The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1909-08-20
TAFT STANDS PAT
REGARDING THE
CENSUS TAKERS
SAYS THAT THEY MUST KEEP
POLITICS OUT OF THEIR
WORK
OF LOSE THEIR JOB
Writes a Letter in Which Position
is Thoroughly outlined-Super.
visors Begin Work the Middle Of
October.


BEVERLY, Mass, Aug. 16.-It
seems that President Taft does not
intend to withdraw a particle from the
stand he has taken in regarl to CEN
sus supervisors. More than that he
has issued instructions that the work
of these officials and the men under
them shall not be exerted in the in
terests of the party which gives them
their jobs.
Sunday was made public letter
from the President to Charles Nagel,
secretary of commerce and labor, in
which the President orders that pro-
vision be put in the regulations gov
erning supervisors and enumerators
directing that any of these officials
who uses his position for political pur-
poses shall be relieved of his office
Immediately.
Mr.. Taft has declared all along that
the selection of these officials should
be based upon their especial fitness
for the tasks which they are to per-
form and his position was emphasized
| bv the fact that he was not satisfied
to put his name to the commissions
appointing the supervisors until he
had conferred at some length with
those to whom he had intrusted the
work of preparing tentative lists and
had made sure that their judgment
was not faulty. u In his letter the Pres
dent reminds Mr.. Nagel in whose de-
partment the census bureau falls, that
a serious responsibility rests upon the
Supervisors, inasmuch as their otdces
involve the selection of enumerators
many times their own number and
because of the possibilities for per-
version contained in system IN
which congress and senators are con-
suited in picking the supervisors.
They are simply to control the great
field of enumerators under them In
the Job of gathering statistical lists
nothing more according to the presi-
dental edict
The supervisors will begin their
work by the middle of next October
according to Director of the Census
Durand and this will give them six
months in which to learn their bust
ness and hand down instructions to
their subordinates before the actual
counting of the thirteenth census be-
gins on April Is, 1910. Their salaries
Leverage about $4,000 for the eight or
ten months work which they have to
do. The enumerators will not be
kept at work so long, and they will be
paid in proportion to the number OF
names on which their energies are
expended.
The text of the Presidents letter Is
as follows:
Beverly, Mass, Aug. IA, 1903.
NV Dear Mr.. Secretary-The taking
of the census involves the appoint
ment of some three hundred super
visors, who, in turn are to appoin
many times that lumber of enumera
tors. The supervisors are given com
plete discretion in the selection o
enumerators respectively to act unde
them. The success of the census VIII
Idepend upon the efficiency and stric
attention to duty of the supervisor
and upon the intelligence of the enU
merators and their faithful application
to the business in hand.
Generally there is supervisor TO
each congressional district 1t ha
been found the quickest and bes
means of selecting suitable supervis
ors to consult the congressman an
senators as to competent candidate
from their respective districts an
states.
This system can be easily perverte
to political quarters if the supervisor
are not forbidden to use 1t as an in
{ strument for influencing local and ger
eral elections and primaries in the ir
terest of particular candidates or PAL
, ties. 1t is not an unreasonable re
, uuirement that anyone who accept
J an appointment as supervisor or emu
merator shall during the term OF hi
employment and service, avoid an &C
tive part in politics.
, | therefore order that in the prepa
! ration of regulations for the taking 0
the census you and the director of tn
census embody therein provision
that any supervisor or enumerato
who uses his influence with his suboi
dinates or colleagues to assist an
party or any candidate, in a primar