A provision that no man should vote unless he has intelligence enough to read and write, thrift enough to have laid up three hundred dollars' worth of property, and patriotism enough to have paid his taxes, would not be a bad provision for any State in the Union to incorporate in its constitution."[38] Such a provision accompanied by the customary Southern poll tax, which, Dr.Abbott overlooked (evidently inadvertently), would add several million more white workingmen to the millions (colored and white) that are already without a vote.[39] We cannot wonder, then, that the working people, who are enthusiastic supporters of every democratic reform, should nevertheless distrust the democracy of the new movement.

It is generally supposed in the United States that the reason the new "Insurgency" is weaker in the East than in the West is because of the greater ignorance and political corruption of the masses of the great cities of the East.

But when we see the radicalism of the West also, as soon as it enters the towns, tending to support the Socialists and Labor parties rather than the reformers, we realize that the distrust has no such local cause.
Perhaps the issue is more clearly seen in the hostility that exists among the working people and the Socialists towards the so-called commission plan of city government, which the progressives unanimously regard as a sort of democratic municipal panacea.

The commission plan for cities vests the whole local government in a board of half a dozen elected officials subject to the initiative and referendum and recall.
The Socialists approve of the last feature.

They object to the commission and stand for the very opposite principle of an executive subordinate to a legislature and without veto power, because a board does not permit of minority representation, and because it allows most officials to be appointed through "influence" instead of being elected.
They object also, of course, to the high percentages usually required for the initiative and the recall.