on that very issue and has been upheld by the Supreme Court many times in the past. I do not think we are dealing strictly with a matter of pure constitutional law in that sense.

am concerned as are you, and as you know have the same interest you do in having the whole subject aired. That is our purpose, I have an open mind. If I ask questions which seem to indicate that I am opposed to everything you are saying, that is not the case. I share your concern, but I also feel that the Census Bureau acquires a great deal of useful and needed information, and I do have some serious reservations about whether a voluntary census would elicit the information we need to make intelligent plans for the future.

Mr. BETTS. I just might say I am not questioning whether it is useful. My question is based on these other matters I have mentioned. I would just repeat too that I have an open mind also. As I have said, I have used this bill simply as a vehicle for this committee to explore the subject. I have presented my statement and the comment of other people in the hope they might be helpful to the committee.

Mr. GREEN. In that respect I agree completely with my colleague from California, Mr. Waldie, that the whole subject needs to be aired which, as you know, is what we are trying to do.

Mr. GREEN. Mr. Scott ?

Mr. Scorr. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would add my commendation to my colleague for looking into this matter as fully as he did. Certainly I share his concern with regard to the right of privacy and the need for simplification of the questionnaires. I am wondering if, from your research, Mr. Betts, you know how this form developed to such a large form and became so involved, Did you run across anything to indicate how it got so big?

Mr. BETTS. I have the impression, really based on an assumption, that over the years the pressures of interested groups built up a sort of head of steam back of the Census Bureau to go out and get these answers. I assume it sort of grew like Topsy. When it started, the original purpose was simply to secure information on the population for congressional districting and I assume over the years it has grown to the 120 questions because of pressures of people who want this

information.

Mr. SCOTT. While I share your concern with regard to the invasion of privacy and the size of the questionnaire, my approach would be entirely different on compulsory answers to a lesser number of questions. It seems to me we would have somewhat of a chaotic condition if some people answered the questions and others did not answer purely on a voluntary basis. I have doubts if we would get accurate statistics and that it could be used for statistical purposes if it is sort of haphazard and people answer if they want to, with no compulsion.

I wonder what your thoughts are on this.

Mr. BETTS. I want to reiterate that I think we would have more accurate statements if it is voluntary than if it is compulsory. That is just a matter of psychology. I think the average person would feel more free to give a truthful statement if it were voluntary than if he were compelled to.

Mr. SCOTT. If the word were circulated throughout the country, and I assume it would be, that the census taker would probably be required to say you do not have to answer these questions but we are asking

them and you are helping your Government by answering them, do you think the great bulk of the people under those circumstances would answer the questions as to how much money they make, the source of their money, and who slept in this house on a certain day, and that sort of thing?

Mr. BETTS. Yes, sir.

Mr. Scorr. You think they would answer it on a voluntary basis? Mr. BETTS. Yes, sir. And the reason, as I said, is purely a psychological thing. If you go out and say you have to answer them or you are going to have to go to jail if you refuse-I just think, and I have covered this in my statement, if it is on a voluntary basis the average American is willing to cooperate. I do not think it is a question of the interest the average American has in his Government, but he resents being told he is going to have to go to jail or be fined if he does not do it. Mr. Scort. Mr. Chairman, I might say I do not share the witness' view in this respect.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GREEN. Mr. Olsen?

Mr. OLSEN. I would like to state that I do not share the witness' view, either. As a matter of fact, I think the Bureau of the Census has had a far greater experience than any of us in the question of how you get people to answer, what is important to be answered, and, whether or not it is an invasion of privacy. In no instance has anyone been able to demonstrate the Bureau of the Census has invaded anyone's privacy. Every answer that has ever been made to the Bureau of the Census has been confidential and no one has ever been exposed. That is the reason the Bureau has always been sustained by the Supreme Court in the inquiries it has made.

Mr. GREEN. Mr. McClure?

Mr. McCLURE. I just want to join with my colleagues in expressing my personal appreciation to you, Mr. Betts, for the work you have done in bringing to the committee the information you have brought together to present to us. I certainly want to reserve any opinions I may have as to the scope of the census until we have heard some of the testimony yet to be heard.

