Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1905-07-03
COMPILING THE
STATE CENSUS
Professor w. R. Patterson Be-
gins Arrangement of the
Facts and Figures
CHARTS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
The Census When Published Expected
to be Valuable Work-An Effort
Will be Made to Make the Census
More Ineligible and Interesting to
General Public.
Special to Times-Republican

Special to Times Republican.
Des Moines, July 3.-Professor w.
r. Patterson of the state university at
Iowa City is busily engaged just now
| in getting together the facts and In
which it shall be printed for the pub
| lie. A big table in the lieutenant gov
| ernors room which for the time being
| Is used by Professor Patterson for an
office is covered with the blank forms
! In which the information is being tab
| ulated. A more important feature of
the work is the preparation of charts
and maps illustrating the census. This
/ as to be feature of the census report
| this year for the first time In addl-
! tion there will be an explanatory In
lltroduction written by Professor Patter-
son. Every census report that has yet
been made in Iowa begins after the
| title page with table OF statistics and
| the entire book practically is table al
L
study out what the meaning OF the ta-
bles is The average person can glance
| at the table and see that there mas
| been q growth or a falling OIL IN some
| particular line and that Is about all
| that he gains In information. A feature
| of the census reports OF the 1eoeral
government is the colored charts ana
! maps which show to the reader at
glance the real growth and enable the
| wavfaring man. though fool, to read
while he runs For instance the growth
In the population of the state of Iowa
| is shown In a table by the census ng-
| ures Professor Patterson has ,galneo
| from. former census reports the fgures
for each census period. In some IN
stances the census has been taken
each year and in others every two ana
sometimes three and five years. ANY
one can see by looking at the hgures
that there has been growth Dut
could not tell whether the growth has
been steady or fluctuating. Professor
Patterson proposes to show In this IN
stance by chart much on the plan OF
the charts which many daily papers IL
lustrate the fuctuations of the market
on the board Of trade Just what the
fluctuations of the Iowa population
has been and on the same chart illus
trate the fluctuations of the population
Of the United States for comparison.
| This will be one of the more simple
charts. There are vastly more COM
phcated matters to be illustrated by
charts Of other forms. just how many
Of these will be In the census report
has not been determined but they will
make the report far more valuable to
the people Of the state than it has ever
been before.
A matter Of considerable interest that
will be contained in the census report
is concerned with the money spent in
the state for various objects. 1t seems
thus far to be of the most difficult for
the census bureau to handle. There has
never been any way to find out how
much 1t costs the people of Iowa to run
the state. The amount of taxes can be
learned possibly but not the expendi-
lures and what they are for. In the
first place while the statutes specific
ally requires that the county auditor
shall make an annual report which
shall be printed there are only about
seventy counties out Of the ninety-nine
that comply with the statutes. BE
sides that there are very few
of the counties that have the
same system of bookkeeping and
the troubles of the census de-
partrnent have only we'll begun
in that respect. Each county auditor
has been asked to report all the money
received for the various funds and all
the money expended in the various
funds. Yet some of them report funds
that others do not report and
many of them fail to report funds that
it is known they must have. One thing
that it is desired to know is the
amount of money that is expended by
the state each year to support the
paupers. Some counties have their
pauper and insane funds reponted to-
gether. The statutes are not obeyed
and it is a difficult if not an impossible
thing now to get the information cor
rect. But as to the cost of running the
state of Iowa for the various purposes
and by the state, county and corpora-
tions there is no one place today to
find out. Professor Patterson hopes
before he is through to have the facts
for the census report for this year.
The state associations or the county
treasurers, clerks and auditors have
taken up and discussed at different
times the proposition to secure thru
Legislative enactment a uniform sys-
tenn of bookkeeping. The need of such
was never more apparent than at the
present time when the census infor-
nation is being gathered. 1t is being
suggested too that there should be
printed each year book gotten out by
the state and containing information
as to the cost of running the state and
vast amount Of other information.
| There are regular reports printed by
the state auditor, state treasurer, and
other departments of the state govern
ment. There is short report In ex-
planation and then page after page OF