The Coolidge examiner., 1931-07-17
| Machines That Are
Almost Human
l B y E. C. T VI O r
Census Tabulators


married and owning automobiles
that cost less than $1,000?
Or again, how many heads of
families were jobleSs at the time
the last census was taken, have
their own homes that cost less than
$4,000, but are not all paid for.
have children and were born in the
United States?
Or, how many farmers are there
in the United States who own au-
tomobiles, sold their crops at loss
last year, but have some money
laid away and are not worrying
about the future?
These and many other questions
can be answered by the census tab
ulators, which are electric devices
for tabulating statistics.
These machines make il possible
to learn facts within a few hours
or days that formerly took months
or years to ascertain when men
and women did the work.
They are operated like adding
machines, except that instead of
an operator punching keys. holes
in cards give off electric impulses
that cause the machine autOmal
ically to register any requested SCI
of facts
When the 1880 census was taken
the people of the United States
were asked a great many questions
not only as to age, sex, place of
residence and where they were
born, but as TO their economic
status. The government wanted
to know whether they had jobs, if
they lived in cities or towns.
whether their farms paid them
profit, whether they owned autOmo,
biIes and how much they cost.
whether they owned their homes.
and many other things to which
the census enumeratOrs found ii
hard to get answers.
Contrary to the belief of many
who were asked such questions the
idea was not to make mailing lists
of all those in the country who
didn't have automobiles or radios
or who had some money in the
bank. The government wanted to
know how the people of the coun-
try were prospering and how they
lived. There is nothing like Statis-
tics to tell such a story, the gov
ernment believed, and it set about
the task of finding out.
After previous censuses thou
sands of men and women spent
months and years compiling statis-
tics as to the various groups in
the cOuntry-hOw many were farm
ers, how many residents of the
United states were born in this
country, how many were of school
age. The government made no eff
fort to learn how many had
radios and automobiles until the
census of 1890. A score of ques-
tiOns were added to the former list
asked by census enumeratOrs.
If the old method of sorting all
this data by hand, and adding it all
up by punching adding machines
by hand had been followed, the
task would have been well-nigh
hopeless. 1t would have required
years to total all the 1890 census
had disclosed about the condition
of the people of the United States.
So the electric statistics tabulat-
ing device was put to work, and it
has greatly simplified the gigan-
tic task of finding out how the
12O,OOO.0OO people of the United
states live.
The answers each man, woman
and child in the United States
gave to the questions asked by the
enumeratOrS were recorded by
holes on cards. The position of
the hole on each card indicated
whether the answer was ''yes" o:
mo" to each question, and also
what each question was. Nothing
was written on the cards. They
were simply punched with the an
swerS.
To find out the answers to any
set of questions such as are asked
above, the operator of the machine
only had to set the proper triggers
and gadgets so that only the facts
he wanted TO know would be re
corded. and start the machine.
The cards are dropped into the
machine by the 100000, and shoot
through at a whirling pace. The
machine selects only the cards
bearing the proper answers and
dumps them into separate con
tainer. They are then run through
counting machine and the task
is completed.
1t looks easy when you see the
machine operating. A task that took
hundreds of times as long and
hundreds of times as many opera
tors is performed accurately and
simply. 1t is another example of
how science has produced a ma
chine to do a tedious, difficult and
wearying task accurately and with
skill.
(N 1a21 westarn Newsnanar TTnion \