The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-01-22
the government, yet some of it's ac- tivities mean nothing and should be reformsd

crease year by year is not oNly with out anything approximatin2 statistl- cal value, but the figures setting forth the size of the principal cities of the country are positively mislead- ! ing.
 Many people accept any statistics published in the name of Uncle Sam as dependable, even if the bureau di- rector takes pains to say that the annual table of population is not based upon any information obtained since the last ,decennial enumeration was made. The population of growing cities, as calculated by the bureau an- nually, therefore, is no better than guesswork. Nevertheless, considerable importance is still attached to them.
 In an article under the caption Of Mock Censuses," the New York Sun lambastes the bureau, and intimates that the work of the census estab- lishment operating on it's present per- manent basis is inefficient and waste ful. But such an inference is unjust. The census bureau is far more serv- icable than it was 20 years ago. It gathers vast amount of commercial and industrial information, which it disseminates to the public. The busi- ness world sets great store by the data supplied by the bureau, and if the government were to act on the Suns suggestion that the census ma chinery be brought to standstill be- tween decennial periods, there would be loud protest from one side of the country to the other. There is plenty of practical service to occupy the time of the bureau without vast ing it's efforts on making up "mock" census tables.
 The Sixty-fifth Congress will have to provide for the 1920 census, and while the committee is going over the mass of subjects that will be brought to it's attention, it would be a good thing if it's progressive action included quinquennial enumeration of population. For the purpose of ascertaining the death rate, at least once between federal censuses, 1Ol states make a full count every five years. A federal census would not only save that expense to the state, but it would be accepted by the public at large as more reliable than local enumera tions.
 Of course, if James B. McNamara, serving life sentence for dynamiting the Los Angeles Times building, would rather stay in a dungeon than work in a jute mill, that's his own aaffir, but there is no accounting for tastes.
 
 Americans who have played baseball are able to throw grenades with an accu- racy that astonishes English and French soldiers. who haven't the slightest con- ception of what glass arm means in baseball slang.
 Oklahoma is not as wild and woolly as it used to be, but it is still popular stamping ground for outlaws and when time hangs heavy on the hands of an oklahoman he can join in man hunt.
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 facetious newspaper artist pictures the Washington monument on a truck and consigned to certain Wall street broker. The idea is-but of course you know what the idea is.
 Citizens are slow in paying their poll taxes. Now, in the case of the street tax those who didn't pay said they were standing on their rights as free-born Americans.
 If zeppelins could have wrought half the havoc done in London by the recent explosion, the Kaiser would have or dered new supply of crosses for dis tribution.
 desert of Sonora, but those army aviators are now facing the prospect of court martial for flying away without per mission.
 Now that Anna Helds startling gowns are being shown in motion pictures, she Is turning women green with envy who never saw Anna on the stage.
 The fact that English Tommies and French soldiers swap tobacco in the trenches shows how much they think Of each other.
 Guardsmen who have done patrol duty