DECLARATIONSPETITIONS
NUMBERDATEDATEWT.ASSUMED NUMBER
1910155,038
19112147,288
136,698190819123286,881
143,212190919134380,744
167,226191019145619,275
186,157191119154425,268
169,142191219163324,027
19172264,640
19181110,416
TOTAL802,435252,613,577
AVERAGE160,487104,543
PERCENTAGE160,487 into 104,54365.1

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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}