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REPORT

OF THE

DIRECTOR OF THE CENSUS.

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE AND LABOR,

BUREAU OF THE CENSUS, Washington, October 15, 1904.

SIR: I have the honor to submit the following report upon the operations of the Bureau of the Census for the last fiscal year. The report covers the first year under the supervision of the Department of Commerce and Labor, and the second year of the existence of the Bureau of the Census as a permanent office under the act of March 6, 1902.

EXPENDITURES OF BUREAU DURING THE FISCAL YEAR.

Attached to this report as an appendix will be found the financial statement of Mr. John W. Langley, disbursing officer, showing in detail the expenditures of the Bureau during the last fiscal year. The total amount disbursed was $1,316,811.22. Included in this sum is the cost of tabulating and compiling the census of the Philippine Islands, approximately $214,117.58. This amount should be deducted in comparing the expenditures of the Bureau for 1904 with those for 1903. Much of the extra expenditure caused by this tabulation was met from the unexpended balance of the Twelfth Census appropriation, reappropriated by Congress for that purpose, but a considerable part of the work was performed by the regular clerical force of the Bureau, and paid for out of the current appropriations. The cost, also, of preliminary Philippine census printing, such as blanks, tabulation sheets, bulletins, etc., was defrayed out of the appropriation to the Public Printer for the requirements of the Bureau of the Census.

Deducting the cost of the Philippine census as shown above, the amounts required for the conduct of the Bureau for the fiscal years 1903 and 1904 were as follows:

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The census of manufactures ordered by Congress for 1905 makes it necessary to increase the amount estimated to be required for the coming year so as to include that undertaking. The estimate for the fiscal year 1905-6 is $1,482,340.

JUSTIFICATION OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PERMANENT CENSUS

BUREAU.

Sufficient time has now elapsed to justify the conclusion that the establishment of a permanent Census Office was wise legislation, altogether apart from the main arguments which led Congress to enact the law. These arguments were that it would permit of careful and scientific study of the main and secondary results of the decennial enumerations; that it would keep together a corps of experts, trained and competent to prepare for and take the Thirteenth Census, and sufficiently familiar with the methods and scope of previous censuses to insure close comparability and greater accuracy in the results; and that it would create a central office, exclusively devoted to statistical investigation, in which many statistical inquiries now carried on in bureaus not specially equipped for such work could gradually be concentrated.

VALUE OF CENSUS BUREAU PUBLICATIONS.

Much has already been accomplished along these lines. The list of publications of the Bureau of the Census for the last fiscal year, Appendix C, shows a number of supplementary statistical reports, analyzing and interpreting the results of the Twelfth Census, in directions that heretofore have been neglected, for lack of time and opportunity to consider them. Other studies, of equal interest and importance, are in progress or are contemplated. These studies in many instances deal with data hitherto untabulated. They possess a sociological value hardly less than that which attaches to the main census results. Their presentation places the census of the United States in the first place among the censuses of the world; for no other country has as yet been able to carry its interpretative analysis as far as this Bureau is now doing. This achievement possesses special significance when the practice in previous census work is recalled. It long has been the custom in the United States to secure census information considered essential by all civilized nations, and in addition to obtain on the schedules material not included in foreign census inquiry, yet heretofore the interpretation of basic material has been inadequate and no analysis whatever of most of the remaining information has been attempted, although the cost of obtaining it was often very large.

PREPARATION FOR THIRTEENTH CENSUS.

This work is the most effective preparation for the Thirteenth Census. It lays bare the errors and sources of error in the last enumeration, and affords every facility for guarding against their recurrence. In order that the best possible utilization of the opportunity may be made, your predecessor appointed a special advisory commission on the recommendation of the Director of the Census, whose duty it will be to make a thorough study of all the conditions surrounding census

work in this and other countries, and to prepare a report for the guidance of Congress in enacting legislation for the Thirteenth Census. This committee, with which the Director of the Census will act, consists of Hon. Carroll D. Wright, of the Bureau of Labor; Prof. Walter F. Willcox, of Cornell University; Dr. Henry Gannett, of the United States Geological Survey; Prof. Davis R. Dewey, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Mr. John Hyde, of the Department of Agriculture-all of them trained students of the theory and technique of modern statistics and interested in raising the statistical work of the United States to the highest standard. This commission will also advise with the Director of the Census as to the current work of the Bureau, in order to aid him in the effort to bring that work to the highest standard of modern scientific statistical inquiry. It plans to meet at stated intervals, and to obtain suggestions and criticisms from students in all lines of statistical investigation.

COMPILATION OF THE PHILIPPINE CENSUS.

The practical usefulness of the Bureau of the Census as a part of the permanent organization of the Government is shown again by the character of the work of the Bureau, in addition to that specifically assigned to it by law. Most important has been the compilation and publication of the census of the Philippine Islands, assigned to the Bureau by the proclamation of the President, dated September 30, 1902, in accordance with the provisions of section 6 of the act of Congress approved July 1, 1902, entitled "An act temporarily to provide for the administration of the affairs of civil government in the Philippine Islands," and in compliance with the request of the Philippine Commission. The schedules of the Philippine census were received in this Office on September 25, 1903; and the complete tables for population, agriculture, manufactures, and vital statistics, and much other data, have been placed in the hands of the director of the Philippine census at intervals during the first six months of the year, the last of the tables being transmitted on October 19, 1904. The work of compiling the population statistics was under the supervision of Mr. William C. Hunt, chief statistician for population.

