Mr. GOSNELL. About $3,500,000 or $4,000,000, I think. The enumeration will be $3,288,000. That is exclusive of supervisors. Mrs. KAHN. That is just the enumeration?

Mr. GOSNELL. Yes, ma'am.

Mrs. KAHN. In all these do you exclude supervision?

Mr. GOSNELL. Not in the total.

Mrs. KAHN. But in these items you have just given, such as the manufacturing, for instance?

Mr. GOSNELL. That includes supervision. We have not divided our estimates so as to show the amount that would be paid enumerators and clerks and supervisors.

Mrs. KAHN. But the enumerators alone in agriculture will get what? Mr. GOSNELL. $3,288,000. The enumerators for population alone will get $7,385,000.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the distribution figure?

Mr. GOSNELL. For enumerators?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. GOSNELL. $2,000,000, including the supervisors.

Mrs. KAHN. That is the only one of these details that includes the supervisors.

Mr. GOSNELL. That is correct.

MI. JACOBSTEIN. How long will these. 100,000 enumerators be at work?

Mr. GOSNELL. From one week to 30 days.

Mr. JACOBSTEIN. Of the total number employed, how many will be under the civil service?

Mr. GOSNELL. None of these.

Mr. JACOBSTEIN. None of the enumerators?

Mr. GOSNELL. No, sir.

Mr. JACOBSTEIN. How about the 8,000 clerks?

Mr. GOSNELL. They will not be under civil service.

Mr. JACOBSTEIN. Nor the 4,000 interpreters?

Mr. GOSNELL. No, sir.

Mr. JACOBSTEIN. Out of this whole census staff practically none are under service?

Mr. GOSNELL. None of them in the field work.

MI. RANKIN. I want to get some light on these figures bere for interpreters. Does it require 10 interpreters for every supervisor? Mr. GOSNELL. Yes, sir. Sometimes they are only employed one day or a half a day.

Mr. RANKIN. Certainly there are enough people in the United States who speak the English language that it would not or should not require ten times as many interpreters as supervisors.

Mr. GOSNELL. That is true, but you will find some sections where three of four interpreters are required, on account of there being several different languages spoken in that particular section.

Mr. LOZIER. In the east side of New York City an enumerator would have to take along a whole regiment of interpreters?

Mr. GOSNELL. It would require a good many in some sections. Mr. RANKIN. Your report will show how many people there are who do not speak the English language, will it not?

Mr. GOSNELL. Yes, sir; that will be shown.

Mr. THURSTON. Do you also show the illiteracy?
Mr. GOSNELL. Yes, sir.

Mrs. KAHN. It might be that one interpreter would be used in only one family in a day.

Mr. GOSNELL. That is true.

Mrs. KAHN. And he might be employed only an hour.

Mr. GOSNELL. That is true.

Mrs. KAHN. But he has to be classed as an individual interpreter, because he may be the only one who is able to interpret for that family?

Mr. GOSNELL. That is quite true. The same is true of the 8,000 clerks. Many times we will only employ one clerk for one or two days. Some will be employed from three to five months.

Mr. JACOBSTEIN. May I suggest the importance of the interpreter, in view of the fact that our immigration laws are now based on origins. It is essential that there be accurate data on the nationality and the racial origin, so there may be no dispute about that in the future. That is an added reason for having them.

The CHAIRMAN. Let me ask a question, that has been quite properly suggested by the clerk of the committee: Would this figure still obtain, as to the cost of this census, if the census of agriculture and census of population were taken at the same time? In other words, would it reduce the number of enumerators or increase them, under those conditions? That is, if we should take the census of agriculture proposed in the bill in November, and the census of population in April, or, as has been suggested and advanced quite strongly, the census of agriculture and population be taken at the same time, would that affect the cost? Would the taking of the census of agriculture and population at the same time reduce the cost?

Mr. GOSNELL. These figures are based on the two being taken together.

The CHAIRMAN. What would be the added cost if they were taken separately?

Mr. GOSNELL. I think approximately $1,000,000, or $1,500,000. Mr. RANKIN. Would it be any more accurate if taken separately? Mr. GOSNELL. I do not think so. I think it would be more

accurate if they were taken together.

