So here let us end the chapter on the politicians, with the picture of a purchasable legislature created by a political machine and representing a purchasable manhood suffrage constituency, and of the traffic conducted by bosses and rings on one side and a lobby on the other. Granted American activity, and enterprise in public improvements to cause the stream of dollars to flow steadily, and what more is required to produce what Mr. Carnegie happily dubs “Triumphant Democracy”? CHAPTER XI THE EFFECT OF MANHOOD SUFFRAGE IS TO FASTEN ON THE COUNTRY AND MAKE PERMANENT THE RULE OF THE POLITICIANS The political oligarchies rule, have ruled and will continue to rule this country through the medium of the controllable vote. This is plainly inferable from what has already been said about the strength and operations of the Machine, and is in a vague way to some extent understood or at least suspected throughout the country. The object of this chapter is to emphasize it, to bring it home to the reader, to make him realize it, and to cause him to reflect upon it, and to thoroughly appreciate the absolute impossibility of throwing off the odious bondage of the politicians unless and until the suffrage is restricted to a well-qualified class of voters. By the extension of the franchise to the unpropertied and thriftless class there was injected into the veins of the electoral body a new and poisonous element, the virus of cupidity. A certain portion of this class, the so-called floaters, is directly purchasable; another large portion is indirectly purchasable or controllable and capable of being organized on a basis of bargains made or understood. The vote therefore which by degrees as the organizations have developed has come to adhere to these predatory bands is not confined merely to the directly purchasable; it includes the controllables; all such as the organization reaches by the manipulation of low motives; by appeals to cupidity direct or indirect; by favors to themselves or their relatives, by rewards of public employment, whether as laborers, petty officers, policemen, firemen or the like; by protection, as in the case of gamblers, liquor sellers, and others who adhere to the organization for purposes of personal advantage. The organization therefore will always be permanent and effective because its members are materially interested in its existence and power.