Certainly I think you have made a very helpful contribution to the subcommittee and I do thank you.

Mr. BETTS. Thank you.

Mr. GREEN. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. White.

Mr. WHITE. From what I have looked at I agree with the others that you have done a great amount of preparation. I would like to ask you on the questions you place in the compulsory area, would you not think that citizenship would be pretty important to know. Would you not include that in your list that they should answer?

Mr. BETTS. You have raised a good question. Maybe it should be. Mr. WHITE. You have included race or color, but it would seem to me citizenship would be even more important, or even national origin. In looking through the World Almanac put out by the New York Times, it is most interesting to look at the various sections of the country to determine the categories of national origin that may have settled in that particular part of the country.

Mr. BETTS. I am inclined to agree you possibly have a point there. As I said before, I am willing to have those questions, the seven I have

listed there, reviewed and added to or reduced if the committee would think it would be proper. I am not absolutely sure. I simply picked them out because I think at the time they appeared to be the most important ones that had to do with population.

Mr. WHITE. I am going to make a suggestion and see what you think about it, and then I will have a comment to make.

It seems to me these gentlemen who have been worried about the strictly voluntary census have a point and they are talking about human nature, which would be that many of the recipients might not answer. I wonder what you think about this kind of compromise, to provide penalties for failure to answer the first part that is presented by the census taker, and to remove the penalties for the latter part, but not to specify on the census that the second part shall be voluntary. In that way you are not penalizing them if they do not answer. You just say, "Answer these, " and they have to answer certain ones under penalty and on the others they do not have the penalty.

Mr. BETTS. My quick comment would be that they might think they were all compulsory and would have the same resentment to all of them as they do now. The fact that you are holding back from them information that some of them are voluntary and some of them are compulsory, I am not sure right now whether it would work. I would want to think about it.

Mr. WHITE. Here is my comment. In listening to this hearing, I am compelled to say that it seems to me in this country that government by the people is a two-way street, that there are certain obligations of the people toward their government.

For instance, every day-more and more-our citizens are asking the Government to carry projects and programs that have been carried by the States before, but the Federal Government cannot do these things unless they have the information necessary to cope with the problems they take over from the States. That is my number one point.

My number two point: with draft card burnings, disorders, and what seems to be evidence of a newer mode of thinking in this country, if you had a strictly voluntary census you are going to have many groups immediately starting campaigns to not cooperate with our Government, to not answer the census. This is one way these groups could protest against the Government. And you would have chaos, you would have no particular answer, no particular census by certain segments of our country, certain groups that would take this means, like they do the draft and other things, of showing their "intellectual superiority" to the Government by not participating in the functions of government.

Mr. BETTS. My comment is that I feel it would be just the opposite. If it is compulsory it does irritate and arouse them, if it is voluntary I do not think they would be too much concerned about it.

Mr. WHITE. Is not military service a compulsory feature of the responsibility of the people of the country toward the Government? Mr. BETTS. That is right.

Mr. WHITE. I think as civilians they have certain responsibilities, too, to pay their taxes, to conduct themselves in an orderly way, and also when the Government asks them for these bits of information I think they have some obligation to the country to provide the information so the country will have the reference with which to fulfill their role in government. Would you not agree with that?

Mr. BETTS. I think they have certain obligations, sure. I would not quarrel with that statement at all. My thesis is that you are going to have a better response if it is voluntary and I think the research I have done shows it, and I would be happy to have the gentleman look these

over.

Mr. WHITE. I agree with you that these questions should be restricted, those that are compulsory, to those on the social and economic level that can be of direct service to the Government in benfiting the people of this country. I think the questions that pry into personal relationships should not be included, even on a voluntary basis. I submit that if you do not have the census on a somewhat compulsory basis, you will never get your answers and will not have the statistics. Thank you.

Mr. GREEN. The gentleman from California.

Mr. WALDIE. My only comment on the compulsory versus the voluntary is that the assumption the questions the Government will ask are for the benefit of the people is not necessarily the assumption that has historically been correct.

