Evening star., 1939-11-12
IT'S Census Takers
Taught Tricks for
Getting Right Answers
School Started Because
Bureau Wants Precise
Data This Time
~ the Associated Press.

~ lne ASSOCIATED SIeS8.
The Census Bureau Is about to
graduate its first class In asking a
question and getting the right
answer.
The 173 men and 2 women stu
dents have been taught how to
avoid the brisk reply: TITS none
Of your business" OF these, 103
will be given jobs as area managers
for the big census Of 1910.
The school was started because
the Census Bureau, whose business
is gathering statistics, decided a
statistic is hardly a statistic at all
II 1t lacks precision.
In past censuses. enumerators
have free-lanced a bit, officials said,
In classifying borderline answers.
For instance, the president of a
small m nufacturing company
spends As per cent of his time on ad-
ministrative duties, SIS per cent on
sales work. Is he an administrator
or sales official? The right answer,
they decided. is 'sales Official" be-
cause that job takes up the major
part of his time. But that wasn't
always the answer the bureau re-
ceived In prior years.
Method to Prevent Madness.
Almost every one of the 172 sched-
ules Of questions to be asked in the
1910 census has some of these bor-
derline queries in it. The statisti-
clans feared equivocal reports of
$4,000 enumerators asking these
questions of more than 10000 900
persons. They decided to get method
lest there be madness.
So for 60 days ITS persons have
been going to school in what once
was a department store warehouse
and First and M streets NV. The
class looked like a meeting of mod
erately prosperous proprietors of
small businesses. Their jobs, in most
cases. will last about nine months,
and they will be paid about $500
month.
The job of area manager is a new
one with the 1910 census. Hereto
fore. directors of the $50 census dis
tricts have sent their reports di-
rectly to Washington. Only from
some one in the Census Bureau or
. field representative who might or
might not be present when he was
needed could they get advice on
handling the many problems that
arose. Next year all this will be
handled by the area managers.
Thus, while it was the borderline
question that suggested the job, the
person who gets it will be respon-
sible for great deal more than Just
coaching the enumerators.
Half a State Per Area.
The area, in most instances, will
be approximately half a State, con-
tanning from five to eight census dis
tricts. The districts are divided into
the 143,000 enumeration districts,
which contain an average of about
$500 persons.
The candidates for area managers
have been drilled, not only on census
methods, but on details from public
relations to geography.
Their instructors have been Gen.
sus Bureau officials plus an occa-
sional lecturer from outside. The
IL schedules for the business (dis-
tribution) census have been ex-
planned in detail, as well as the
148 schedules for manufactures, the
nine regionalized schedules on farms
plus the supplement on plantations,
and the single schedules on popu-
lation, housing. mines and quarries,
and on irrigation and drainage.
The students sat at semi-circular
rows of desks in barnlike class
room, equipped with a loudspeaker
system. After each lecture, the stu
dents were given written and oral
tests, in which they solved hypo-
thetical puzzlers.
Although the census-takers will
have legal authority to demand ac-
curate replies to all. questions, per-
sonal or otherwise, the group was
warned OF the bureaus impulse to
fire any enumerator who wasn't
equal TO getting the information
without recourse to that authority.
Get the answers, says the bureau.
and get the right ones, but don't
hold your foot in the door or make
threats-be courteous, be clever, be
persuasive.