Workmen's advocate. (New Haven, Conn.) 1883-1891, 1890-04-12
THE CENSUS CONSPIRACY.

after several days of unwarranted delay,
suggestive of hesitancy for cause, the
Boston Herald had published Prof. De
Icons letter on the census conspiracy,
with editorial remarks intended again
to cast discredit upon his statements.
The spirit and purport of the remarks
are best expressed in the concluding
paragraph, as follows:
Glow much the census bureau will
do with the facts when they have been
collected, we do not know. We do
know this inquiry comes into the Gems
us with all the force which an act of
Congress can give it, and that it stands
precisely the same as as dozen other of
the leading questions in both censuses,
the same enactment bringing them all
over together from the tenth to the
eleventh census.
To this sweeping assertion we answer
by quoting the law itself;
Sec. II. That the schedules of in
quiries at the Eleventh Census shall be
the same as those contained in Sec. 1905 of
the Revised Statutes of 1878, as amended
by Section II of the act entitled, IAN act
to provide for taking the Tenth and
subsequent censuses," approved March
3, 1879, with such changes OF the sub
ject. matter, emendations, and moditica-
tons as may be approved by the Score
tary of the Interior; it being the intent
of this section to give to said Secretary
full discretion over the form of the
schedules of such inquiries. The
0nly ,,ol,,n,es that shall be PREPARED and
PUBLISHED in connection with said cen
sus shall relate to population and social
statistics relating thereto, the products
of manufactures, mining and agricul.
ture, mortality and vital statistics,
valuation and public indebtedness,
recoi ded Indebtedness, and to statistics
relating to railroad corporations, incor-
porated express, telegraph and insurance
companies, a list OF the names, organi-
cations and length of service of survi
wing soldiers, sailors and marines and the
widows Of soldiers, sailors and marines.
With the law under his own eyes any
one who can read may now see the bare
faced dishonesty of Carroll D. Wright,
Of the Census Office, and of their
''candle- holder the Boston Herald.
The inquiry concerning the unem-
ployed is positively excluded and ex-
pressly forbidden by the specific nomen-
clature of the other inquiries, which
alone shall be prepared and published,
for it does not appear in that nomen-
clature. And while the first part of
Section II gives full discretion to the
Secretary of the Interior as to the FORM
of the schedules of inquiries, the second
part stipulates the NATURE of the ONLY
inquiries that he can make. As to these
lawful inquiries--and these only-the
Secretary may adopt the schedules of
1880, or modify them, as he pleases.
But he may not issue a schedule of
inquiry concerning the unemployed
without violating the law.
Is this plain2
Will the Boston Herald still contend
that the inquiry in dispute stands pre-
cisely the same as a dozen other of the
leading questions in both oensuses ?"
Instead of asserting. as it practically
does, that the nature of thing is it's
form, and that what is expressly for
hidden is explicitly commanded, had it
not better join us in demanding that the
law be so amended within the next very
few weeks as to make it possible to pre-
pare and publish the industrial statistics
of idleness, which, by careful, Intentional
and deliberate omission from the present
statute, can neither be taken nor in
serted in the only volumes that shall be
prepared and published?
And now, for the sake of argument,
let us grant everything that Carroll d.
Wright has instructed the Boston Her
aid to claim. e., that under the pro-
| vision of the law which relates to the