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.

TABLE XVI

Comparison by Races of (1) a Naturalization Petitioners Studied, (2) Unnaturalized Males Twenty-one Years or Over in Nine Cities{1} Where Petitions Were Filed, and in The Country as a Whole, in 1910{2}

note 1: Cleveland, New York (Boroughs of Manhattan, Bronx, and Queens); Bridgeport, Connecticut; Cincinnati; Paterson, New Jersey; Portland, Oregon; Rochester, New York; Seattle, Washington; Worcester, Massachusetts.

note 2: United States Census, 1910, vol. 1, chap. xi.

note 3: Includes aliens and those holding first papers.

Considerable variations will be observed between the racial distribution of petitioners studied and that of the unnaturalized but potentially naturalizable males in the whole country in 1910. For instance, while 18.5 per cent of the unnaturalized persons in the United States were born in Italy, only 13.7 per cent of the petitioners studied were Italians; on the other hand, while 29.9 per cent of the petitioners studied were from Russia, only 17 per cent of the unnaturalized males in the United States in 1910 were Russians.

These discrepancies do not prove, however, that even in such cases the groups of petitioners studied are not representative of the foreign-born population, because racial distribution varies considerably from state to state. Fortunately, moreover, it is possible to compile from the census figures to show by country of origin the distribution of unnaturalized white males in the cities covered by the study, and these figures, also included in the last column of the table, show conclusively that the racial distribution in those cities is fairly typical. The percentages do not exactly agree, nor is that to be expected. In the first place, there is a difference of three years between the times represented respectively in the two sets of figures—years during which there was a heavy immigration. The figures given for the unnaturalized are not complete, inasmuch as for those cities the citizenship status of 9.8 per cent of the foreign-born males 21 years of age and over was not reported by the 1910 census. Furthermore, the petitions studied were not all from these nine cities, although nearly nine out of ten (86.8 per cent) of them were. On the whole, the nativity distribution in those nine cities of the petitioners studied coincides remarkably with that of the unnaturalized but naturalizable males.

RELATIVE “CIVIC AND POLITICAL INTEREST”

In Table X, page 211, the relative numbers and percentages are arranged in the order of magnitude, and this arrangement is illuminating in its display of what the Immigration Commission and the writers who have taken their cue therefrom have interpreted as “civic and political interest” exhibited in relative desire for citizenship. With the exception of Italy the races from the sources of largest recent immigration show a higher proportion naturalized than the proportion they represented in the population. It can fairly be said that the desire to become citizens is as evident among these immigrants of the new races as among those of the earlier, entirely leaving out of consideration the length of residence which operates in favor of the older immigrants.

HOW DID THESE PETITIONERS FARE?

How did these applicants for citizenship fare? However much they may have desired citizenship, these of the “new immigration” and the “old”—did they get it? Did they pass the examinations? And as regards the reasons for denial of those who were rejected, how did the “recent” races account for themselves in respect of those matters which really go to the questions of moral and intellectual fitness?

Well, to begin with, the percentage of all denials (3,033) among these more than 26,000 petitioners was 11.5—almost exactly that (11.2) of the whole United States during the entire period of eleven years, 1908–18, as shown by the reports of the Commissioner of Naturalization. Here appears a compilation analyzing all the denials during the period 1908–18.

TABLE XVII

Comparison of Causes of Denial for the Years 1908–18 and 1913–19 from Commissioner of Naturalization Reports, and Denials of 26,284 Petitioners Studied

A study of the figures covering the reasons for denial of the 3,033 among the petitions of 1913–14 here analyzed illuminated special aspects of this matter, showing, as it does, how large a proportion of the denials are for reasons of a purely technical character, or because the petitioners abandoned their pursuit of citizenship after filing the final petition.

The following table lists the races represented by forty or more petitions, in the order of percentage of denials, and shows the percentages attributable to the six principal reasons, respectively: “want of prosecution,” “incompetent witnesses,” “declaration invalid,” “ignorance,” “immoral character,” and “old-law declaration—held to be invalid.”

TABLE XVIII

Racial Distribution of 26,284 Petitioners Denied, 1913–14, and the Per Cent of the Denials for the Six Principal Causes

note 1: Denied because declaration of intention was more than seven years old.

