It is well known that the great loss of life and property in San Francisco following the earthquake shock of 1906 was chargeable to civic misgovernment. The damage done by the earthquake itself was comparatively light, but the city aqueduct had been so badly built that it was shaken down and the city was left without water, so that it was impossible to put out the numerous fires resulting from the earthquake shock, which, small in their beginnings, were allowed to ravage the city.
The evidence as to smaller cities is similar. “In Minneapolis, for instance,” says Steffens, “the people who were left to govern the city hated above all things strict laws. They were the saloon keepers, gamblers, criminals and the shiftless poor of all nationalities.” (Shame of Cities, p. 65.)
The failure of manhood suffrage is also well illustrated by the history of the City of New York, where there is a large class of unpropertied voters and of which J. B. Miller, writing in 1887, said that the interests of the City were represented almost exclusively by liquor dealers both in the municipal and the state legislatures. In 1840 the New York City debt was $10,000,000, about $33 per capita. In 1870 it was $73,000,000, about $90 per capita. In 1918 (for the new and larger city) it was $1,335,000,000, about $242 per capita. In 1816 the New York tax levy was $344,802, being less than half of one per cent of the taxable property. In 1918 the tax levy was $198,232,811, being 2.30 per cent of the taxable property. In 1898 the New York City budget was $70,000,000; by 1909 it amounted to $156,000,000. The increase in population was only 39.4 per cent in that time, while the city’s expenses increased 123 per cent.
Further evidence may be found in the report of a Commission appointed by Governor Tilden of New York in 1875, to consider the evils of the municipal government of New York City and the necessity of adopting a new and permanent plan for city government. Tilden was a man of recognized ability. He appointed a commission of ten New Yorkers, including judges, lawyers and publicists, men past middle age and of the highest integrity, business experience and reputation. The chairman was William M. Evarts, a distinguished statesman, leader of the New York Bar, who at times held the offices of Attorney General and Secretary of State of the United States. Their report, which was carefully prepared and unanimous, described the steady deterioration in the government of the city of New York which had then been progressing for a generation past, and which they had seen in progress with their own eyes for that period of time. The following extracts from the report are pertinent:
“In 1850, we reach a period when, as the annals of the metropolis at that time and the recollections of those yet living, who were then familiar with its affairs will attest, a marked decline had occurred, through a great deterioration in the standing and character of the city officers, bringing with it waste, extravagance and corruption.”
The report refers to the period from 1850 to 1860. It says:
“Observers of the local government and politics of the metropolis during this period will remember that it was the time when the local managers first organized on a large scale their schemes to control, through compact political arrangements, the management and distribution of the revenues of the city, which then amounted to so large a sum, and it may be said that from that time to the present, with the exception of one short but memorable period, the disposition of these revenues has remained substantially in the hands of the chiefs of trained political organizations, which are mainly supported, in some form or other, from this fund.”
Again:
“In truth, the public debt of the city of New York, or the larger part of it, represents a vast aggregate of moneys wasted, embezzled or misapplied.”
This waste and theft of public money the report refers to had its direct cause in the incapacity and rascality of public officials all or most of whom as we know were chosen either directly or indirectly by manhood suffrage. The report further says on this point: