Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-08-11

obtaining any exact information about racial
descent from the answers to be made to these
questions.
Nationality" is broad term. A native Of
Alsace-Lorraine might be either German or
French. Canadian may be Scotch-Irish,
French English, or any one of number Of
other bloods or combinations of bloods.
Hundreds of thousands Of Americans have NO
idea at all what their mothers maiden names
were. Furthermore, knowing the names Of
parents gives but inaccurate information as to
racial descent as it Is . common practice In
this country to corrupt and change family
names.
The mother tongue" question asked in for
mer population censuses relative to parents also
did not work out to give any very valuable
statistical information =
The director of the census has finally decided
that If it can be learned In what country each
Of the parents of an individual was born, that
is as much detail as we can ever expect to get
with regard to racial descent
An agricultural census is taken every two
years. therefore the present one will be taken
along with the regular census. In the Bureau
of the Census IS or 20 punch cards win be
required to carry the data for each farm.
About 00,000,000 cards are being prepared to
take care Of this years agricultural census
alone. In the agricultural census Of 1925
more than 100000 farms were enumerated
by the bureau.
Business demands will have their way this
year, in that complete census of distribution
and the way Americans spend their money for
commodities Is to be made. Such study was
made in 1926 in few large cities
Complete inventories of retail establishments,
volume Of retail sales by all kinds of business,
sales per capita, number of inhabitants per
store, employees in retail distribution, their sal.
aries and the relation Of their salaries to sales
and the same subjects of inquiry relative to the
wholesale establishments are to be made.
Excepting in country districts. this census will
not be made by the population enumerators,
but by special enumerators appointed by the
Census Bureau. Though American business is
legitimately curious as to an analysis of where
and how citizens Of the United States spend
the eighty billion dollars they are said to use
every year for the purchase of commodities,
nevertheless Director Steuart foresees difficulties.
Furniture made by Grand Rapids manu-
featuring plant may be sold through whole.
sale mart in Chicago and move to its user with.
out touching that city" he points out. Copper
mined IN Arizona may move through San Franz
cisco to delivery to new owner at Baltimore,
while the sale is actually made in New York
ONCE. Where shall we say the business trans.
PRED? Transaction on the Chicago Boa. of
Trade may touch the disposition of wheat that
never moves out of Minneapolis. Implications
in this census are going to be hard to avoid,
and the production Of worthwhile statistics ON
distribution is going to be diffcult"
THE first census Of the United States was
little more than o count OF the number of
inhabitants in 1890. It was undertaken largely
for the purposes of determining congressional
representation, and the distribution of taxes.
United States marshals were the census super.
IiSorS
Figures were added up by hand and the totals
were sent to the office Of the Secretary of State
in Philadelphia, where the pencil arithmetic
was continued in order to get the totals for each
political division and for the whole United
States.
BY 1900 more details Of age and sex were in.
ciuded; and in 1910 the government printed the
schedules to be used and asked for still further
details of ages of males, females and free COLI
ored inhabitants.
More tabulation than ever before is to DO
undertaken by the Census Bureau in connec.
ton with the 1890 census. There will be more