In this table there are 14 countries listed whose per cent of denials exceeds that for all countries. Of these only four supply the “new” immigration. And of the seven showing a lower than 11.5 per cent denials, five constitute the “new” immigration. This would point to greater success on the part of the new races in attaining their naturalization papers. The qualifying fact here, as elsewhere, is that more than twice as many petitioners belong to the “new” races as to the “old.”

The two causes of denial showing the largest per cents for the country as a whole and for most countries are “want of prosecution” and the invalidity of their “old-law” declaration. That so large a proportion of immigrants have taken the trouble to take almost the last steps toward citizenship and then fail by default is symptomatic of waste somewhere along the line. This condition seems to prevail among both the “old” and “new” peoples.

AS REGARDS “IMMORAL CHARACTER”

For some of the less mechanical causes of denial, let us segregate and arrange the countries in order of percentages. The following table shows denials for “immoral character.”

TABLE XIX

Per Cent of Denials Due to “Immoral Character,” by Race

The average percentage of denials for the whole United States for the period 1908–18 on the ground of “immoral character” was 4.0 per cent. With the exception of Turkey in Europe, not one of the “newer” races came up to this average in the year 1913–14, so far as may be judged by this analysis of the court records of more than one in five of the petitions passed upon in that year. Austria, Hungary, Italy, Rumania, all showed a record materially better, and the figures generally show that cause to be negligible, anyway.

THE SHOWING AS TO “IGNORANCE”

In considering the statistics of denials on the ground of “ignorance,” it is to be remembered that the examinations which disclose this “ignorance” do not go as a rule to the subject of illiteracy or general intelligence, but deal in the majority of cases with the understanding of the petitioner as to the form of government, and sometimes decidedly minute details of the history, of the United States. The average percentage of denials on the ground of “ignorance” in the whole United States during the eleven years 1908–18 was 10.3. The records of the petitions of every one of the “recent” races, except Italian, for the year 1913–14—if one may judge by this study of more than one-fifth of them—was far better than that average, though generally higher than that of the old races.

TABLE XX

Per Cent of Denials Due To “Ignorance,” by Race

TIME-INTERVALS IN NATURALIZATION

Generally speaking, judging by the 26,284 petitions examined, each of which must show the date of arrival and declaration of intention, the immigrant is in this country in the average case anywhere from 5.4 to 12.7 years before he files his declaration of intention to seek citizenship. (See Table XXI.)

The evidence on this point was strikingly uniform in all the courts save one. The lowest average shown was 5.4 years in Cincinnati; the highest average but two was 8.6 in the State Superior Court at Worcester, Massachusetts. The extreme exceptions were 9.4 years in the Superior Court for Middlesex County, at Middletown, Connecticut, and 12.7 years in the Androscoggin[237]
[238] Supreme Judicial Court at Auburn, Maine. The latter court in naturalization matters deals largely with French-Canadians; of all the 385 Canadian petitioners falling under this analysis, this one court passed upon 61.5 per cent.

TABLE XXI

The Average Time Elapsing Between Arrival and Declaration of Intention; Between Declaration and Petition, and Between Petition and Naturalization as Shown by 26,284 Certificates, 1913–14

Having filed his declaration of intention after an average residence in this country shown in all courts as 6.8 years—nearly two years more than the five years’ minimum residence required for the completion of citizenship—our average immigrant waits more than five years longer before he files his final petition for naturalization—although under the law he need have waited only two. The range, however, was wide, between an average of 3.0 years in the Supreme Court of Androscoggin County, Auburn, Maine, and 11.1 years in the Circuit Court at Portland, Oregon. The whole average shown in all the courts studied was 5.1 years. These are very surprising figures for those who have been complaining that we have hurried aliens into citizenship.

Once the applicant has his petition filed, the process becomes more expeditious. The figures collated for the year 1913–14 show an average interval between petition and certificate of naturalization of 4.9 months; the range is between 3.9 months in the United States District Court in Manhattan, and 12.7 months in the State Supreme Court at Elmira, New York. From the point of view of delay, three months must always be subtracted, since the law requires, in any event, an interval of at least ninety days after the petition is filed before it can be considered by the court.

HOW DO THE RACIAL GROUPS COMPARE?

