The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1899-03-14


this city as geographer. This is in ac-
cordance with decision of the director
today that. in his absence there must be
no promises of Office nor assurances nor
encouragement for any given Several Of
the officials selected Thursday night have
qualified and the active preliminary work
viii begin at once. The statement OF pol
icy follows:
AS TO prospective appointments to Of
fee, the services Of no more STAFF officers
can be utilized at present and ikare Will
be no others selected within certainly
thirty days Prof Henry Gannett. the
wel-known geograp her of the geological
survey, who was the political and stats
teal geographer of the last census, has
been asked 10 take charge of the same
work for the coming census and If the
geological survey is willing 10 spare him
sufficiently to undertake this work he will
be entrusted. with it and given an ahso-
lutely free hand Until the schedules
come back 20 the office from the enumer-
ators in July, 1900, there will be no clerks
wanted save such q small skeleton force
as viii be necessary to take care Of the
correspondence and Office work prelimin-
airy to the taking of the census. When
the schedules come back there viii be q
large force Of employees appointed. All
applications for office will receive consid-
Grafton and a large number already have
been received and placed on file. While
the impression has gone abroad that the
census is TO be refuge for incompetency.
the truth and the actual facts are that all
applicants will be subjected 10 examina-
ton before appointment, which vii be as
rigid as the examinations before the civil
service commission. No political influence
will be sufficient to put an employee on the
census pay rolls of whose competency TO
do the work TO be assigned him the direc-
tor is not satisfied in advance. And fur
thermore, if any employe is found to be
incompetent on trial such employee shall
be discharged, regardless of his or her
political backing The examination of en-
plOyes Will be directed not so much for the
testing of their general information and
capacity as Il will be to their fitness for
the work TO be done; as. for example, no
cCpyist who cannot write or spell satisfac-
torily will be appointed, nor calculators
who cannot calculate. First of all, after
the general administrative officers are
selected, there must be 800 supervisors
appointed and in their selection consulta-
ton will be had with senators and repre-
sentatives in the respective states. 1t may
be announced also that senators and rep
resentatives who do not belong 10 the
Republican party will receive the same
fair treatment and consideration along
this line that is given Republicans. These
supervisors will be appointed by the presi-
dent and confirmed by the senate. None
of these. as now contempla ted, are to be
recess appointments. but the list will be
ready for admission to the senate at the
opening Of the next session. The super
visors, in turn. will appoint 10000 enumer-
ators to do the actual work throughout
the country, but the lists of appointments
of enumerators first must have the ap-
proval of the director of the census. After
approval they will be Immediately fur
nished tn enecessary blanks and instruc-
tons This Will be no small ltask As
suming the population of the United
States at this time to be, in round num-
bers, 10000 00 people, there must be 400, 900
sheets issued for the population schedules
alone. Adding to these the other sched-
ules. there will have to be in the aggre-
gate not less than a hat million such
sheets in printed form issued All this
mass of paper viii have to be manu-
featured and printed without delay In
counting the population every individual
viii be represented by a separate card and
there will have to be manufactured and
printed not less than 100 900 of these
cards. The probability is that system
Of machine calculating which admits of
counting facts in combination and which
worked so we'll in the last census, will be
adopted for that of 1900. The office will
have to select from the various devices the
one most satisfactory, and a sufficient
number TO do the work must then be man
ufactnred. The work will be pushed with
all possible speed consistent with accur-
acy. and every effort made to avoid drag
ging the work along unnecessarily. Taken
all IN all, the complete number Of appoint
ments that will be made in the course of
the census viii be over 5000 These in
Guide eighteen or twenty staff officers. 300
supervisors, 10000 enumerators and about
5000 clerks and other employees here"