198 



National Resources Committee 



2. The Bureau of the Census, as the only general-purpose 

 statistical agency in the Federal Government, has no responsi- 

 bility for administering laws, other than laws to facilitate the 

 collection of information. 



As will be indicated, certain problems, more or less 

 unique to the Bureau, arise directly out of these two 

 characteristics which differentiate the Bureau from 

 other statistical agencies. In addition, there will be 

 found in the experience of the Bureau a variety of 

 problems which are doubtless common to most statis- 

 tical agencies in the Government. We shall now trace, 

 briefly, certain historical developments which led to the 

 Bureau of the Census' possessing the two unique as- 

 pects just mentioned and thereby engendered special 

 problems. 



How the Irregular Work Load 

 Developed and Its Consequences 



The Census from 1790 to 1880 



A cfiibus, in any country, necessitates the recruit- 

 ment of a huge temporary army of supervisors, enu- 

 merators, and clerks. In the words of Francis A. 

 Walker, Director in 1870 and 1880 : 



The labor of organizing and energizing a census is such as 

 no man can conceive who has not himself undertaken it, or, 

 at least, stood close by and watched the machine in full op- 

 eration. * * * Taking a census of the United States 

 * * * is like lighting a battle every day of the week and 

 every weejc for several months.* 



The "peacetime" activities and personnel of the Bu- 

 reau of t)ie Census are necessarily influenced by the 

 periodic requirement of going on a "wartime" footing. 



As a permanent statistical agency, the Bureau dates 

 only from 1902. Prior to that time, a temporary or- 

 ganization was recruited every 10 years and then dis- 

 banded, except, perhaps, for a clerk who kept custody 

 of the records. 



The United States was the first modern country to 

 undertake a complete count of its population at reg- 

 ular intervals. The motivation was governmental, not 

 scientific. The census was required as a consequence 

 of the compromise in the Constitutional Convention, 

 whereby representation in the lower House of Congress 

 was allocated according to population. The First 

 Census, in 1790, did little more than count persons as 

 provided in the Constitution. Gradually, the scope 

 was broadened. In 1840 the census was extended to in- 

 clude statistics on mining, agriculture, commerce, 

 manufactures, and schools, and each decade thereafter 

 saw the inquiry loaded with new items. Yet, para- 

 doxically, the increasing scope of the census, unparal- 

 leled anywhere in the world, was a result of a doubt 

 whether the Federal Government had a right to col- 



' Francis A. Walker, Discussions in Economics and Statistics, edited 

 by Davis E. Dewey (New York, Henry Holt & Co., 1809), II, 101. 



lect such statistics. The need of such statistics was 

 recognized and it was also recognized that some of the 

 data, such a? those relating to mortality, to taxation, 

 and to agriculture needed to be collected more fre- 

 quently than once in 10 years, and that the ponderous 

 temporary census machinery was not well suited for col- 

 lecting all such data. Yet strict constructionists could 

 see no constitutional mandate for this purpose and 

 would consent only to smuggling in, as it were, the data 

 under cover of an enumeration for the ostensible pur- 

 pose of reapportioning Representatives in Congress. 



"That large party," wrote Francis A. Walker, "which advo- 

 cates a strict and jealous construction of the constitution would 

 certainly oppose any independent legislation by the National 

 Congress for providing a registration of births, marriages, and 

 deaths, or for obtaining social and industrial statistics, whether 

 for the satisfaction of the publicist or for the guidance of the 

 legislature. Even though the Supreme Court should decide 

 such legislation to be within the grant of powers to the Gen- 

 eral Government, the distrust and opposition, on constitu- 

 tional grounds, of so large a portion of the people, could but 

 go far to defeat the object sought." ' 



It may indeed be wondered wliy consent would bo 

 forthcoming from Congress to smuggle in so much 

 social and economic data even at the decennial period. 

 Possibly one reason may be found in the fact that each 

 decennial census became an occasion for political 

 patronage. Up to 1880, tlie enumeration was in charge 

 of United States marshals, whose appointments wers 

 mainly senatorial perquisites and who swore in, in 

 turn, an army of "assistant marshals" as the actual 

 enumerators. The Commissioner of the Census, a 

 temporary official, had no control over appointments. 

 In 1869 Francis A. Walker sought, with the aid of 

 Congressman James A. Garfield, new legislation which 

 would remove the selection of supervisors and enu- 

 merators from politics and give the power to the Di- 

 rector of the Census. The House passed such a bill, 

 but it was killed in the Senate. In consequence, the 

 census of 1870 became a considerable scandal. Walker, 

 who directed the census, afterward wrote: 



Good, actually good appointments were not even to be ex- 

 pected as a general thing. The whole battle against the Gar- 

 field bill had been fought on the question of patronage. » * » 

 (The Marshals) wanted to use these thousands of officers as a 

 means of strengthening their hands in their respective dis- 

 tricts, to fight the Ku Klux and the illicit distillers, to build 

 up the Republican party and consolidate the Negro vote. And, 

 in general, this was precisely the use to which those officers 

 were put. Some marshals * * * found it compatible with 

 party Interests to appoint intelligent enumerators. ♦ • • 

 In other districts • • • the power of appointment was 

 exei'cised to the inexpressible injury of the census service. 

 Negroes who could not write or read were selected for this 

 difficult, delicate, and responsible duty. Accompanied, perhaps, 

 by some poor white man, with such clerical accomplishments 

 as might be expected, these officers of the law pushed their way 



* Encpclopudia Britannica, 9tb edition. 



