UNITED STATES. The great hulk of those who have left Europe to seek new homes have come to the United States. lien- the various phe nomena connected with immigration can be studied in their fullest development. Records of immigration to the United btates begin in 1820. For the period before that time the chief sources of information as to immigration are the fre quent newspaper allusions to the arrival of ves sels bringing immigrants, of whom a certain number were 'foreigners,' i.e. those who spoke a language other than English. The record of ar rivals since 1820 is shown in accompanying table.
In long periods the increase is marked, but year by year the fluctuation is considerable. It mirrors the economic conditions at home and abroad. Thus the panic of 1837 is reflected in the decline of immigration from 79,340 in that year to 38,914 in 1838. The wholesale emigra tion from Ireland after the potato famine is reflected in the rise of our immigration from 154,416 in 1S46 to 234,968 in 1847, and before this influence and that of the political disturb ances in Europe was spent came the discovery of gold and the rush to the mines, which cul minated in an immigration of 427,833 in 1S54, a figure not reached again until nearly twenty years later. After that year immigration fell off slightly, and received a sudden check after the panic of 1857, when it was reduced from 246.945 in 1S57 to 119.501 in 185S. The year 1S60 showed symptoms of a rising tide, but this was checked by the outbreak of the Civil War. The prosperous times which followed the close of the war increased immigration until. in 1873, it reached a figure of 459.803, higher than in 1854. Again economic distress brought a falling off, and in 1S78 it was not more than 135.469. But the symptoms of returning prosperity in the early eighties reacted powerfully upon the vol ume of immigration, which in 1882 reached the enormous total of By 1886 immigra tion had fallen to 334,203, but it soon recovered and maintained high figures until 1893. In the following year it dropped to 285.631, and reached its lowest point in recent years in 1898, when it was 229,299, but again there has been a rapid recovery, and in 1902 the total of 648.743 is exceeded by only two previous years, BSI and IS82.
Influenced by temporary causes. as we have seen, the progress of immigration has been gen erally forward, with setbacks, apparently tem porary, only in the decades 1860-70 and 1890- 1900. In estimating the force of immigration it is well to take into account the concurrent growth of the population. The following table brings out the facts: It appears in this table that the greatest relative immigration has been in the ten years ending 1560, closely followed by the decade 1881-00, and it is to be noted that in each of these periods the agitation against the policy of unrestricted immigration was widespread.
The effect of this immigration on the popula can be traced since 1850 in the number of foreign born enumerated by the census, alai is shown in the following table: these arrivals were doubtless enumerated in 1890. and do not theretore figure in the foreign born c lllll nerated in 1900 who had arrived in the previous decade. Others had arrived twice be \Vhile the total number of the foreign born has increased at each census. the proportion to the total population has not materially changed since Istal. The increase in the foreign born for each decade falls far short of the total number of immigrants by reason of the following factors: (1) Deaths among the foreign born present at the beginning of the decade. and (2) emigration from among the same: (3) deathg, among the im migrants during the decade, and (4) return of some of these latter to their native lands. The census of 1900 pernnits us to estimate some of these factors. There were present in the United States in 1900, 2,609.173 persons who had arrived sauce 1890. or 7.8 per cent. of the immigration in the period. These had not only made up the loss by emigration in the foreign-born population enumerated in 1890, but had, as shown in the table. increased the total number. There remained 1.078,391 persons who arrived in the period 1891 1910 not accounted for by the census of 1900. A certain proportion had died. Were the annual contingent 368.750. or one-tenth of the total, and the death-rate 15 per thousand, the deaths for each contingent would be 5531 annually. Dis regarding the year of arrival, the first contin gent was here nine years, and the ninth one year, or forty-five years for the first nine contingents. the tenth being disregarded. At this rate the deaths for the period would be 248,895, leaving a remainder of 829,49(1 inunig,rants not accounted for. who seemingly contributed nothing to our population. Thi. remainder consists of two classes of persons: first, those who left the United States only to return again: and, second, those t ween 1891 and 1900, but were, of course, enu merated only once, at the census of There remain of the immigrants of 1891-1900. 243,273 to be accounted for, and these would seem to represent the immigrants who, after a brief sojourn in the United States, returned to their own lands to stay. Fuller information on the whole subject could be obtained had we at our disposal figures for the passengers departing from our shores as well as those who arrive.