they lessen the inequalities in employment due to seasonal and cyclical variations in industrial activity. The immigrant, they say, comes and goes as he is wanted, aiding us when the need for men is greatest, departing to his native country when jobs are scarce.

The maladjustment theory. On the other hand, those who take a more pessimistic view urge that migration fails to synchronize well with the seasonal and cyclical fluctuations in industry and to that extent increases unemployment in dull seasons of the year and in periods of industrial depression. They suggest that when industry begins to slacken, immigration continues, and even if it decreases in volume, the change comes too slowly to aid materially in the improvement of employment conditions.* Furthermore, it is suggested, the very fact that a new supply of labor is available in times of industrial expansion is a vicious influence in that it enables the employer to enlarge the scope of his operations readily, and by this very expansion increases the intensity of the subsequent depression."

As usual in such cases, there is doubtless some element of truth in both points of view-that which stresses the susceptibility of migration to employment conditions, and that which stresses the imperfections of such adjustments. The relative credence to be given to these conflicting interpretations can be determined only by close scrutiny of the ways in which the tide of migration ebbs and flows with seasonal and cyclical changes in industrial activity.

Summary of the Contents of Succeeding Chapters.

The first of the following chapters is devoted to a sketch of the major features of immigration into the United States, partly to indicate the reasons for the selection of the elements to which special attention is given and the reasons for the methods of analysis which are applied, and partly for the convenience of those readers who have not given close attention to the character of immigration into this country in recent decades. This chapter can be scanned quickly by the reader who is familiar with the major features of immigration to the United States.

To facilitate the study of the relation of migration to employment conditions, it is necessary to have before us a picture of the alternations in prosperity and depression during the period covered by our analysis. Accordingly, in the third chapter, we turn to a

See the argument by Professor Gustav Cassel to the effect that immigration aggravates the severity of depressions, The Theory of Social Economy, Vol. II, pp. 545-547. *Cf. Director's footnote "a", p. 120.

survey of the pertinent information concerning industrial conditions and particularly concerning employment. The hurried reader who is interested primarily in conclusions and little in method may find it advantageous to skip this chapter on employment indices (Chapter III) and proceed directly to the comparisons between industrial conditions and migratory movements.

With these preliminary pictures of the nature of the immigrant stream and of employment conditions before us, we proceed, in Chapters IV to VI, inclusive, first to a survey in broad outline of the cyclical movement in migration, then to a more detailed analysis of the movements of migration, particularly in the decades since 1890, there being for this period, especially during the years immediately preceding the Great War, a relative abundance of detailed monthly data concerning migration.

In Chapter VII attention is turned to differences in the cyclical movements of selected elements in migration, in order to ascertain the relative extent to which employment conditions affect the movement of immigrants as compared with nonimmigrants, of males as compared with females, or of workers as compared with those immigrants having no occupation.

The question naturally arises as to whether the economic conditions which influence migration to the United States are primarily those of the country of immigration or whether the alternations of prosperity and depression in the country of emigration may not exercise an equally strong influence on the time and volume of migration. Hence Chapter VIII is devoted to a consideration of peculiarities in the fluctuations of immigration from leading countries and to changes in economic conditions in those countries, as bearing on the relative power of the "push" or the "pull" in determining changes in the volume of migration.

While the cyclical aspects of migration are of most significance for the purposes of this study, it is also pertinent to inquire concerning the degree to which the seasonal distribution of migration harmonizes with the seasonal distribution of employment in those industries in which large numbers of immigrants are employed. Chapter IX is devoted to such a survey.

In the concluding chapter, we bring together the significant relations and conclusions developed in the earlier chapters.

CHAPTER II

SIGNIFICANT FEATURES OF MIGRATION

Purpose of Chapter.

For readers who have not given special attention to the immigration problem, it may be helpful to review briefly the characteristic phases of the flow of population to our shores, and particularly to stress those features which have a significant bearing on the particular inquiry to which we have set ourselves. In the first place, let us take note of the chief sources of information and the terminology to be used in the following pages.

SOURCES, TERMINOLOGY, AND COMPREHENSIVENESS OF MIGRATION STATISTICS1

Sources.

Except where otherwise specified, all tables and other statistics in this monograph refer to immigration into, or emigration from, the United States. Official annual statistics of immigration are first available with the year ending September 30, 1820; quarterly figures, with the year ending June 30, 1858; and monthly figures, with the year ending June 30, 1889. However, as noted below, the meaning and comprehensiveness of these statistics have varied from time to time.

