The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-03-13

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 Cattcu ever taken in America, with the possible exception of the first one-that of 1790.
 The census, as he sees it. is Uncle Sam's periodical stock-tak- ing, in which the old gentleman studies his assets in the way of hu- man beings and natural resources. And great many things have happened to those assets since the last stock-taking.
 QUESTIONS TO
 BE ANSWERED
 First and foremost, says MT. Aus tin, there is the question of unem- ployment. What has the depression done to us? Exactly how many peo- pie are out of work now? As for the people who have jobs, what kind of jobs have they? Are they making enough to support their families decently?
 How about the young people who have reached working age during the depression years? How many of them have jobs, and how many of them have displaced older people? There have been profound pop
 ulation shifts in the last 10 years.
 The 1885 agricultural census
 showed that the long farm-to-city
 migration had been checked, and that the number of small farms in hte United States had increased
 by 5OO,OOO since 1880. Has that
 shift been halted? Is the tide
 moving the other way again.
 and, if so, how fast is it moving? The census will answer all of these vitally important questions, and many more besides. It will cover manufactures, from the big gest factories in the country to the smallest. It will provide complete picture of retail and wholesale trade, an up-to-date tabulation of mines and mining activities, Sur- vey of the entire farming set-up, and a full listing of lands under irrigation and the crops they grow. MAY COVER
 HOUSING
 It may do other things, too. Its scope is set by Congress; and this year there is a good deal of pres sure to broaden the census's field and have it include a study of housing. The pressure comes from such business groups as real estate boards and construction firms and such government agencies as the Federal Housing Administration and the U. s. Housing Authority.
 "This country has gone a long way since 1930," remarks MT. Aus tin. There will have to be a num- Der of new inquiries in the 1940 questionnaires.
 We'll have to give cOnsidera-
 ton to birthrate, which has been
 falling for the last few years. If the decline continues, we'll soon have stabilized population, with
 birth and death rates about equal"
 The Census Board is a going con- cern all the while, since it conducts many inquiries at far less than To- year intervals. Right now it has about 75O permanent employees, plus perhaps an equal number of tenn porary ones. The director, inciden- tally, is the only employe in the bureau who isn't under civil service.
 The big army of field workers next year won't be civil service peo- pie, of course, as most of them will work only few weks. At the peak, there will probably be more than 125, 1000 of them.
 CHECKING
 BIRTH RECORDS
 One thing that keeps the bureau busy year in and year out is veri- flying birth dates for people who want to prove to the Social Security Board that they're old enough to receive old age benefits.
 Birth statistics have been kept
 so Sketchily in most parts of the
 country, until recently, that only
 the census records will give a
 person the proof he needs. Last
 year more than 100000 requests
 for age verificati0n were received
 by the bureau, and some 5000
 people came down il; person to | make the checkup.
 Conferences to discuss the scope of next years census are still going on. The population census was dis cussed just recently, conference on manufactures and mines will be held shortly, and there will soon be big one on wholesale and re- | tail trade.
 There are some things about census taking I've never been able to understand" says MT Austin up to the Civil War, for instance we were purely an agricultural country: yet the first census of ag- riculture wasn't taken until 1840 Afterw the Civil War we developed rapidly as a business country-but the first business census was taken as late as 193O."
 Copyright, 1889, NEA Service, Incl | Ans.Ders To