The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-06-28

 SHOW NO GREAT
 EVASION OF LAW
Bureau of Census Director States Figures Prove Men
 Registered Willingly

States Figures Prove Men
 Registered Willingly
 Director Sam L. Rogers, of the Blu reau of the Census, Department of Commerce, today authorized the fol- lowing announcement:
 Returns from every state in the Union. with Niagara county, N. Y.,, and three precincts in Wyoming miss ing, show a total registration of g. 65s,3S2 or 95.9 per cent. of the Gen. sus Bureaus estimate, allowance be- ing made for the missing territory. The apparent shortage, about 413,0OO is considerably less than the number of men 21 to 30 years of age, inclusive, who are estimated by the Wer De- partment to have been in the various branches of the military and naval services of the United States on June 5, and for that reason exempt from the requirements of registration. This number is 600,000. On the face of these figures, therefore, it appears that the number of men between the ages of 21 and 31 in the United States is slightly In excess of the number es- timated by the Census Bureau on May 12-10.079,O00.
  ed, 7,347,794 are white citizens; 953,- S99 are colored citizens; 1.239.s65 are unnaturalized foreigners from coun- tries other than Germany; 111.823 are unnatura1ized Germans, including 'tdeclarants, that is, persons having declared their intention to become ci- tzens but not having received their final naturalization papers; and 6,0O1 are Indians. The registrars were in- structed by the war department to in- clude with white citizens all declar- ants from countries with which the United Statse was not at war, but comparison of the registration figures with the reports of the Census Bureau and the bureaus of immigration and naturalization indicates that most of the declarants registered as aliens. There Is nothing in the returns to indicate that there has been any gen eral attempt at evasion of registration i by any important element of the pop ulation. In a few states the reg1stra- I ton was far below the estimates, but this shortage was offset by registra- tion in excess of the estimates in other states. This is because the last Federal Census was taken in 1910 and only a few states have enumerated their inhabitants since that year, so
  liable data as to the abnormal shift rings of population which have taken place between certain parts of the country in recent years, and particu- larly since the outbreak of the war gave so great an impetus to the manufacture of munitions and other commodities needed by the bellfger- ents. The manufacturing industries thus affected are located mainly in the northeastern states, and as a re- suit the population of these states has increased with abnormal rapidity at i the expense of other parts of the country. Furthermore, the increases and decreases have been very largely lin the very class covered by the reg iistration-that is, men between the ages of 21 and s1.
 It was expected, therefore, that for certain states the estimates-which, 1 in the absence of definite information as to the extent of the abnormal movement of population, and parti- cularly of the male population be- ltween ehe ages of 21 and 31, just re- ferred to, were necessarily based on the assumptions that the increase in population which took place in each l state between 1900 and 1910 has con- ] tinued since the latter year and that
 
 and 31 years of age has remained un- Ichanged-would be wide of the mark. The most pronounced discrepancies appear for Washington, in which the I registration amounted to 49.8 per cent. of the estimate; for Oregon, in ! which it was 57.9 per cent; for North Dakota, with 73 per cent; for Wy
 oming, for which the report, with three precincts missing, indicates a registration of about 65 per cent. of i the estimate; for Nevada, with 71.6 Iper cent; and for South Dakota, with 72.1 per cent. In no other state was 1 the registration less than 75 per cent. of the estimate. On the other hand, aware, Illinois, Indiana. Iowa, Mas
 sachusetts, Michigan, Montana, New
 Hampshire. New Jersey, North Caro-
 lima, Ohio, and Wisconsin-exceede their estimates, the greatest percen- tages of excess being those for Michi-
 gan, 29.4; Connecticut, 2s.3; Montana, 20.4; and Ohio. 14.4.
 It is probable that the population
 of certain states-particularly Wash lington and Oregon-has not declined I to so great an extent as would be in
 dicated by the registration figures, since a very considerable proportion | ol lue pcISoitS ui1SIdltl6 lIoiA eA0An lhas consisted of young men between
 the ages of 21 and 31.
 The original census estimates are smaller for some states than those
 which have been used by the War De- 1 partment. This is because in the com pilation apportioning supplies of reg sEistration cards to mayors and sheriffs throughout the country, liberal addi- tions were made to the official census Iestimates for places especially those in which munitions pants are located 9l--that were believed to have grown at abnormal rates during the recent 1years, whereas no corresponding re- .ductions could be made for the locali- , ties from which these abnormal ac-
 cretions of population were drawn This did not particularly matter. since the main object in view was to insure the sending of an adequate supply of