The political boss or adviser to the politically ignorant voter first appears in the smaller election districts. His advent is coincident with a certain degree of political ignorance on the part of the electorate. At first that ignorance was the result of the actual illiteracy which appeared in the majority of the voters of a particular district, usually in a large city. Thus we first hear of the ward boss in our larger cities. His ward usually contains a large foreign population living in the densest political ignorance, easily terrified, easily cajoled, and easily corrupted. The steady increase in the length of ballots and the burden placed upon the electorate soon, however, began to produce artificially a state of political ignorance on the part of the most intelligent electorate. This at once produced the political boss for districts where the electorate was possessed of a high average of character and intelligence. This boss was of a different type from a river-ward boss. It took longer to make him. He was of a somewhat finer grain. He had some inkling of the fact that he really bore a fiduciary relation to the politically ignorant electorate whom he advised and directed and whose vote he cast. He had to possess himself of the confidence and the trust of his constituents. His success was obtained only by close attention to his profession and by qualities of tact and leadership. His supremacy was retained only by care and subtlety. The moment each one of any considerable number of local election districts developed such a professional political boss it was inevitable that they should begin to act together to direct and advise the politically ignorant voters of the larger districts how to vote when it came to the filling of a more important office in a larger election district. Thus the bosses of the city wards and the country districts combined to agree on who should be presented to the voter for election and to direct the voter how to vote. Naturally out of the combination some men emerged capable of leading the combination of bosses. Thus arose the city or county machine. In extraordinary instances a single man became a city or county boss for a particular party organization. In the same way, when the districts of a state were well provided with permanent political bosses, there was a movement among the leaders to combine into a state machine. Again, in extraordinary cases a single man was great enough to be the supreme political leader of a political party organization in a state and to lead it regularly to victory at the polls.