Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1918-12-18
WIDE RANGE COVERED BY CENSUS BUREAU
 DURING WAR PERIOD
Besides Regular Work Large Share of War Details Covered By Department As Report Shows.


 As Report Shows.
 l Washington, Dec. 17, 191S-Accord- ing to the annual report of Director
 Sam l.. Rogers of the Bureau of the Census to Secretary William c. Red field of the Department of Commerce
 covering the fiscal year ended June 1 30, 1918, which has just hc sn made
 public, the Census Bureau during l that year turned aside in large mea- l sure from its usual peace time work and directed part of it's energies to the compilation of war statistics. The
 increase in this class of work was
 SO large that the number of em 1 ployees engaged on it's rose from 92
 on. July 1, 1918, to 231 on September l.
 The war work done toy the Bureau i covers wide ranger. It's more i'm portant phases include canvasses of i manufacturers and dealers to ascer- tain the consumption and stocks o,. hand of certain raw materials made therefrom; the classification of oc- equations of military registrants, all undertaking that necessitated the handling and rehandling of more i than eight million cards; estimates of population for use as a basis ill
 the apportiOnment of the first draft, l the allocation of enlistments; and the determination of registrants' ages from census records. In addition to carrying on these and other specific l lines of work at the request Of the l war agencies of the Government, the !, Bureau has compiled with many re- 1 quests for information which had a
 bearing on the problems arising ill connection with the war.
 Regular Work.
 During the fiscal year the Bureau carried on 13 regular and { special lines of work in addition to the war work and the preparations for the
 Fourteenth Census. The regular in- 1 quiries included canvasses of water transportation and shipbui!ding, of electrical industries, of religious bo- dies, of births and deaths, of state and municipal finances. of cotton and cottonseed, and of stocks of leaf to- bacco in the hands of manufacturers and dealers.
 The work on birth and death stat istics has been considerably expand
 ed during recent years. These stati-
 stics. are gathered only. from those states and municipalities which main tain adequate registration systems. | At present the ''death-registratio area" embraces about three-r -rourths of
 the population of the United States; but the birth-registration area' con- tains only a little more than half Of
 the country's inhabitants. The lat
 ter area. however, was established less than four years ago, and has
 grown rapidly.
 The special work done by the Bu- reau included a census of the Virgin
 Islands, recently purchased from Denmark. These islands have totar
 area of 132 square miles, and the
 total population on November i, 1917,
 was 26,051.
 Another special line of work un-
 dertaken by the Bureau was the tab
 ulation of data covering the disput- ed areas of Europe and Africa; that is, those areas whose final disposi-
 tion will be determined by the out
 come of the war
 The force of the Census Bureau in : Washington comprises 6S4 officials and employees, and addition there are employed throughout the cotton belt approximately 700 local special agents who make periodical collections of cotton and cottonseed statistics. Preparations for Fourteenth Census. : In order to avoid waste and delay in the conduct of the next decennial : inventory of the country's population agriculture and industries, to be made in 1920, the Bureau is carrying OH : such preparatory work as can be done prior to the enactment of the pending bill to provide for the Four teenth Census. Under this bill. if it Is enacted into law, all the clerical
 and subclerical force of the Bureau Will be appointed through open com petitive examinations held by the United States Civil Service Commis- ! sion. as at the census of 1910 In l addition, number of the minor off, B cials will be appointed in the same
 manner: and ill certain other respects : also the provisions of the bill in re- ference othe merit system have been made more rigid than the cor responding ones contaned in the act nn providing for the last census. A number of conferences have beer : held With representatives of the De- ' partment of Agriculture and others l. for the subjects of population; agri-
 culture. including irrigation and '' drainage; manufacturers; and mines
 quarries, and oil and gas wells. The undertaking will require the services
 of a field force of about S5,COO ol > 9O'OO0, chiefly enumerator,. The
 canvass of the rural populatioI ant
 of agriculture will be completed i,