If instead of considering these thirteen waterworks together, we take a single example--the third largest plant--the tendency to make public ownership a source of revenue is more clearly seen. The income from private users in the case of this plant was $4,459,404. The city used for public purposes 29.5 per cent. of the total amount supplied, which if paid for at the rate charged private consumers would have made the total income from operation $6,325,395. This would have been $2,929,232 more than was required to pay all expenses, including interest on the total investment.[169] In the case of electric-light plants private ownership is the rule, only 460 of the 3,032 plants being under municipal ownership. The Report of the United States Commissioner of Labor[170] gives the data for 952 of these plants, 320 of which are municipally owned and operated. Municipal ownership, however, is mainly confined to the smaller cities and towns. This is shown by the fact that although more than one-third of the 952 plants above mentioned are under municipal control, only 30 out of 277, or less than one-ninth of the largest plants, are municipally owned. This is to be accounted for by the more determined opposition to the policy of municipal ownership by the capitalist class in the larger cities, where private management is most remunerative. Municipal plants, too, are often restricted to public lighting, not being allowed to furnish light or power for commercial purposes. This restricted form of municipal ownership is merely a slight concession on the part of the private monopolist to the taxpaying class. The general public, as consumers of light and power, derive no benefit from such a policy. These and other facts which might be mentioned illustrate the natural tendency of a system under which the power of the masses is limited in the interest of the property-owning class. The chief evils of municipal government in this country have their source not in majority but in minority rule. It is in the city where we find a numerically small but very wealthy class and a large class owning little or no property that the general political movement toward democracy has encountered the most obstinate resistance. Only a small part of our urban population own land or capital. The overwhelming majority of those who live in cities are employees and tenants. In the year 1900 74.3 per cent. of the families in the 160 cities of the United States having 25,000 or more population lived in rented houses and only 14.5 per cent. in unmortgaged homes.[171] In the smaller towns the proportion of property owners was larger, while in the country the majority of the population belonged to the land-holding class, 64.4 per cent. of the "farm" families owning their homes, 44.4 per cent. of such families owning homes that were unencumbered.[172]