The llth census, that of 1890, was in gen eral taken by the same methods as the 10th. Ten chiefs of division were appointed, 175 su pervisors and 47,975 enumerators. The super intendent was Robert P. Porter. The most important additions were: (1) All surviving soldiers, sailors and marines of the Civil War, and their widows. (2) Classification of col ored persons according to amount of white blood, from full-blooded neg.roes up to octo roons. (3) Indebtedness of private corpora tions and individuals. (4) All Indians in tribes, with Indian and English names of each, age, occupation, and whether paying taxes or not. (5) Census of Alaska. (6) Unincorporated express companies. An attempt was made to collect statistics of chronic disease; but the in quiries were too delicate to entrust to local resi dents to expect people to communicate to such, and the statistics gathered were of no value, besides exciting much public Special agents were employed for 1,042 manufacturing centres, in place of 279 in 1880. Special atten tion was paid to nativity, to fecundity of native and foreign-born mothers, the expectation of life of children of native and foreign-born parents, naturalization and ability to read and speak English. Prior schedules were exten sively used. Electric tabulation was employed, not alone greatly increasing both speed and accuracy, but enabling various statistical com pilations to be made which were otherwise impracticable. It filled 25 volumes, and cost $11,547,127.13.
For the 12th census, that of 1900, prepara tions had been mooted before the 10th was well under way; and the question of a permanent census bureau, strongly urged over half a cen tury since by the able statistician De Bow, was brought up, and its merits set forth in a valu able and exhaustive report by Superintendent Porter. On 1 July 1902 the Bureau of Census became a permanent office in the Department of the Interior. A year later it was transferred to the newly-created Department of Commerce and Labor, and since 4 March 1913 it has been under the Department of Commerce. The su perintendent of the census is entitled the di rector of the census. The President, who appoints him, must also appoint an assistant director, who must be an expert statistician; and the director is to appoint five known and tried statisticians as chiefs of divisions, a geog rapher, a chief clerk and a disbursing clerk. The first director under this bill was William R. Merriam; assistant director, Frederick H. Wines; chiefs of divisions, William C. Hunt, population; William A. King, vital statistics; S. N. D. North, manufactures; Le Grand Powers, agriculture; Walter F. Wilcox, meth ods and results; geographer, Henry Gannett. The law creating this bureau, however, greatly limited its scope. The inquiries were restricted to the four heads of population, mortality, agri culture and manufactures. For the 13th cen sus, E. Dana Durand, of California, was ap pointed director 26 May 1909, to succeed S. N. D. North, resigned. Work began 15 April 1910, with a staff of 70,000 enumerators and 330 supervisors. More than 200,000 per sons took the examinations for the position of enumerators. These examinations were local and those recommended were again examined in Washington. Great improvements had been made in tabulating machinery, 300 of which turned out work faster and cheaper than in 1900. An elaborate card system was employed. A card was prepared for each person enumer ated. These were run through the machines and the facts readily compiled in various corn - binations. Congress appropriated $12,000,000
for expenses of the census, to which an addi tional appropriation of $2,500,000 had to be added.
The methods of presenting the results of the 13th census were a new and, in some re spects, a radical departure from former prac tice. The most important change was in the Abstract. Formerly the Abstract had been included in a small octavo volume, issued after the publication of the complete reports, and contained no text discussions and very few percentages, averages or comparative statistics. The Abstract for the 13th census is a quarto volume of 569 pages, presenting the résumé of the principal statistics, extensive text discus.. sions in terms familiar to all, analysis of data and many diagrams and maps, thus visualizing the main facts concretely. And instead of being issued after the complete reports it was pub lished first, thus creating a wider popular in terest in the results than had ever been aroused before. The enumerators employed on the 13th census, for population and agriculture, num bered 70,286, more than the combined popula tions of New York and Philadelphia in 1790; an organization not far inferior to the regular army in numbers. For the gathering of statis tics on manufacturing, mines and quarries an other 1,087 special agents were employed. At one time the clerks and officials employed in the Washington office in compiling and tabu lating the schedules numbered 3,738.
Aside from the talcing of the main census, the Bureau of Census carries on many other inquiries, instituting investigations which re quire periods of from seven or eight years to two weeks. Chief of these are the decennial census of wealth, debt and taxation, showing the total assessed valuation of property subject to taxation; the census of re ligious bodies; the census of dependent, de fective and delinquent classes, covering the inmates of benevolent institutions, insane asy lums, penal institutions, etc.; and the annual collection of mortality statistics, to which it is expected soon to add the gathering of vital statistics. By the act of 1916 the director has an Office of 569 employees, including a chief clerk, four chief statisticians, a geographer, eight chiefs of division, the rest being special agents and clerks.
State A number of States have constitutional requirements that a State census shall be taken once in 5 or in 10 years, qr between two national censuses; but only a few pay any attention to the matter or attain results of any value. Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York and Michigan thus far are the only States which have done good work in this line. The Massachusetts censuses from 1855 on, and the Michigan of 1874 and 1884, are notably good. On 3 •March 1879 an act of Congress provided that any State which will take an inter decennial census in all respects equal to that of the United States, and file a copy with the Secretary of the Interior, shall receive from the national government 50 per cent of the amount paid to supervisors and enumerators, plus 50 per cent of the gain per cent in population between the two last preceding national cen suses. Even this lure, however, has not thus far increased the interest of the States in their statistics. Consult (Report of the Director of the Census> (in Report of Department of Com merce, 1915); (Story of the Census: 1790 1915,) issued by the Bureau of the Census.