TABLE XII
Per Cent of Foreign Born of Voting Age Having First Papers, and Also the Per Cent in States Permitting Aliens to Vote on First Papers, Compared with Certain States Not Permitting Aliens to Vote on First Papers, for 1900 and 1910{1}
| State | Number of Foreign Born of Voting Age | Per Cent Increase | Per Cent Naturalized | Per Cent Having First Papers Only | |||
| 1900 | 1910 | 1900 to 1910 | 1900 | 1910 | 1900 | 1910 | |
| United States | 4,904,270 | 6,646,817 | 35.5 | 58.0 | 45.6 | 8.4 | 8.6 |
| Alien-suffrage states (total) | 716,975 | 857,681 | 19.6 | 59.4 | 52.3 | 12.3 | 9.7 |
| Nonalien-suffrage states (total) | 1,275,162 | 1,645,291 | 29.0 | 67.8 | 53.0 | 6.5 | 7.4 |
note 1: United States Census, 1910, vol. i, p. 1071.
In 1900 the ratio of those holding declarations only was about 12 to 6 in favor Of the alien-suffrage states. By 1910 this difference had diminished to about 12 to 9. If aliens of any race were interested in voting as soon as they had a chance, this interest certainly would have manifested itself in the states permitting them to vote on the “first papers” which they could get, if they chose, an hour after landing.
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.