Table XIII
Number of Declarations Filed Each Year, 1908–12, with Average Number and Ratio of Petitions Consummating in Five-year Period Ending Each Year
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| Year in Which Declarations Were Filed | Number of Declarations Filed in Each Year | Average Number of Petitions in Five-year Period Ending Each Year | Ratio of Petitions to Declarations |
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| 1908 | 136,698 | 88,670 | 64.9 |
| 1909 | 143,212 | 98,926 | 69.1 |
| 1910 | 167,226 | 105,799 | 63.3 |
| 1911 | 186,157 | 113,137 | 60.8 |
| 1912 | 169,142 | 116,183 | 68.7 |
| Average | 160,487 | 104,543 | 65.1 |
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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.