Americans by Choice

The Commission remarks, indeed, that “on account of the difference in the length of time the various races have been coming to the United States, a comparison of the older with the more recent immigrants is hardly fair.”[103] But it does fail to appreciate the vital significance of the point. And it apparently did not take adequate notice of the further fact, shown in Table IX, that of those of the “older” races who had been here over five years and reported information in regard to citizenship, 80.5 per cent had been in the United States over ten years, while only 38.9 per cent of the “newer” races had been here so long. That is, only 19.5 per cent of the “older” races, as compared with 61.1 per cent of the “newer,” had been in the country between five and nine years. This means, of course, that the immigrants of the “older” races had had on the average a much longer time than those of the “newer” to acquire “civic interest” and seek naturalization. The “over” added to five years means for the “recent” races between five and nine years in most cases, while for the “older” races it usually means more than ten. It would appear that every year of residence added to ten increases the probability of efforts toward citizenship.

While the races from southern and southeastern Europe show rates of naturalization ranging from 65.7 to 25.3 per cent with an average of 37.7, they also show a proportion residing in the country ten years or longer ranging down from 56.3 to 23.5 per cent with an average of 38.9.[104] Contrast this, if you will, with rates of naturalization among the northern, “older” races, of from 87.6 to 27.7 per cent with an average of 74.0, but along with that observe that the proportion of those “older,” and supposedly more assimilable, races residing in the country ten years or over ranges from 57.1 to 94.6 per cent with an average of 80.5!

From this point of view, the following table of the Commission becomes highly significant:{1}

Prof. Edward A. Ross, who, of all the students of this question, is one of the most uncompromising in generalizing from the reports of the Immigration Commission to the disadvantage of the “newer” races, deduced that “with the change in nationalities came a great change in the civic attitude of the immigrants.”[105] He made little or no allowance for the fact that the “civic attitude” of the “newer” immigrants naturally would not have had time to develop as in the case of those who had been here longer; he made even less for any changes in industrial and social life in this country which might help to account for this alleged change in attitude, by intensifying the hardships of the only kind of employment “newer” immigrants could get, by low wages due to an overstocked labor market, or by the increased herding of foreign born in city slums, which last, of itself, might tend to retard the process of adjustment and assimilation. Prof. John B. Clark saw something of this, when he remarked that “there is far more likeness between different branches of the European family than there is between the economic conditions into which immigrants came in the third quarter of the last century and those into which they come to-day. Then they could have farms for the asking, while now most of them go into mills, mines, shops, and railroad plants, or become employees or tenants on farms owned by others.”[106]

Prof. John R. Commons, discussing the differences in the proportions naturalized among the various racial groups, calls attention to the fact that “it is not so much a difference in willingness as a difference in opportunity.... In course of time these differences will diminish, and the Italian and the Slav will approach the Irishman and the German in their share of American suffrage.”[107]

The war has created an entirely new situation with regard to both immigration and naturalization; it is entirely impossible to forecast the effects, either of the chaotic conditions in Europe or of the reconstruction period in America, upon the influx of foreign born into America, upon the duration of their stay here, or upon the attitude toward citizenship of those already here and entitled to citizenship by length of residence. The wholesale naturalization of immigrants in the national army during the war, regardless of length of residence or any of the other requirements ordinarily so rigidly, so meticulously enforced, has swept into citizenship so large a proportion of human material available and hitherto constituting the bulk of the “naturalization problem” that the old generalizations have become both useless and misleading. It will be long before such immigrants as are now coming, or may come during the next five years, can be the subject of intelligible statistics—especially since nobody is collecting or collating any statistics worthy of the name.

Even the statistics afforded by the census have been the subject of uncritical use on which pessimistic generalizations have been based. The Thirteenth Census (1910) showed for the decade since that of 1900 a decrease of 12.4 per cent in the proportion of foreign-born white males twenty-one years of age and over naturalized. Referring to this decrease, Professor Ross predicted[108] that, “as things are going, we may expect a great increase in the number of the unenfranchised.” Of course he could not have foreseen the war and its profound effects upon the whole question; but he might have observed in the same census the fact that there had been a precisely identical (12.4 per cent) decrease in the number of foreign-born whites who had been in the country nine years or more—even if his prejudice on the subject of the “new immigration” prevented his recognizing in this remarkable coincidence a striking evidence of the direct relation between length of residence and naturalization.

