t 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]

"Much has been said concerning the necessity of legislative interference
in some cases where bad men were coming into power through universal
suffrage in cities, but the recent experience of the country shows that
this has oftener been said to pave the way for bad men to obtain office
or grants of unusual powers from the legislature than with any purpose
to effect local reforms. And the great municipal scandals and frauds
that have prevailed, like those which were so notorious in New York
City, have been made possible and then nursed and fostered by
illegitimate interference at the seat of State government."[173]

The numerical preponderance of the property-owning class in the country
and of the propertyless class in the cities must be taken into account
in any attempt to find an explanation of the reluctance on the part of
the state to recognize the principle of municipal self-government. When
we consider that the state government, even under universal suffrage, is
largely government by taxpaying property owners, we can understand why
the progress toward municipal democracy has been so slow. Under
universal suffrage municipal self-government would mean the ascendency
of the propertyless class, and this, from the standpoint of those who
control