Classes In Prussia.

New York Times 100 years ago today, May 22, 1913:
Forces of Reaction Now Rally About a Bad Voting System.
To the Editor of The New York Times:
    "The most wretched of all electoral systems" was Bismarck's description of the Prussian method of choosing members of the local Legislature. This body, known as the Abgeordnetenhaus, or House of Representatives, for which a new election is now in progress, consists of 443 members, and is elected for a term of five years. Every bad feature known to political science characterizes the Prussian electoral system. The ballot is not secret, but public; the voting is not direct, but indirect, and the suffrage is not equal, but unequal.
    According to the law, a representative to the Abgeordnetenhaus is chosen by an electoral college composed of delegates selected according to the well-known three-class system. Every constituency is subdivided into districts called Urwahlbezirke, and to each of the latter one elector or Wahlmann is allotted for every 250 inhabitants. These electors are chosen in the following manner: The voters are divided into three groups — first, the wealthy, who pay one-third of the direct taxes in the district; then the moderately well-to-do, who pay the second third, and finally the great mass of people, who pay the remaining third. Each group then chooses one-third of the electors in the district. The purpose of this complicated arrangement is plainly to overwhelm the mass of voters with a mass of property. To weigh, not to count, votes is the guiding principle of the Prussian system.
    It is estimated that about 3 per cent. of the voters belong to the first class, 9 1/2 per cent. to the second, and 87 1/2 per cent. to the third. In many districts the first class consists of only one or two persons. In the last election of 1908 the Socialists cast about 600,000 votes and elected seven members to the House, while the Conservatives, receiving only about 420,000 votes, elected 212 members. Moreover, the last reapportionment took place in 1858, with the result that many places are now greatly over-represented, and many others greatly under-represented. Voting is public, not secret. The reason for this is obvious; it is to make sure that the little power the lower classes have shall not be used against those in authority. The landlords coerce their tenants, the employers their workmen, and the Government its employes. Recently the Socialists have instituted a terrorism of their own; they boycott every shopkeeper who does not vote for Socialist electors. The Prussian system thus presents a trinity of electoral evils: Rotten boroughs, political coercion, and property suffrage.
    It is keenly realized by all the conservative elements in Germany that the political structure of Prussia, with its monarchical Government, aristocratic traditions and disciplined life, is best fitted to act as a breakwater to the rising tide of Social Democracy. Reactionary Prussia must balance the democratically chosen Reichstag; otherwise power would slip from the landed aristocracy to the middle and lower classes. And for this reason Conservatives throughout the Empire have rallied to the defense of the three-class system. "Just because a democratic franchise is the basis of the German Empire," remarked the conservative Allgemeine Zeitung of Munich, "the dangerous significance of which Bismarck so sadly under-rated, there is needed a conservative counterpoise which will constantly bolster up the sinking figure of Germania; and this conservative counterpoise is called Prussia."
    So long as Prussia dominates the Government of the Empire — and there are no signs that her supremacy is at all challenged — the great problem of democracy in Germany centres around the Prussian method of voting. Let that fall and many other reforms would speedily follow. Hence the forces of reaction and reform have concentrated on the three-class system, which is the issue in the campaign for the election of a new House.
    As a result of a great manifestation on the part of the Socialists, the Government introduced on Feb. 13, 1910, a bill modifying the present method. It was strongly opposed by the Socialists as not being radical enough, and by the Conservatives as being too radical, with the result that the bill was withdrawn. It then became evident that no real change would take place in Prussia unless pressure was brought from the outside. The Socialists introduced on Feb. 12 last a motion in the Reichstag or Imperial Parliament, viz.:
    In each Slate of the Empire, representation to the local Legislature shall be based on equal, direct, and secret suffrage. The right to vote shall be granted to all citizens over twenty years of age. All laws must have the consent of the Legislature.
    This resolution not only aimed to abolish the three-class system, but included woman suffrage as well. The Socialists boldly threw down the gauntlet to test who really favored complete democracy. That was magnificent, but it was not politics, for they soon found themselves alone with their principles, as all the other parties combined to defeat the motion. Nearly all the speakers denounced it as a violation of State's rights. One conservative member declared that the resolution violated the constitutional right of each State in the Empire to regulate its own electoral affairs, and that, if passed, it would destroy the federal character of the Empire, and so realize the hope of the Socialists to bring about a centralized Government on a democratic basis. Another Conservative frankly said that if Bismarck were now alive and beheld 110 Socialists in the Reichstag he would change his opinion of the three-class system, which, at least, has kept Socialists out of the Abgeordnetenhaus.
    The Socialist, Radical and Liberal parties are as a unit in their demand for a democratized franchise. The Centre, or Catholic, Party takes a midway position; it favors the abolition of public and indirect voting, but wishes to maintain the three-class arrangement. Its support, therefore, is thrown to the Conservatives. The latter heartily indorse the present system in its entirety; they even go so far as to say that if the Prussian ballot is made more democratic they will demand a restricted suffrage for the Reichstag.
    It is the great hope of the Conservatives to use the tense military situation in Europe to shelve electoral reform, just as the French politicians did in the case of proportional representation. Nothing comes so handy to the European reactionary as "strained relations" between countries, for then the voice of patriotism can always be depended upon to drown the cries for reform. It remains to be seen whether the German workingmen are prepared to use that newly forged weapon, the political strike, to accomplish the long-wished-for abolition of "the most wretched of all electoral systems."
            J. SALWYN SCHAPIRO,
            College of the City of New York.
            New York, May 21, 1913.