Relation of the Federal Government to Research 



225 



family tabulations. He is keenly alive to the needs 

 which the census of population will serve in the fu- 

 ture — particularly, with respect to studies of internal 

 migration, of the social and economic characteristics of 

 metropolitan communities, and of a variety of major 

 problems, of vital concern to the social security pro- 

 gram, involving statistics on employment, industry, 

 and occupation. Since the main work on the 1930 

 census ended, there have been 6 or 7 years in which this 

 Division might have been making plans, trying experi- 

 ments with sample studies, and testing the accuracy 

 of the 1930 data. Instead, the Bureau of the Census, 

 forced, as it has been, to retrench on expenditures, 

 could not put a single dollar into such work. Wliile 

 the staff dwindled year after year, through retirement, 

 resignation, or transfer to other divisions in the Bu- 

 reau, the Division has been busy with a variety of petty 

 but necessary routines. The staff has carried on mis- 

 cellaneous activities largely unconnected with the 

 census of population, such as getting out cun-ent re- 

 ports on judicial criminal statistics, on prisoners, on 

 the insane and the feeble-minded. There is also a 

 varying amount of special tabiilation for outside agen- 

 cies and individuals. In 1934 the function of making 

 population estimates was transferi-ed to the Division 

 of Popidation from the Geography Division. 



There will be many pressures in 1940 for new items 

 on the schedule. Some of these proposals might have 

 been anticipated and investigated by systematic re- 

 search. Amid all the local and State censuses, housing 

 surveys, and other extensive field canvasses made with 

 Civil Works Administration and Works Progress Ad- 

 ministration funds, there existed an unprecedented op- 

 portunity to try out experiments, not only on the sub- 

 ject matter but also on interpretations of definitions 

 and methods of collecting the data. Opportunities also 

 were passed by to analyze the original 1930 schedules 

 for the primary purpose of testing the accuracy of cer- 

 tain of the information.^'* The opportunity still exists 

 and only recently the Bureau was offered an oppor- 

 tunity to cooperate in a Works Pi-ogress Administi'ation 

 project for this purpose. But there is no personnel in 

 the Bureau free to provide experienced leadership. 



The loss is irreparable. The Bureau's failure to get 

 adequate appropriations for preparations for the next 

 fiscal year means that the Division of Population will 

 approach the 1940 census with the scantiest of prepara- 

 tion. With the announcement of the 1937 social science 

 analyst examinations the Bureau has hoped to bring 

 into the Division some able young Ph. D.'s. There is 

 only one understudy to tlie Chief Statistician today. 



'^ The punch cards could not be used for this purpose, because they 

 were destroyed, pursuant to custom, after the regular tabulations were 

 completed. Even if funds for research had been available, recourse 

 would have been necessary to the original schedules, 



But these young men will arrive too late to help \)GV- 

 form more than a fraction of the experimental research 

 on which the 1940 Census of Population depends for 

 its improvement. Nor are they likely to remain in the 

 Bureau long after the census unless a new program is 

 developed for intercensal investigations. 



The Research Divisiv.>n 



The Eesearch Division is still so new and so insuffi- 

 ciently staffed that it has not had much chance to make 

 an indeiiendent showing. Its most important work 

 has been that of stimulating critical self-analysis in the 

 other divisions. It had an important part in developing 

 the new methods of making intercensal estimates; it 

 has made some analyses of discrepancies in the age, sex, 

 and race distributions in connection with its work of 

 preparing life tables; it has given attention to the 

 problems of defining unemployment and making in- 

 dustrial classifications; and it has broken a new path 

 for the Bureau by experimenting with sampling tech- 

 niques. 



Mechanical Equipment Improved 



Although the research involved is of somewhat dif- 

 ferent order, the Bureau's record in the development of 

 better mechanical equipment for tabulating its data 

 and, recently, of applying new photographic processes, 

 is a notable one. The Bureau has built in its own me- 

 chanical laboratory new machinery wdiich will greatly 

 enlarge and speed up the facilities for tabulating the 

 1940 census. 



General Comment 



This illustrative account has not sought to cover all 

 divisions or to render a full accounting of the research 

 work in the Bureau directed to the improvement of 

 data. Perhaps the most significant development which 

 has taken place under the leadership of Mr. Austin is 

 not so much the volume of actual research as the 

 healthy growth of attitudes favoring it. Critics of 

 the Bureau who claim that the Census has never ad- 

 mitted shortcomiiags of its data are, of coui'se, grossly 

 unfair, as reference to the introductory pages of some 

 census rej^orts in the past years will show. The Bureau 

 has quite frequently admitted errors in its data — as 

 in the frank recognition in 1930 of the underenumera- 

 tion of Negroes in 1920 or as in the warning against 

 taking the reported number of centenarians at its face 

 value. But this frankness has been much more notice- 

 able in some divisions than in others. And it is much 

 more noticeable today than a few years ago. The Di- 

 vision of Vital Statistics., for example, no longer makes 

 a pretense that its reporting of births or infant deaths 

 is even 90 percent complete in all States, and is experi- 



