribery,” that “The crime of accepting bribes has at one time or another been proved against members of city councils in a large proportion of American cities.” This from Ida Tarbell, the well-known writer: “It is not too much to say that the revelations of corruption in our American cities, the use of town councils, state legislatures, and even of the Federal Government in the interests of private business, have discredited the democratic system throughout the world.” (_The Business of Being a Woman_, p. 79.) In a report of a commissioner on the Boston city charter, November 6, 1884, it is stated that “the lack of harmony between the different departments, the frequent and notorious charges of inefficiency and corruption made by members of the government against each other, and the alarming increase in the burden of taxation are matters within the knowledge of all who have taxes to pay or who read the proceedings of the City Council.” That report showed that during the previous thirty years the population had increased 190 per cent; property valuations 200 per cent; expenditures 450 per cent. The appropriations were equal to $27.30 per inhabitant, those of New York $16.76 per inhabitant. The Boston politicians seem to have worked more stealthily and more successfully than the Tweed Ring.