wardship of a Tammany captain and by the grace of a Tammany
judge, and then to vote the Tammany ticket. The new citizen's
lessons in political science are all flavored with highly
practical notions.

Tammany's machinery enables a house-to-house canvass to be made
in one day. But this machinery must be oiled. There are three
sources of the necessary lubricant: offices, jobs, the sale of
favors; these are dependent on winning the elections. From its
very earliest days, fraud at the polls has been a Tammany
practice. As long as property qualifications were required, money
was furnished for buying houses which could harbor a whole
settlement of voters. It was not, however, until the adoption of
universal suffrage that wholesale frauds became possible or
useful; for with a limited suffrage it was necessary to sway only
a few score votes to carry an ordinary election.

Fernando Wood set a new pace in this race for votes. It has been
estimated that in 1854 there "were about 40,000 shiftless,
unprincipled persons who lived by their wits and the labor of
others. The trade of a part of these was turning primary
elections, packing nominating conventions, repeating, and
breaking up meetings." Wood also systematized naturalization. A
card bearing the following legend was the open sesame to American
citizenship:

"Common Pleas:
Please naturalize the bearer.
N. Seagrist, Chairman."