"The capitalistic bourgeoisie of the nineteenth century (mainly if we consider the upper-middle classes) stood for an election system which excluded the lower classes even from indirect influence in the government. The middle-class "democrat" frequently dreads the manual laborer, who often sided with the aristocrat, and he usually hates the peasant politically, partly on account of the ingrained loathing of the agrarian elements against the city, partly on account of the conservative-patriarchal structure and tendencies of the farming population. The "democrats" for a long time have been reluctant to grant universal suffrage in view of such alarming manifestations as the peasant-aristocratic rising in the Vendée against the bourgeois revolution in Paris, the rebellion of the Scottish Highlanders against the mammonistic House of Hanover, the formation of Catholic parties in Central Europe largely recruited from priests and peasants. Only in the twentieth century, through constant pressure from the socialists, has the demand for income brackets and educational standards in connection with suffrage been dropped."
January 1, 1970