ast in the city, 25,000 were afterwards shown to be
fraudulent. It was about this time that an official whose duty it was
to swear in the election inspectors, not finding a Bible at hand, used a
volume of Ollendorf's "New Method of Learning to Read, Write, and Speak
French." The courts sustained this substitution on the ground that it
could not possibly have vitiated the election!

A new federal naturalization law and rigid election laws have made
wholesale frauds impossible; and the genius of Tammany is now attempting
to adjust itself to the new immigration, the new political spirit, and
the new communal vigilance. Its power is believed by some optimistic
observers to be waning. But the evidences are not wanting that its
vitality and internal discipline are still persistent.

CHAPTER VI. LESSER OLIGARCHIES

New York City is not unique in its experience with political bossdom.
Nearly every American city, in a greater or less degree, for longer or
shorter periods, has been dominated by oligarchies.

Around Philadelphia, American sentiment has woven the memories of great
events. It still remains, of all our large cities, the most "American."
It has fewer aliens than any other, a larger percentage of home owners,
a larger number of small tradespeople and skilled artisans--the sort of
population which democracy exalts, and who in turn are presumed to be
the bulwark of democracy. These good citizens, busied with the anxieties
and excitements of their private concerns, discovered, in the decade
following the Civil War, that their city had slipped unawares into
the control of a compact oligarchy, the notorious Gas Ring. The city
government at this time was composed of thirty-two independent boards
and departments, responsible to the council, but responsible to the
council in name only and through the medium of a council committee. The
coordinating force, the political gravitation which impelled all these
diverse boards and council committees to act in unison, was the Gas
Department. This department was controlled by a few designing and
capable individuals under the captaincy of James McManes. They had
reduced to political servitude all the employees of the department,
numbering about two thousand. Then they had extended their sway over
other city departments, especially the police department. Through the
connivance of the police and control over the registration of voters,
they soon dominated the primaries and the nomin