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Updated: May 9, 2025
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.
That preference obviously owes its origin to the concept of private property and is most evident in those countries in which the largest proportion of males are property owners, i.e., in which the property-owning caste reaches down into the lowest conceivable strata of bounders and ignoramuses.
He painted hopelessly confused pictures, with constant faults of grammar of the hard fate of the workingman, and the black treachery of the property-owning classes. They were slaveowners who paid them their daily wages by shearing the wool off their backs, and enjoyed riotous luxury themselves while the poor destitute ones were engulfed in a chasm of misery.
Here the old system under which voting and office-holding were regarded as the exclusive right of the property-owning class has not entirely disappeared. In this as in other respects the American state has evinced a fear of municipal democracy. It is true that in the choice of public officials the principle of manhood suffrage prevails.
Such was the view in financial and property-owning circles of results of war that, so far from any expectation of the huge profits which war has put into the pockets of certain classes, they were only too thankful if they could be assured that their gross incomes were not going to be reduced. Such was the spirit with which the Government of that day had to deal.
But with the introduction of universal suffrage the conservative element which dominated the state government naturally favored a policy of state interference as the only means of protecting the property-owning class in the cities. In this they were actively supported by the corrupt politicians and selfish business interests that sought to exploit the cities for private ends.
It is also natural that the property-owning classes, who find themselves paying an Income Tax which they regard as extortionate, should consider that the working classes by their continuous demands for higher wages to meet higher cost of living, are trying to exploit the country in their own interests in a time of national crisis, and displaying a most unedifying spirit.
When they do not love, the crime is when they do wed." "But without marriage," she hesitated, "the home " "It is the old question," I said. "The home is built on woman's virtue; but virtue is not the same where there is no tome, no property, where there is no society it is an artificial thing, born of compromise, and grown stronger by custom of the ages of property-owning man."
Where the majority of the citizens are property owners and taxpayers there is but little danger that public ownership will be subject to this abuse. But where there is great inequality in the distribution of wealth and a large propertyless class, democracy is the only guarantee that the benefits of municipal ownership will not be monopolized by the property-owning class.
In the course of time this development divided the community into a property-owning, governing minority which was wealthy, and a property-poor majority whose livelihood depended upon the willingness of the property holding minority to use their land and productive implements in operations that turned out goods and services. Property ownership and income were protected by law.
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