Americans by Choice

by John Palmer Gavit

WHAT BECOMES OF THE DECLARATIONS?

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:

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

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
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

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.

TABLE XIV

Showing Number of Declarations Filed in Each Year During the Period 1908–1912, and the Number of Final Petitions for Naturalization Assumed to Have Been Based upon Those Declarations in Each Year During Which, Respectively, the Declarations Were Valid

DECLARATIONS			PETITIONS
NUMBER	DATE		DATE	WT.	ASSUMED NUMBER
			1910	1	55,038
			1911	2	147,288
136,698	1908		1912	3	286,881
143,212	1909		1913	4	380,744
167,226	1910		1914	5	619,275
186,157	1911		1915	4	425,268
169,142	1912		1916	3	324,027
			1917	2	264,640
			1918	1	110,416
TOTAL		802,435		25	2,613,577
AVERAGE		160,487			104,543
PERCENTAGE		160,487 into 104,543			65.1

[ Click here to see book image of this Table.]

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.

TABLE XV

Showing Ratio of Declarations of Intention to Petitions for Naturalization, by States, Based on Yearly Average Number of Declarations, 1908 to 1912, and Yearly Average (Weighted){1}

State	Ratio	State	Ratio
United States	65.1	Illinois	64.4
Wisconsin	115.7	Colorado	64.3
Arizona	94.2	Nebraska	64.0
North Carolina	93.1	New York	64.0
Mississippi	86.7	North Dakota	63.7
Ohio	78.8	Oregon	63.7
Kentucky	77.5	Kansas	62.9
New Jersey	76.5	Tennessee	62.8
Maine	76.1	Minnesota	62.7
Vermont	75.6	Iowa	60.9
South Carolina	75.3	Texas	59.5
Georgia	74.3	Delaware	58.4
Montana	73.9	Oklahoma	58.3
Alabama	73.0	Louisiana	56.4
Maryland	72.2	West Virginia	55.6
Arkansas	72.0	Massachusetts	53.7
Michigan	71.9	Alaska	53.0
California	71.2	Florida	52.5
Pennsylvania	70.9	Nevada	52.4
Connecticut	69.6	Utah	50.5
Rhode Island	69.6	Washington	50.3
Virginia	69.3	Idaho	48.6
Wyoming	68.1	Missouri	45.2
New Mexico	67.0	South Dakota	44.1
District of Columbia	66.8	Hawaii	39.9
New Hampshire	66.5	Indiana	26.4

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.

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[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.