vote for aldermen running on a national tariff ticket!

The electorate was somnolent and permitted the politician to have
his way. The multitudes of the city came principally from two
sources, from Europe and from the rural districts of our own
country. Those who came to the city from the country were
prompted by industrial motives; they sought wider opportunities;
they soon became immersed in their tasks and paid little
attention to public questions. The foreign immigrants who
congested our cities were alien to American institutions. They
formed a heterogeneous population to whom a common ideal of
government was unknown and democracy a word without meaning.
These foreigners were easily influenced and easily led. Under the
old naturalization laws, they were herded into the courts just
before election and admitted to citizenship. In New York they
were naturalized under the guidance of wardheelers, not
infrequently at the rate of one a minute! And, before the days of
registration laws, ballots were distributed to them and they were
led to the polls, as charity children are given excursion tickets
and are led to their annual summer's day picnic.

The slipshod methods of naturalization have been revealed since
the new law (1906) has been in force. Tens of thousands of voters
who thought they were citizens found that their papers were only
declarations of intentions, or "first papers." Other tens of
thousands had lost even these papers and could not designate the
courts that had issued them; and other thousands found that the
courts that had naturalized them were without jurisdiction in the
matter.