Mr. LozIER. Would not the cost be $3,000,000 or $4,000,000, if they were taken separately?

Mr. GOSNELL. I do not think so. I think $1,000,000 or $1,500,000 would cover it.

Mrs. KAHN. It does not have to cover the whole country.

The CHAIRMAN. A large part of it would be in these great centers like Chicago and New York?

Mr. THURSTON. Mr. Chairman, reverting to the literacy phase of the matter, I would like to ask Mr. Gosnell to state in a general way what test is applied to a person to enable the representatives of the bureau to determine whether or not that person is literate? Mr. GOSNELL. I will ask Doctor Hill to answer that.

Doctor HILL. We simply cover the question of whether the person is able to read and write. That is what we have done in the past. Mr THURSTON. In any language? Doctor HILL. Yes, sir.

English.

And also whether they are able to speak

The CHAIRMAN. You do not ask what language they do speak? You simply inquire whether they speak English or not?

Doctor HILL. We asked in the last census what their mother tongue was, whether they spoke English or not, if they were of foreign birth or children of people of foreign birth.

Mr. JACOBSTEIN. Do you intend to ask in this census whether or not they read English?

Doctor HILL. My statements are based on the schedule we had in 1920. We have not really given any serious consideration to what it will be in 1930. Probably there will not be any radical changes, but we have had requests from many sources to add questions to the schedule. I think the total number of questions we have been asked to add now amounts to about 25, and the list is steadily growing. Now, at most, we could not add more than one or two, and if we do that I think we would have to take off one or two to make room for them. The schedule, in our opinion, has about reached the limit. While this subject is up, I thought the committee would probably be interested in seeing these schedules, which I will pass around to the members of the committee.

Mr. RANKIN. I have been asked what it would cost to add one question to the schedule. Can you give us any information in regard to that?

Doctor HILL. I could not give you that offhand. That is a very difficult thing to estimate. The addition of a single question would probably be I could not say. It would add something, but how much I could not say.

Mr. MOORMAN. It would be owing to what the question was.
Doctor HILL. It would depend upon what the question was.
These are illustrative schedules I am handing to you.

Mr. RANKIN. Where is the literacy test on this schedule?
Doctor HILL. Columns 17 and 18.

Mr. LOZIER. The question you propound is whether they are able to read or write, not in any particular language?

Doctor HILL. No, sir.

Mr. JACOBSTEIN. Mr. Chairman, may I ask Dr. Hill this question? Have you given thought to the importance of localizing the place of birth a little more accurately?

Doctor HILL. That is one thing we have been asked to do. That is one of the suggestions that has been made to the bureau, to get the county and town as well as the State.

Mr. JACOBSTEIN. I was thinking of the countries. When a man says he was born in Russia, it does not mean Russia any more. When a man says he was born in Poland, the same is true with respect to that country. From an immigration standpoint it is very important to distinguish between the political divisions in Europe as they existed before the great war and as they exist to-day.

Mrs. KAHN. You would have to taken them as they exist now. Mr. JACOBSTEIN. You ask a man where he was born, and he tells you in a certain country, but he does not regard the remapping of Europe.

Mrs. KAHN. He probably does not know about it.

Mr. JACOBSTEIN. If he says he is a Russian, he may be a Lithuanian, or a Latvian, or a Finn.

The CHAIRMAN. How are you going to ascertain that?

85244-28-12

Mr. JACOBSTEIN. When you ask a man where he was born and he says he was born in Russia, you immediately ask him whether it was Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Finland.

Mrs. KAHN. He may not know.

How accu

Mr. JACOBSTEIN. Yes, he would. He would know that. At least, I am suggesting the advisability of having that in mind. rately it can be done I do not know, but it is important. The CHAIRMAN. I think it is important.

Mr. JACOBSTEIN. Following up Mr. Lozier's question again, I think it would be very important if we could find out how many people actually do not read the English language.

