It is in the cities with many naturalized foreigners or enfranchised negroes that the vice interests have had the freest hand in exploiting and degrading the people. These foreigners have no love for vice, but unwittingly they become the corner-stone of the system that supports it. The city that has had the most and the rawest foreign-born voters is the city of the longest and closest partnership of the police with vice. Tammany Hall first gained power by its "voting gangs" of foreigners, and ever since its Old Guard has been the ignorant, naturalized immigrants. Exposed again and again, and thought to be shattered, Tammany has survived all shocks, _because its supply of raw material has never been cut off_. Not the loss of its friends has ever defeated it; only the union of its foes. The only things it fears are those that bore from within--social settlements, social centers, the quick intelligence of the immigrant Hebrew, stricter naturalization, and restriction of immigration. In every American city with a large pliant foreign vote have appeared the boss, the machine, and the Tammany way. Once the machine gets a grip on the situation, it broadens and entrenches its power by intimidation at the polls, ballot frauds, vote purchase, saloon influence, and the support of the vicious and criminal. But its tap-root is the simple-minded foreigner or negro, and without them no lasting vicious political control has shown itself in any of our cities. The machine in power uses the foreigner to keep in power. The Italian who opens an ice-cream parlor has to have a victualer's license, and he can keep this license only by delivering Italian votes. The Polish saloon-keeper loses his liquor license if he fails to line up his fellow-countrymen for the local machine. The politician who can get dispensations for the foreigners who want their beer on a Sunday picnic is the man who attracts the foreign vote. Thus, until they get their eyes open and see how they are being used, the foreigners constitute an asset of the established political machine, neutralizing the anti-machine ballots of an equal number of indignant intelligent American voters.