REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF COMMERCE.

37

The cost of each class of work during the fiscal years 1920 and 1921 is shown in the following statement:

The publication work of each Bureau of the Department for the past two fiscal years is summarized in the following table:

Total....

975 1,052 46,745 42,248 4,731,091 3,654, 644 425, 370.75 389, 568. 21

Figures relate to publications actually delivered to the Department during the year.

The Department continued to cooperate with the Superintendent of Documents in the distribution of its publications on a sales basis. There is increasing evidence that this method of distribution curtails extravagance and prevents wastefulness.

The following statement, compiled from figures furnished by the office of the Superintendent of Documents and the Coast and Geo

detic Survey, shows the extent to which the Department's publications were sold during the past three fiscal years:

With the increasing activities of the Department, there has been an insistent call upon the Department's library for service, even equaling the unusual demands of the war period. The library, containing approximately 100,000. volumes, is the depository for the material used in research work, and with its equipment and trained though insufficient personnel is a most important unit of the Department.

The year's record of additions to the library was 1,335 bound volumes and 894 pamphlets, compared with 1,277 bound volumes and 1,597 pamphlets during the previous year; 800 books were recatalogued and reclassed, 1,173 duplicates and discards were disposed of, thus providing space for more valuable material; 459 books were prepared for the bindery, 1,178 weekly and monthly periodicals and 53 official gazettes were currently received, recorded, and routed to the various bureaus. Books borrowed from the Library of Congress and other libraries numbered 485.

Extreme care is given to reviewing all material in order that it may be made available to those engaged in special research work. The library, in addition to being a most valuable adjunct to the Department, is recognized as one of the foremost reference libraries and is made use of not only by this Department but by other Government establishments and individuals.

WORK OF THE SOLICITOR'S OFFICE.

During the fiscal year ended June 30, 1921, 155 contracts totaling $850,608.74, together with 10 contracts of indeterminate amounts; 71 leases amounting to $106,998.75; 24 revocable licenses amounting to $2,120; 4 deeds in the sum of $62,648; 85 contract bonds amount.

ing to $196,756.69; 80 official bonds amounting to $495,500; and insurance policies amounting to $815,000, were examined (approved, disapproved, drafted, redrafted, or modified).

The number of legal opinions rendered, formal and informal (memorandum), totaled 267. Legislative matters handled, which concern the Department (drafting and redrafting of bills, reports relative thereto, etc.), numbered 17. Power of attorney cards, authorizing agents to execute official and contract bonds for surety companies examined totaled 3,600. In addition, 1,340 miscellaneous matters, embracing everything submitted for the advice or suggestion of the solicitor, or for the formulation of departmental action, not included in the foregoing items, were handled by this office.

Appendix B.-ABSTRACT OF REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR

OF THE BUREAU OF THE CENSUS.

(WILLIAM M. STEUART, Director.)

DECENNIAL CENSUS WORK.

The fiscal year ended June 30, 1921, was the second of the three years which constitute the decennial-census period as defined by the Fourteenth Census act. Within this three-year period the reports on the comprehensive statistical inquiries covered by the census must, if the provisions of the law are carried out, be completed and published. This limitation of time, obviously designed to prevent delay or undue prolongation of census work and insure reasonably prompt publication of the results, was first introduced at the Twelfth Census, taken in the year 1900; and at that census the requirement of the law was practically, if not literally, carried out. But at the next census, that of 1910, the work was far from being completed within the census period; in fact, it was continued for more than a year afterwards.

Every effort is being made to complete the census within the threeyear period in accordance with the requirements of law; and the present condition of the work and stage of progress now reached give me confidence that this purpose will be realized-at least to the extent of having the manuscript for the last of the reports in the hands of the printer by the close of the period. It is, however, by no means a simple matter, easy of accomplishment; and probably few persons other than those connected with the census realize the magnitude of the undertaking and the difficulties of carrying it to completion within the period prescribed by law. It involves the printing and distribution of 18,000,000 schedules of questions; the organization and supervision of a force of over 90,000 enumerators and special agents employed to make a house-to-house canvass of the entire United States-including all the outlying possessions except the Philippines and the Virgin Islands—and to fill out schedules for 107,500,000 people, 6,500,000 farms, and 450,000 manufacturing establishments; the punching of 300,000,000 tabulation cards; the running of the equivalent of over 2,000,000,000 cards through elec

trical sorting and tabulating machines; the computation of several million percentages; the preparation of elaborate manuscript tables; and, finally, the printing and publication of 11 quarto volumes of about 1,000 pages each.

The enumeration of the population and the collection of the statistics of agriculture and manufactures for the Fourteenth Census gave employment to a field force of 94,140 supervisors, enumerators, special agents, and clerks. Virtually this entire force was selected, instructed, and organized, completed its work, and was paid and disbanded within 12 months. The expenditures for field work amounted to $11,479,390.

As the field work approached completion the office force was augmented, the peak being reached on August 31, 1920, when there were 6,301 employees, including statisticians, clerks, and machine operatives at work in the Bureau. This force was engaged in the examination and tabulation of the returns and in the preparation of the bulletins and reports.

The population of Continental United States, as reported for the census of 1920, was 105,710,620, an increase of 13,738,354 over the population in 1910. This increase in population was accompanied by increases in manufactures and agriculture, which added materially to the magnitude and complexity of the census work. The increase in the office work has been cared for by a larger number of clerks than at prior censuses, and also by the introduction of improved methods and the more general use of machinery.

In addition to Continental United States, the census covered Alaska, Hawaii, Porto Rico, Guam, Samoa, and the Panama Canal Zone. A census of the Virgin Islands was taken by the Census Bureau in 1917, and a census of the Philippine Islands was taken in 1918 under the authority of the local government.

TABULATION OF CENSUS DATA.

The tabulation and preparation for publication of the great mass of data returned on the millions of schedules secured by the enumerators and special agents occupied the attention of practically the entire force of the Bureau in Washington during the fiscal year. This work, of course, must be continued until the end of the census period, June 30, 1922. It is hoped that by that time the major portion of the Fourteenth Census reports will have been printed and distributed and that the manuscript for the remainder will be in the printing office.

Notwithstanding the great increase in our population and industries, there has been, on the whole, very little, if any, decrease in