The Colfax chronicle., 1903-12-12
INTELLIGENT MACHINES.
Clever Electrical Devices Used In the
Work of the Government
Census Office.

The most striking application of ma
chinery to the purposes of counting is in
the electrical machines used in the CELL
sus Office, writes c. K Wead, in st. Mich
oias. Last summer tens of thousands of
enumerators all over the country were
busy writing down on large sheets of pa
per the names of all the people in the
! United States, their age, color, sex, place
OF birth, occupation, etc. If the only
thing wanted were the number of people
in the country, it would be enough to
count the names on all these sheets and
add them together. But the census ex-
perts wished to find out perhaps thou
sand other things; as how many native
born white men there are aged 20, 25,
etc.; how many foreign-born white men
there are of these ages; similarly for
women and colored people; then there
are the questions of place of birth, occu-
patton, etc., to be answered, as how many
Texans were born in Ohio. Now imagine
that all the people in the United States
could march in a few months before a
thousand officials, each one of whom
counted only the people of one particular
class or description, as white males,
white females, white carpenters, Italian
girls ten years old. negro farmers, etc.;
then there would be obtained the various
facts for which the census is taken.
The practical operation of the census
gives the same results as this imaginary
operation. 1t comes about in this way:
For each one of the 1900 900 people of
the country a card little larger than a
postal card is prepared, containing all
the information on the enumerator's
sheets except the name. number being
used instead. This information is ex-
pressed by punching holes in certain
places; thus hole in one place means
white" another male" another "35
years, another blacksmith" and so on.
These millions of punched cards rep
resent one by one the individuals Of !
the nation, and they may be passed be-
lore the eyes of the supposed thousand
on1cials, each of whom is to note his |
special facts. Going a step farther in |
the work, instead of the |
>OuheSto counters
may be substituted, and instead of try
ing to use thousand at once a smaller |
may be used and the cards be |
gone over several times. The machine
will pick out the facts it is told to pick
out. and no others.
The apparent intelligence of the ma
chine may be explained thus: when the
card is put into the machine some $50
spring needles are brought down ca it: |
there Is hole one needle
goes through and down into a drop of
mercury, and so closes an electric cir
cult and causes the pointer on a coun-
Ter to move forward one number.
Thus AS many of the items on the card
ian be counted at once as the operator
1nds desirable; then another card is
put In the machine and the same items
ire counted if they are on it. Besides
his, the machine can be arranged to
count several items in combination. as
lative-born white male doctors. and It is
Intelligent enough to ring a bell and
'efuse to count if the card is not nut
n properly, or is punched to read Wild
'wer aged ten years, woman aged IL.
emale blacksmith, or any other of a
core Of improbabilities or impossible
les.