Chapter 36

THE THIRTEENTH CENSUS, 1910

[1910-1911]

After many years of urging on the part of statisticians and public men, Congress, in 1902, passed a bill which was signed by the President providing for a permanent census bureau connected with the Department of Commerce and Labor. This bureau, as shown in the taking of the thirteenth census, serves to promote both efficiency and economy in the collection of statistics associated with the census work. Heretofore the Director of the Census had enormous patronage at his disposal which he farmed out among congressmen and other political leaders.

E. Dana Durand, a trained statistician of wide experience, was appointed Director of the Census. He announced that so far as possible the 65,000 enumerators would be selected under civil service rules and for supervisors of the census he selected men on the basis of their special fitness for the work. President Taft was in complete agreement with this programme and insisted that local enumerators were to be appointed for the purpose of getting the work properly done and not to assist any would-be dispensers of local patronage.

On April 15 the enumerators began their work of gathering statistics. The usual inquiries were made on population, mortality, agriculture, manufactures, etc. Prior to April 15, an advance schedule was sent to practically every farmer in the country, and he was asked to fill it out before the coming of the enumerator. Similarly, in the cities, the enumerators distributed advance population schedules which the head of the family was requested to fill out before the official visit of the enumerator. In taking the thirteenth census, greater attention was given than ever before to perfecting the schedules and weighing each question with regard to its precise significance and scientific value. To that end a group of trained investigators, familiar with the various topics which the census would cover, spent several months on a preliminary study of the character of these questions. In addition to the nationality of each person as determined by the mother tongue of the foreign-born inhabitants, additional inquiries were made relative to the industry in which each person was employed and whether the person was out of work on April 15.

The rapid growth of our industrial and manufacturing interests during the past quarter of a century is shown by the fact that 22 per cent of the people of the country are massed in cities of 100,000 inhabitants and over. In the three largest cities alone--New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia--there are almost one-tenth the population of the whole country. There were five cities with populations between 500,000 and 1,000,000; eleven between 250,000 and 500,000; 31 between 100,000 and 250,000; 59 between 50,000 and 100,000; 120 between 25,000 and 50,000; 374 between 10,000 and 20,000; 629 between 5,000 and 10,000, and 1,173 between 2,500 and 5,000.

The thirteenth census revealed but slight change in the location of the centre of population. In computing its position, no account of the population of Alaska and of our insular possessions was taken into consideration. It had moved west about 39 miles and northward seven-tenths of a mile and was located at Bloomington in southern Indiana. The westward movement from 1900 to 1910 was nearly three times as great as from 1890 to 1900, but was less than that for any decade between 1840 and 1890. This advance of the centre of population toward the West was due to the increase in the population of the Pacific Coast States. The large increase in the population of New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and other States north of the thirty-ninth parallel served as a balance to the increase in Texas, Oklahoma, and southern California.

During the past fifteen years there has been a steady migration from the rural portions of the United States to the western provinces of Canada, not less than 650,000 immigrants having crossed the border within that period. Most of them have become naturalized Canadians. It has been estimated that these immigrants took with them, on an average, $1,000.

According to the congressional reapportionment act following the twelfth census, there were to be 386 members in the House of Representatives or one representative to 194,182 of the population. The House of Representatives actually contained 391 members after the admission of Oklahoma. By the census of 1910, several States were entitled to additional members, but in order that no State should be reduced in the number of its representatives, the House of Representatives passed a bill providing for an increase of 42 members. The new ratio of representation would then be one representative to 211,877 inhabitants. Effort was made to prevent this increase, for it was argued that the House had already become unwieldy, requiring great effort on the part of members to make themselves heard. The bill failed to pass the Senate at the regular session, but subsequently, at the special session, it became a law. Party lines were closely drawn in the Senate, for, on account of this increase, the Republicans would probably gain 32 new congressmen and the Democrats only 10. By this reapportionment the northeastern part of the country and the extreme western and southwestern portions gained in their representation. New York gained six representatives; Pennsylvania, four; California and Oklahoma, three each; Illinois, Massachusetts, Washington, and Texas each gained two, and sixteen other States each gained one.

The number of farms, according to the thirteenth census, were 6,340,357 or an increase of about 10 per cent over the number reported in 1900. There was an increase of 63,000,000 acres devoted to farming during the decade. About 60 per cent of the farms of the country were operated by their owners and two-thirds of these farms were free from mortgages. Two million three hundred and forty-nine thousand two hundred and fifty-four farms were worked by tenants and 57,398 were in charge of managers. The tenant system was shown to be far more common in the South than at the North or West. In the south central group of States, which includes a large part of the cotton area, the tenants numbered 1,024,265 and the owners 949,036. In the south Atlantic States there were 591,478 owners and 118,678 tenants; in north Central States, 1,563,386 owners and 644,493 tenants, and in the Western States, 309,057 owners and 52,164 tenants.

Our foreign commerce for the year 1910 amounted in the aggregate to about $3,500,000,000, or over $1,250,000,000 more than in 1900. Our exports were valued at $2,000,000,000.