Strange as it may seem, the doctrine of manhood suffrage has never been established in the minds of the American people by argument or discussion; originally adopted without serious reflection, it has since been largely taken for granted. It is curious to see how the most important measures may be adopted in a democratic community without even an approach to thorough consideration on the part of the majority. Take the case of woman suffrage adopted by the State of New York in 1917; only a small proportion of the men of the State had ever seriously considered the subject, and of the several millions of women of the State, probably not more than ten thousand really concerned themselves about it. National prohibition of the use of alcoholic beverages, which seemed impossible in 1908, was enacted in 1918 without real discussion by the electorate. The prohibition vote for President in 1916 was about 200,000 out of 18,000,000, or a little more than one per cent. But the prohibitionists were in bitter earnest; the others were careless or indifferent, a moment favorable to prohibition came, and the thing was done. Something like this is the story of the adoption of manhood suffrage in New York and the other large States; while it was being adopted the majority scarcely realized what was going on; after it was done they were indifferent to the change because it did not affect their daily lives. Since its adoption its theory has been very little discussed by the American people; it has not been openly attacked or questioned by newspaper or political orator for over two generations; its validity is usually taken as a matter of course; the masses are not even aware that there is anything questionable about it; and but one American writer, Prof. Hyslop of New York, has had the vision to see its enormity and the courage and patriotism to describe it in print. (_Democracy._) His powerful book was never replied to and it is significant that not a well considered argument in favor of manhood or universal suffrage can be found in our libraries. Most of what has been printed on the subject is mere twaddle; a few authors lacking practical experience in active life, such as teachers or sociologists, have alluded to it in their class books or political treatises, but the little they say on the subject is usually confined to commonplace laudation of political liberty or other weak sentimentalism or else to the routine conventional assumption that manhood suffrage is what they call in their pretentious slang part of the “advance movement” of the nineteenth century.