That the business conditions of this country affect Jewish immigration is unquestioned, but the difference in the degree and the manner of the response puts it in a class apart. A comparison of the total gain in population in 1908 and 1909 in the immigration of Italians and Jews shows that whereas in the Italian inward and outward movement in 1908 there was a net loss to this country of 79,966, but in 1909 a net gain of 94,806, in the Jewish inward and outward movement in 1908 there was a net gain of 95,685, and in 1909 a net gain of 50,705.[117] The Jewish immigration responds in its inward movement much more slowly and less completely to the pressure of unfavorable conditions in this country. In its outward movement it shows practically no response. The conclusion that the Jewish immigrants constitute to an unusual degree a body of permanent settlers is strengthened by an examination of the figures concerning immigrants who have been in the United States previously.[118] Of the total from 1899 to 1910 of 9,220,066 immigrants, 1,108,948, or 12 per cent, had been here before. Of the 1,074,442 Jews who entered the country during this period, only 22,914, or 2.1 per cent, had been previously in the United States. The proportion of Jews who have been in this country before is by far the lowest of any immigrant peoples. As the total Jewish exodus is insignificant as compared both with the total emigration and the proportion of the Jewish immigration in the total inward movement; as the Jewish outward movement shows practically no response to unfavorable economic conditions in this country, and as the Jewish inward movement presents the phenomenon of a practically new body of immigrants, we are led to conclude that the Jewish immigration exhibits a quality of permanence and stability to so great a degree as to render this fact one of its distinguishing characteristics. FOOTNOTES: [108] Immigration Commission: _Conclusions and Recommendations_, p. 16. [109] _Cf._ table XLIII, p. 182. [110] _Cf._ table XLIV, p. 183. [111] _Cf._ table XLV, p. 183. [112] _Cf._ table XLVI, p. 134. [113] _Cf._ table XLVII, p. 184. [114] Buzek, _op. cit._, p. 467. [115] _Cf._ table XLVIII, p. 185. [116] _Cf._ table XLIX, p. 185. [117] The number of Jewish emigrant aliens in 1908 was deducted from the number of Jewish immigrant aliens: the combined number of Jewish emigrant and non-emigrant aliens in 1909 was deducted from the combined number of Jewish immigrant and non-immigrant aliens. _Cf._ Fairchild, _Immigration_, 1913, p. 361. [118] _Cf._ table L, p. 186. CHAPTER III OCCUPATIONS The occupations of an immigrant people throw light upon their industrial equipment and their probable future occupations in this country. A study of the occupational distribution of the Jewish immigrants from 1899 to 1910 will serve to illuminate some of the characteristics of their movement.[119]