The ignorance of the voter and his consequent disfranchisement follow necessarily from our present plan of government. They result immediately from the burdens placed upon the electorate. Those in turn arise from the application of the two principles of government which we have constantly heretofore applauded and proclaimed--the decentralization of governmental power and the principle that all offices of any consequence should be elective. These principles of government are still regarded by the mass of the people as the true and only sources of democracy and the necessary protection of the people from all forms of unpopular government. The application of these principles is in varying degrees protected by state constitutions which provide for the separation of the powers of government, both state and local, among departments and officers, and require local as well as state subordinate officers to be elected at frequent intervals.[4] Thus do the letter and the spirit of our governmental theory and practice necessarily induce the wholesale ignorance and consequent disfranchisement of the large majority of the electorate in regard to candidates for offices, which, when filled, wield a very large, if not the larger, part of the state and local governmental power. Formerly unpopular government was founded upon the absence of any voting. Today the electorate, while voting furiously, has nevertheless been deprived to a large extent of the ballot because a burden of knowledge--an educational qualification, in effect--has been placed upon it which, under present conditions, it does not and cannot fulfil. Thus, by the simple process of too much so-called popular democracy--that is, too much decentralization of governmental power and too much voting--we have arrived at the essential condition which invites the establishment of unpopular government--namely, the disfranchisement of the electorate. Section 4 The Power of the Electorate Passes to Those Who Take Advantage of Its Political Ignorance to Direct It How to Vote The severe educational qualification which has been imposed upon the electorate today has done more than merely deprive the voter of the power to vote. It has presented to others the _opportunity_ to direct the voter how to vote and thus in effect to cast his ballot for him. That opportunity has at once been taken advantage of by men who have been quick to perceive the vast political power which the privilege of casting the voter’s ballot for him confers. This combination of opportunity and selfish motive is the complete cause of the passing of a considerable part of the political power of the electorate at large to the few who direct it how to vote. It is important that the way in which the effect follows from the causal conditions be set forth in as detailed and precise a manner as possible.