The situation which has just been described is so common that the only justification for repeating its description here is the necessity of completing an outline the other parts and interrelations of which are somewhat more obscure. In the gradual awakening of the American people to corrupt conditions existing in their government the first evils clearly seen were the abuses of the patronage and the defilement of the ballot-box. Civil service reform and corrupt practices acts (the latter term seems lamentably narrow in its original usage to the present somewhat more sophisticated generation) were the result. Later the presence of purveyors of vice immediately behind much of the prevailing electoral corruption was clearly discerned, and the battle on that score is still being waged. It is beyond question that our present local option movement is directed against the saloon not so much because it is a place where intoxicating liquor is sold, as because it is a political centre which did not know how to be moderate in its exercise of power during the days of its ascendancy. Still later the more secret relationship between grafting business and political corruption was laid bare. Renewed determination to impose the necessary measures of state regulation and, more specifically, the campaign contribution issue were the results. The problems presented by corrupt practices in connection with political control are still far from adequate solution. Reforms already achieved in the right direction, and still more the determination to press for further reforms, are the most hopeful features of the present situation. In our national government, for example, the civil service movement has reached a gratifyingly high development, but it still needs much extension and strengthening in our states and cities. We have some stringent legislation against ballot-box crimes, but, an election once settled, our tolerance on this subject is amazing and deplorable. Every act which simplifies our governmental machinery, which places responsibility squarely upon a few shoulders and provides means for enforcing it, which shortens our cumbersome ballots, which makes the primary accessible to independent voters, will help in the solution of the problem of honest party control.