46 Hattie Plum Williams 
The question of the comparative number of divorces among the 
foreign-born and the native-born is interesting and important; 
but the nativity of the client is never recorded, and unless one 
knows the family names of foreign groups, there is no possible 
way of distinguishing. 
No apology is made for this lengthy and somewhat tedious 
digression from the point at issue. Satisfactory studies of local, 
state, or national social conditions can never be forthcoming so 
long as our records are so carelessly and inadequately kept. 
“ Sound vital statistics are the necessary basis of modern sanita- 
tion and register clearly the steps in the campaign against pre- 
ventable diseases, often pointing the way to the next step. They 
furnish a definite measure of the value of sanitary improve- 
ments.’ Moreover, it is a fact that the state’s confidence is 
continually imposed upon, as any cursory examination of the 
records will show. Birth statistics are the most unreliable of 
all the unreliable vital statistics we have; yet the state fixes a legal 
age for school attendance, child labor, marriage, militia duty, 
and the suffrage and provides no way for unerringly establishing 
it. For example, a marriage certificate dated July 14, 1911, gave 
a bride’s age as 18. A death certificate for this same woman 
August 8, 1912, gave her age as 16 years 9 months and 18 days. 
According to the latter and probably correct data, her age at 
marriage was 15 years 8 months and 23 days, or 3 months and 7 
days below the age of parental consent in Nebraska. A young 
couple went from Lincoln to Council Bluffs and the marriage 
license issued to them gave the groom’s age as 21. A year later 
he sued for divorce on the ground of fraud in forcing him to 
marry, and gave his age at that time as 20 years. A young man 
married in December, 1914, gave his age as 21, although in April 
of that year the census recorded him as 18. Misrepresentation by 
those desiring citizenship papers was not uncommon before the 
new naturalization law of 1906, especially in states which per- 
mitted alien suffrage; for where five years’ residence was not re- 
18 Chaddock, “Sources of Information upon the Public Health Move- 
ment,” in Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 
XXXVII, number 2, The Public Health Movement, 305. 
172 
