Census taker

“ Thar isn't any such thing as bein' too gracious. An' anyway, a census-taker with any other idee up hyeh would be runnin' chances right along."
"You mean they would shoot him up?" asked Hamilton.
"I think if he threatened some folks up hyeh an' in the gullies thar might be trouble." ”

“ Science will do its work, let us perform ours also. Let us do this. In the first place, let all of us who are occupied with the census, superintendents and census-takers, make it perfectly clear to ourselves what we are to investigate and why. It is the people, and the object is that they may be happy. Whatever may be one’s view of life, every one will agree that there is nothing more important than human life, and that there is no more weighty task than to remove the obstacles to the development of this life, and to assist it. ”

“ All this, however, to the mind of the impartial observer, rather militates against the credibility of American statistics than in their favour. The amount of money spent seems needlessly extravagant, while it is even more extravagant to hope that all this variety of information can be obtained with any degree of accuracy and trustworthiness. To many, therefore, the United States census is a 'monument,' but one provoking a sense of weariness and scepticism. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Those who suggest that filling out your census form isn't essential are plainly wrong. An inaccurate census distorts our understanding of a community's needs, denies people their fair share of resources, and diminishes the quality of life not only for them but for all of us. If we believe everybody in our American community counts, we simply must make sure everyone is counted. ”

“ The very conditions of life among our people have undergone great changes. The interior movements of population have become more rapid and extensive, and half a million of square miles are now settled more or less densely, which in 1850 were unsurveyed, or even unexplored.
As the census of a great nation is a very practical work, into which theory and preconceived notions should enter as little as possible, it would seem that such great changes of condition, as well as the advances made meanwhile in the science of legislation and in the art of government, justify and require a new census law. ”

“ I agree that the state legislatures should be required to make 'a good-faith effort to achieve' a result that allocates the population or the residents [1] of the State in roughly equal numbers to each district, based upon some orderly and objective method. [2] In my view, the State could properly arrive at figures for current population by taking the latest census returns and making modifications to allow for population movements since the last census (which the Court seems to find acceptable) . ”

“ As the direct and declared object of this census is, to furnish a standard by which 'representatives, and direct taxes, may be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union,' it will be admitted, that the omission to extend it to the district or the territories, would not render it defective. The census referred to is admitted to be a census exhibiting the numbers of the respective States. It cannot, however, be admitted, that the argument which limits the application of the power of direct taxation to the population contained in this census, is a just one. ”

“ Hamilton explained. "I think it will be even more fun than the manufactures end, and I heard that they're going to put on a few population enumerators from those who have been on the manufactures work, admitting them without an exam. I think the population census gathering will be fine." ”

“ But the census has long outgrown that clause, and it would be impossible to justify even the questions on the population schedule as necessary to an enumeration of the people. With the employment of special agents the necessity for a uniform date has ceased, and it is the opinion of such men as General Walker and Commissioner Wright that it would be better to make these special inquiries at some other time, when the Census Office is less overwhelmed with work. ”

“ 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 Bureau of the Census has been of immense service, and other bureaus of the Department of Commerce and Labor are working on it, largely through information gathered for them by the census. Then there have been thorough Congressional investigations, and the States are being checked up hard to insure that factory inspection shall be real, not nominal. Don't let the 'crusader' persuade you that everybody is asleep and that nothing is being done; the government is doing a good deal, although the country as a whole is unaware of it. ”

“ The need for population equality has led to questioning the use of precincts as building blocks. Because they rarely coincide with census enumeration areas, adequate population data for them is lacking.” In planning for the 1980 census, the Census Bureau focused on trying to improve the usefulness of its data for precincts by providing programs designed to allow census enumeration area boundaries to coincide with precincts, thereby making census data for precincts more readily available to data users. ”

“ It is said, in the first place, that so small a number cannot be safely trusted with so much power. The number of which this branch of the legislature is to consist, at the outset of the government, will be sixtyfive. Within three years a census is to be taken, when the number may be augmented to one for every thirty thousand inhabitants; and within every successive period of ten years the census is to be renewed, and augmentations may continue to be made under the above limitation. ”