What light do the petitions throw upon the question of the relative “civic and political interest” of the various racial groups, as shown by the interval that elapses between their attainment of the age of 21 years, or if they come here after they are 21, between their arrival and their filing of the final petition?

TABLE XXII

Average Interval Before Filing Petition, After Attainment of Twenty-one Years, for Those Arriving at Ages of One to Fourteen, by Races

We have three groups of statistics on this point: those petitioners arriving at the ages of 1 to 14, those at 15 to 20 years, and those 21 years and over. In the following table the countries of birth are arranged in the order of the average interval for those arriving at the ages of 1 to 14 years. The complete table will be found in the Appendix.

TABLE XXIII

Average Interval Before Filing Petition, After Arrival, at Ages of Fifteen to Twenty, by Races

note 1: This average includes the figures for races whose numbers are too small to justify generalization.

The striking thing in these tables is the fact that almost without exception the countries showing the longest intervals are those representing the old immigration.

TABLE XXIV

Average Interval Before Filing Petition, After Arrival, at Ages Twenty-one or Over, by Races

note 1: This average includes the figures for races whose numbers are too small to justify generalization.

THEY ARE YOUNG PEOPLE

They were young men. More than 60 per cent of them were between the ages of 18 and 30 years. Of the 26,284 applicants for citizenship whose petitions were examined, 16,586—over three-fifths—came to this country between the ages of 18 and 30. The preponderance is striking:

TABLE XXV

Number and Per Cent of Petitioners for Three Age Groups{1}

note 1: The full table showing distribution of ages at arrival from infancy to fifty years or over, is given in the Appendix, Table 57.

RELATIVE AGE AND “POLITICAL INTEREST”

It is interesting to note, in this connection, the relation between the age at which the alien arrives in this country and the length of time that elapses before he files his final petition for citizenship. The following diagram exhibits this:

Close analysis of these lists further emphasizes the importance of the factor of age at arrival as affecting the lapse of time after the attainment of lawful age before filing the final petition for citizenship. It appears, as might well be expected, that those who come in childhood are more prompt than those who arrive between 15 and 20; but even those coming in childhood appear, on the average, to wait until after they are 27. The averages indicate, almost without exception, that those coming at ages over 20 waited more than 10 years before filing their petitions. Few come after they are 40 and then seek citizenship. The petitions show that on the average those arriving at 1 to 14 applied 6.2 years after 21. Those arriving at 21 years or over applied 10.6 years after arrival.

Those arriving between 15 and 20 applied 11 years after arrival, but it is fallacious to compare this interval with those in the case of the younger or older immigrants, because the five years’ required residence might mean application at 21 years of age by an immigrant who came at 15 or 16, or at 25 years by one who came at 20; while one who, coming at 15, waited the full average of 11 years would apply at 26, apparently more promptly than one who, coming in infancy, did not apply until he was 27 or over. The questions suggested by the discrepancy here apparent are many, but the data available furnish no definite answer to them. Perhaps fuller statistics might substantially modify the apparent discrepancies.

THE REAL RACIAL DISTINCTION

These men, the cream of our immigration—regardless of any fanciful distinction of race “older” or “newer”—came in the flower of their young manhood to try hazard of new fortunes in what they rightly believed to be the land of promise and opportunity; lived here from five to twelve years before they registered in normal declaration their intention to become citizens; lived here upward of five years more before filing their final petition for citizenship, and nearly nine out of ten of them passed their examinations and were admitted.

There is visible in these statistics a distinction of race—a very interesting and inspiring distinction, but it is not one of the “older” or “newer” races. It has little to do with any supposititious difference of racial quality or character. Indeed, it redounds on the whole to the credit of the more recent immigration, and, so far as it goes, would indicate, if anything, a greater potential fitness for American citizenship. In Diagram 2, which is based on Table XXIV, the bars which are black represent countries which have entirely a subject people, or in which a proportion of the population is subject. In the latter case it is the subject peoples who come to this country in larger proportions than the sovereign peoples. This is only one of the instances which illustrate an interesting conclusion. Certainly to a discerning eye this fact stands forth:

Those from countries where, at the time of their migration, there was either autocratic government or political discontent, or inferior economic opportunity, head the list of those who seek, and upon examination prove their title to, fellow-membership with us.

