INFLUENCE OF ECONOMIC CONDITIONS 155 
evidences substantially the same fluctuations, a presumption is 
raised in favor of the theory that economic conditions in the United 
States are a predominating factor, particularly if business con- 
ditions in the several foreign countries are not closely parallel and 
these common migratory fluctuations accord well with industrial 
cycles in the United States. 
On the other hand, if the more common phenomenon is a marked 
diversity in the cyclical fluctuations of the various national or 
racial elements in immigration, then a presumption is created in 
favor of the interpretation that conditions in the country of emi- 
gration are the dominant factor or that industrial prosperity and 
depression in the United States is itself a phenomenon so diversified 
in its influence upon employment that its effect is much greater 
upon immigration from certain countries than upon the general 
immigration movement. 
Method of Analysis. 
The facts concerning the relative fluctuations of immigration 
from the several countries are presented in two ways. In the first 
place, they are shown by means of a table (Number 44) giving the 
number of immigrants from each of several countries and by charts 
(32 and 33) to facilitate the determination of whether changes in 
the number of immigrants in any given year are common to the 
several countries. Secondly, as a means of presenting the same 
facts in a way which stresses the divergence of the immigration from 
any one country from its usual proportion to the total immigration, 
a table and charts are given showing the fraction of the total im- 
migration which is represented by the number of immigrants from 
each of the selected list of countries. (See Table 45 and Charts 34 
and 35). 
Immigration from Selected Countries. 
An examination of the fluctuations in the number of immigrants 
from leading countries of emigration in the three decades prior to 
the Great War (Charts 32 and 33) furnishes reasonably conclusive 
evidence concerning the degree of similarity in such fluctuations. 
The countries included in this graphic comparison are England, 
Ireland, Germany, Sweden, Russia, Italy, and Austria-Hungary 
from 1880-to 1914; and Greece from 1891 to 1914. 
In nine of the thirty-four years covered by Charts 32 and 33, the 
selected immigration movements either all show an increase or all