In a totalitarian country the questions it would ask of its people might very well not be included in the best interests of the people. I think the people ought to have the opportunity to determine whether they consider the question they are inquiring into will be of benefit to the Government. If the questions being asked meet with such massive resistance that they are valueless without compulsion, it would appear to me it is a fairly good example that the question should not ever have been asked in the first place. If they have to compel the citizens of this country to respond to a census, either one or two things has occurred the citizens have lost confidence in this Government or the question the Government has asked has been incorrect. If the voluntary response is elicited, I think the answer can be found very readily and neither of those pitfalls would occur without a mandatory response under threat of penalties.

Mr. WHITE. I have one comment on that, Mr. Chairman.

We are here to sort of oversee these questions and we are the elected Representatives of the people. We stand for election every 2 years and if the people do not like the questions that we oversee, then they have their redress at the polls. We are suposed to represent the people and have the commonsense to filter these questions so that they do not offend the general public.

Mr. BETTS. I think that points up the reason I have introduced the bill. As Representatives of the people, I think Congress should have some say as to what the questions should be.

Mr. GREEN. I recognize your concern and yet you say that if we make the census voluntary we will probably greatly improve the response that we get from the people. Is that correct?

Mr. BETTS. I think so; yes, sir.

Mr. GREEN. But is it not true that under the mandatory system we now get about a 99-percent response? How under a voluntary system, could that appreciably be improved?

Mr. BETTS. I thought it was about 96 percent the last time.

Mr. GREEN. Yes, but that was due to the simple fact that we missed some people completely.

Mr. BETTS. I think we missed more.

Mr. GREEN. But because we could not find them. You are saying that even the people that would otherwise be missed will come forth for a voluntary census?

Mr. BETTS. Yes; not only that, but as I pointed out

Mr. GREEN. My point is, without quibbling over whether the response was 99 or 95 percent-certainly it was not lower than 95 and you said you thought it was 96

Mr. BETTS. That was 1960.

Mr. GREEN. It was obtained in a mandatory census?

Mr. BETTS. And when your questions were simpler.

Mr. GREEN. How do you compare the two census forms? How do the questions differ between the census of 1960 and the proposed questions for 1970?

Mr. BETTS. Of course there are many more anticipated at this time. Mr. GREEN. It is my understanding that that is not the case. There may be a few more but certainly there are not many more.

Mr. BETTS. Then I stand corrected on that. I am simply sayingMr. GREEN. My point is that the 1970 census is going to be essentially the same as the 1960 census. There may be some few additional questions but I think that even this is still under discussion. The point is that under a mandatory system, by your own admission, we get at least a 96-percent response. So in terms of eliciting a response through a certain system-just speaking now about response rates, not about whether or not the questions should be asked at all-we have been getting a pretty good response to the census questionnaires.

Mr. BETTS. I am not sure whether the responses the last time included answers to all of the questions.

Mr. GREEN. I am sure there must be some differential between the various questions but essentially you get a very, very high response rate when the census is taken on a mandatory basis. I can see arguing the point that we are not interested in the rate of response, I can understand saying that we do not need the information; I do not follow an argument which states that a voluntary system will produce a better response than the high-90-percent-response rates that have been

achieved.

Mr. BETTS. As I pointed out in my comments, I think you are going to have some problems with mailing these questionnaires too. That is part of the argument I made.

Mr. GREEN. There is no question but that you are going to have problems and that is why the Census Bureau is pretesting the procedure in Philadelphia.

Mr. BETTS. I think you are going to have less response by mail than by having enumerators.

Mr. GREEN. They are going to have both mail and enumerators.
Mr. BETTS. I mentioned that.

Mr. GREEN. The gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Thompson.

Mr. THOMPSON. I would like to also throw a few bouquets your way and congratulate you on bringing this to our attention in the detailed manner that you have. I think that perhaps rather than ask questions, I would rather make a statement. Any questions I might ask would be designed more or less to evoke a certain response.

It seems to me we have gone to extreme lengths in this country to protect the individual and to protect minorities in many instances. I