Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 June 1890 — STORY OF THE CENSUS. [ARTICLE]

STORY OF THE CENSUS.

Robert P. Porter in New York World. ! Uit were possible for the SuperinItehSent of the Census to ascend in a balloon on the morning of June 2 at a point some where in the neighborhoo d of Cincinnati, where the center of population was loeated in 1880, to a height that would; ehhble bimV~ with extended vision, to survey this vast domain of ours, he could watch with (interest the army of 40,000 enumerators, equipped with portfolios of isohedules, march forth on the importiant errand to count the population of 'the United States. i “Surely, you have a big job, 11 I hear my yoqihful reader remark. Yes, it is a big job to take the census of a country with 65,000,000 of population, especially if it be taken on the scale required by Congress of the United States. It takes lots of organization and a good deal of money. It mus be done rapidly and everything must be in readiness so that at the tap of >the drum on the morning set for counting the people everyone is ready to do [mi share of the work, j. It should be remembered that the (census office is not a permanent

bureau of the Government, but an impromptu branch of the Interior Department, Organized under the direction of an officer called the Superintendent of Census for the express purpose of doing this work. Tne Superintendent of the Eleventh Census be|fan his work on the morning of April w, 1889, having been appointed by the President of the United States in accordance with the provisions of an act of Congress, approved March 1, 1&89, for taking the eleventh and subsequent censuses. On that day the Census office consisted of a superintendent, a clerk, one messenger boy, two desks, a ream of white paper, and a box or fWo of official envelopes, and sundry other stationery. To-day the Census Office employs 800 clerks, 500 special agents and 175 supervisors. Next June the census force will consist of 4,000 enumerators, 1,000 clerks and probably 1,000 special agents. Then it will gradually decline until the last report has been printed, when the (superintendent and the small force (then around him 4 will fold their tents (and silently pass away and become Imerely an infinitesimal part of the great (population which they have enumerated.

MUST COUNT CITIES IN FIFTEEN DATS. The law requires that the population shall be all counted in fifteen days in cities and in thirty days in country districts. Few who have never been inside of a census office have any idea of the labor necessary even to make a rough count, to say nothing of the classification of the population into all the different groups required by the census taw. The eleventh census will be counted 'by the aid of electricity. At first this seems rather a startling statement, ffiut if any of my readers would only come to the Census Office and see the electrical counting and sorting maohines now at work: on some 6f the special data the thing would be made clear to them at onee. Now you will see that the enumerators have furnished the census office with quite a complete description of eyery person living in the United States, but these records are not in a convenient form for counting or tabulating. We, therefore, first prepare a card for each person, on which we rejCOrd the different facts regarding that jperson with a machine something like ja typewriter, only that instead of printing letters or figures these machines punch round holes, These qards will- be about the size of postal cards, and if stacked in one pile would make a column over ten miles high and will weigh full 180 tons. The Census Office will have to know how many boys there are ten years old, how many eleven years, how many twelve years, and so on, and the same for the girls. Again, it must know how many could read, how many could write, how many were born in Now York, how many in Pennsylvania [and many other things. To obtain [this information from these punched reoord cards we use the electrical tabulating machines. You see it would be impossible to make a machine which could read writing or printing, hut our little typewriters punch holes .instead and such holes can easily be read by a machine. This is done as follows: ‘The cards are laid one by one in a machine something like a printing press, [Only instead of type, little needles or points are brought against the cards so that where there is a hole in the card the little pointer goes through and touches a drop of quicksilver, [below which closes an electric circuit, or telegraphs to a little counter or ,register. These counters look very -much like clocks, but instead of the (works of a clock we have an electro'magnet so arranged that, when an electric circuit is closed through it, [ft moves the hand ahead one point. As the cards are rapidly passed through the machine they first telegraph to one oounter and then to .another, according, for example as they [represent boys or girls; some other counters will at the same time oount how many could read and how many foould not, and so on; so you will see [that tills machine really does a camber of things at the same time. fWhen all the cards for a given district bare thus been passed through the pnachine the results on the dials are rwrttten down and sent to the printer part of the oonsus reports. \ in the aotual countir g sorting, after the punching hau boon done, one m Qiese electrical machine* will eount J* nib hours as many cards as could ho oounted by the old meChods-ln Iftyhorns, or efua) to tbs wosk of Ohd* jfewon far' efjprt darfs, ootAfiag

seven hours as a day’s work. Surely this is a great saving of time and of expense, while at the same time Jpiabling the qensus office to tabulate many interesting facts which may be found on the schedules, but whioh the great oost of tabulating by hand has prevented heretofore. v ODD FACTS SOUGHT. The next in importance to the count* of the people come the vital statistics and the statistics of the special classes, for after we know the number of our population, its characteristics, distribution and parentage, the question of its health and physical condition naturally comes up for consideration. All facts relating to marriages, births, and deaths are obtained by the enumerator, by calling upon something like eighty thousand physicians to aid in the work and by copying the reports of the registers of births, deaths and marriages in States where these facts are gathered by local affairs. How many of the readers of the Youths’Department would be able to answer the question, if put to them off-hand, “How many minor civil divisions in the United States, such as Cities, towns, townships, counties, school districts, etc., have the power to raise and incur debt?” Do not answer all at once. ‘‘A good many thousand,” I hear some one say. There are no less than 150,000 such minor divisions of the country. Surely, it ** is important to know the total amount of money raised by taxation for local purposes and the total amount of debt which has been incurred by all these taxing and debtcreating powers. In order to do this the Census Office must deal separately and individually with the local officers and functionaries of these myriad local officers and divisions. Over 150 clerks are at this moment engaged on this branch of the census work alone. In this short article it would be impossible to give even a cursory idea of the innumerable methods employed by the Census Office experts, or “sharps” as they are now called, in gathering the varied facts for their numerous reports, The main thing, after all such inquiries are taken out of the hands of the enumerator, is to prepare correct lists of all the establishments in cases of manufacturing, of all mines in that of mining, of all the fishing villages and fishing ports, in Buoh inquiries relating to fish and fisheries. Even the poor Indian must be investigated. What boy is not interested in the Indian, though, I fear, as a rule, boys are not so much interested in the social condition of the Indian as they are in the stories of his adventures and confliots with the white man. The census office will not go into these facts, though no doubt the large body of special agents, whose duty it will be to visit all the reservations and sections of country where the Indians still roam, would be able to tell some interesting and startling stories when they return. _—— The present census will probably cost in the neighborhood of $10,000,000, and when It is completed it will , mark another decade in the material j 'progress of the country. Before another census year rolls around the readers of this article will be men and women, interested in the political and social welfare of the Republic, and, perhaps, more appreciative of (fie re-, suits which a census furnishes than they are this year.

ROBERT P. PORTER.