with a light-hearted ease that seemed sheer insanity to many observers. The corrupt politician improved the opportunity and marshalled them to the polls in droves, often to the loudly expressed disgust of the native born. Every method of coercion, deceit, and corruption, was employed to keep the foreigner in the ranks. But this policy was foredoomed to failure from the start. In his native country the immigrant was either ignored or else kicked and cuffed about by those in authority; imagine his surprise at being courted for his political influence in the land of his adoption. The few dollars or few petty favours at first offered him for his vote may have been a very despicable method of acquainting him with the value of his political rights, but the lesson had the merit at least of being adapted to every grade of intelli

gence, including the lowest. Good government

tracts on the duties of citizenship would hardly have proved so effective. On the whole it would be hard to imagine a worse school for citizenship, and the only wonder is that in the end it has turned out so many good citizens. A large part of the foreign vote has learned to repudiate the leadership of designing native politicians. It has developed leaders and aims of its own. Many of these leaders are doubtless quite as purely selfish as the former American leaders, and many of the aims pursued are not so high as they should be, but the political capacity to reach higher things

is there; and that, after all, is the main consideration.1 It would be easy to find fault on much the same grounds with the political ideals and leaders of those parts of the country which have been little if at all affected by immigration.

Believers in the ultimate good resulting from a questionable evolutionary process might point in support of their faith to the foregoing interpretation of the effects of our corrupt politics upon the immigrant. Others will doubtless find it much too roseate. What of those immigrants, they will ask, who were already fitted for the proper per

'In his extremely interesting work on "The Anthracite Coal Communities," Mr. Peter Roberts takes a rather dark view of the political morals of the coal counties of Pennsylvania (pp. 316-42, 355-58), but it is easy to recognise in his pages the emergence of political independence and higher forms of corruption which indicate better things for the future. "In the year 1897," he writes, “the courts of Lackawanna, Luzerne, and Schuylkill, drafted a new set of rules to regulate the process of naturalising aliens, making it more difficult and expensive.-[The cost alone was increased from $2.00 to from $12.00 to $15.00, and applicants were compelled to engage the services of an attorney.]—The Sclav in this matter, as in all others which affect his material interests, moves in a practical manner that commends his business tact and condemns his political ethics. The applicants organise into political clubs, and prepare themselves for the examination. When they are ready they wait for the time of election until some aspirant for political honours comes round. A bargain is then made; if he secures them their naturalisation papers the club will vote for him. In this way a large number are pushed through, previous to the

formance of the duties of American citizenship? Doubtless the number of such was large, particularly among our earlier accessions from western Europe. Many of this better class of immigrants must have been debauched by contact with corrupt influences, and even those who rose superior to such conditions must have found it an uphill fight. Even if instances can be cited where foreign masses subject to the worst political management have nevertheless developed independence and organisations of their own, it is seriously to be questioned whether this development will continue. The new flood of immigration from southern and

elections, at little expense to themselves.-The first lesson taught these men in the exercise of the franchise is that it is property having market value, which they sell to the highest bidder." (pp. 44-45.)

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There are many brilliant young men rising among them [the Sclavs] who cherish political ambition, and they successfully lead their fellow countrymen to acquire the rights of citizenship in order to enhance their prospects and power in both municipal and county politics. They are gradually appropriating more and more of the spoils of office in municipalities and their power in county elections is annually increasing."

"These people have both physical and intellectual qualities which will enrich the blood and brain of the nation, but the political ethics in vogue in our state are far from possessing a character likely to strengthen and elevate the moral nature of the Sclav. His leaders teach him cunning and give him samples of fraud and sharp practice which he is quick to copy. Venality is the common sin of our electors and the Sclav has been corrupted in the very inception of his political life in his adopted country." (pp. 47-48.)

eastern Europe may progressively deteriorate, or remain a stumblingblock for a long time to come. There are some communities of native white stock in the United States where the buying of votes has continued through two or three generations, growing worse rather than better, until at the present time it seems to have become a fixed institution. In the opinion of many people a large part of the negro vote is not only corrupt but incorrigibly so. Altogether the facts are very far from warranting a reliance upon unaided evolution to work out the problem of electoral corruption. Even granting that the results already secured in this way are extremely favourable, it is probable that much better results might have been secured had the native American stock from the start lived up to the best ideals of republican citizenship. The immigrant might, for example, have been met and aided by institutions working unselfishly for his welfare, such as the church, the school, or the social settlement, rather than by the lowest grade of party politicians working largely for their own private advantage. Doubtless this will sound like a counsel of perfection. So it certainly is as regards the past, but none the less it would seem our clear duty to take every care to educate properly for future citizenship not only such foreigners as we shall continue to admit, but also those of our own people who are exposed to corrupt influences.

To sum up the four lines of apology offered for political corruption, it may be noted that only two of them are so commonly entertained at the present time as to have any large practical significance. These are the first and second, namely, that corruption makes business good, and that it may be more than compensated for by the high efficiency of those who engage in it. The two remaining arguments, dealing respectively with the danger of mob rule and the possibly beneficent effects of further evolution, are extremely interesting; but for the present, at least, they belong largely to the realm of political theory. No one is so simple as to imagine that such forms of corruption as affect our political life owe their existence to any public benefit, near or remote, which by any stretch of the imagination may be attributed to them. Primarily they exist because they are immediately profitable to certain persons who are unscrupulous enough to engage in sinister and underhanded methods of manipulation. Philosophical excuses are not thought out until later, when the magnitude and the profitableness of the malpractices involved suggest the possibility of an apparently dignified and worthy defence. Not one of the four apologies we have considered stands the test of analysis. The social advantages alleged to flow from political corruption are either illusory or minimal. On the other hand the resultant evils are great and real, although, no