United States census

“ In the cities the safety of the census lies in the fact that the special inquiries are taken out of the hands of the ordinary enumerators and placed in those of men especially qualified for the work. Paying by the name in large cities has, however, this weakness, that where an enumerator meets with unusual obstacles, as in a tenement house inhabited by foreigners who do not understand English, or a house when all the adult members of the family are absent, he is tempted to pass such places by and devote his energies to easier cases. ”

“ The safety for the census lies in the country enumerator who has a chance for a month's employment, and the fact that he is paid according to the amount of work he does. For each living inhabitant he receives two cents, for each death reported two cents, for each surviving soldier five cents, for each defective person or criminal five cents, for each farm fifteen cents, and for each manufacturing establishment twenty cents. In sparsely settled districts higher rates are allowed for living inhabitants, farms, and manufacturing establishments ”

“ Every 10 years, as mandated by our Constitution, all persons living in the United States are called upon to participate in the census. As the foremost method of gathering information about our Nation, the census plays a crucial role in helping us to maintain our democratic form of government. ”

“ Notwithstanding desultory enumerations and the unsystematic collection of information by foreign countries and by the home government through our colonial period, the credit of the first regularly organized periodical census is due to the United States, and our government has, commencing with 1790, made regular enumerations of the population, and, beginning with the year 1850, has conducted what may be properly called a national census, comprehending many features beyond the mere enumeration of the inhabitants. ”

“ It is of course true that any census figures beyond a bare enumeration of the people may be so interpreted or misunderstood or manipulated as to furnish a basis for wild theories and absurd, perhaps destructive, proposals. But common sense, in the popular meaning of that term, exercises a restraining influence; for persons are not apt to accept that which is contrary to their ordinary experience unless it rest on very clear and substantial grounds, and nothing is so fatal to a theory as to show that it has been built up on false and mistaken premises. ”

“ The legislator without statistics is like the mariner at sea without the compass. Nothing can safely be committed to his guidance. A question of fearful importance, the well-being of this Republic, has agitated this House for many weeks. It is this: Are our rich men growing richer, and our poor growing poorer? And how can this most vital question be settled, except by the most careful and honest examination of the facts? Who can doubt that the next census will reveal to us more important truths concerning the situation of our people than any census ever taken by any nation? ”

“ The ninth article gave Congress the authority ‘to agree upon the 221numbers of land forces, and to make requisitions from each of its quota in proportion to the number of white inhabitants in such State.’ These articles, unquestionably contemplated a national census, to include a valuation of land and an enumeration of population, but they led to no substantial results. When the blanks in the revenue report of 1783 were filled, the committee reported that they had been compelled to estimate the population of all the States except New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Maryland. ”

“ The births are to be estimated by adding to the number of persons less than one year of age at the time of the enumeration those who were born and died during the census year. Of course vital statistics obtained by such methods must be imperfect and crude; but this whole matter is forced on the census by the fact that we have no uniform registration of births, deaths, and marriages in the United States, and owing to our federal form of government are not likely to have. It is the best we can do. ”

“ As both of these groups of questions were intended to be the basis for supplementary inquiries, I will speak of them further on. Such is the explanation of the complicated and unwieldy population schedule which the Census Office sent out and expected to have answered for every individual in the United States, man, woman, and child, white or black, native or foreign-born, intelligent or ignorant. The final reports will doubtless show failure in many directions. ”

“ The explanation of the Census Office is that as a country grows older the natural rate of increase tends to decline; and this is true, but of doubtful application when we consider the amount of land still unoccupied in the United States, and that immigration during the last twenty years has added to the population an enormous number of persons in the most productive ages of manhood and womanhood. ”

“ THE CENSUS OF 1900.—At home in 1900 our population was counted for the twelfth time in our history and found to be 76,000,000. This census did not include the population of Porto Rico, Guam, or the Philippines. In New York the population exceeded that of the whole United States in 1810; in Pennsylvania it was greater than that of the whole United States in 1800, and Ohio and Illinois each had more people than the whole country in 1790. ”

“ The figures on population, area, wages, housing, and the like, in the opening pages of this book, come primarily from the 1960 Census and the Statistical Abstract of the United States for 1961. The Census people have a diabolical genius for presenting their data in the least usable possible form, but they have a monopoly on the figures and no other source exists. ”

“ Questions l0 to 15 (and 21) are forced upon the census by the peculiar make-up of our population, with its large proportion of persons of foreign birth and of foreign descent. If we neglected to get these statistics and combine them with those of sex, age, conjugal condition, occupation, illiteracy, disease, and death we should miss the greatest opportunity for ethnological and sociological investigation which is offered anywhere in the world, besides depriving ourselves of information absolutely essential to our own welfare. ”

