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penalties, forfeitures, and exactions or charges for violating any provision of law relating to vessels and seamen," have been transferred to the Secretary of Commerce. (Aug. 12, 1903, 25 ibid., 37.)

The duty imposed upon the Secretary of the Treasury by section 4158, Revised Statutes, of transmitting to collectors of customs blank forms of certificates of registry of vessels, was, by the act of February 14, 1903, transferred to the Secretary of Commerce. (Aug. 20, 1903, 25 ibid., 49.)

The execution of the act of March 31, 1900, entitled, "An act concerning the boarding of vessels," has been transferred by section 10 of the act of February 14, 1903, from the Secretary of the Treasury to the Secretary of Commerce. (Aug. 29, 1903, 25 ibid., 51.)

The power and authority to designate lines dividing the high seas from rivers, harbors, and inland waters, conferred upon the Secretary of the Treasury by section 2 of the act of February 19, 1895, was, by section 10 of the act of February 14, 1903, transferred to the Secretary of Commerce. (Apr. 29, 1904, 25 ibid., 149.)

The act of February 14, 1903, transferred to the Secretary of Commerce the same authority over the islands of St. Paul and St. George, Alaska, that was theretofore possessed by the Secretary of the Treasury, and he may therefore lease those islands for the propagation of blue foxes. (June 24, 1905, 25 ibid., 497.)

The Secretary of Commerce has authority to lease, for the purpose of propagating foxes, such other islands in the waters of Alaska as had been so leased by the Secretary of the Treasury prior to May 14, 1898. (June 24, 1905, 25 ibid., 497.)

BUREAU OF THE CENSUS.

Before the adoption of the Constitution, which provided for a decennial enumeration on which to base representation and direct taxation, estimates of the colonial population had been purely conjectural. The first enumeration after the establishment of our present form of government was under the act of March 1, 1790, which provided that it should be taken by United States marshals, who were to make returns to the President. The agency of United States marshals was used until the census of 1880. Beginning with the second enumeration (1800), the Secretary of State had general supervision, until the establishment of the Department of the Interior (1849), when the Census Office was placed under that Department, where it remained until July 1, 1903, when, under the act approved February 14, 1903, it was transferred to the Department of Commerce. By order of the Secretary of July 1, 1903, the name "Bureau of the Census" was adopted.

In January, 1800, two learned societies memorialized Congress to enlarge the scope of census inquiry, and in the third enumeration (1810) Congress provided for the collection by the marshals of certain industrial statistics upon schedules prepared by the Secretary of the Treasury. In this enumeration "an actual inquiry at every dwelling house" was prescribed.

The fourth enumeration (1820) included a limited number of industrial and occupation statistics. The fifth enumeration (1830) related to population only, and for the first time uniform printed schedules were used. The Sixth Census (1840) extended its inquiries to occupations of the people and included industrial and commercial statistics. The census of 1840 marks the beginning of an effort to make the decennial enumeration the instrument for ascertaining something beyond the mere number of persons of each sex and the various ages of the population. Prior to that nothing had been done systematically to show the growth and development of the country's industries and resources.

The Interior Department took up the supervision of the census in 1849, the first one to be taken under its direction being the Seventh (1850). This census was taken on six schedules-(1) free inhabitants, (2) slave inhabitants, (3) mortality, (4) productions of agriculture, (5) products of industry, and (6) social statistics. This radical amplification of statistics marks an epoch in the history of census taking in the United States.

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In 1857 Congress provided for a census of Minnesota prior to its admission as a State.

The act of May 23, 1850, under which the Seventh Census was taken, was the law under which the Eighth (1860) and Ninth (1870) Censuses were taken. The work of the Eighth Census was completed under the Commissioner of the General Land Office. Tallying machines were first used in the Ninth Census.

In 1869 and 1870 a special committee of Congress investigated in detail census needs, and the report of its chairman, General Garfield, formed the groundwork of the Tenth Census.

An unsuccessful effort to establish a quinquennial census was made in 1875.

The Superintendent of Census was first appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, in the Tenth Census (1880), this official having theretofore been a superintending clerk, appointed by the Secretary of the Interior, under the law of 1850. In this census (1880) the services of United States marshals were dispensed with, and supervisors of census were appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, while the supervisors, in turn, nominated enumerators in their respective districts. Provision was made in the census act of 1880 for an interdecennial census, in 1885, by any State or Territory, the Federal Government to bear a portion of the expense. Three States and two Territories availed themselves of this opportunity.

The census of 1880, in the variety of its investigation and in completeness of detail, marks the beginning of the third era in census taking in this country. The enumerations prior to the law of 1850 had in effect amounted to nothing more than a count of the population, though some advance along the line of industrial statistics had been made. The three censuses taken under the law of 1850, although decided improvements over the earlier enumerations, were deficient in many respects. The census of 1880, by its change in the methods of supervising and collecting data, and the employment of experts in making special investigations, enabled the nation to know more accurately the facts concerning its population, wealth, industries, and varied resources.

