The evolution of the modern politocracy began with the ward boss in districts of our larger cities where voting was ignorant because the population was largely foreign, illiterate, and easily corrupted, cajoled, or frightened. The boss’s methods of carrying elections were coarse. The business of vice and the activities of the underworld were protected and the corrupt and illegal vote increased to the utmost. Indeed, to the average citizen and his leaders it seemed that the power of the boss rested mainly upon the corrupt and illegal vote. They saw that the opportunity of securing this vote was large because of the loose method of conducting elections. At once advocacy of the Australian ballot law became a part of the fight against the boss. Voters must be registered in advance of election day and opportunity given to challenge all voters so registered. The ballot must be secret, so that the corrupter could never be sure that the bribed delivered the vote which he had been paid for. The remedy proposed received an overwhelming popular approval a generation ago and elaborately drawn Australian ballot laws are now almost everywhere in force. No doubt the Australian ballot laws were a needed and valuable reform indeed, but the power of the boss did not rest ultimately upon the illegal and corrupt vote. Fundamentally it depended upon the political ignorance of the voter. The power of the ward boss not only survived the Australian ballot laws, but it tended to increase with the spread of political ignorance on the part of the voter. Other bosses of a different type sprang up and ruled in districts where the corrupt and illegal vote was negligible, but where political ignorance prevailed among an intelligent population. Then a hierarchy of bosses became a machine and by means of the machine secured the control of the governmental power of a municipality.