The manner in which the controllable vote is marshalled to the polls is described by Eaton (_Govt. of Municipalities_, chap. V). Its existence is recognized by him as a reason why our great cities are not fit for home rule. He divides this vote into two classes: “the mercenary city vote” and “the vile city vote.” But this material is not confined to the large cities, it is to be found in towns and villages and wherever there are worthless, shiftless men. Writing in 1871 Sterne says: “The nomination for public offices is with us entirely in the hands of professional politicians” and this he states to be the case equally in both the country and cities. (_Representative Government_, p. 83.) The conditions have not changed since his time. The local political associations or bands organized for the securing, management and operation of the controllable vote have developed in the last century. They are now frequently able, especially in the large cities, to secure a considerable class of recruits of a type somewhat superior to the “floaters,” from among the social failures and misfits. Most of these are sloppy-minded fellows, who, tempted by social proclivities, or misled by weak ambitions and the appearance of political success, join the “Regular Organization” as they call it. Some of them are rather vicious; social degenerates or perverts; men who have not judgment and honesty enough to insure their voting right even in matters small enough to be within their mental grasp; and whose ideals are not honesty, justice, public honor, and intelligence, but smartness, cleverness and guile. Sometimes they are motived by prejudice and class hatred; often they are rabid, loud-mouthed radicals, anti-capitalists, etc. Others are weak and shiftless, people naturally harmless but incapable of correct observation in political and economic matters, or of correct reasoning upon what they observe; men who are recognized as failures in the world, more or less incapable of self-support; burdens on their relatives and friends, or on churches or societies with which they or their families are connected; men who never can get employment, or if they do, cannot keep it; fellows of lazy and careless habits who having failed to do their part in organized society have had to pay the penalty of their remissness. There are those who have got into a mental habit of chronic dissatisfaction with the established ethics of life and have finally grown to disbelieve in them altogether; who doubt whether honesty is the best policy; who are unable to recognize what it is that really constitutes success, or who fail to find the true path to reach it. To some of them the man who gets power or money at any price is the successful man and him they envy and applaud. They themselves hate to work or to deny themselves, merely in order to save or to accumulate; and yet they want money, and long for its possession, and finally grow