The interior journal. [volume] (Stanford, Ky.) 1905-1910, 1910-08-05
MAKING The THIR-
TENTH CENSUS
pULAsklAs reLLs soMs INTER.
EsTlNe FACTS or TIE WORK
TO .. j., READERS.


county boy, who nolds an important
position in the census bureau at Wasn
ington, writes the ! , sorIe interest
ms facts on MAKING the 18th census.
He says:
To the average citizen who knows
but little about the work of preparing
the U. 5. Census except to answer the
questions asked him by the enumera-
tor, the amount OF work done by
the census bureau at Washington be-
fore the facts and figures can be Civ
en- to the public must be very vague
and Indefinite. The Census Bureau is
under the control of the Department
ut Commerce and Labor, and employs
at present about 5000 clerks. The law
rassed by congress providing for the
thirteenth census specifies that the
work must be completed by June goth
1872. SO a large part of the present
fer have temporary appointments,
their services will be dispensed
v "a On or before the date fixed by
30 The first reduction of the force
occur next March, and thereafter
ON time to time as the needs of the
.s demand There are as many or
IRE women than men employed in
40 Census Bureau. There are some
1agro clerks here but their number is
very small when compared with the
ndElber OF white employees. The ap-
pointees come from all parts of the
United States, but principally from
the States east of the Mississippi.
California sends only a few while
Pennsylvania sends many. Fully
three-fourths of these in the census
bureau have been school teachers.
Many of these have come to Wash
ington only to work through the SUM-
mer months during which time they
can see all places of interest in the
Capital City, and will return home in
September. The first appointments
were given to those making the high
est grades in the examination, and
this may explain why so many teach
ers are now. employed here as clerks.
June Both, 1912 may seem a long
way off to the outsider for the COM
pletion OF the present census, but 1t
does not seem so far away to one who
views II from the inside and knows OF
the work that is to be done. The
enumeration returns from more than
20. 900 enumerators in all parts OF the
United States must be gone over sew
eral times for errors and omissions.
and thousands after thousands OF let
tiers for information must receive re-
plies before the schedules are marked
with final o. X. and passed on to the
Chief Statistician. The work OF the
| Census is divided into three divisions.
The agriculture division has the work
OF correcting the farm schedules and
OF collecting all of the statistics to be-
obtained therefrom. The population
division counts the people and gath
ers the data concerning the population
OF our country. In this division there
lis much work on what is known as
card punching machines. After each
schedule is fully corrected it goes to
these machines where the operators
reduce all the information about each
person to a small card by punching
certain symbols into the card. There
i must be one card for each person
in the United States, and as the av-
Eerage operator can punch only about
one thousand cards day, this work
alone will take 500 operators Tor the
greater part of the twelve months.
After one months experience In
Operating the machines during which
time they are expected to learn the
details in full. each machine operator
is placed on the piece-price basis and
paid zoe and csc per hundred. accord
ing to the machines they used Tor
the cards they punch. Each operator
must stand the loss for each card
punched wrong. This makes the work
rather unpleasant and much objection
has been made against the piece-price
basis OF pay.
am in the Geographer division.
While have learned something OF the
work of the other divisions In gen
eral way, have tried 10 famiiisrize
myself OF the work OF this division In
detail. Does II seem that geographers
would be much needed in making the
censusl Nevertheless there are %
clerks IN this division and 80 Of them
are on the permanent force. and re-
main here from one census 10 the
next. This division must see that all
people living in an incorporated town
are not enumerated as living In the
; country are not returned as being In
an incorporated town. The greatest