Such conditions of opportunity revealed and ever-present selfish motives must inevitably produce men who aspire to be successful advisers to the electorate. Active competition for these places naturally ensues. Success, then, means the survival of the fittest. That means that among the professionals those win who take their profession seriously, understand it thoroughly, and practice it assiduously and with judgment, tact, and craft. Here, then, we have the local political boss or professional politician. He is merely the successful local adviser and director to the politically ignorant voter. He is the man who can, more than anyone else, in a local district, direct the largest number of the politically ignorant how to vote. He advises and directs the voter how to vote principally by personal canvasses of the voters and solicitations at the polls and by controlling the machinery of nominations so as to determine who shall appear as a candidate under a given party name. The political ignorance of the voter is one of the necessary conditions to his existence. The fact that most voters cannot make a show of voting intelligently without someone to help them provides the opportunity which calls him into being. The power of the successful adviser and director to the voter is in direct ratio to the political ignorance of the electorate. It makes no difference whether that ignorance be the result of general lack of intelligence or be artificially produced by placing a special educational qualification upon the voter which he cannot or will not fulfil. To the extent that the adviser and director of the politically ignorant voter can direct and advise the voter how to vote, he can fill the offices of the state and local governments with those who are loyal to him, and thus control some part of the power of government. Since the business of directing the politically ignorant voter how to vote has fallen into the hands of a professional class and since the prize to be won is the control of governmental power, it is not to be wondered at that the profession has become highly organized for the purpose of achieving its object; that men of extraordinary power and ability have arisen as its leaders, and that to a very great extent the object of the organization has been achieved.