THE PRE-WAR QUARTER CENTURY 
Net Male Immigration. 
Male emigration statistics are available beginning with January, 
1910. Beginning in December, 1910, the vertical bars in Chart 20 
show, for each twelve-month period ending with the given month, 
the excess of arriving over departing male aliens (including both 
permanent and temporary migrants), hereinafter referred to as net 
alien male arrivals. 
What conclusions can be drawn from the facts shown in Chart 
20 concerning the volume relation between unemployment and 
migration? 
In the first place, gross male immigration, disregarding emigration, 
ordinarily numbered several hundred thousand each twelve months, 
even in periods like 1911 when unemployment was increasing, and 
hence represents a volume of immigration which, if not offset by 
emigration, is large enough to materially aggravate the unemploy- 
ment situation. 
Secondly, the net arrivals of alien males, cumulated over twelve- 
month periods, show always an excess of arrivals over departures, 
even in 1911 when the twelve-month change in unemployment 
shows increases in the numbers unemployed; that is, in each of the 
twelve-month periods in which unemployment had increased and 
data on net arrivals are available, migration was evidently ag- 
gravating the situation by adding to the number of available 
workers. 
Lastly, in other twelve-month periods, unemployment is de- 
creasing while there is a net excess of arrivals, and in these periods it 
may be that immigration should be looked upon as increasing in 
response to an increasing demand for labor. For example, for the 
twelve-month periods ending in the latter part of 1912 and the early 
part of 1913, a substantial net immigration is accompanied by a 
decrease in unemployment. 
With this preliminary consideration of the relative volume of 
unemployment and immigration for the years 1903 to 1914 in 
mind, let us now return to a consideration of the conditions existing 
during selected depression periods, beginning with that of 1908. 
Depression of 1908. 
The depression of 1908 affords the first opportunity for a close 
study of the net movement of migration during a business cycle, 
inasmuch as the publication of emigration statistics by months 
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