The census of 1890 was taken along the same comprehensive lines as the preceding census. It was not intended originally to follow the plan of the Tenth Census, but the law of March 1, 1889, under which the Eleventh Census was taken, supplemented by later legislation requiring information as to "farms, homes, and mortgages," resulted practically in as many different subjects of inquiry, and as many volumes constituted the final report. The work of the census was assigned to twenty-five divisions, each devoted to some special branch or feature. An electrical system of tabulation was used for the first

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time in compiling the statistics relating to population and mortality, and to crime, pauperism, and benevolence. The work was completed by the Commissioner of Labor (now Commissioner of Labor Statistics) by direction of Congress.

The census of 1900 was taken under the act of March 3, 1899, by which the Director of the Census was given entire control of the work, including the appointment of the statisticians, clerks, and other employees of the Census Office. The decennial work was limited to inquiries relating to population, mortality, agriculture, and manufactures, but provision was made for the collection of statistics relating to various special subjects after the completion of the decennial work. This division of the work constituted a radical departure from the course pursued at the two preceding censuses, at which the effort was made to carry on, practically simultaneously, the work relating to twenty or more distinct subjects of investigation. The general reports of the Twelfth Census, comprised in ten quarto volumes, were published, in conformity with the requirements of the census act, on or before July 1, 1902, or within two years from the date set for the legal termination of the enumeration work. The system of electrical tabulation was again employed in the work of the Twelfth Census, after a competitive test, and was utilized to advantage in the tabulation of the statistics of population, mortality, and agriculture.

The necessity for the establishment of a permanent statistical bureau to which the work of the decennial census might also be intrusted was recognized, indirectly at least, as early as 1845, and beginning with 1860 recommendations for the establishment of a national bureau of statistics were embodied in the annual reports of the Secretary of the Interior up to and including the year 1865.

Similar suggestions were made after that date for the establishment of a central bureau of statistics at Washington, but no direct action toward providing for a permanent census office, as such, was taken by Congress until February 16, 1891, when the Senate directed the Secretary of the Interior to consider and report on the expediency of the establishment of a permanent census bureau. No final action in the matter was taken by Congress, however, and nothing more was done until March 19, 1896, when the Commissioner of Labor was directed to report to the Congress for its consideration, as soon as practicable, a plan for a permanent census service. The Commissioner of Labor, under date of December 7, 1896, reported, as thus directed, a tentative organic administrative act by which an independent census office was to be established, leaving the details of the Twelfth and subsequent censuses to the officers having them, respectively, in charge. Nothing came of this effort, however, and no provision was made for a permanent census office until the passage of the act of March 6, 1902, which made permanent, after June 30, 1902, the Census Office tempo

rarily established by the act of March 3, 1899. The act approved July 2, 1909 (36 Stat., 1), entitled "An act to provide for the Thirteenth and subsequent decennial censuses," and several other later acts of varying though less importance, amplified considerably the duties of the Bureau and comprise the larger part of the law under which it now operates.

The Bureau of the Census is charged with the duty of taking the decennial censuses of the United States, of making certain other statistical investigations at regular intervals of years, and of collecting such special statistics as may be authorized by law from time to time. The last decennial census, 1910, covered the subjects of population, manufactures and mines and quarries, and agriculture. An intermediate census of manufactures is taken in the fifth year after the decennial census, and the act providing for the Thirteenth Census requires a census of agriculture, much less comprehensive than the decennial census, to be taken in 1915 and every ten years thereafter. The act establishing the permanent Census Bureau requires that, after the completion of the regular decennial census, the Director of the Census shall decennially collect statistics relative to the defective, dependent, and delinquent classes; crime, including judicial statistics pertaining thereto; social statistics of cities; public indebtedness, expenditures, and taxation; religious bodies; transportation by water, and express business; savings banks and other savings institutions, mortgage, loan, and similar institutions; and the fishing industry, in cooperation with the Bureau of Fisheries. Every five years statistics must be collected relating to street railways, electric light and power stations, and telephone and telegraph business. Annual statistics must be gathered relating to births and deaths in States and cities maintaining efficient registration systems; the financial and other statistics of cities having a population of 30,000 and over; the production and distribution of cotton, and forest products; and the quantity of leaf tobacco on hand.

The carrying out of these inquiries involves the collection of necessary data by mail or by personal visits of employees to the individual or commercial establishment, the subsequent assembling, tabulation, and compilation of the information secured, and the publication in reports of tables setting forth the data, with comparisons, percentages, averages, textual comment, maps, and diagrams. These reports form a list of publications, which in the course of ten years comprises upward of 400 bulletins of a more or less temporary character, and over 50 volumes of a substantial form.

The following brief statement conveys only a superficial idea of the work involved in carrying out the functions mentioned:

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Decennial census of population. The last decennial census taken as of April 15, 1910. The general methods are as follows:

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