Census

“ So the census grew, from the simple enumeration of the people in 1790, under the very brief schedule which has been given, not only through various additions to the population schedule, but by the introduction of inquiries relating to production, until nearly all the material conditions surrounding the people, their industries, their wealth, their taxation, their carrying trade, fisheries, schools, health—nearly everything, in fact, that the social scientist wishes to know concerning the people and their conditions—are embodied in the census. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 census is unique. It reaches every population group, from America's long-time residents to its most recent immigrants, and every age group from newborns to centenarians. The census touches every social class and every racial and ethnic group. The census is truly a democratic process in which we all can participate. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Census is the sword that shatters secrecy, the key that opens trebly-guarded doors; the Enumerator is vested with the Nation's greatest right—the Right To Know—and on his findings all battle-lines depend. "When through Atlantic and Pacific gateways, Slavic, Italic, and Mongol hordes threaten the persistence of an American America, his is the task to show the absorption of widely diverse peoples, to chronicle the advances of civilization, or point the perils of illiterate and alien-tongue communities. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ Now, our decennial census during the nineteenth century established a base line a hundred years long—the first in all history—from which we may measure in the twentieth and in each succeeding century. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In addition, other programs offered by the Census Bureau, such as the 1980 Neighborhood Statistics Program and the 1980 Election Precinct Program, offered data for small areas in a variety of formats, thereby filling the need for data that would have been provided at the ward level.
The need to provide data for political representation, as prescribed by the Constitution, remains the primary purpose for conducting the decennial census of population. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ Census 2000 offers each of us an important opportunity to shape the future of our Nation. By taking part, we help ensure the well-being of our families and our communities, and we fulfill one of our fundamental civic duties. The U.S. Census Bureau has taken unprecedented steps to ensure full participation in this first census of the new millennium. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Well, as you know, and I think as they know, the census is a department -- or an entity within the Department of Commerce that will administer the census. The Commerce Secretary will oversee that, and obviously in consultation with Congress and the White House. The President understands the benefit of an accurate and independent census count, and I think the American people can be assured that's what they'll get. ”

“ Of course, because most of these entities represent local governmental units, their officials, as well as the officials of State and Federal agencies and other data users, require statistics for the counties from each specific census. Because most censuses and sample surveys use a single common set of counties and statistically equivalent entities, the identification of individual county units constitutes an important element in the Census Bureau’s work and in its data products. ”

“ The general plan of the report of the Ninth census, as shown by those portions of it which are already in print, exhibits many interesting and valuable improvements in classification and arrangement over any preceding report, and the condition of the general work of the Census Bureau is so well advanced that the full reports of the census will be given to the public at a much earlier day than ever before. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The not unnatural but wholly unsatisfactory suggestion of the Census authorities, that the discrepancy is due to the errors of others Censuses, should be received with politeness coming from such efficient workers; but can hardly be taken at its face value. After all the Censuses are our safest guides, and there is not much reason for thinking one so very much better than another. ”

“ The Census Bureau adopted his plan as part of the 1910 decennial census. Beginning in the 1920s, Howard Whipple Green, a statistician in Cleveland, became a leading advocate of census tracts and other small areas. For more than 25 years, Green encouraged local citizens, via Census Tract Committees, to establish such areas and to use the resulting data for local applications. He actively promoted the Census Tract Committees as a mechanism for preparing census tract plans, and worked tirelessly to make data users aware of the value of small-area statistics. ”

“ Our friend thinks the Census will help to solve the question of civilisation; so pray borrow the volumes of an M.P. If you cannot get at the marrow of the thing you want, you will find much for after speculation. There is something frightful, Eusebius, in the idea that no class of men, no individuals, can henceforth escape the eye of this Great Inquisitor-General—a Census commission. There is no conceivable thing belonging to man, woman, or child that may not come under the inspection, and be in the books, of this great Gargantuan Busybody. ”

“ Crystallized statements, and a somewhat popular analysis of the results of the census as they come out, must be of more or less value, and from them many lessons may be drawn. A series of articles, therefore, comprehending comparisons and analyses, and bringing out the salient points in all the vast quantity of material digested by the Census Office, can not fail to interest various elements of the population. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The original suggestion in that behalf has met with the general approval of the country; and even if it be not deemed advisable at present to provide for a regular quinquennial census, a census taken in 1875, the report of which could be completed and published before the one hundredth anniversary of our national independence, would be especially interesting and valuable, as showing the progress of the country during the first century of our national existence. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”