A Social Study of the Russian German 43 
smaller units, of the facts which go to make up what is aptly 
called “ vital statistics.”’?* 
Nebraska has proceeded with the ordinary leisure of the un- 
concerned in securing the registration of such data. There has 
not been lack of law, but lack of public sentiment behind the 
law to secure its enforcement. Marriage was naturally the first 
event to require registration and these records were not so com- 
pletely ignored; for every one recognized the state’s jurisdiction 
and control over this institution, the conduct of which was care- 
fully detailed in the statutes. But not so with births and deaths. 
The congregate growth of the population through immigration was 
jealously guarded and widely advertised, but its genetic increase 
and its decrease passed unnoticed. 
A Nebraska law of February 12, 1865, provided that the county 
commissioners require the assessors to make a full and complete » 
return annually of all births and deaths of the preceding year.* 
2Tn the United States Census of 1900 the only states in which the regis- 
tration record was accepted as accurate were Massachusetts, Connecticut, 
Rhode Island, New Hampshire, with certain counties and cities of New 
York and New Jersey. Bailey, Modern Social Conditions, 8. In 1910 the 
registration area included the New England States, Pennsylvania, and 
Michigan and the cities of New York and Washington, D. C. “ Birth 
Registration, an Aid in Protecting the Lives and Rights of Children,” 
United States Department of Labor, Children’s Bureau, Monograph, num- 
ber 1, 16. 
3“ While the United States led the world with respect to the census of 
population, we still rank with the most unprogressive and semi-civilized 
countries as concerns the registration of births and deaths.” C. L. Wilbur, 
“The Census and the Public Health Movement,” in Annals of the Ameni- 
can Academy of Political and Social Science, XXXVII, number 2, 45. 
4Complete Session Laws of Nebraska, I, 430-432. The statute made 
elaborate provision for the return of these records. Upon blanks pro- 
vided them the assessors were to make tables showing the age periods 
of the population, the sex of those born, with the number of plural and 
still births, and the cause of death, tabulated by months and by age, with 
sex in each case. The nativity of each person was also to be recorded, 
as were all cases of idiocy and insanity. The annual returns were to be 
made to the county clerk on the third Monday of April. Although this 
would not now be considered a model law because it did not provide con- 
tinuous and prompt registration of births and deaths, and because it did 
not throw the responsibility upon the householder or his physician, yet its 
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