THE FACTOR OF LANGUAGE

It would be plausible to expect that language would be a factor in governing the degree to which this racial group or that would seek naturalization. Those whose mother tongue is English, one might naturally suppose, would find it easier to acquire the necessary information, and would the sooner be absorbed into the life and atmosphere of the country, the sooner aspire to full citizenship.

The facts do not support this idea at all. And a very slight consideration of the conditions discloses the reasons. In the first place, no knowledge of English whatever is required for the declaration of intention; and only the statistics of full naturalization are of value in this matter. Both the statistics of the Immigration Commission, and especially those compiled by the Americanization Study, make it clear that, on the average, more than ten years’ residence in this country precedes final naturalization. It is a rare case in which during that ten years the petitioner has not acquired a speaking knowledge of English sufficient for all his practical purposes.

The statistics of the Immigration Commission themselves show how little the original knowledge of English has to do with the matter.[109] For the persons from whom the Commission got information, who had been in this country ten years or over (racial groups represented by 100 individuals or more), the percentages of those fully naturalized exhibit the fact that the Swedish and German show a higher rate than the Irish; the Bohemian, Moravian, Norwegian and Danish outrank the Scotch, Welsh, and English. Even for those who have been in the country only five to nine years the Swedes show the highest percentage.[110] That length of residence, rather than native language, is the dominant factor in determining interest in citizenship, stands forth in Table VIII, which gives percentages by race of those in the United States ten years or longer, and of such of these as have been fully naturalized.

LENGTH OF RESIDENCE AND EARNING POWER

The fallacious nature of the assumption that there is an essential difference between the so-called “older” and “newer” races as such in respect of interest in citizenship is further disclosed by the statistics of the Immigration Commission on the subject of the wages of foreign-born laborers. The Commission found that the members of the “older” races in the households covered by its inquiry were earning more than those of the “newer” races, and occupied, generally speaking, higher positions. This, of course, was to be expected; but little stress was laid by the Commission upon the relation between these facts and the relative rates of naturalization, although it is a conspicuous relationship. Like most of the statistics compiled by the Commission in this particular field, the comparison may be criticized on the ground that the numbers upon which percentages are based and compared are small, and differ widely among the racial groups. Nevertheless, despite this discrepancy, the probability stands forth that, in addition to length of residence, the economic status—the individual and family income—is a most important factor in determining the interest of the foreign born in acquiring citizenship.

From the following table it is clear that the “older” races show a higher average rate of income in all the occupations listed than the “newer.”[111]

note 1: See Appendix for complete table. This table does not take account of lost time.

note 2: Weekly wage.

note 3: Daily wage.

When the expense of becoming a citizen is taken into consideration, the bearing of income on acquiring citizenship is important. Add to that the obvious fact that wages and general economic and social status tend to improve in the individual case with length of residence, and the situation becomes not only clear but just what common sense would suggest as probable. It ought not to require elaborate argument to substantiate the assertion that the immigrant in his early years in America is too busy getting a job and an economic footing, acquiring a working knowledge of the language, overcoming the general prejudice against him as a foreigner, and so on, to pay much attention to the question of becoming a citizen; besides which he must, in any event, live here five years before he can do anything effective in the matter.

VOTING ON “FIRST PAPERS”

The present state of public opinion in the United States on the subject of the foreign born is very different from what it was in the earlier years of our development; this is largely, though not entirely, due to the emotions and disclosures connected with the war. When we were opening up the vast domain west of the Alleghanies, and there was great need of human labor to clear forests, break virgin land, and help in the beginnings of our industries, the immigrant was a welcome helper, and every inducement was offered to entice him to come and settle on even terms with the native born. One of these inducements was citizenship, for all intents and purposes, on very easy terms.

Prior to 1910 there were ten states in which aliens were permitted to vote on their mere declaration of intention to become citizens—subject, however, to the same conditions of length of residence in state, county, and election district as citizens. These were Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Oregon, South Dakota, and Texas.[112]

That this easy acquisition of the suffrage would act as a deterrent to the completion of citizenship was to be expected, and that it has indeed so acted appears in a comparison of the proportions of foreign-born males of voting age holding “first papers” only, in the alien-suffrage states, with those in states requiring full citizenship as a prerequisite to voting.

To what extent does the declarant follow up his declaration of intention to apply for citizenship? The reports of the Commissioner of Naturalization give each year, by states, the number of declarations of intention (“first papers”) and the number of petitions for final naturalization. The most striking fact apparent in these statistics is that the number of declarations is far in excess of the number of petitions—to say nothing of what may happen to the latter by way of denials when they reach the naturalizing judge.

