The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1909-10-04
CENSUS TAKING
No EASY THING
1t Is the Man Away OFT Who
Makes the Hard Work for
Enumerat0rS.
BY Ernest G.. Walker.
mail Special to the Advertiser

he would avoid deal of brain fag
in the next few months. 1t is compare
lively easy taking a census Of popula-
ton on prairie or over fairly thick
~ settled farming region. The eRumer-
alton work is not so very difficult for
a big city, although the problems of
getting the population accurately
counted there are numerous.
Up and down the entire length of
the country, near the Atlantic sea-
board, is a range of mountains with
many spurs, and up and down the
length of the country, near the Pa
cifc Coast, is another larger mountain
range with many spurs. Many people
have penetrated into the Businesses of
those mountains. They live there in
great isolation, some of them many
miles from a nearest neighbor. The
census office at Washington is just as
anxious to numerate accurately Jim
Jones and his family, living ON some
high place in the Great Smoky or on
the Sierras as it is to enumerate John
Smith, living in Chicago or Brooklyn.
An enumerator can reach John Smith
easily, at a cost of 2 or 8 cents. 1t
can reach the Jim Joneses, living in
the mountain Businesses of the eoun-
try only at an expense of so or So
or, perhaps, several times that sum.
There are ten of thousands of these
Jim Joneses-the hardy mountaineer
folk of the land. The census author
titles are bent upon getting their names
and the names of their wives and chill
dren but it is taxing their ingenuity
to do it without eating big hole
into the appropriations of some $l2,
100000 for taking the enumeration.
They have decided that it will be i'm
practicable to send an enumerator to
every one of these mountain men but
great care will be exercised in choosing
the enumerators in the mountain re-
giOns to obtain men who personally
know these mountaineers and who,
when man lives in some distant fast
ness, will be able to answer for him
such questions as his name, age, ma
tionality and occupation.
This caution will be exercised
through the supervisors for the various
census districts. There are to be
schools of training for these census
supervisors and particular attention
will be paid to instructing them about
the enumerations in the mountain re-
gions. No extension of time can be
allowed for taking the enumerations
In the mountains. The work must be
completed during the month of April
next, just as in all the other rural re-
gions of the United States. There is
big mountain problem in taking the
census of the Territory of Hawaii,
because there are many isolated COM
munities in that territory of numerous
islands. But there the census Office
can allow more than a month for
enumeration, if it be necessary, be-
cause the figures for Hawaii will not
be used in making up the totals for
the mainland.
A very troublesome census, about
which the country hears comparatively
little. viii be the census of manufac-
lures. Tn some respects it is hardly of
secondary Importance to the enumera-
ton of population. A man or woman
here and there will buck against the
questions of a census enumeration and
think he or she is smart in giving in
formation, which except as affecting
an abstract unit will never reach the
public But those recalcitrants are
pgmies by the side of the manufac-
turers. asked to furnish information
about their business to an employee of
the United States government. They
get out of their heads only with the
greatest difficulty, the idea that the in
formation may leak to people who have
no right to know, and especially to
business rivals.
Many manufacturers are convinced
that political pull will get anything at
Washington and that powerful rival
can go down to the Federal capital OF
hire a big lawyer or politician to GO
and learn everything that has been told
to the enumerator.
Therefore the most careful plans
have been laid for taking the census
of manufactures. Some of the best
experts in the census business have
been at work all summer, preparing the
form of schedules for that census and
devising schemes which may assure
manufacturers of ample protection
from publicity.
Something has been accomplished to
ward educating manufacturers by the
extensive work done since the last de
eennial enumeration. A number OF
special censuses has been taken in thai
period and the the Bureau of Corpora
tions in the Department of Commere'
and Labor has done much work of ;
sem-eensus character The secrecy, oh
served as to individuals and establish
ments, has been unbroken as a rule
although the agitation about the us,
of such information during campaign
time to obtain political contribution
has not been very quoting to nervou
captains of industry.
About a year ago the Census Burea,
took a census of water powers, develop
ed and undeveloped. in the entire Uni
ed States. During that period, as now
there was much talk about a water
power trust and about the efforts o
the government to thwart it. Man,
requests came in from newspapers 70
this information about waterpowers i,
given sections. It could be made o
great value in quiekening interest i
waterpower development. In thes
DAYS, when it has become so easy t
utilize small sites of few horsepowe
for farming purposes, the extent o
those small undevelOned mowers rvonI