“ While the census will always remain of value for purposes of comparison with preceding periods, its first and greatest service is its immediate use not only for determining the distribution of political power, according to the provisions of the Constitution, but also for directing State and national legislation, and for guiding individual and social effort for the promotion of public interests, and for the amelioration of the condition of the criminal, afflicted, and dependent classes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is believed, however, that a regular census every five years would be of substantial benefit to the country, inasmuch as our growth hitherto has been so rapid that the results of the decennial census are necessarily unreliable as a basis of estimates for the latter years of a decennial period. ”

“ To prevent any alteration taking place in an oligarchy or free state on account of the census, if that happens to continue the same while the quantity of money is increased, it will be useful to take a general account of the whole amount of it in former times, to compare it with the present, and to do this every year in those cities where the census is yearly, [1308b] in larger communities once in three or five years ”

“ If the department is to remain uncertain whether the census is to be taken under the act of 1850 or under a new law till the February of the census year — as was the case in 1870 — the work must suffer both through enhanced cost and through impaired value. ”

“ Census figures themselves are inexact; our mobile population rapidly renders them obsolete; large groups of ineligible voters are unevenly distributed throughout the State. Nevertheless, the Court refuses to permit any room for legislative common sense to compensate for Census Bureau inadequacies. If no 'scientific' data are available to justify a divergence from census figures, the Court holds that nothing can be done-'we mean to open no avenue for subterfuge.' Kirkpatrick v. ”

“ The manner in which the government proceeds in taking a census must inevitably lead to inaccuracy and error, even where there is no design to deceive. A census is taken in each arrondissement by the general commanding, aided by the justices of the peace in the several parishes composing it, and as there are no registers kept in those parishes of births or deaths, every thing is left to estimation, occasional visits being made to several parts of them to ascertain the number of settlers. Now many of these proprietors have possessions in two or three parishes within the arrondissement ”

“ An accurate census helps to ensure that the rights and needs of every person are recorded and recognized as we shape public policies, programs, and services. Too often in the past, children, minorities, and low-income individuals have not been counted and, as a result, have not been fully and fairly served. Census data are also used to determine the number of seats each State is allocated in the U.S. House of Representatives, and State and local governments depend upon these data to draw legislative districts that accurately represent their residents. ”

“ Of course, dear friends, I am not qualified to speak fully of the uses of a national census—a statesman only could do this, yet it is self-evident that everything which tends to the amelioration of public evils and the furtherance of the public good, must be subserved by the statistics so gained. Not only distinctive legislation, but also all our schemes for the extension of education and the promotion of the work of Christ’s Church can only find arguments, exactitude, and adaptation from the knowledge to be gained by a national census. ”

“ Burns," the boy said, as they stood in the great concourse of the Union Station at Washington, "whether there would not be a very large number of protests about census figures,—people always seem to have such an exaggerated idea of the size of their own towns." ”

“ The new census of the United States is as ambitious as the census of 1880, and in some directions attempts to do even more than that stupendous undertaking did. Investigating industrial and social phenomena from all sides, it seeks to give, as it were, a complete picture of the national resources and the national life. No other country in the world attempts under the name of census to do one-tenth part of the work which the bureau at Washington, improvised at a few months' notice, cheerfully and confidently undertakes; and the census returns of no other nation make such an array of volumes. ”

“ Well, I'll tell you," he added, turning to the boy, "it's just this: there are always some cities that aren't satisfied with the census. I believe of the cities of over thirty thousand inhabitants at this census there has been something like nine, decimal-eight-one per cent protests, and the most necessary of these the Bureau investigates. Perhaps ten or a dozen in the entire country get a recount. The Bureau doesn't officially recognize some of them but sends an inspector to look over the ground, and see if everything was done right. That's what we're going to do in New York." ”

“ The aggregate population, according to an official estimate made in 1905, is 500,136, but a complete and satisfactory census cannot be taken throughout the country, since the ignorant masses of the people, and especially the Indians, avoid a census as in some way connected with military conscription or taxation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At no point since our Nation’s Founding has a person’s immigration status alone served as a basis for excluding that person from the total population count used in apportionment. Before the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, the Constitution did not give equal weight to every person counted under the census. ”