The increase of population in the decade of 1920-3o was, as already stated, 17,064,426, or 16.1%. The percentage varied greatly for the different geographic divisions, being 10.3 for New England, 18.0 for the Middle Atlantic, 17.8 for the East North Central, 6.o for the West North-Central, 12.9 for the South Atlantic, 11.2 for the East South-Central, 18.9 for the West South-Central, 1 1.o for the Rocky Mountain and 47.2 for the Pacific States. It varied for the individual States from an increase of 65.7 for California to a loss of 2.1 for Montana, and in actual numbers, from an increase of 2,250,390 for California and 2,202, 839 for New York, to a loss of 11,283 for Montana and a gain of but 7,183 for Vermont.
On the basis of current data on births, deaths, immigration and emigration, the population of the United States on July 1, 1938, was officially estimated to be 130,215,00o, this figure represent ing an increase of 958,000, or 0.74%, during the preceding year, and an increase of 7,440,00o, or 6.o6%, over the 1930 census. Assuming a continuation of this rate of increase until April 1, 1940, the date of the Sixteenth Decennial Census, one may fore cast that the 1940 census population will be around 132,000,000, or 7.5% above that of 1930.
The difference between the 9,000,000 increase assumed for the decade 1930-4o and the 17,000,000 recorded for the decade end ing in 1930 is not altogether the result of declining natural increase -though that is the major factor. The Immigration Act of 1924 greatly restricted the number of foreign born coming into the United States; and since the depression the lack of employment opportunities and the requirement that visas be granted only to those persons possessing sufficient funds to prevent their becom ing public charges have cut still more deeply into the numbers of those who might otherwise have come.
At the same time, relatively large numbers of aliens have re turned to their native lands for one reason or another, so that in four consecutive years (1932 to 1935) the number of "emigrant aliens departed" has exceeded the number of "immigrant aliens admitted." Thus while there was a net immigration of about 3,000,00o in the decade 192o-30, there was in the period from 1930 to July 1, 1938, an excess of emigration over immigration amounting to nearly 190,000, and notwithstanding increasing net immigration during the subsequent two years, the total for the decade will doubtless still be a minus quantity.
1930 comprised 110,286,740 white persons (including 1,422,533 shown separately under the designation "Mexican" in the 1930 Census Reports), 11,891,143 Negroes and 597,163 persons of other races, mainly Indians, Chinese and Japanese. The white population thus represented 89.8% of the total, and the Negro population 9.7%, leaving for the minor races (that is, those of minor statistical importance) only o.5%. The percentage Negro has been steadily declining since 1790, when it was 19.3, and the percentage white has shown a corresponding increase. The decline in the percentage of the population Negro in recent decades, how ever, has been slow, as witness the figures for the several censuses from 1890 onwards, namely, for 1890, 11.9%; for 1900, 11.6%; for 1910, 10.7%; for 1920, 9.9%; and for 1930, 9.7%.
There have been significant changes in the geographic distribu tion of the Negro population, especially since 1910, resulting from a considerable migration of Southern Negroes to Northern indus trial centres. In 1930, for example, Negroes formed 4.0% of the population of the Middle Atlantic States, as compared with 2.2% in 1910 ; and 3.7% of the population of the East North-Central States, as compared with 1.6% in 1910. In individual cities the increase in the percentage Negro was much greater. In Chicago, for example, the percentage Negro increased from 2•0 in 1910 to 6.9 in 1930; in New York the corresponding increase was from 1.9 to 4.7; in Cleveland from 1.5 to 8.o; and in Cincinnati from 5.4 to 10.6. (For more details see NEGRO, THE AMERICAN.) The number of American Indians returned in the census of 1930 was 332,397, as compared with 265,683 in 1910, the last previous census in which special effort was made to secure a complete enumeration of all persons having any considerable proportion of Indian blood. The number returned as full-blood Indians in 1930 was 153,933, or slightly more than the 150,053 returned in 1910. The major part of the increase indicated by the 1930 total was therefore in persons of mixed Indian blood. The percentage of full-blood in the total number reported was 46.3 in 1930, as com pared with 56.5 in 1910. The reduction in the percentage full blood during the 2o-yr. period between these two censuses was least in States like Arizona and New Mexico where the Indians have little contact with other races, and greatest in States where the Indian population is largely intermingled with the white.