re: #51 Walter L. Newton

Yea… legal immigrants.

There were more “legal” immigrants in 1910 because (a) prior to 1926 laws the law ALLOWED more legal immigrants, at least from Europe; and (b) no one looked too closely at whether anyone had broken laws in the process of leaving their place of origin. (Which even then was a no no for “legal” immigrants, if you were going to get technical.) The often ridiculous laws of parts of Europe, for example Tsarist Russia which then included most of Poland, forbad emigration without various permissions which were next to impossible to obtain, so many people left without.

Our turn of the century immigrant ancestors (mine for sure!) were very often “legal” not because they waited 15 years and filled out all the right paperwork, but because the laws were a lot looser then.