Now, it must be remembered that these totals are not directly comparable. In no event can the final petition follow the declaration by less than two years, and the law now permits a lapse of seven years before the declaration must expire. If the number of declarations and petitions were fairly uniform from year to year, or bore any constant relation to each other, something might be inferred from a comparison of totals for a seven-year period. Since, however, the number of petitions, as well as the number of declarations, increased rapidly from 1908 to 1918, no sound conclusion can be reached without taking such variations into account.

For example, none of the 136,698 declarations of intention filed in 1908 could become the basis for petitions until 1910, and all would be valid until 1915. In 1910 the number of petitions filed was only 56,038, and seven years later it was 123,855. There is no way of knowing how the petitions which actually consummated the declarations filed in 1908 were distributed among the years 1910–14; but it would seem to be sufficiently dependable to take the average of those years, which would be 88,670. Instead, therefore, of comparing the 43,864 petitions of 1908 with the 136,698 declarations of that year, it is proper to compare the 136,698 with the average of 88,670 which gives a ratio of 64.9.

The ratio of about 65 petitions to each 100 declarations is in fact corroborated by other calculations, as will appear below. Take, for instance, the figures[113] for the period of five years 1908–12, inclusive:

Take it another way, remembering that each declaration of intention has a valid lifetime of seven years—five after the two which must elapse before it can be made the basis of a final petition. Assuming that the petitions consummating the declarations of any given year are distributed approximately evenly over the five-year period during which they are valid for that purpose, then one-twenty-fifth of the declarations of 1908–18 covered by Table XIII eventuated in petitions in 1910, two-twenty-fifths in 1911, and so on, reaching five-twenty-fifths in 1914, and falling again to one-twenty-fifth in 1918. The following diagrammatic table, tracing out on this basis the probable distribution of the declarations consummated by the petitions filed from 1908 to 1918, inclusive, shows graphically the weight which should be given to the petitions of each year, in calculating the ratio of declarations to petitions. It fully substantiates the showing of Table XIII, and justifies the assertion that 35 out of every 100 declarants fail to file petitions within the period now fixed by the law.

The chances of error in this calculation lie in the facts (1) that until September, 1913, declarations made under the law as it existed prior to 1906 (the so-called “old-law declarations”) were held to be valid, no matter how old their date; (2) that the decision of the United States District Court,[114] applying the seven-year limit to all outstanding declarations, undoubtedly hastened many petitions in 1913–14, and (3) that the effects of the war in Europe probably were in some cases to expedite and in others to delay or to prevent the filing of petitions. Undoubtedly some of the petitions of 1910, 1911, 1912, and 1913 are attributable to declarations more than seven years old, and some which in normal conditions would have been filed during the period 1914–18 were not filed.

It may be assumed, however, that these factors to a great extent offset each other, and that in any case their effect is negligible. And if it should appear that a substantial number of “old-law declarations,” originating prior to 1908, were accepted up to 1918 by those courts which did not promptly accept the seven-year decision, it would mean only that the percentage of 65.1 is too high; that more than 35 declarations out of 100 do not eventuate in petitions.

Right here it must be emphasized that the figure 65.1 applies not to naturalization, but to petitions for naturalization, which is a very different thing indeed. We shall elsewhere learn[115] that 11.5 per cent of all petitions are denied—more than half of the denials being for reasons of a technical character.

The average of 35.1 of “sterile” declarations is that for the United States as a whole; but the figure is by no means constant or uniform. In some states the proportion of petitions to declarations is very much lower than that; in some it is very much higher.

In Indiana, for example, the figures show a fruition in petitions of only 26.4, or a little more than 1 in 4, while in Wisconsin the petitions exceed the declarations by 15.7 per cent. As the above table shows, in four states the proportion of petitions exceeded 80 per cent, while 14 scaled down from 80 to 70 per cent. Twenty-six states show percentages below the 65.1 of the United States as a whole.

note 1: The averages are weighted as per the table above, p. 221.

The most important question raised by the results of this calculation is whether it is reasonable to expect that more than one out of every three declarations of intention should thus fail of fruition—that thirty-five out of every hundred aliens who declare their intention to apply for citizenship should fail to do so. The answer to this question, and the reasons for the failure, are not discoverable in the figures themselves, nor in any documents to be found anywhere. The reasons are human reasons, hidden in the bosoms and written in the personal experience, of men and women who started out after the privileges of American citizenship, and changed their minds.

