Table IX
Per Cent of Foreign-born Male Employees Reporting Citizenship Who Have Been in the United States Each Specified Period of Years, by Race{1}
| ——— | |||||
| ——— | |||||
| Race | Number Reporting Complete Data | In the United States | |||
| 5 to 9 Years | 10 Years and Over | ||||
| Number | Per Cent | Number | Per Cent | ||
| ——— | |||||
| Recent Races: | |||||
| Total | 43,833 | 26,747 | 61.0 | 17,086 | 38.9 |
| Per cent of total reporting complete data | 64.9 | .... | 85.3 | .... | 47.3 |
| Old Races: | |||||
| Total | 23,662 | 4,620 | 19.5 | 19,042 | 80.5 |
| Per cent of total reporting complete data | 35.1 | .... | 14.7 | .... | 52.7 |
| ——— | |||||
| ——— | |||||
note 1: Compiled by the Americanization Study from Report of Commission of Immigration Abstracts, vol. i, p. 485.
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}
Present Political Condition of Foreign-born Male Employees Who Have Been in the United States Five Years or Over, and Who Were Twenty-one Years of Age at Time of Coming, by Race
| ——— | |||
| ——— | |||
| “Old” Races | “New” Races | ||
| ——— | |||
| Race | Per Cent Naturalized and Holding First Papers | Race | Per Cent Naturalized and Holding First Papers |
| ——— | |||
| Swedish | 92.3 | Hebrew (other than | |
| Swiss | 92.1 | Russian) | 61.6 |
| Welsh | 87.0 | Finnish | 61.2 |
| Danish | 86.8 | Hebrew, Russian | 57.2 |
| German | 85.7 | Austrian (race not | |
| Norwegian | 85.6 | specified) | 53.1 |
| Irish | 82.6 | Armenian | 49.2 |
| English | 80.6 | Italian, North | 45.8 |
| Dutch | 79.9 | Bulgarian | 36.8 |
| Scotch | 79.1 | Slovenian | 35.8 |
| Belgian (race not | Polish | 33.1 | |
| specified) | 76.5 | Lithuanian | 32.5 |
| Bohemian and | Italian, South | 30.1 | |
| Moravian{2} | 76.2 | Russian | 28.0 |
| French | 66.5 | Magyar | 26.8 |
| Canadian (other | Slovak | 22.8 | |
| than French) | 56.7 | Croatian | 22.5 |
| Canadian, French | 31.5 | Rumanian | 21.9 |
| Mexican | 10.0 | Syrian | 20.7 |
| Greek | 20.2 | ||
| Ruthenian | 19.8 | ||
| Spanish | 13.6 | ||
| Serbian | 12.8 | ||
| Cuban | 12.1 | ||
| Portuguese | 5.5 | ||
| ——— | |||
| ——— | |||
note 1: Abstracts, vol. i, pp. 485, 486.
note 2: Classed as “Recent” by Immigration Commission.
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 predicted108 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