tion of the volumes on the same subject included in the Census of 1880 and 1890; the Census of the Defective, Dependent, and Delinquent Classes,—namely, the Blind and Deaf (1906); the Insane and Feeble-minded (1906); Benevolent Institutions (1905); Paupers in Almshouses (1906); Prisoners and Juvenile Delinquents (1907); and a Report on Mines and Quarries (1902). A Census of Religious Bodies, continuing the volume on the Statistics of Churches, published as a part of the Census of 1890, is now in progress. All these inquiries have been heretofore taken as part of a decennial census.

It is unnecessary to mention here also the large number of additional inquiries which have been ordered by Congress and assigned to the Census Office. Investigations of this nature are frequently needed; and, had there been no permanent Census Office, they probably would have been undertaken by the Bureau of Labor or some other agency.

The bill recently reported by the Committee on the Census of the House of Representatives follows in all essentials the original changes introduced by the law of 1899. Like that law, it limits the enumeration strictly to four subjects, relegating other decennial inquiries to the interval between the censuses. One of the inquiries of 1899, that into deaths in the general population, has been dropped. The reasons are twofold. Fifty years of experiment from 1850 to 1900 has established with certainty the fact that not more than seven-tenths of all the deaths which occur in a given community during a year can be obtained by enumerators asking at the close of that year of each family a report of any deaths which had occurred therein during the preceding twelve months. Tables so imperfect have very little statistical or medical value, and are constantly misunderstood by the public. So wide a margin of error in one branch of the census tends also to discredit more accurate results reached in other divisions. Furthermore, the Federal Census, acting in co-operation with the states and cities having trustworthy local registers of deaths, is now annually publishing returns for about one-half the population of the country, which probably cover 95 per cent. of all deaths occurring within that region,

-and furnish a far better index to the death-rate in the whole country than enumerators' returns for the United States could do. While this inquiry into deaths outside the registration area is likely to be discontinued, it is proposed to add one other inquiry, that into mines and mining. This is done because the past experience of the Census Office shows that the line between manufacturing, on the one hand, and mining or quarrying, on the other, is one almost impossible for the Census Office to draw, and that the difficulties in doing so are steadily increasing.

Like the law of 1899, the present draft requires the results of the census to be published by the summer of 1912, and thus prohibits the office from extending its publications into the seventh or eighth year after the census day, as had been done at certain previous censuses.

When the law of 1899 was under discussion, a radical difference of opinion developed between the Senate and the House of Representatives. The House, feeling convinced that the delays in completing and publishing the results of the Censuses of 1880 and 1890 had been due in large measure to a lack of authority and independent control exercised by the Superintendent of the Census and to his inability to secure action from his superior officer in many cases with the promptness which the emergency demanded, was insistent that the Census Office should be made entirely independent of any member of the Cabinet and responsible only to the President. In this position they had the hearty and general support of statistical experts throughout the country and of all who had had previous experience in census work.

In the Senate the bill as originally offered by the Committee on the Census had contained a similar provision, but it had been so amended in the course of discussion as to place the Census Office under the Secretary of the Interior. This was the main difference which produced a disagreement between the two Houses and resulted in a conference on the bill. Through that agency a compromise was made whereby the Census Office was left within the Department of the Interior, but given a far

greater degree of autonomy than is usual for administrative bureaus. The Director of the Census appointed all his subordinates except the Assistant Director, had his own disbursing office, controlled directly his own printing, and possessed thus a very high degree of independence. On the other hand, he reported annually to the Secretary of the Interior, transmitted his requests for appropriations to that officer for Congress, and in minor respects was subject to his control and supervision.

In this respect, as in all others of the first importance, the pending bill follows the precedent established in 1899. It is not surprising that the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, to whose department the Census Office was transferred in 1903, believes that its relation to his department should be analogous to that of the other bureaus. In a letter dated February 7, 1908, addressed to the Chairman of the Committee on the Census of the House of Representatives,* the Secretary writes, "It places a chief of a bureau within the Department of Commerce and Labor upon a footing practically independent of the supervisory jurisdiction of the head of the Department, which is a departure from a well-established plan of organization of the Executive Departments of the Government, and, in my judgment, will lead to undesirable and unsatisfactory results."

