suffrage has been to discredit the true
notables and to incite the abdication or insure the exclusion of men
who, by their education, the large proportion of the taxes they pay,
and still greater influence or production on labor and on business, are
social authorities, and who should become legal authorities. In every
country where conditions are unequal, the preponderance of a numerical
majority necessarily ends in the nearly general abstention or almost
certain defeat of the candidates most deserving of election. But here
the case is different; the elected, being towns-people (citadins) and
not rural, are not of the species as in the village. They read a daily
newspaper, and believe that they understand not only local matters but
all subjects of national and general importance, that is to say, high
level economy, philosophy and law; somewhat resembling the schoolmaster
who, being familiar with the rules of arithmetic, thinks that he can
teach the differential calculus, and the theory of functions. At
any rate, they talk loud and argue on every subject with confidence,
according to Jacobin traditions, being, indeed, so many budding
Jacobins. They are the heirs and successors of the old sectarians,
issuing from the same stock and of the same stamp, a few in good faith,
but mainly narrow-minded, excited, and bewildered by the smoke of the
glittering generalities they utter. Most of them are mere politicians,
charlatans, and intriguers, third-class lawyers and doctors, literary
failures, semi-educated stump-speakers, bar-room, club, or clique
orators, and vulgar climbers. Left behind in private careers, in which
one is closely watched and accepted for what he is worth, they launch
out on a public career because, in this business, popular suffrage
at once ignorant, indifferent, is a badly informed, prejudiced and
passionate judge and prefers a moralist of easy conscience, instead of
demanding unsullied integrity and proven competency. Nothing more is
demanded from candidates but witty speech-making, assertiveness and
showing off in public, gross flattery, a display of enthusiasm and
promises to place the power about to be conferred on them by the people
in the hands of those who will serve its antipathies and prejudices.
Thus introduced into the municipal council, they constitute its majority
and appoint a mayor who is their figurehead or creature, now the bold
leader and again the docile instrument of their spite, their fav