From 1820 to 1874 immigration statistics were gathered by the Department of State; for the period 1867 to June, 1895, by the U. S. Bureau of Statistics; and from July, 1892, to date, by the U. S. Bureau of Immigration. In the four years in which the data of the Bureau of Statistics and of the Bureau of Immigration overlap, there is a considerable discrepancy in the numbers reported (see footnote to Table 1). The smaller figures, which are those now published as official, were compiled by the Bureau of Immigration. The reason for this discrepancy is not stated in the official publications of the departments concerned nor is it apparent upon examination of the data. It may be that the larger figures published by the 1See, also, the footnotes to Table 1 and to Tables I and II in the Appendix.

Bureau of Statistics include many who were counted by the Bureau of Immigration as temporary or nonimmigrant arrivals.2

Terminology.

At no time has there been a complete record of all persons entering or leaving the territory of the United States. Particularly on the land boundaries, an attempt at a complete count would be difficult of realization. Furthermore, even at the present time, certain classes of arrivals and departures are treated as "nonstatistical” and do not enter into the published migration statistics. For example, "one year residents of Canada, Newfoundland or Mexico, who come for a stay of less than six months; and aliens who habitually cross and recross the land boundaries of the United States' are treated as "non-statistical aliens" and not recorded. Persons passing over our borders, aside from those who arrive or depart clandestinely, and those who, for reasons just cited, are treated as non-statistical, are classified as citizens or aliens. For recent years, the Bureau of Immigration has published statistics of the number of citizens departing to take up permanent residence abroad. Inasmuch as naturalized citizens are included, a minute appraisal of the movement of the foreign-born elements in our population would include the departing citizens. For example, after the Great War, thousands of naturalized Poles, and many of Polish descent born in this country, emigrated to share in the fortunes of the newly reorganized Poland. In this study, however, attention is concentrated chiefly upon the movement of aliens, and particularly, though not exclusively, upon the coming and going of those officially listed as immigrant or emigrant aliens, as contrasted with nonimmigrant and nonemigrant aliens."

In the terminology used by the Bureau of Immigration, an immigrant alien is a non-resident of this country who enters with the declared intention of establishing a permanent residence, while a nonimmigrant alien is an alien resident of the United States returning from a temporary visit abroad or a non-resident entering for a stay of less than a year.

Likewise, an alien emigrant is an alien resident of the United States leaving for a relatively permanent sojourn abroad; and an alien nonemigrant is either an alien who originally entered as a

2This interpretation of the discrepancy was suggested by the Acting CommissionerGeneral of the U. S. Bureau of Immigration, in a letter to the writer, dated May 9, 1924. U. S. Bureau of Immigration, General Order No. 13, July 24, 1923, p. 16. 4See Chapter VII for comparison of immigrants and nonimmigrants.

nonimmigrant and is now leaving after having been in this country less than one year, or he is an alien resident of the United States leaving for a temporary sojourn abroad.

It should be noted that the definition of "immigrant" for purposes of the quota restriction acts of recent years differs somewhat in scope from the traditional meaning of the term as above defined. Ordinarily in official and popular use, the terms immigrant, emigrant, immigration, and emigration refer to the relatively permanent immigrant or emigrant and exclude from consideration the nonimmigrant and nonemigrant groups; and, as a rule, that practice is followed in this monograph. However, it should be noted that for some purposes the citizen and nonimmigrant alien elements should not be ignored. Unless the arrivals and departures of these groups balance and they do not-they should logically be included in a study of the contributions which migration makes to population. Also, in our present inquiry, the reaction to employment conditions of the aliens arriving or departing temporarily from our shores may be as significant as the fluctuations in the movements of immigrants and emigrants proper. In fact, it would seem reasonable to expect that the volume of migration of workers who come for only a temporary residence would be especially sensitive to changing conditions of employment.

In the following pages, the terms immigrants and emigrants refer ordinarily to those relatively permanent alien arrivals and departures officially designated as immigrants and emigrants; the terms alien arrivals and alien departures include, in addition, the nonimmigrant and nonemigrant group, respectively; and the terms total arrivals and total departures are inclusive of all recorded arrivals and departures of both citizens and aliens.

In some instances the term permanent has been used for immigrants and emigrants and temporary for the nonimmigrants and nonemigrants; but these terms should not be interpreted too literally, as the classification is based upon the declared intention, and intentions may be either misstated or subsequently changed. The arriving alien who declares an intention of establishing a permanent residence in this country may find conditions less agreeable than expected and emigrate within a few months. The fact that in the seventeen years from July 1, 1907, to June 30, 1924, the recorded total of nonimmigrants was only 2,485,789, while that of nonemigrants was 3,097,567, indicates either that thousands of incoming aliens declare an intention of permanent sojourn but change