In another part of the same letter he adds that it "would constitute an administrative anomaly, which, it is believed, it is not the purpose of Congress to create."

There is no doubt that such an organization is, as the Secretary calls it, "a departure from a well-established plan of organization" and also an "administrative anomaly"; but the compromise thus established in 1899 was found to be satisfactory. The traditional method of organization which had been followed by the laws of 1879 and 1889 had proved unsatisfactory and practically unworkable. It is the belief of every one who has had practical experience with census work that the conditions themselves are anomalous, and that their requirements cannot be met by following administrative routine in this particular.

*Hearings before the Committee on the Census of the House of Representatives, pp.

97-101.

The law of 1899 gave the Census Office for the first time that degree of initiative and autonomy which the rigid requirements of its emergency work made necessary. Experience has shown that the Director of the Census must be given somewhat the same independence that is accorded to a general commanding an entire army in time of war. It is to be hoped that the precedent of 1899 will commend itself to the deliberate judgment of Congress, and be followed in the bill now before it for consideration.

Probably the most important new feature in the draft of the Census Bill is the provision for an almost automatic transfer of the Census Office from a status closely approaching that of the ordinary bureau, which it maintains during the seven years intervening between the decennial censuses, to the unusual condition requisite during the three years when the decennial census is being taken. The period from July 1, 1909, to July 1, 1912, is named the decennial census period. During that period the law provides for an Assistant Director, a fifth Chief Statistician, and such other clerks of various classes as may be found. necessary. During that period also the Director of the Census may promote or transfer persons from the temporary roll of employees holding office only during the decennial period to the permanent force and vice versa. The whole office works thus as one organization, its energies and personnel being devoted in part to the decennial census, in part to the routine work of the permanent office, as the needs of the work require. The funds, like the personnel, are entirely under the control of the Director. During those three years there are no annual appropriations for any work of the office, but all its expenses are to be met out of a single lump appropriation. For the three years a sum of $14,000,000 is provided. During this period the responsibility and the initiative are concentrated in the hands of the Director, and he is solely responsible for the rapid and effective progress of the work. The work of the decennial census must be completed by the end of this decennial census period, and the office then returns to its normal condition. The temporary employees having no standing on the Civil

Service roll lose their positions in 1912, and the office reverts to what may be called a peace footing.

It is proposed to change the census day from June 1 to April 15. June 1 is so late in the summer that many persons have left their usual places of residence, their houses are closed, and it is extremely difficult to obtain information about them either from the neighbors or by correspondence. This source of danger and of error to a census is increasing with each decade. If a census can be taken in Canada in April, as it has been for decades past, there seems no reason to believe that this date would furnish insurmountable difficulties to the field work in the United States; and there is no doubt that April 15 is a far better date than June 1. It is probably also better than any other date which has been suggested.

These are the main features of statistical rather than of administrative importance embodied in the bill in its present form. A copy of that draft is appended for comparison with the law in the form in which it shall be finally passed. The copy is that of the Crumpacker Bill as reported by the Committee on the Census to the House of Representatives on Feb. 17, 1908.

A BILL

TO PROVIDE FOR THE THIRTEENTH AND SUBSEQUENT DECENNIAL

CENSUSES.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That a census of the population, agriculture, manufactures, and mines and quarries of the United States shall be taken by the Director of the Census in the year nineteen hundred and ten and once every ten years thereafter. The census herein provided for shall include each State and Territory on the mainland of the United States, the District of Columbia, and the Territories of Alaska, Hawaii, and Porto Rico, and Guam, Samoa, and the Panama Canal Zone.

SEC. 2. That the period of three years beginning the first day of July next preceding the census provided for in section one of this Act shall be known as the decennial census period, and the reports upon the inquiries provided for in said section shall be completed and published within such period.