Average Amount of Weekly Earnings of Male Employees Eighteen Years of Age and Over, by Race and Specified Industries{1}
| Race | Reporting Complete Data | Average Earnings per Day | Agricultural Implements and Vehicles{2} | Cotton Goods{2} | Woolen and Worsted Goods{2} | Slaughtering and Meat Packing{3} | Coal Mining Bituminous{3} |
| “Old” | 17,433 | 2.34 | 13.03 | 11.14 | 11.69 | 2.27 | 2.33 |
| “New” | 65,485 | 1.99 | 11.58 | 8.77 | 8.64 | 1.83 | 2.09 |
note 1: See [Appendix] for complete table. This table does not take account of lost time.
note 2: Weekly wage.
note 3: Daily wage.
When the expense of becoming a citizen is taken into consideration, the bearing of income on acquiring citizenship is important. Add to that the obvious fact that wages and general economic and social status tend to improve in the individual case with length of residence, and the situation becomes not only clear but just what common sense would suggest as probable. It ought not to require elaborate argument to substantiate the assertion that the immigrant in his early years in America is too busy getting a job and an economic footing, acquiring a working knowledge of the language, overcoming the general prejudice against him as a foreigner, and so on, to pay much attention to the question of becoming a citizen; besides which he must, in any event, live here five years before he can do anything effective in the matter.
VOTING ON “FIRST PAPERS”
The present state of public opinion in the United States on the subject of the foreign born is very different from what it was in the earlier years of our development; this is largely, though not entirely, due to the emotions and disclosures connected with the war. When we were opening up the vast domain west of the Alleghanies, and there was great need of human labor to clear forests, break virgin land, and help in the beginnings of our industries, the immigrant was a welcome helper, and every inducement was offered to entice him to come and settle on even terms with the native born. One of these inducements was citizenship, for all intents and purposes, on very easy terms.
Prior to 1910 there were ten states in which aliens were permitted to vote on their mere declaration of intention to become citizens—subject, however, to the same conditions of length of residence in state, county, and election district as citizens. These were Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Oregon, South Dakota, and Texas.[112]
That this easy acquisition of the suffrage would act as a deterrent to the completion of citizenship was to be expected, and that it has indeed so acted appears in a comparison of the proportions of foreign-born males of voting age holding “first papers” only, in the alien-suffrage states, with those in states requiring full citizenship as a prerequisite to voting.