Mr. RANKIN. I am going to make this suggestion. I think the greatest discrepancy I find in the census report is on the subject of literacy. I do not know just how you would go about the proposition, but the census reports do not reflect the condition of literacy in the section of the country that I represent. I practiced law for a good many years, and I have noticed this in empaneling juries. You put a man on the stand and ask him if he can read or write, and invariably he will say no. That is as far as the census enumerator will go with him. But the lawyer will say: "Do you mean to tell the court that you can not read at all?" "Oh, I read the newspaper.' "Well, can you write?" "I can write, but you can't read it. I can't write to do any good." Further questioning will develop the fact that nine out of ten who tell you at the first blush they can not read and write, can read and write. I have been looking over these census reports and I think they fail to show the real situation, especially in our section of the country, with reference to the literacy proposition. It is the rarest thing on earth to find a white person in my country, who can not read and write a little. Take a farmer, and he is not writing for the daily papers and is not an expert at it. I just wondered if there was not some way that your enumerators could be instructed to press those questions, and get the real status of the individual in that respect.

Doctor HILL. I agree with you that that information is a very unsatisfactory test, and does not reveal the true condition, but I do not quite know whether you can go any further. We have before us at the present time, among these 24 or 25 questions, a proposition submitted by the National Education Association for applying literacy tests. The idea is to have a little card with the question printed on it, and hand that card to the person interrogated and ask him to answer that question. If he can make an intelligent answer he would pass the test, and if he could not he would not pass. That is very fine in theory, but I do not know just how well it could be carried out in practice.

Mr. RANKIN. That is what they call the "nut" test in the Army? Mrs. KAHN. Then if you do not answer questionnaires, you are out? Mr. RANKIN. I suppose so.

Doctor HILL. The conditions under which the census is taken are different from the Army, the enumerators are working on a piece price basis. The enumerator may find only the wife or daughter at home. The father and brothers, if there are any, will be at their work. He asks these questions, and he asks them rapidly. They must be questions that can be promptly answered, and in many instances, perhaps in most instances, the people he wants to know about would be away at work.

The CHAIRMAN. How far do the States go in this matter? Doctor HILL. I do not know that I could tell you. I think they do collect some information.

The CHAIRMAN. I know it is done in some states. In my state it has been developed that in certain sections they are more ignorant than in other sections.

Mrs. KAHN. During the war a great deal of information was gathered regarding illiteracy, and it was astounding. I think it opened the eyes of the people in a good many States, when they learned the amount of illiteracy that existed within their own borders.

Mr. RANKIN. Mrs. Kahn, there are other unusual and unfair tests. Possibly there was no man who filled out more of these questionnaires than I did. The boys were in a hurry to get through. The men wanted you to do the writing, and they invariably answered that they could not read or write. If it had been followed up a little, you would have found that the most of them could read, at least could read the newspapers or a school book, or read the literature they came in contact with. These enumerators come into the homes, just as Doctor Hill says, when the man and the wife may be away at work, and perhaps only a daughter at home. He will ask her "Can you read and write?" They seem to have the impression that you want them to do the writing. They will tell you no. Then he will ask them "How about this fellow?" "He can't either." I am frank to say that my investigation leads me to believe that if something in the nature of this card is used and instructions are issued to the field men to go into this question in a practical way, they will find that a good many people who are being reported as being illiterate are not illiterate.

Mrs. KAHN. They might ask "Can you read or write at all? We will do the writing.'

Mr. RANKIN. Ask him "Can you write your name?" If he can, he can invariably read.

Mr. JACOBSTEIN. How much instruction do you give to enumerators? Do you call them together?

Doctor HILL. We issue a book of instructions, a little pamphlet of about 50 pages, or perhaps more.

Mr. JACOBSTEIN. Is that all they get?

Doctor HILL. No. So far as possible, we call them together, and have the supervisor or somebody associated with the supervisor's office give them a talk on what their duties are. That is not always practicable in the rural districts, but we do it in the cities. I do not think it is done as much in the rural districts. I understand it is done to some extent.

Mr. AUSTIN. They do call them together in the rural districts and instruct them.

Mr. JACOBSTEIN. In support of what Mr. Rankin says I would suggest, because of the large schedules you are going to have, that you have demonstrative illustrative tests for the enumerators.

Doctor HILL. I might explain, Mr. Jacobstein, that we make each enumerator pass a test. We give him a blank form with the description of a certain family, and ask him to fill out the schedule on the basis of that.

Mr. JACOBSTEIN. Those are formal examinations?
Doctor HILL. Yes.