upon his written and signed order authorizing such payment to be made.''1

This law has been of very little use and is now quite generally ignored. It is true there has been some attempt to comply with its terms; but without any substantial result. A case is now being prosecuted in Philadelphia wherein the deputy collector issued receipts in wholesale, to division workers as needed, under the direction of the ward leader. A similar case in another ward is under investigation.

During the campaign prior to the election in November 6, 1900, it was discovered in one division of the Thirteenth Ward, the seventeenth, that the receipts were issued in precisely the same order as the names appeared on the assessors' lists. I have since discovered that all the tax receipts in the twenty-first division of the Twenty-second Ward were issued in the same way. The voters in these two divisions must have applied to the tax receiver or his ward deputies in precisely the order in which they were assessed, or else their receipts were purchased for them by the politicians. The former is quite improbable.

As a matter of fact, the usual practice is for the division committeemen to make out a list of those assessed voters who have failed to buy receipts and then secure the needed ones from the ward deputy, who is usually a political appointee. The money for these purchases is supplied by the ward committee. Then blank tax receipts are often issued in bulk, the name of the assessed voters being filled in on the stub, but the receipt left blank. It not infrequently happens that a receipt turns up made out in a name for a division and ward which do not correspond with the name and ward and division entered on the stub. While it has not been positively determined, it is quite possible that in cases like those cited, where large numbers of receipts are issued in regular rotation, the stubs only contain the names in such order, and that the receipts are left blank to 1 Act of 1897, sections 1, 2, P. L. 276.

be filled in on the day of election with such names as may be required.

Forged receipts are also issued in large numbers. A year ago the chairman of the Prohibition Committee received a large batch of them through the mail, and I have now in my own possession a number of receipts of which no trace whatever can be found in the tax receiver's office. Of course it is impossible even to approximate the number of such receipts, for there are no data upon which to base an estimate. Suffice it to say that the "machine" workers are always supplied with receipts, so that no one desiring to vote the "machine" ticket may suffer for want of one. In Pittsburg, I am informed by a well-known political leader, that both sides have agreed to disregard the tax qualification and there is no challenging on this line; a statement that finds ample support in the facts disclosed in the Guthrie contested election case of 1896.

In October, 1900, 127,375 poll-tax receipts were issued, an unusually large number, due to its being a presidential year. It is estimated that 80,000 of this number were purchased by political organizations. In January, 1900, the tax receiver rejected 20,000 orders filed by the Republican City Committee because of his belief that the orders were fraudulent. To avoid a similar experience, in the autumn the City Committee purchased its receipts through the ward deputies, a much more complaisant set of men, judging from the developments in the cases already investigated.

Lists of Voters.

The padding of the assessors' lists was for eight years reinforced by the failure of election officers to make lists of voters, as required by the acts of 1839 and 1874. This failure to prepare lists as the voting progressed, and to file them in the office of the prothonotary, not only handicapped, but effectually stopped, the detection of fraudulent voting

when the election board was friendly or subservient to the

machine." There was no evidence available that fraudulent names had been voted on, except that of the election officers, and experience had shown that this was a poor dependence.

With no vouchers filed, as required by the act of 1874 supra, and no list of voters filed as required by the acts of 1839 and 1874, the "machine" had everything its own way and the fraudulent vote mounted up rapidly. The abnormal Republican majorities began in 1892, the first year in which there were no lists of voters prepared and filed. Since then there has been a continuous increase until it reached the maximum in February, 1899, when Samuel H. Ashbridge, the present mayor, was given the unprecedented majority of Ashbridge, Republican, received 145,778; Hos

kins, Democrat, 23,557 votes.

In February, 1900, the Municipal League of Philadelphia instituted a case to determine whether the decision of the county commissioners, not to instruct the election officers to prepare and return lists of voters, was justified in law. After many vicissitudes the case was argued by District-Attorney Rothermel on behalf of the commonwealth, in support of the League's contention that the provisions of the acts of 1839 and 1874, requiring such lists, were still in force and effect. The attorneys for the county commissioners, Messrs. Brown and Fow, maintained that these provisions had been repealed by the act of 1891 (although the commissioners needed a whole year to come to this conclusion, having given the usual instructions after the passage of the act of 1891 up to the fall of 1892). Judge Beitler, in an elaborate opinion, overruled the commissioners and flatly decided that the two election clerks must make up lists of voters, one of which was to be filed in the prothonotary's office with the other election returns.1

19 District Reports, page 632.

Secrecy of the Ballot.

The disability clause of the Act of 1893, which reads:

"If any voter declares to the judge of election that by reason of any disability he desires assistance in the preparation of his ballot, he shall be permitted by the judge of election to select a qualified voter of the election district to aid him in the preparation of his ballot, such preparation being made in the voting compartment,"

has been generally used by "machine" workers to control the easily intimidated vote. Where there is any doubt as to how a subservient voter intends to mark his ballot, or where there is doubt as to his ability to mark it, the worker insists that the voter take him into the voting compartment. Very often it is made a condition that the worker shall accompany the voter. To refuse is to create suspicion and it is not an unusual sight in some sections for the boss of the division to go in with every office-holder. In one division the boss marked thirty-five ballots, in some instances the voter not taking the trouble to go into the voting compartment, allowing the boss to take the ballot and mark it by himself. In another division the record of a watcher showed that the division boss, who was also the ward boss, had assisted 112 voters to mark their ballot. The banner division, however, is one in the Second Ward, where there are 158 voters of Italian birth to 8 of American or Irish birth. Yet the ballot of every Italian who voted was marked by one of the Irish-American voters. The returns showed that all who voted agreed with the worker who did the marking.

There is practically no longer a secret ballot in Philadelphia. The abuse of section 26 of the Act of 1893, as just mentioned, destroys it for a large number of the ignorant and easily intimidated and the form of the ballot destroys it for the rest. The law of 1893 provides for a straight ticket. The voter who supports the regular Republican or Democratic ticket can therefore vote his preferences by a single cross in the circle 1 Act 1893, Section 26, P. L. 432.

at the top of the column containing the party ticket, which can be done in a very short space of time. The independently inclined voter, however, must mark each name with a cross, and this consumes much more time than voting a straight ticket. Consequently political workers can tell to a nicety whether a voter is voting straight or cutting. I have been in the election booth on occasions when there has not been a difference of more than two or three in the unofficial tallies kept by party workers and the official count of straight and cut tickets.

Not only is the secrecy of the ballot violated in the two ways indicated, but in many divisions the curtains required by law are taken down so that there is an unobstructed view of the interior of the voting compartment and every movement of the voter is discernible.

Intimidation.

Intimidation plays a large part in election methods. We have already mentioned one form of it, that of the political worker insisting upon marking the ballot, but by far the most dangerous and intolerable form is that of police intimidation. The Municipal League recently issued a leaflet entitled "Stumbling Blocks," which contains ten instances of brutal police interference and intimidation at the election held on November 6, 1900. The following case is quoted as illustrative of the others:

"The conduct of policemen and others in the fourteenth division of the Fourth Ward on election day was fully described before Magistrate Eisenbrown yesterday, when Police Sergeant William Morrow, of the Second and Christian streets station, and Robert and John Briscoe, colored, were given hearings. The police sergeant was charged with assault and battery and with illegally arresting Patrick C. McBride, judge of the election. The Briscoes were charged by McBride with assault and battery and with having attempted to kill him. McBride told how Sergeant Morrow and a dozen or more policemen loitered about the polling place from the time the polls opened. They were closed when the riot occurred at noon. 'A man, Miller by name,'