Relation of the Federal Government to Research 



217 



operations putting a premium on speed or adaptability. 

 It is true tliat a great fund of valuable experience 

 is conserved in the clerical staff of the Bureau, but 

 at a cost to productivity, and it would not be surpris- 

 ing if necessary innovations in some of the divisions 

 have been difficult, occasionally meeting outright resist- 

 ance from section chiefs and other clerks. 



Temporary Employees 



The permanent force of the Bureau, as has been 

 reported earlier, is a small headquarters staff which 

 serves as the nucleus of temporary armies numbering 

 over 125,000 persons at the time of the decennial census 

 of population and agriculture and over 25,000 persons 

 at the time of the mid-decennial census of agriculture. 

 In addition to these great periodic expansions, there 

 are other fluctuations of work-load necessitating the 

 employment of temporary workers. The number of 

 temporary employees has not fallen below 100 within 

 the past decade. In the present administration, the 

 Bureau has sponsored important Works Progress Ad- 

 ministration projects employing several thousand peo- 

 ple. Therefore, the figures showing the number of 

 temporary employees directly on the Census pay roll 

 necessarily underestimates the number actually respon- 

 sible to the direction of the Bureau. The annual reports 

 of the Bureau show 197 temporary employees directly 

 on the pay roll as of June 30, 1934; 1,993 as of June 

 30, 1935; 806 as of June 30, 1936: 571 as of June 30, 

 1937 ; and 375 as of June 30, 1938. The turnover is such 

 that the actual number of different individuals on the 

 temporary pay roll over a year's period is much larger. 



It has already been shown, in part I of this Section, 

 how the greatly fluctuating work has created difficult 

 problems for the Bureau. In the past, a disprojior- 

 tionate share of the Director's time which might other- 

 wise have gone to improving the scientific quality of 

 the Bureau's work, has been devoted to negotiations 

 with politicians. Wliy it has not been possible entirely 

 to avoid the "spoils system," at least as far as field 

 work is concerned, was rather fully discussed in part I. 



At each census, for several decades, test schedules 

 have been used to aid in weeding out the least efficient 

 enumerators in advance and to instruct the remainder. 

 Brief instruction, in one form or another, has been 

 given to the supei'visors. Just before the 1930 census, 

 the then director, Mr. W. M. Steuart, accompanied by- 

 Mr. Ellsworth, who is now chief of the Field Divi- 

 sion, made a tour of the United States, lecturing to the 

 politically chosen supervisors and instructing them on 

 the new and highly responsible duties which they were 

 to assume. A written examination for enumerators 

 was devised to aid the supervisors in culling out the 

 less literate candidates. This examination was ingen- 



122999—39 15 



iously designed, but it was not always administered by 

 (lie supervisors under circumstances favorable to the 

 best selection. 



One of the most important steps in the history of 

 the census for the improvement of tlie field work was 

 taken in 1934 at the initiative of the present Director 

 of the Census, Mr. Austin, with the assistance of Dr. 

 Rice, Mr. Ellsworth, and the chief of the Agriculture 

 Division, Mr. Z. R. Pettet. This was the decision to 

 appoint and train intensively 40 area supervisors, who 

 would have immediate direction of the 227 district 

 suiaervisors and 26,000 enumerators needed for the cen- 

 sus of agriculture. About 120 candidates for the posi- 

 tion of area supervisor were brought to AVashington 

 and given a month's intensive school of instruction, on 

 the schedule, on field work, and on accounting. After a 

 battery of written examinations and oral interviews 

 the successful candidates were chosen and sent into the 

 field. The area supervisors then conducted brief schools 

 of instruction for the district supervisors under their 

 direction.^" 



While district supervisors and enumerators were po- 

 litical appointees, it is generally believed that their 

 efficiency was greater as a result of the training and 

 method of selection of the area supervisors. Given a 

 certain educational minimum, the qualities required in 

 an enumerator are standing in the community, the kind 

 of resourcefulness which characterizes a successful 

 salesman, honesty, and industry, and these are^ difficult 

 qualities to determine from a civil-service examination. 

 With some exceptions, it is said, Members of Congress 

 and local politicians have cooperated conscientiously in 

 trying to reconunend qualified persons. The writer's 

 personal experience in the 1930 census with a situation 

 in Cliicago, where the local political cooperation was 

 the opposite from conscientious, is said to be exceptional. 



Most of the tempoi'ary employees in the Washing- 

 ton office are now taken from civil service rolls. This 

 policy dates from Theodore Roosevelt's veto of the bill 

 for the 1910 census, on the ground that "it is of vital 

 consequence that we should not once again permit the 

 usefulness of this great decennial undertaking on be- 

 half of the whole people to be turned into an engine 

 to further the self-interest of the small section of the 

 people which makes a jn'ofession of politics." ^' The 

 very large turn-over in temporary employees on the 

 rolls, even in intercensal employees, still creates prob- 

 lems, though a conscientious effort is made to protect 

 the quality of the service through the giving of an 

 efficiency rating to each employee. 



""A similar procedure was followed in training area supervisors for 

 the 1935 census of distribution, which was taken largely with Works 

 Progress Administration funds. 



" Quoted in part I of this Section. 