The final results of the Philippine census will be printed in four octavo volumes, of approximately 700 pages each. These volumes are now passing through the Government Printing Office, under the supervision of the technical expert of this Bureau, and their publication may be looked for prior to March 1, next.

In the compilation of the Philippine census, the regular clerical force of the Census Bureau was utilized exclusively, except for a period of three months, during which 150 temporary clerks were employed in order to expedite the punching of the cards.

STATISTICS OF THE EXECUTIVE CIVIL SERVICE.

By order of your predecessor, dated October 8, 1903, the Bureau of the Census has compiled the statistics of the executive civil service of the United States, and the results have recently appeared as Census Bulletin 12. These statistics were collected, pursuant to the Executive order of March 31, 1903, in connection with the preparation of

the biennial Official Register by the Secretary of the Interior, and they have been presented in accordance with a scheme formulated by the Civil Service Commission. They show the sex, nativity, age, character of appointment, State from which appointed, length of service, salary, character of work, and place and office where employed of the 150,383 employees of the Federal Government. The data presented are important and interesting. Accurate information regarding the personnel of the executive civil service can be secured only by compilations of this character, and there will undoubtedly be a demand for it at stated intervals. The Official Register is published biennially; and as much of the information collected for it can be utilized for statistical purposes, the Bureau of the Census should be authorized to compile a similar bulletin at intervals of two, four, or six years. The Census is the only Bureau of the Government equipped to make this compilation; and it is respect fully suggested that it will tend to economy and unity of work if the compilation of the Official Register should at the same time, and by amendment of the act of Congress approved January 12, 1895, be transferred from the Department of the Interior to the Bureau of the Census, in order that work so intimately related may be simultaneously carried on.

STATISTICS OF IMMIGRATION COMPILED IN COOPERATION WITH BUREAU OF

IMMIGRATION.

By a similar order of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor the statistics of immigration for the year 1903-4 have been compiled by the Bureau of the Census in cooperation with the Bureau of Immigration. These statistics will hereafter be compiled in harmony with the decennial census tables, showing the birthplace of the foreign-born population. Thus an obvious statistical unification has been brought about. In the compilation of the immigration statistics the punched card has been used, and much information from the alien manifests. hitherto untabulated, is thus brought within reach.

In this connection I desire to repeat my recommendation of last year, in which the Commissioner-General of Immigration has joined, that Congress be urged to enact legislation by which the alien emigration as well as immigration can be statistically measured. There can be no accurate record of the changes effected in the character of our population by immigration, without the corresponding details of emigration. The number of these returning immigrants is large, reaching many thousands a year; and until it is officially ascertained we can not hope to bring the statistics of immigration into conformity with census statistics of the foreign born.

RATES OF WAGES COMPUTED FOR THE SPECIAL REPORT OF THE BUREAU OF LABOR.

Also, by direction of the Secretary, a portion of the clerical force of the Bureau of the Census was employed for six weeks in computing rates of wages for a special report of the Bureau of Labor; the results demonstrated the great advantage, from the point of view of celerity in compiling and promulgating official statistics, which comes from the existence of a large central office, officered by trained experts, to which statistical work, whatever its technical character,

may be transferred, by proper executive order, for quick handling. About one-quarter of the clerical force of the Bureau has been continuously occupied upon such work during the past year-work supplemental to that contemplated by the census act. In the interest of efficiency, expedition, and economy, it seems desirable that additional transfers shall be made in the future as occasion arises; and for such transfers, or for the preparation of statistical reports on any subject, there is ample authority under the provisions of the act establishing the Department of Commerce and Labor.

A GENERAL INFORMATION OFFICE.

The permanent Census Bureau is coming to be regarded as the general information office of the Government. The daily correspondence, covering inquiries on every variety of topic, is large, and steadily increasing. The rule of the Bureau is to supply the desired information, whenever possible, whether or not it relates to the specific work of the Census.

THE LIBRARY.

The Bureau is constantly enlarging its facilities for supplying such information. The Census library now contains 10,362 bound volumes and 15,639 unbound pamphlets; and the additions have come almost entirely without cost to the Government. The Bureau has established a system by which it exchanges its own publications for the trade and technical periodicals of this and foreign countries, and with practically all the governments-national, state, and local— both foreign and domestic, which publish reports statistical in character. The Census is thus rapidly accumulating one of the most complete current statistical and reference libraries in the country.

THE GEOGRAPHER'S DIVISION.

The geographer's division of this Bureau, under the supervision of Mr. Charles S. Sloan, has greatly enlarged its collection of maps, which now includes topographical maps of every State and Territory, and of nearly every city in the United States. These maps are being kept up to date by platting upon them each annexation and detachment of territory. The Bureau will thus be in possession, at the Thirteenth Census, of all the data required to lay out enumeration districts to the best advantage, the lack of this preliminary information at previous censuses having been the chief cause of confusion and delay.

THE CENSUS RECORDS.

The original schedules of the twelve decennial censuses of the United States from 1790 to 1900 are now in possession of the Bureau of the Census. These records were transferred from the Department of the Interior to the Census building, in June last, under the act of Congress approved January 12, 1903, providing for such transfer and authorizing the Director of the Census" upon the request of a governor of any State or Territory, or the chief officer of any municipal government, to furnish such governor or municipal officer with copies of as

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