HEREDITARY INEFFICIENCY. 309 
is always purchasable. The co-ordination and sale of 
this vote and of the allied criminal vote are the work of 
the most dangerous of the dirty brood of political bosses. 
It is the stock in trade of every king of the slums. This 
vote can be bought with the money of candidates. It 
can be bought with the spoils of office. It can be bought 
with public funds set aside for purposes called charity. 
The various forms of outdoor relief constitute, as 
McCulloch has shown, “a corruption fund of the worst 
kind.” The United States has virtually 
ees failed in the management of her cities. 
1 . . . 
aay pues’ This failure is most complete where the 
manipulators of paupers and criminals 
are boldest and most effective; moreover, the effluvium 
of municipal corruption flows out and poisons the poli- 
tics of the state and the nation. 
Every venal, cowardly, or ignorant voter is a menace 
to the safety of republican institutions. The essential 
purpose of popular suffrage is not to secure good gov- 
ernment, but to produce an interest in civil affairs that 
will sooner or later bring about good government. This 
growth in civic knowledge is impossible without a foun- 
dation of intelligence. The choice of negro suffrage 
was the wisest choice among the many evils having 
their rise in negro slavery. It was the least of the 
evils, no doubt, but an evil nevertheless. Every evil 
is likely sooner or later to become a festering sore in 
the body politic. 
The dangers of foreign immigration lie in the over- 
flow to our shores of hereditary unfitness. The causes 
that lead to degeneration have long 
been at work among the poor of Europe. 
The slums of every city in the Old 
World are full of the results. Apparently few cases of 
hereditary inefficiency exist in America that could not 
Foreign 
immigration. 
