410 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
persuaded to extract them. But personal inquiry of the various officials responsible for the preparation of the voters lists revealed the fact that no one could ascertain from any tables which have been prepared how the voting population of Berlin at present would compare with the voting population under the universal male-suffrage system of the United States.
The municipal voters list for the year 1897-8 contained 308,936 names. The list of persons eligible to vote for members of the legislature, in regard to which the provisions are somewhat more liberal, was 398,000. The list of persons eligible to vote for members of the Reichstag, which is still more liberal, being practically based upon the system of universal manhood suffrage, showed about the same number ; but, inasmuch as the age requirement for the Reichstag elections is 25, while that for the state legislature and city councils is only 24, the number of persons, 24 years of age, otherwise eligible to vote at Reichstag elections, would be of course considerably larger. It is perhaps not too much to say that the present law, as applied to the city of Berlin, excludes about 25 percent, of the male German citizens, 21 years of age, living in the city of Berlin, from participation in local elections. It is apparent on the face of it that this constitutes a very important limitation of the suffrage as compared with our American cities.
The list of voters prepared for the elections held in Novem- ber, 1899, contained the names of 316,948 persons, all of whom were assessed to, and had paid a tax of, at least 4 marks. 1
This list, including all persons qualified to vote in the city of Berlin, is arranged in the order of the sum total of direct taxes paid by each individual to the city and the state. It is then divided into three classes in the following manner : Beginning at the head of the list, the sums paid in taxes are added together, going down the list until a sum equal to one third of the total
1 It must be noted, however, that the list contains the names of certain joint-stock companies and non-residents of the city, namely, those who pay a higher tax than any of the three highest taxed individual inhabitants of the city. This number is not, of course, sufficient to make any material difference in the total number of voters, although it has a marked influence in affecting the distribution of voters among the three classes, as will be seen later.