We have some illuminating data, first-hand, from some twenty-six thousand aliens who did follow up their declarations, and afford in the process a good deal of extraordinarily interesting and enlightening information, the study of which is set forth in the succeeding chapter of this volume.

VIII

LATER STATISTICS—IN WHICH SOME TWENTY-SIX THOUSAND PETITIONERS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES

When, early in the progress of the Americanization Study, it became apparent that almost no adequate statistical data were available in regard to naturalized citizens, or the really significant aspects of the naturalization process, it was decided to tap the mine of information existing in the original documents lying neglected in the files of the Naturalization Bureau at Washington, and to collate and analyze the significant facts for the latest year of reasonably normal conditions antedating the war. Obviously, that latest year would be that between July 1, 1913, and June 30, 1914.

The consent of the Bureau was readily obtained, with the offer of all possible co-operation. It should be stated once for all, indeed, that at every stage of the Study the Naturalization Bureau, in both its headquarters and field service, has withheld nothing in the way of information and assistance—save only to the extent to which practically all of its official correspondence is characteristically tardy by reason of the short-handed and overworked condition of its clerical force.

It was discovered immediately, however, that the conditions of the files at Washington were such as to prohibit the segregation of the documents for any single year without an inordinate, and in the circumstances impracticable, expenditure of labor and time. The only recourse, then, was to the local courts, where are kept on file, in more available shape and in chronological order, duplicates of the petitions for naturalization and record of the court’s action upon each. But, since this required the examination of the documents in the country-wide offices of the clerks of the courts themselves, it was impracticable to make the inspection complete, as would have been the case had the documents been suitably arranged and available all in one place.

MORE THAN A FIFTH OF ALL PETITIONERS

Twenty-eight courts, with a total of 26,284 naturalization petitions filed during the fiscal year 1913–14, were visited during 1919, with the cordial co-operation of the clerks in charge. And inasmuch as this total number of petitions examined constituted more than one in five (21.2 per cent) of the whole number of petitions for naturalization (123,855) filed in that fiscal year in the whole United States, it would seem to represent a large enough number and a sufficient variety of local, racial, and other conditions to warrant a fair degree of confidence in the representative character of the results.

FROM TWENTY-EIGHT REPRESENTATIVE COURTS

The courts studied included two Federal and three state courts in New York City, having the great bulk of naturalization business; a number of courts in industrial districts, and some smaller ones taking in the business from outlying rural regions. Following is a list of the courts from which the information was derived:

And it is apparent that the courts from which the data were derived are widely scattered through the East, Middle West, and Far West, and are of a varied character as regards nature of racial and other characteristics which might affect the human factors in the matter. It is to be regretted that there are none from the South and Southwest; but there seems no reason to suppose that they would show materially different results.

IN A REASONABLY NORMAL YEAR

Doubtless any particular year selected for the study would present certain special conditions calling for discount of the results. This is true of the year 1913–14. That year chanced to mark the end of the validity of the “old-law declarations”;—that is to say that in that year the seven-year limit upon the life of a declaration of intention to become a citizen, established for the first time by the Naturalization Act of 1906, was declared by the United States Court, 1914,[116] to apply to declarations made prior to the enactment of that statute. Undoubtedly anticipation of this tended on the whole to increase, perhaps materially, the number of petitions consummating those old declarations. On the other hand, there were doubtless many declarants of long ago who were discouraged by the decision from filing petitions at all. We shall observe later the extent to which that decision has been a factor in the rejection of the petitions of a large number of persons otherwise presumably eligible—excluded for that reason alone.

Obviously it was desirable to select a year as recent as possible and at the same time to avoid any period affected by the complications introduced by the existence of the war in Europe. It is felt that the year 1913–14 is sufficiently typical for all practical purposes, and that the applicants for citizenship analyzed herein are sufficiently representative generally of the foreign born who seek to join us; whatever may be said of the great number who were swept into citizenship helter-skelter during and since the war by naturalization of soldiers and sailors on the sole ground of military service.[117]

THE RACIAL GROUPS ARE TYPICAL

Some of the important conclusions supported by these statistics naturally raise the question whether the petitions studied are, in respect of country of origin, really typical of the whole foreign-born population of the country. This question seems to be disposed of by a compilation showing the racial distribution of the petitioners studied, compared with the racial distribution of all unnaturalized foreign-born white aliens 21 years of age or older in the country as a whole, and in the nine large cities covered by this investigation.