merely fill up the places of their predecessors claimed by death. The foreign-born white population of the United States in 1920 was twice as great as in 18801; accordingly twice as many immigrants were required in 1920 as forty years before only to keep the numbers of foreign-born stationary. The statistics of the inward and outward transatlantic passenger traffic are generally taken to represent the immigration and emigration movement.2 The respective figures for 1899-1909 are reproduced in Table 8 from the Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 4, Table 26, and plotted in Diagram II. on p. 89.

TABLE 8.

MOVEMENT OF THIRD CLASS PASSENGERS BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND EUROPEAN PORTS DURING THE CALENDAR YEARS

The foreign-born white population increased from 6,559,679 in 1880 to 13,703,987 in 1920.

Richmond-Mayo-Smith: "Immigration and the Foreign-Born Population." Publications of the American Statistical Association, vol. iii., pp. 305-306. Roland P. Falkner: "Some Aspects of the Immigration Problem." Political Science Quarterly, March, 1904, p. 38.

Our statistics of emigration do not go back of the fiscal year ended June 30, 1908. Nor can they be accepted as quite reliable, being of necessity based upon the declarations of the aliens at the time of their departure. The total number of departing aliens for the period from July 1, 1907, to June 30, 1920, exceeded the number of avowed "emigrants" by 2,513,000, whereas the total number of admitted aliens exceeded the number of immigrants only by 1,867,000, which shows that

III. Monthly immigration and emigration, from July, 1907, to May, 1909 (thousands).

646,000 persons classified as "non-emigrant aliens," i. e., 26 per cent, of that class, did not return to the United States. See Appendix, Table XXX.

It will be observed that the tide of immigration was rising until 1907, with a slight set-back during the Presidential year 1904. During the industrial crisis of 1908 immigration dropped at once nearly a million, compared with the highwater mark of the previous year, while emigration from the United States was about twice the number of 1906. The result was a net loss of nearly a quarter of a million through emigration. In 1909, with returning business confidence immigration increased and emigration receded to its normal level of the years 1903-1906. The same tendencies appear still more clearly if the returns are compared by months, as in Table 9, and Diagram III. on p. 91.2

TABLE 9.

I

AVERAGE MONTHLY IMMIGRATION AND EMIGRATION. (THOUSANDS),

...

...

'An examination of the Italian statistics of emigration to the United States and the return movement from the United States leads the Immigration Commission to the conclusion "that as a rule the causes which retard emigration also accelerate the exodus from the United States. . . The effect of financial and industrial depressions in the United States is clearly apparent. . . . The most conspicuous instance . . . occurred in the year 1894, following the industrial depression of that period. In that year the outward movement from Italy decreased and the inward movement increased to such an extent that the number returning was 848 to every 1000 emigrating. The same tendency was shown again in 1904, immediately following the financial depression of the preceding year."—Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 4, p. 229.

2 Annual Reports of the Commissioner-General of Immigration, 1908, p. 228, and 1910, p. 14. The monthly figures are for immigrant and emigrant aliens, as defined in the statistics of the Bureau of Immigration. These two classes are not identical with third-class passengers arriving

From July 1, to October 31, 1907, immigration and emigration went on normally. The latter part of October witnessed the outbreak of the crisis, and the next month emigration doubled. Immigration still remained normal, inasmuch as those who arrived here in November had left their homes before the crisis. But from December immigration dropped to one third of the number of arrivals in November. During the next nine months emigration exceeded immigration by 14,000 persons monthly. From September I, 1908, the situation began to improve, and the number of immigrants went up again, while departures went down. In the spring of the next year immigration and emigration resumed their normal relation. It is evident that the immigration movement promptly responds to the business situation in the United States.

The question arises: How does immigration adjust itself to business conditions in America? The method by which this adjustment is effected is thus described by the Immigration Commission:

It is entirely safe to assert that letters from persons who have emigrated to friends at home have be n the immediate cause of by far the greater part of the remarkable movement from Southern and Eastern Europe to the United States during the past twenty-five years. There is hardly a village or community in Southern Italy and Sicily that has not contributed a portion of its population to swell the tide of emigration to the United States, and the same is true of large areas of Austria, Hungary, Greece, Turkey, and the Balkan States. . . . It was frequently stated to members of the Commission that letters from persons who had emigrated to America were passed from hand to hand until most of the emigrants' friends and neighbors were acquainted with the contents. In periods of industrial activity, as a rule, the letters so circulated contain optimistic references to wages and opportunities for employment in the United States. . . . The reverse is true during seasons of industrial depression in the United States. At such times intending emigrants are quickly informed by their friends in the United

and departing. Those aliens who go to Europe with the expectation of returning may never come again, yet they are not included among "emigrant aliens." As a result, the net emigration is lower in this than in the preceding table.

States relative to conditions of employment, and a great falling off in the tide of emigration is the immediate result. . . . Emigrants as a rule are practically assured that employment awaits them in America before they leave their homes for ports of embarkation. . . . In fact it may be said that immigrants, or at least newly-arrived immigrants, are substantially the agencies which keep the American labor market supplied with unskilled laborers from Europe. . . . As a rule, each immigrant simply informs his nearest friends that employment can be had and advises them to come. It is these personal appeals which, more than all other agencies, promote and regulate the tide of European emigration to America.1

These conclusions of the Immigration Commission are corroborated by Table 10.

It appears that most of the immigrants come to join relatives, and that only a small proportion of those who land here have neither relatives nor friends to meet them on arrival. This percentage is much smaller for the new immigration than for the old, viz., 3 per cent for the former as against 10.6 per cent for the latter.3

There is a remarkable coincidence of the percentage ratios for the fiscal years ending June 30, 1908 and 1909.

* Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 1, pp. 187-189.

2

* Annual Reports of the Commissioner-General of Immigration, 1908, p. 15; 1909, p. 23; 1910, p. 21.

3 Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 4, Table 38. The figures are for 1908 and 1909.