Los Angeles herald., 1890-06-29
RADICAL DEFECTS OF THE CENSUS.

In such reflections as we have made
upon the taking of the federal census in
this city we have not intended to cast
any imputation upon either the inten
tions or the work of Mr.. L. E. Mosher,
the head Of the census bureau for Los
Angeles. We believe that, as far as lay
in his power, he has aimed to get the
best possible results. He has found
himself incumbered with a great many
difficulties. Prominent amongst these
were an inadequate clerical force and a
deficiency of blanks. With all the
boasted completeness of the government
printing Office at Washington, the blanks
furnished to this portion OF the Pacific
coast were ridiculously under the stand
ard required. While according to Mr..
Mosher all that his friends can claim for
honesty of intention and efficiency of
execution, we still believe that the
enumeration of the population will be
grossly defective both in this city and
county, and this has arisen from the
small amount of the remuneration ac-
corded to the enumerators and from
the unfortunate character of their con-
tracts with the government. These
officials have thankless task
at best. Their labors are great, and
their annoyances endless. They should
have had stipulated salary per day,
it ought to have been reasonably liberal,
and they should have been allowed
plenty of time in which to do the work.
Whatever money should be saved in
compiling and publishing the census
might very well have been retrenched in
the voluminousness of the printed re-
ports. 1t is significant and discourag
ing fact that the last volumes of the
census of 1880 are being turned out of
the government presses today, decade
after the actual work was done. These
immense masses OF useless figures only
blur the judgment and make confusion
worse confounded.
The census ought to have been taken
between the middle of April and the
middle OF May. Then the hegira to
health resorts and watering places, to
mountain and seaside, would not have
begun. As it was, the enumerators were
set at their task at time when multi
tudes had deserted their households and
had hied them to temporary homes.
Owing to all these causes, it is not too
much to say that the cities particularly,
all over the United States, will suf-
fer in the enumeration. In Los
Angeles we believe that we shall
lose fully fifteen per cent. OF our right
full population from the circumstances
which we have recapitulated.
While we shall suffer as to popula-
ton, this is not Circumstance to what
we shall lose in this section in the sum-
ming up of our resources. From this
point of view the blanks were not only
deficient in quantity but they were
grossly faulty in their printed questions.
They were exclusively adapted, as we
have been informed, to regions in which
the cereals and the fruits OF the tenn
perate zones were the specialties. No
provision was made for learning the
facts as to the citrus orchards, the
olives, pomegranates and other sub
tropical staples, which will play such an
important part in the development of
Southern California. As result, while
we shall suffer at least to the extent of
fifteen per cent in the enumeration of
our population, the tables which shall
represent our resources will, in all like
lihood, not give thirty per cent. of the
present production OF this county.
On all grounds this is to be lamented.
We may be assured standing pretty
well, in any event, but how much better
and more reliable the work could have
been made.