“ The presence of the blacks at the South and of the foreign-born in the North constitute the most important demological problems with which we have to deal. Question 16 will doubtless contend with the usual difficulties of an occupation census, but public opinion would not permit its omission. Question 17 labours under the disadvantage of requiring exact knowledge or memory on the part of the person concerned, and when it is answered by the wife or other member of the family in respect to the husband or father it will probably lack accuracy. ”

“ Therefore, I ask Congress to make the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and the Hate Crimes Prevention Act the law of the land.
You know, now since every person in America counts, every American ought to be counted. We need a census that uses modern scientific methods to do that.
Our new immigrants must be part of our one America. After all, they're revitalizing our cities, they're energizing our culture, they're building up our economy. We have a responsibility to make them welcome here, and they have a responsibility to enter the mainstream of American life. ”

“ At the same time, the Bureau will continue its long tradition of protecting the personal information of America's citizens, and no other Government agency will be able to see any individual or family census form. I strongly urge every man and woman living in the United States to fill out and return his or her census form or to cooperate with census takers who will help them do so. ”

“ The popular opinion of a census, at least in the United States, depends largely upon the degree to which its figures for the population of the country, of states, and especially of cities, meet or fail to meet the expectations of the interested public. ”

“ The amount of the population of the United States, determined by the returns of the census, is a source of the most pleasing reflections whether it be viewed in relation to our national safety and respectability or as a proof of that felicity in the situation of our country which favors so unexampled a rapidity in its growth. ”

“ On December 16, 1867, General Garfield made a second speech on the subject, so elaborate and remarkable, so unlike any thing to be found elsewhere in all the annals of the American Congress, that we yield large space to it. The latter part of the speech relates to the defects of the old law, and the advantages of the proposed new one:
“The modern census is so closely related to the science of statistics that no general discussion of it is possible without considering the principles on which statistical science rests and the objects which it proposes to reach. ”

“ In a certain sense, thus, the expensiveness and extent of the census is an advantage, for it offers to the intelligent son of a farmer or small shopkeeper a tempting opportunity to earn a little ready money by easy work. ”

“ Each State enacts laws and regulations for establishing incorporated places. The Census Bureau designates criteria of total population size, population density, and geographic configuration for delineating CDPs. Not everyone resides in a place; in 1990, approximately 66 million people (26 percent) in the United States lived outside of any place, either in small settlements, in the open countryside, or in the densely settled fringe of large cities in areas that were built-up, but not identifiable as places. ”

“ Minority census tract.—The term 'minority census tract' means a census tract that has a minority population of at least 30 percent and a median family income of less than 100 percent of the area family median income. ”

“ Most recent United States decennial census is rational, logical, and consistent means of determining population when the word “census” is used in a statute or ordinance. Mayor of Hapeville v. Anderson, 246 Ga. ”

“ At the same ratio of increase which we have maintained, on an average, from our first national census, in 1790, until that of 1860, we should in 1900 have a population of 103,208,415. And why may we not continue that ratio far beyond that period? Our abundant room, our broad national homestead, is our ample resource. Were our territory as limited as are the British Isles, very certainly our population could not expand as stated. Instead of receiving the foreign born as now, we should be compelled to send part of the native born away. ”

“ This being the case, he thought it was a wise provision of the constitution which directs that the census shall be taken only once in ten years. If these words were struck out, no tax ought to be laid until the time comes for taking the new census.
Mr. Bayard would not be in favor of striking out these words, if he thought it would prevent the collection of the tax; but it would be necessary, before the tax could be laid, that an assessment of lands, houses, and slaves, should be made, and he could not see why the number of inhabitants could not be ascertained at the same time. ”

“ When Hamilton thanked him, he replied:
"I'm an American, Mr. Noble, and one of the stones they moved from the old churchyard of the Old Center Church and that bore the date 1681 was the tombstone of my direct ancestor. I think you'll find most of the New England stock proud of the United States and only too glad to do anything they can to help the government in its census or anything else for the good of the country." ”

“ The field work incident to the above inquiries is now practically finished, and as a result the population of the States and Territories, including the Hawaiian Islands and Alaska, has been announced. The growth of population during the last decade amounts to over 13,000,000, a greater numerical increase than in any previous census in the history of the country. ”

“ It should be added that the growing importance of political science, as well as its recent origin, is exhibited in the fact that nearly every modern nation has established within the last half century a bureau of general statistics for the uses of statesmanship and science. In the thirty states of Europe they are now assiduously cultivating the science. Not one of their central bureaus was fully organized before the year 1800.
“The chief instrument of American statistics is the census, which should accomplish a two-fold object. ”

“ Whenever he shall deem it expedient, the superintendent of the census may withhold the schedules for manufacturing, mining, and social statistics from the enumerators of the several subdivisions, and may charge the collection of these statistics upon experts and special agents, to be employed without respect to locality. ”