The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1919-02-21
GOVERNMENT GETS
READY FOR CENSUS
NEXT YEAR WILL BE A BUSY ONE
WITH CENSUS AND NATIONAL
ELECTION ON

1 WASHINGTON.-With hostilities a
an end, the government is now lay
ing the basis for one of the greater
of its peace time tasks-the decennia
inventory of the United States. its peo
pie, lands, industry, and livestock
! that is called the census. Secretary Of
Commerce Redfield the other day
signed the order that transferred one
of the largest of the temporary wal
buildings put up in Washington. that
formerly housing the army's depart
ment of aereonautics, 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 I'M
til year from April that the enum-
orators will be set at work. 1t is then
that every individual in America. or
some one acting for the individual,
will be asked the series of questions
that must be answered
There will be 20 of these questions
in the 1920 census, according to the
present design of Director Rogers
dummy cards, which now are being
given the exhaustive study of statis-
ticians. The more complex question
naires that go to industrial establish
ments, schools, farms, and every 9TH
er permanent institution of the coun-
try are likewise in the development
stage. undergoing critical examination
in the light of experience the govern
ment has gained in conducting ~ in
of the kind.
Chiefly the bureau is engaged in
for the classification and
tabulation of the vast quantity of
material which will be assembled |
The 1920 census tabulation will be for
the first time almost completely a
machine operation, conducted by
means 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 employ.
Electric machines will first transfer
he written information coming in on
he enumerators' sheets to cards, not
~ writing, but by punching holes at
proper points. Then the punched
ards will be handled in their mil
ions to another battery of machines,
he tabulators, an amazing product
# human ingenuity. E. M. Boiteaux,
Who devised them, has been with the
ensus for 18 years, and is now sup
the construction of 25
machines the operation of which he
viii direct
These tabulators, working with
mooth and silent perfection, take in
90 cards minute, count them, re-
sct all that are imperfect or improp-
rly punched in any fashion, and take
IF the totals Of punch marks, as
smbling the final result in printed
cures on handy sheets. One of them 7
lie other day in eight hours handled :
$4,000 cards, compiling information
lat would represent the population
atistics of very sizable American
ty. Their experimental use was Q
after the 1910 census, but a
r. Boiteaux has since devoted most .
his time to their improvement, and g
the extension of their abilities 0
The machines resembel in outward
pect a piece Of office furniture.
lrds go into a metallic magazine at .
cir top, travel few inches on !
etal guides, come out neatly stacked
it'll the mistakes of the punching !
achines have merely human E
orator pointed. out. The printed
cords of the Is or 20 totals that N
: punch marks indicate come out fl
I'M another slot, and the instrument D,
lnds ready to repeat. b1
With these machines, there is a &c
actical assurance that the publica- re-
MS of the census, usually coming in
a long time after the enumera- c.
n, may be more quickly at hand to m
ide the estimate of governmental w
industrial leaders, and generally 70
ide and demonstrate the progress tn
national civilization. They are be- :
produced largely by the work of
1thful apprentices from Washing
schools, which have vocational