Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 289, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 December 1910 — COUNTING NOSED in the UNITED STATES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

COUNTING NOSED in the UNITED STATES

J % LD DR. U. S. CENSUS, who has just completed Jr La I the thirteenth diagnosis / BAI ¥ of the condition of Uncle " I Sain luld 1113 l, eI 1 gan it in 1790 and has MMf been repeating it every ten years since. Uncle <| BW B gam has footed the bills, to date amounting to about $47,000,000. Our venerable dad has calculated that the thirteenth investigation will cost about $13,000,000; $60,000,000 has been spent for this purpose since 1790. The twelfth census cost about $13,000,000, and as Uncle Sam’s landed possessions have Increased since then and his family gained about 15,000,000 more members than belonged to it In 1900, It would be considered no more than 1 fair if the present diagnosis were to ' call for the spending of about $19,000,000, which would be the <um if the rate of Increase of expense at each census up to the twelfth were to be maintained for the thirteenth. — : " A census expert has estimated that of the thirteen millions, the headquarters office force will earn $4,000,000, the enumerators $4,600,000, the supervisors $910,000, and the special agents $700,000. The administrative cost will be $300,000, the stationery $200,000, rent $125,000, tabulating machines $250,000, cards for tabulation processes, SIOO,OOO, printing SBOO,OOO, Alaska $85,000, Porto Rloo $160,000. Jotal, sl2,-

•50,000. If that is all the expense. It is” cheap. The late Gen. Francis A. Walker, who was a census authority greater than ®ny other, living or dead, once wrote that "the people of the United States can well afford to pay for the very best census they can get.” He penned this remark tn connection with a frank confession of bls own shortsightedness In underestimating the cost of the tenth census. ft’s the old story: When you are ill get the best doctor you can afford. The comparative cheapness with which the thirteenth census has been taken was

largely due to Director E. Dana Durand’s economical methods, to the introduction of semi-au-tomatic electrical card-punching, tabulating and sorting machines, and to the inheritance of wisdom from the experience gained by the permanent census bureau. During the term of the latter the methods of inquiry, tabulation and compilation have been greatly Improved, both tn accuracy and in economy. Millions will be saved. Mr. Durand is responsible for many of the new methods to increase statistical accuracy at every step of the census taking and to decrease the per capita cost of the enumeration. The card-punching, tabulating, and sorting machinery is the invention of a census mechanical expert and the patent rights belong to Uncle Sam. The machines are novel in plan and design, are of greater speed and efficiency than those they superseded, and can be built and operated at a large saving of money as compared with previous expenditures for this purpose. Other money-saving features are the elimination of the vital-statistics inquiry from the work of the decennial census, as it belongs to the permanent branch of the United States census; the reduction in the number of schedules, the piece-price .method of paying for machine work, the omission of the hand, household and neighborhood industries from the manufactures branch of the census, and the reduction of the size and number of copies of the Anal report. Congress limited the thirteenth census to four general subjects—population, agriculture, manufactures, and mines and quarries. The director is authorised to determine the form and subdivision of inquiries. The inquiry as to population relates to the date April 15, 1910; that as to agriculture concerns the farm operations during 1909 and calls for an Inventory of farm equipment April 15, 1910; that relative to manufactures and quarries is for 1909. The enumeration carried only the population and agriculture schedules April 15, 1910. Special agents were sent out with the sched ales for the manufactures, mines and quarries data. There were fully 65,000 enumerators, of whom about 45,000 carried both the population and agriculture schedules, as it is estimated that there are now fully 7,000,000 separate farms in America, with farmers numbering well up into a score of millions. In 1910 there were many more billions of dollars of fixed capital invested in agriculture than there were tn manufactures, strange as it may seem. And the farmer Is getting better off all the time;

his mortgage indebtedness is decreasing fast; his taxation is small as compared with the urbanite’s burden, and he has taken to automobile riding on a large scale. Census taking every ten years is a tremendous task. It is the greatest single operation undertaken by Uncle Sam, with the exception of the Panama canal work and the assembling of an army in time of war. The American census is the largest, costliest and most accurate of any taken by the civilized nations. Its methods are the most modern and its equipment the most complete. The census bureau force comprises, first, Director E. Dana Durand

of Michigan, who,, although only thirty-eight years old, is older than most of the generals commanding the forces in the Civil war, and who Is, too, a statistically scarred hero, a veteran In government service, and likely to prove the most practical and efficient director connected with any of the past censuses. Then there is the assistant director, William H. Willoughby, of Washington, D. C., former secretary of state of Porto Rico. Next in rank are the five chief statisticians: William C. Hunt, in charge of the population division; Le Grand Powers, heading the agricultural division; William M. Stuart, overseeing the manufacturing division; Dr. Cressy L. Wilbur, the vital statistics work, and Dr. Joseph Adna Hill, the division of revision and results. Charles S. Sloane is the geographer; Albertus H. Baldwin is the chief clerk; Voler V. is chief of the publication division; Hugh M. Brown is private secretary to the director; Robert M. Pindell,

is the appointment Clerk; George Johnnes is the disbursing officer, and C. W. Spicer is the mechanical expert. In addition to these are the chiefs of the divisions under .the chief statistician. There are about 750 permanent clerks and 3,000 temporary clerks, etc. The supervisors numbered 330 and they employed and directed the 65,000 enumerators. About 1,000 chief special agents and assistant special agents. The supervisors also employed 1,000 clerks, 500 special agents and 4,000 interpreters to assist them in the direction of the enumerators. The data relating to population la trans-

ferred to manila cards, by the punching of holes in them to correspond with the different items in the schedules. An- electrical machine controlled by a clerk can punch holes in 3,000 cards a day. Three hundred of these were used and 90,000,000 cards were ordered. After the punching the cards are hand-fed into an electric tabulating machine with a pin-box ’ attachment which permits the required pins to pass through the variously placed holes in the cards, in this establishing an electric circuit resulting in the tabulation of the items’on counters which register their results in printing on spooled paper somewhat like a stock ’ ticker.” There are 100 of these machines. After certain comparisons to prove accuracy, the schedules are permanently preserved in a great iron safe in the census bureau. As the card does not contain the name of the-.persons for whom It stands, all personal Identity is eliminated from the cards. All danger of misuse of such information disappears. Severe penalties are provided in case any employee discloses census Information to outsiders. The next step Is the making of the maps and tables to accompany the analyses, and then, finally, the issue of the printed bulletins and reports. Before July 1, 1912, the work must be over and the thirteenth census gone to join its scientific ancestors.