Those from countries where government was relatively democratic, where individual liberty prevailed, where political, social, and economic conditions were conducive to contentment, were satisfied to keep the citizenship of their fatherlands.

Why should it require exhaustive investigation to demonstrate so obvious, so inevitable an operation of human psychology? What else was to have been expected?

RACE AND RELATIVE AGE AT ARRIVAL

The racial distribution of these petitioners, with reference to age at arrival, is interesting and to some extent significant. Table XXVI, including only those races represented by at least 50 petitions, is arranged in the order of percentages of those arriving after attaining the age of 21 years. It throws sidelights upon the variations of the age at which the individuals of various races came to this country:

TABLE XXVI

Racial Distribution of Petitioners, Showing Percentages for the Age Periods “Over Twenty-one,” “Fifteen to Twenty,” and “One to Fourteen,” in the Order of the First-mentioned Age Group

Inferences or generalizations from this table in connection with the age statistics given heretofore would be perilous, since we have not tabulated the data which would show, with regard to any particular racial group, how many of those between 15 and 20 years of age came at 18 or 19; or how many of those over 21 came after they were 25 or before they were 30. So far as it goes, however, it would appear to indicate that those of the so-called “older” immigration left their homelands at a later age, while a larger proportion of those of the “newer” came in younger manhood. The larger percentages in the column “over 21” are credited to the “older”; the larger in the second column, “15 to 20,” to the “newer.”

AT THE BEGINNING OF MARRIED LIFE

More than two-thirds (68.5 per cent) of the petitioners were married at the time of their petition for naturalization. One may hazard the guess that the majority were either unmarried or newly married when they came to this country, because, while 89.9 per cent of the 18,017 married petitioners reported wives of foreign birth, 10,563 (73.5 per cent) of them had children exclusively native-born. Only one in ten had foreign-born children only, and only 16.5 per cent had both native and foreign-born children. And 14,371 (79.8 per cent) of the married petitioners had one or more children under 21 years of age.[118]

AS FOR “STABILITY OF RESIDENCE”

The question of what might be called the “residential stability” of the immigrant in this country has been the subject of much assertion and little substantial information. The general tenor of the assertion and the vague impression of the average person are to the effect that the immigrant is more or less of a wanderer, shifting from place to place, and for that reason failing to establish anything resembling permanent residence or to relate himself to the community as a neighbor. Very little statistical data on this point is available, and it is unsafe to generalize. There is, however, a somewhat startling disclosure in the 1915 census of the state of Massachusetts, showing that in the class of otherwise “justified” voters disqualified solely by reason of not having resided one year in the state or six months in the city or town, there were 21,226 native and 3,845 foreign born; in other words, that 3.6 per cent of the native-born voters were disqualified because they were moving about; while only 1.9 per cent, or just about half the proportion, of the foreign-born were disqualified for that reason.

The analysis of petitions by the Americanization Study sheds a little further light on this subject, by segregating the figures in each court showing petitions which were filed by aliens who had filed their declaration in another state. Of the total of 26,284, there were 1,859 of these, or 7.1 per cent. Undoubtedly this moving about, in search of employment or for other reasons, is a considerable factor in the delay between arrival and declaration and between declaration and petition. Naturally, the figures would tend to be high on the Pacific coast, to which immigrants travel by rather long stages of time. The court in Portland, Oregon, showed 234 out of 714 petitioners—almost a third—who had filed their declaration in other states. This court shows also the longest average interval between declaration and petition. The courts in Seattle also show high figures in this regard. The same tends to be true of rapidly growing industrial centers, such as Cleveland, Bridgeport, Paterson, New Brunswick, New Jersey.

TABLE XXVII

Petitioners Whose Declarations Were Made in a State Other Than the One in Which the Court is Located

That upward of 13 out of 14—nearly 93 per cent—of alien petitioners for American citizenship, in a total of more than 26,000, should have been able to file their final petitions in the same states in which, on an average of more than five years before, they had declared their intention to do so, certainly attests a degree of “stability of residence” comparing favorably with that of other, native-born residents of the country. And it would seem also to justify the inference that those who become naturalized have generally become well assimilated into the life of the communities where they live.

