The New York herald., 1921-04-17

centags OF increase was the lowest In
history.
The coming decade. from now untii
1880, is expected to be an unusual immi-
grafton period. With our natives In
creasing by births In addition to pros
pective immigration. II Congress puts no
bar In the way. the increase to the next
decade should approach between 10 and
25 per cent of our present and . total
OF 100000 600 people by 1880 Is not co.,
sidered by statisticians OF the Census
Bureau TO be too wide.
oae-nfth Increase in Decade.
Without any foroknowledge Of what
world conditions the following twenty
years will bring. they figure an Increase
reasonable forecast Officials of the
Census Bureau are not permitted TO
make official forecasts on this subject,
but II Is admitted by those who study
the situation that total population s,y
1910 OF 145.0oO,00o to 155. 100000 Is a possi-
bility, although they are inclined to
make allowances that would reduce this
figure from 100000 to 15.00O,0 900.
The growth OF the country, IL Is point
ca out has already been SO phenomenal
that II Is unfair to expect too much of
COnkG3-
tion sets in. which not only has its effect
on the birth rate. but also discouraRes
Immigration. As each immigrant may
be responsible for several children, so the
population may be correspondingly
checked by the failure Of immigration
The falling off In immigration In the
last six years In expected to affect ma
tcrially the birth increase OF ten or
fifteen years hence.
The true situation Is that there are 80
many ''ifs" and "ands'' to be taken into
consideration that official statisdcians,
In spite OF figures, or because Of them
express grave doubts whether the total
population OF the country will exceed
l5o.o00.0 900 by 1850.
From the growth OF the country In the
last hundred years It is easy to appre-
ciate the growth In the size of the Job
undertaken each ten years by the Census
Bureau. Gradually the work OF emu
merating the population and the facts
concerning them has been reduced to
mechanical processes.
From the days OF horseback travel in
1870 the census taking has gone through
an evolution In respect to size, methods
and matter. At first only individuals
were counted and later information con-
cering the family was gathered. 1t was
NOT uHtll 4ooV tHaL lLLOrIlaIlOn CODCeru-
ing agriculture, industry, religion lit
eracy, schooling, occupations, Quarries
and mines and tho like were noted
"Modern Censuss in 1850.
The census of 1850 was called the
modern census for q number of years
following. In 1870 machine tabulation
was introduced and later came the more
rapid electrical machine tabulation. BY
1880 $50 supervisors and 1882 emu
merators were engaged In taking the
census To-day there are almost three
times that number of enumerators.
In addition, the Census Bureau takes
various special censuses. such as census
of the fisheries. central electric stations
schooling, religion and has even got down
to taking census of drainage conditions
in agricultural areas. To do this work 1t
employs many special agents skilled In
that line of work.
The most modern feature of the census
is its card indexing and tabulating work.
The Census Bureau has designed its own
tabulating card. This card registered
the section Of the country in which a
person lives, whether a male or female.
age nativity, occupation. whether en-
ployed or unemployed. what language he.
speaks, whether q naturalized citizen by
birth or alien and similar data respecting
his parents.
The cost OF taking the census in 1890
amounted only to about twenty-one cents
per capita for all the people In the
IJnfted Stafas