The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1919-02-21
U. S. CENSUS JOB
ALREADY STARTED
Although the Enumerators Will Not Act
ually Begin Their Work Until April
I, 1o2o-one of the Temporary
War Buildings in Washing
ton Transformed for
Census Work.

Washington, D. c., Feb, 2l.--With hos
tilities at an end, the government is now
laying the basis for one of the greater
of its peace time tasks-the desceunial
of the United States, its peo-
pie, lands, industry, and livestock that
is called the census. Secretary of Com
merce RedfeId the other day signed the
order that transferred one of the largest
est of the temporary war buildings put
up in Washington, that formerly housing
the army's department of aeronautics,
to Director Of the Census Rogers and his
staff.
Actually, the government began the
job some months ago, assembling its
plans and forces, BY law, the begin
ming Of the census period of 1920 is July
!, 1919, though it will not be until a
year from April that the enumerators
will be set at work. 1t is then that ev-
cry individual in America, or some one
acting for the individual, will be asked
the series of questions that must be an
swered.
There will be % of these questions in
the 1920 census, according to the present
design of Director Rogers dummy cards,
which now are being given the exhaus-
tive study of statisticians. The more
complex missionaries that 90 to indus
trial establishments, schools, farms and
every other permanent institution OF the
country, are likewise in the development
stage, undergoing critical examination in
the light Of experience the government
has gained in conducting - inventories
of the kind
Chiefly the bureau is engaged in pre-
pairing for the classification and tabu.
lation Of the vast quantity OF material
which will be assembled, The 1920 cen
sus tabulation will be for the first time
almost completely a machine operation.
conducted by meaps of devices useful
only to the census bureau Of the United
States, which have been invented and
are now being built by men in its EN-
ploy. Electric machines will first trans
fer the written information coming in
on the enumerators' sheets to cards, not
by writing, but by punching holes at
proper points. Then the punched cards
will be handed in their millions to an
other battery Of machines, the tabula
tors, an amazing product of human in
genuity +. NJ Boiteaux, who devised
them, has been with the census for IS
years, and is now experimenting the
construction of % machines, the opera
tions of which he will direct
These tabulatOrs. working with smooth
and silent perfection, take in 400 cards
a minute, count them, reject all that
are imperfect or improperly punched in
any fashion, and take off the totals of
punch marks, assembling the final result
in printed figures on handy sheets. One
of them the other day in eight hours
handled 10000 cards, compiling infor-
nation that would represent the popula-
tion statistics of a very sizeable Ameri-
can city, Their experimental Use was
commenced after the 1910 census, but
Mr.. Boiteaux has since devoted most of
his time to their improvement, and to
the textension of their abilities.
The machines resemble in outward as
pect a piece of office furniture. Cards
90 into a metallic magazine at their top,
travel a few inches on metal guides,
come out neatly stacked with the mis-.
takes of the punching machine-which
have merely human operators pointed
out. The printed records of the IS or
20 totals that the punch marks indicate
come out from another slot, and the in,
strument stands ready to repeat.
With these machines, there is a prac-
teal assurance that the publications Of
the census, usually coming out long
time after the enumeration, may be
more quickly at hand TO guide the esti-
mates of governmental and Industrial
leaders, and generally guide and demon.
strate the progress Of national civiliza.
ton They are being produced largely
by the work Of youthful apprentices
from Washington schools, which have vo-
cational courses.