INTELLECTUAL EQUIPMENT AND OCCUPATION

As for the intellectual equipment and the general usefulness of the aspirants for citizenship represented in the petitions studied, one may infer something from the occupational range shown in an analysis of the petitions for 1913–14 in seven cities,[119] representing a wide variety of locality. This analysis showed, for each of the 17 kinds of occupations listed, the ratio between the number of naturalization petitions filed by persons in those occupations in those cities in 1913–14, and the foreign-born white males in those occupations in those cities as shown by the census of 1910. Perhaps the most striking fact emerging from this analysis, illuminating to those who have supposed that the naturalization process swept into citizenship the dregs of immigration, is that the smallest percentage is shown in the class of common labor; the highest in the grade of executives, and the preponderance throughout attaching to trades requiring a degree of dexterity and general intelligence and information, if not technical training. It is unsafe, however, to infer too much from these percentages, because of the relatively small numbers represented in some of the classes, and the large proportions accredited to the garment trades and to “retail dealers,” among whom, doubtless, there were many mere peddlers. The distribution of occupations is here set forth in the order of the percentages:

TABLE XXVIII

List of Principal Occupations Represented in Petitions for Naturalization Filed in Seven Cities, 1913–14; Showing Ratio Between Number of Petitions and Total of Foreign-born White Males in Those Occupations in Those Cities in 1910

Analysis of the entire total of 26,284 petitions from which the data were obtained shows a general occupation distribution as follows:

TABLE XXIX

Number and Per Cent of Petitioners in Each Occupation

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

Certain inferences and conclusions seem to be warranted on the whole by the examination and analyses in this chapter and that preceding it, of the compilations of the United States Census, the Immigration Commission of 1907, the Naturalization, Bureau and the Americanization Study.

First, and most important, is the destruction of the legendary presumption of some change for the worse in recent years in the inherent character-quality of immigration to this country, and in the attitude of the typical immigrant of those years toward American citizenship. There has been no such change; indeed, if there is any substantial difference in “quality of assimilability” between the “older” races and the newer, it is in favor of the latter.

Second, it is evident that such difference as exists among races is not an inherent racial quality, but a difference between the political, social, and economic conditions at the time of migration in the country of origin. Those nations whose people are most free from tyranny and oppression and most contented with the conditions under which they live at home, send the fewest immigrants to America; their emigrants come at a later age, and when they do come they retain longest or altogether their original citizenship.

Third, and broadly corollary, is the fact that the major, not to say exclusively, controlling factor in the political absorption of the immigrant is length of residence. The longer the individual lives in America the more likely he is to seek active membership therein.

Fourth, the interval between arrival and petition for naturalization—or even the original declaration of intention—is much longer than has generally been supposed. The average immigrant, regardless of racial extraction, does not concern himself about political privileges or activities until after long years of residence and the attainment of a considerable degree of permanent social and economic status.

Fifth, knowledge of the English language at the time of arrival is not a material factor in determining the rapidity with which the individual seeks citizenship. On the contrary, those of other tongues who have been in the United States as long as those whose mother speech is English show even greater interest and a higher rate of naturalization. In the ordinary case, by the time the immigrant of any race has been in this country long enough to reach the normal stage of interest in naturalization he has acquired a good working knowledge of the language.

Sixth—and from the common-sense point of view it ought to occasion no surprise—is the evident influence upon the display of “civic and political interest” as shown in the desire for citizenship, of social and economic conditions in this country as they practically affect the individual. Whether from northwestern or from southeastern Europe, whether from the so-called “recent” or “older” immigration, the racial groups show a slower desire for citizenship and a lower rate of naturalization while they are employed in the more poorly paid industries; both the individual interest and the rate increase as the individuals toil upward in the social and economic scale.

---

The inherent thing in the racial quality, experience, and character of the immigrant that leads some to seek citizenship earlier than others, the essential element in the “quality of assimilability,” in the display of “civic and political interest,” is a human thing, which lies, and always has lain, broad upon the face of nearly all of the statistical tables over which students have labored so intricately and pontificated so solemnly—in some instances so absurdly. It is a thing so obvious that it is difficult to understand why so many of them have overlooked it.

---